Joanne Dugan: Persistent Awakening: a presentation of the artist's newest works which are a continuation of practice deeply informed by meditative processes, this time also exploring the intersections between photography and painting. Pushing and pulling traditional analogue photo materials and processes, Dugan harnesses one of the oldest photographic techniques to record both traces of the hand and the interaction between light and material. Within the works of Persistent Awakening, Dugan’s cameraless photographic practice has evolved into a painterly process with the inclusion of cyanotype into her normally monochrome palette. The artist’s exciting new body of work found in Persistent Awakening is delightfully unexpected, evocative and visually satisfying in its abstracted forms.
Utilising a slow and methodical approach to rendering a work, her mark-making is a purposeful response to her surrounding environment and the outside world. An introvert in her method, the artist works in solitary silence finding rhythm in the repetition and creative inspiration within the process. In many of her compositions, there is a visual disruption, a part of the image that stands out from the rest and breaks the pattern of repetitive forms. This represents the flash of insight that occurs through her meditative practice. In Buddhist practice this awakening is called Satori, or enlightenment.
Joanne Dugan lives and works in New York City. Dugan’s works have been exhibited in the United States, Germany, Amsterdam and Japan. They are part of numerous public and private collections and have been featured in The New York Times T Magazine and the Harvard Review. Dugan’s limited edition artist books are included in the permanent library collections of The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library and The George Eastman House. Joanne is a faculty member of the International Center of Photography in New York City and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.
