Transform
Sculptures by Lee Hoag
Dowd Gallery welcomes Rochester based artist Lee Hoag. Hoag identifies as queer, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with renowned artists, Judith Linhares, Tom Holland, Hassel Smith, Sam Tchakalian, Robert Hudson, William Geis and Carlos Vila. Surrealism, Assemblage, Funk, Post-minimalist sculpture and Installation have influenced his work and development as an artist.
In the 1980s, Hoag trained at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (RIT/NTID) as an American Sign Language interpreter, and in 1992 received a Master’s in Art Education from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has also worked as an ASL interpreter for some 30 years.
"My mixed-media assemblage sculptures draw on the limitless capacity of ordinary objects for the poetic.
My work is about transformation. My process is object driven, from collection to composition. Central to it is an examination of the linguistic and psychological shift that happens when assorted objects — not limited by their scripted utility — are brought together to meld as one, taking shape into novel forms that can alter one’s perception of what they see when gazing at it.
Using household and industrial objects, both common and unusual, my work explores this conceptual pliability. Glass, wood, plastic, rubber, fur, metal and ceramic objects serve as my primary media.
Diverse objects, when combined, play off each other. I exploit their shapes, colors, textures and material qualities to flesh out my sculptures. Key to pulling off this metamorphic alteration is the hidden internal engineering required for holding it all together — even leveraging balance and counterbalance. Having come from the unfathomable well of the subconscious, these distinctive sculptures can evoke a variety of associations as unique as the individual contemplating them.
My intention is to engage with the viewer’s own cultivated power to invent andconstruct narratives for what they see and form connections with."
- Lee Hoag, 2025
As a child growing up in the Sixties, Hoag consumed a steady diet of 1960s Sci-Fi television. From the age of five to eleven, he watched classic shows, such as: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, Wild Wild West, Land of the Giants and StarTrek. Also in his diet were reruns of the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon movie serials from the 1930s and 40s that were fueling my childhood imagination. Surely that impressionable consumption, in some latent way, now subconsciously informs his work.
The shows were ripe with allusions to eroticism, populated with archetypal goddesses, warriors, alien beings, monsters, fantastical plants, robots, ray guns and gadgetry of another Time, another world — perhaps even another species. All of it soaked up into his subconscious fabric, well saturated to the point of seeping, and is now expressed through his object-led process from which sculptures emerge.
Creating sculptures that resemble other worldly objects Hoag refers to his process as "Object Alchemy."
"Concealed within objects is a capacity for the poetic. My mixed-media assemblage
sculptures tap into this unfathomable reservoir. They present a precarious balance of
contradictions, with a sense of sturdiness and fragility coexisting simultaneously.
I don’t sketch ideas and then go searching for objects to make. Rather, I collect
what catches my eye — objects that attract my attention to their possibility to be
leveraged to create something compelling.
Guided by intuition, I engage with the objects through playful experimentation,
uncovering their hidden potential. The materials are gathered into a composite
form that stirs my curiosity and fires my imagination, leading me to a kind of ‘aha’
moment. Exploiting the shapes, colors, textures, and materiality of various collected objects (glass, fiber, wood, rubber, metal, and clay), I explore their conceptual mutability. As a bowl, planter, vase, post cap, rubber cord, and other objects are integrated into novel forms, their previously assigned labels fade away. Through them, I examine the transformation of meaning that occurs as they meld and take shape into a form that is off script. This happens with a shift in function for each object, from a prescribed use to something altogether different. These new amalgamated forms recast the overlooked and commonplace. Altered by new intention, they become charged psychic forms that conjure memories and evoke
subconscious associations. By activating the imagination, they elicit the viewer’s
engagement. There is a certain magic that happens and transfers between the artist and the artwork, between the artwork and the viewer."
-Lee Hoag
Transform will be on view in the Main Gallery and Basement of Dowd fine Arts though November 26, 2025
Opening Reception and artist talk:
October 30, 2025. Opening starts at 5pm, artist talk at 6pm.
*All Dowd Gallery Events are free and open to the public*
