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Notes:
Literature:
Edward Lucie-Smith, Judy Chicago- An American Vision, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2000, p. 21-22, ill.

Note:
Domes represents a significant moment in Chicago's career when her art began to change from a New York influenced Abstract Expressionist style to a decidedly Los Angeles influenced style. By 1968, the year she created Domes, the twenty-nine year old artist had already experienced many life-changing events. She had moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, graduated from UCLA, married, widowed and then remarried. Thus, it is not surprising that during this time, her artistic style also changed.

The art scene in Los Angeles in the late 1960s—informed by the emergence of Pop Art—saw the rise of a generation of artists characterized by an overt sense of masculinity tied closely to the car culture of Southern California. Inspired by new technologies in the auto industry, these "Finish Fetish" artists used industrial materials such as car paint or lacquer to create artwork with pristine finishes. Chicago too was interested in creating work using industrial technologies and even enrolled in auto body and boat building school in an effort to learn these techniques, but Chicago's work was distinctly feminine.

Domes, with its immaculate finish and use of acrylic and lacquer, not only speaks to Chicago's interest in the prevailing artistic themes of 1960s Southern California, but the intimate scale and round shape speaks to her career-long interest in using feminine forms to promote feminist issues.