AUBURN, AL.- Walter Hood of Oakland, California, is undertaking a project with The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art Auburn University for a new exhibition. The artist debuts 10 biographical paintings through Sunday, July 7, in “Arc of Life/Ark of Bones.” The installation also includes an outdoor sculpture proposal and a full-scale model. Representing the “house of generations,” from a Henry Dumas short story entitled “Ark of Bones”, the installation of the same name takes the form of an inverted ship’s hull so visitors may pass through and reflect.

Walter Hood is the Creative Director and Founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood Design Studio is a cultural practice, working across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research and urbanism. He is also the David K. Woo Chair and the Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The idea [for Ark of Bones] comes from coming to Alabama and being blown away by the experiences, the people and the landscapes themselves,” Hood said. He said he focused on Auburn’s location relative to key sites in American history, noting how the university’s museum is where art is used as a way to talk about backgrounds and a way forward by celebrating that diversity. “I felt that I could have a conversation with the types of exhibitions and conversations happening in Montgomery and Mobile,” Hood added, referring to the work of The Legacy Museum and the historical significance of

The Clotilda discovery. The Alabama River and the multifaceted symbology behind water also guided his approach.

“Early as a landscape architect, hydrology is central to what you think about — moving water off of surfaces,” said Hood. “Being from the South, North Carolina, my mother was baptized in the river.”

In “Ark of Bones” by Henry Dumas, two young boys meet an otherworldly man leading an ark down the river. The elder describes the boat as the “house of generations,” saying “every African who lives in America has a part of his soul in this ark.” As the story conveys, the ark is filled with the past, it is a place where the entire history of a people is kept.

Hood connects the deeper meaning of “Ark of Bones” with his upbringing in “Arc of Life,” where he experienced segregation and integration from his youth leading up to the 1970s.

Born in North Carolina into a military family, Hood spent time abroad in the 1960s and encountered many cultures. “I didn't have an understanding that we lived in a segregated world,” said the artist. His primary and secondary school days unfolded during the Civil Rights Movement before pursuing landscape architecture at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black university.

“It gave me a clearer contextual environment to navigate and figure all this stuff out— because the world, I mean, was still black and white in North Carolina,” Hood said. “But it was a time when I was nurtured enough so that when I did finally go out into the world, I had a sense of who I was, where I came from and what I could do.”

Hood expressed an interest in drawing from a young age but as a first-generation college student, architecture seemed a more straightforward path. The shift to painting came after years of practice and teaching when he received the Rome Prize to work in Italy and later his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“I'm still trying to figure out how to be in these worlds, and the world won't let you, which I find interesting that people tend to want to categorize you,” Hood said. “And

I'm fighting my whole life for not being categorized, whether it's due to what I look like or whether it's due to what I practice.”

In “Arc of Life,” figures are in motion—some playing, running, praying or resting. Much of the art represents the years when Hood was an infant. “It's pretty amazing how memory can be lucid,” Hood said. “Do I want to grab pictures of my father and paint from that? Or do I want just those figures to come out? And it's probably the latter. I'm not looking to be representational as far as through image, but it is the spaces that these paintings I'm beginning to depict.”

Museum executive director Cindi Malinick explains that the artist commission is part of the museum’s 20th birthday observance through 2024 and is an ongoing effort to foster student and faculty partnerships.

“As a teaching museum, we program in support of an elevated student experience,” said Malinick. “This project connects to Auburn’s top-ranking College of Architecture, Design and Construction naturally, but there are applications for students pursuing studio art to interior design to history.”

Hood visited campus on Saturday, February 3 for the inaugural “Auburn Forum on Southern Art and Culture,” where he joined exhibiting artists Bethany Collins, Lonnie Holley and Elizabeth M. Webb in a series of conversations before a student, faculty and community audience. The museum aims for the Auburn Forum to become an annual tradition, attracting leading scholars, artists, and the public to engage in critical dialogues about the South's rich and multifaceted artistic landscape.