The Art of Place: The torch, the flashlight, the earth, the body.
Daria Dorosh

GALLERY I

September 7 – October 6, 2024

Opening reception: Saturday, September 7, from 6–8pm

Once upon a time, our ancestors performed rituals in pitch-black caves carved out by ancient rivers. They illuminated the walls with torches and painted their dreams with earth pigments to access the planet’s greater powers. The internet is my electronic cave; the cell phone is my personal portal and torch for wayfinding in the vast darkness of the world wide web.

In The Art of Place, Daria Dorosh sets the stage for collaborative play by inviting each visitor to activate her transparent constructions with their cell phone flashlight. The action initiates a burst of color and form that can be experienced, but not held. In order to capture their process as an image, visitors must rely on a third collaborator to take the picture. Furthermore, if the gallery visitor chooses not to participate, there is no art to see.

The Art of Place poses significant questions for consideration: When art is not a tangible object, is the gallery ritual of providing checklists with titles, dimensions, dates, and prices still valid? If art is not presented as a commodity, what is the function of a gallery? Who is the artist if the artwork is co-created by each viewer? What is the definition and role of an artist? What is the definition and role of a viewer? Who owns the work in a collaborative process? How do we value work that is not based on scarcity?

The Art of Place is my reflection on belonging to that analogue generation of artists whose early body of work was valuated as tangible artifact, and whose later work moved into a digital world in which process and collaboration became paramount. I choose to work in the intersection of both worlds, where complex questions roam.

As an artist, Dorosh has long been interested in color as light. She was excited to discover that color frequency was used by physicians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a healing modality to treat burn patients with quantifiable positive outcomes. To explore the function of light and color for well-being in the realm of art, she has invited guest collaborator Abhay Wadhwa, Founder of SOULSARA, NYC, to create a personal wellness experience for gallery visitors based on his work with light’s potential to shape consciousness and alter emotions. His addition to The Art of Place, titled Aham Brahmasmi, will begin in the second week of the exhibition and continue for the duration of the show.

Daria Dorosh is an artist, researcher, and educator working in the fields of art, fashion, and technology. Born in Ukraine, she has been living and working in New York City and in her upstate studio since 1950. In her art practice of fifty years, she has produced twenty-three one-person exhibitions and a diverse body of work that includes painting, photography, and sculpture, as well as public art, digital prints, video, art to wear, and interactive installations. She is active in public events and brings her multidisciplinary network of collaborators into her art projects to investigate contemporary issues affecting art and culture.

View the Press Release here.

View Daria Dorosh’s page here.