About The Artist
Irene Dodd actually began her art education as a child in the studio of her father, artist Lamar Dodd (founder and administrator of the art program at the University of Georgia). A graduate of Duke University and the University of Georgia, she came to Valdosta as a member of the art faculty at Valdosta State, where she was promoted through the ranks and served as department head for nine years. She retired as Professor Emeritus of Art.
Dodd's paintings have won numerous awards and prizes and have been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States, including in permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the High Museum of Atlanta, the University of Georgia as well as in Georgia museums in LaGrange, Macon, Marietta, and Valdosta. She has had over 69 one-artist exhibitions.
Asked about the genesis of her paintings, Dodd explained: "My work is usually the outgrowth of sensory responses to an event or place, something like an epiphany. Because I have mastered the needed techniques so that they seem natural, my approach is intuitive. As the work takes form, I move between the instinctive act of painting and analysis of the emerging product. The resulting work should embody life experienced by the artist and recreated to the viewer."