Reggie Burrows Hodges Featured in a New ‘Fresh Paint' Installation at the Parrish

The Parrish Art Museum and The FLAG Art Foundation continue their collaboration with the latest “Fresh Paint” installation, featuring a never-before-exhibited work, “Labor: Sound Bath” (2022), by Bay Area-based artist Reggie Burrows Hodges (American, b. 1965).

On view to the public for the first time from February 13 through June 9, “Labor: Sound Bath” presents a verdant rural scene within which a lone figure, nearly indiscernible from the dappled light and dense vegetation, tends to the land. The work is part of Hodges’s Labor series, large-scale paintings based on his memories of the Central Valley of California, a region known for its sprawling farmlands and high crop production. Human presence in the landscape is key to the Labor series, which celebrates the generative traditions of harvesting food and gardening while pointing to the agriculture industry’s reliance on exploitative labor.

“Fresh Paint” is a rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions at the Parrish that highlights new or never-before-exhibited works by emerging and established artists. By circumventing traditional exhibition timelines, the series provides a platform for artists to showcase newly created artworks and ideas, fostering a direct response to contemporary issues. The exhibition is presented in the Parrish’s Creativity Lounge and is free to the public during museum hours.

“We are thrilled to present this outstanding piece by Reggie Burrows Hodges, which not only continues the East End’s tradition of American landscapes — established by Impressionist William Merritt Chase and his en plein air school, the first in the U.S. — but also builds on the momentum of Lauren Halsey’s and Derrick Adams’s impactful exhibitions,” said Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, executive director of the Parrish Art Museum. “Showcasing these visionary artists underscores our commitment to bringing timely and compelling contemporary perspectives to the Parrish. Glenn Fuhrman and The FLAG Art Foundation are tremendous partners and friends of the museum, and our collaboration continues to spark meaningful dialogue and engagement — further enriched by contributions from esteemed writers, scholars, and our Teen Council members, who offer their own interpretations of the work.”

Each “Fresh Paint” installation is accompanied by two sets of interpretative texts: One is a commissioned piece by an invited writer, critic, poet, or scholar; the other is a collaboration with the Parrish Teen Council ARTscope, a youth-focused initiative offering an in-depth exploration of the visual arts and museum operations.

Born in Compton, California, Hodges explores storytelling and visual metaphor through paintings that engage with questions of identity, community, truth and memory. Starting from a black ground, he develops the scene around his figures with painterly, foggy brushwork, playing with how perception is affected when the descriptive focus is placed not on human agents but on their surroundings. Figures materialize in recessive space, stripped of physical identifiers; bodies are described by their painted context. These formal decisions speak to Hodges’s embrace of tenuous ambiguities and his close observation of the relationship between humans and their environment.

“Fresh Paint” Reggie Burrows Hodges exhibition is organized by Scout Hutchinson, associate curator of exhibitions at the Parrish, in collaboration with Jon Rider, director, and Caroline Cassidy, director of exhibitions, at The FLAG Art Foundation, a noncollecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe.

The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. For more details, visit parrishart.org.