Through his decades-long multidisciplinary pursuit of painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, Chicago-based artist Cody Hudson (b. 1971 Kenosha, Wisconsin) has created a synchronous body of work, reflecting his focused investigation of form and color. He translates his internal self-examinations and external observations of the natural world into a highly charged and poetically defined visual space.

Cody’s colorful, powder-coated steel sculptures begin with a daily drawing and collaging practice. Always sketching or cutting out forms from paper, these investigations are a regular exercise in the development of the artist’s complex and ongoing visual language. They are an immediate response to his day and his environment, whether he is in his studio in Chicago, outdoors in rural Wisconsin, or traveling elsewhere. They are unique documents of time and place.

Collaborating with his longtime fabricators in Chicago, Cody’s drawings are translated into laser-cut steel and assembled with his meticulous oversight, each one carefully considered. They are powder-coated with seamless vibrant color, often reflecting the palette found in his concurrently produced paintings and drawings.

Cody’s sculptures reference exotic plant forms, precarious landscapes, and modernist design, oscillating between the oddly familiar and altogether strange. In this newest body of work presented here for the first time, recognizable shapes are repeated and reoriented to create entirely new compositions, born directly from his building and remixing. Wobbly lines and peculiarly hovering or inverted symbols appear. Trellis-like matrices of leaves and vines, compressed and stretched landscapes, and iterated horizon lines abound.

Cody continues to use both familiar and unexpected colors, referencing the natural world—sky blue, lush greens, yellow, and pinks reminiscent of sunrise and sunset—while also making playful nods to the primary colors associated with design, such as bold crimson. Shape and color come together in exquisite, thoughtful harmony in these newest sculptures.