N. Dash
N. Dash
Workspace Program Resident 2013
The primary focus of my residency at Dieu Donné was a series of drawings of plants that use the paper as the ground and employ mark-making elements to express plant growth.
Making paper has itself given me insight into the nature of fabric, which is the primary material of my work. Previously, my experience with cotton had predominantly been in its woven form. Here, the activity of turning the material from a pulpy liquid into a solid plane allowed me to probe the plant’s shape-shifting possibilities, while still acknowledging its sculptural nature.
In creating the works, I pulled two sheets and laid one on top of the other. They fused together to make one. With the introduction of an interruption or breach – in this instance, string drawn between the two sheets – the paper shifted into a body, with an outside and an inside, instead of what may typically be considered a front and back. The field within the seemingly flat surface opened up a dormant area that became an integral aspect of the work.
The interior of the paper thus became a hermetic space to hold the root of the plant. The uncovered line that exists above ground is the part of the plant that is exposed to the elements. The bare line falls and asserts its contingent presence. The drawings focus equally on the plant, which is both obscured and revealed, and on the ground. Without the primal force of the ground that houses the roots, there is no plant. These pieces do not point to any heroic aspects of the natural world, but to the diminutive growth of a line (the shoot) and its support (root) — which are, like much in nature, unseen, walked upon and underground.
I would like to thank Lisa Switalski for her tireless support, proficiency and expertise.
– N. Dash, 2013
In the Studio
About the Artist
N. Dash (b. 1980, Miami Beach, Florida) received a BA from New York University in 2003 and a MFA from Columbia University, New York in 2010. She has had solo exhibitions at the Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art (2019), The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield (2019), Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014–15) and White Flag Projects, St. Louis (2013). ; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014–15); and Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (2017). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at White Flag Projects (2012); Abron Arts Center, New York (2013); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California (2014); MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome (2014); Pier 54 High Line, New York (2014); Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2015); The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2017) and others.
Their work is in the public collections of The Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, SF MoMA, San Francisco, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Margulies Collection, Miami, The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, S.M.A.K., Ghent, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and others. The artist currently lives and works in New York. (Source: Xeno X Gallery)