Nature. That is the basis of Jim Hodges’s show, now on view at the Camden Arts Centre. Works made from all kinds of mediums, and coming from different stages of his career (since the beginning, in the 1980s) occupy two galleries of the building, bringing inside the comfort and peace of the outside gardens. The show and the place definitely match, for the public’s delight.

 

Once already upstairs, the viewer is able to see on the hall (while piano music is playing on the next room) a few works by Hodges, along with others on view. Even though Gallery 1 is the main room of the exhibit, it is more probable that the public will walk to Gallery 3 first, since it is located exactly on the close right side, while Gallery 1 is on the left side a bit further. If this happens, then the big finale becomes the big entrance. The room is empty, except for a wall painted on the end of it (Oh Great Terrain, 2002). The first impression is awkward, considering the dimension of the space and the lack of objects in it. Then, one starts to notice the wall painting…it’s background is black and it has camouflage pattern curved shapes on it, in brown, green and gray mostly. Ground tones, nature tones, war tones. In the middle of the wall there is an arch, like a false passage. While crossing the room, these colours and shapes keep changing with the sunlight coming through the windows, and the observer feels like walking into a tunnel. Anywhere in the room the work will capture the eyes. It reflects the savage part of the world, the animal instinct - the illusions we create in order to deceive and survive. And its infinite sensation caused by the arch makes us wonder: how far can we go?

 

When turning around to leave the room, it is almost unnoticeable a chain sculpture spider web hanging on the side wall. This work is at the same time the opposite and the completion of the previous one. The world can be enormous, but also very tiny - either way, it is a risky place to be.

 

The other gallery encompasses this whole amazing world. Various works with flowers, butterflies and other direct forms of living as subjects, many colours and textures to explore, some surprisingly vivid, others so elegant and discrete - all of them much poetic (specially the text ones, apparently intimate, nevertheless universal) and celebrating life in its most assorted ways. If one tours the other way (Gallery 1 first), then the big wall might not look as an  introduction, but as a resolution: Nature is multifaceted, intriguing, and stunning.

 

Some people, including art critics, think of Hodges’s works as references to other themes, more personal, emotive, such as love, joy, beauty or fear. But what is Nature if not all of the above?