Curatorial Statement:
“I first saw Josh Dorman’s work inNew York, Chelsea District in 2008. I instantly fell in love with his visual language and prophetic compositions that seemed to unbury past neglects of humankind. His use of historical signifiers—depictions of architectural, agricultural, and scientific advancement, for example—have a way of making visible the timeline of human progress, while at the same time speaking to the dire implications of our technological achievements, and so-called dominion over the natural world. Dorman’s current work continues to suggest a prophetic narrative playing out on a metaphorical stage, revealing tension between evolutionary timelines, both human and ecological. We see highly astute yet subtle references to our permanent alteration of the natural world, pointing to the devastating result of climate change and the disappearance of species, but through a veil of otherwise innocuous if not highly celebrated expressions of human ingenuity. This simultaneity of both triumph and failure in his compositions has a lasting effect, and sheds light on tension between human grief and human aspiration. Given the state of our current ecological crisis, and the enormous necessity for educating both students and the general public on this matter, Dorman’s work is more relevant than ever.”