 Untitled, 2004 Ink, acrylic on antique map, 24 x 18 inches Joshua Dorman Pierogi is pleased to present new work by Joshua Dorman. Dorman paints and collages on found maps, drawing upon their systems. He uses their graphic symbols (be they topographical indications, county lines, lakes, streams, et cetera) as a point of departure, or a point of entry. One dotted county line on a map of the Monticello area turns into a stone wall, while another becomes a road for trucks and cars; at the mark pinpointing a town, buildings sprout up and out, piled one on top of another. On a Topographical map of Lake Champlain a small shape denoting an island telescopes out into a complex green plateau. Dorman notes: "I am not a landscape painter. My goal is not to depict the way light plays on treetops, but I do want to get inside to see the rings of the trees, explore the structure of the roots and branches, understand the bark. Lately, I've been using maps to find my way. I was seduced by these obsolete weathered pages - their elegant lines revealing eons of geological shift and erosion - all translated by human mind and hand. I tilt these flattened lands into the frontal plane and then I seek routes and valleys back into space. I'm hoping for vertigo. But there is no one way to lose my balance. I follow a river with ink. I clog a harbor with oil paint. ...After the Fall of 2001, I found I needed to erect buildings out of the grid work of the maps. I could no longer avoid the human presence in my work or continue to invent a pastoral universe." Paul Auster, who curated an exhibition of Dorman's work, writes: "The map pieces are tantalizing, elusive works. Though small in scale, they are difficult to describe, almost impossible to pin down in words, and yet they hold our attention in the same way that stories do. So much is going on in them that we feel compelled to look for a narrative, as if by "reading" the images before us we could finally grasp them in all their complexity. But the story I will read in one of these pictures is not the same story you will read." (Auster, 2004) Exhibition: 18 November - 23 December, 2005 Gallery hours: Fri-Mon 12 am - 6 pm and by appointment PIEROGI 2000 Gallery 2 177 North 9th Street USA-Brooklyn, NY 11211 Telephone 00718 599 2144 www.pierogi2000.com |
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