Margaret Hodge – Honors Exhibition

Margaret Hodge

Momentum: Time and the Fragmentation of Now

MAY 5 – MAY 9, 2025

Honor’s Thesis Exhibition – Mezzanine Gallery

This exhibition of drawings represents the culmination of my lived experience in the modern world, a reflection of my ongoing journey through the intricacies of contemporary life. My existence is an amalgamation of myriad influences, perspectives, and experiences that inform how I engage with the world around me. Through this show, I seek to explore and express the complexities of this interconnected existence.

At the core of my creative process lies a desire to capture the essence of movement and the passage of time—two forces that are ever-present in the fabric of our daily lives. This exploration is deeply influenced by my personal engagement with art history, particularly the revolutionary works that have shaped modern thought. One such key influence has been Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. The moment I encountered this piece, I was compelled to reevaluate how I depict movement in my work. Duchamp’s groundbreaking approach to simultaneity, where he captured the motion of a figure descending the stairs through fragmented, layered planes, sparked in me a new understanding of how time can be represented visually. His exploration of the fluidity and temporality of human motion ignited a desire to push boundaries and challenge conventional ways of illustrating time and space in art.

Building on this foundation, I began to draw inspiration from other avant-garde movements, particularly Cubism, Futurism, and Russian constructivism. Each of these movements has its unique approach to abstraction, dynamism, and time. This dissolution of fixed perspectives enables me to explore movement as a linear progression and as a multiplicity of views unfolding simultaneously. 

Ultimately, the integration of these diverse influences allows me to push beyond traditional portrayals of movement. I no longer seek to capture a static moment or a singular view of time but rather to embrace the continuous flow of experience. Just as Duchamp’s fragmented figure on the staircase defied the constraints of a single moment, I aim to create works that invite the viewer to engage with the ebb and flow of movement and time in a modern context. These works are not merely representations; they are an invitation to step into the perpetual motion of life itself, to feel the passage of time as an active force that shapes our every experience.

In this exhibition, the interplay between these varied movements and my personal engagement with the world culminates in a dynamic exploration of time, space, and the energies that propel us through the modern world. This show is my response to the ongoing narrative of human existence, an effort to map the invisible currents of time and movement that continue to shape our lives and our perceptions.