Press Release:
Dornith Doherty
Atlas of the Invisible
October 19 – November 27, 2019
Reception for the Artist Saturday, October 19, 5-7 pm Artists Talk Saturday, October 19, 5 pm
Moody Gallery is pleased to present Atlas of the Invisible, an exhibition of new work by Dornith Doherty. For her first exhibition at the gallery, Doherty presents large-scale black and white photographs alongside a video projection. As an artist whose work is concerned with our stewardship of the natural environment, this new project explores the subject of air as well as the effect of air pollution on migratory birds.
“The common view of the Earth’s atmosphere may be that it is an empty and boundless void, but in fact, it is filled with diverse particles, many so tiny they can only be perceived when they coalesce into the haze of distance. Humans are deeply entangled with this ecosystem; responsible for its increasingly mercurial character, but also profoundly affected by the air’s intensifying contamination.
By means of a scanning electron microscope and the feathers of migratory birds that share this space, I render visible the minute details of airborne dust that would be otherwise invisible to the unaided eye. It is my hope to counter our misapprehension of the atmosphere as a void and to reveal our entanglement with, and dependence on, this domain.
I would like to acknowledge the Air Space, Rights, and Materiality Working Group at the University of North Texas, whose fellowship and support were of incalculable value to the project.” – Dornith Doherty
Dornith Doherty was born in Houston, Texas and received a Bachelor of Art degree cum laude from Rice University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from Yale University. She currently resides in Southlake, TX and is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. She is a 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and is also a recipient of grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the United States Department of the Interior, the University of North Texas, the Houston Center for Photography, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She received the Honored Educator Award from the Society of Photographic Education South Central Conference in 2012 and the Texas Legislature named her 2016 Texas State Artist 2D.
Doherty’s work has been featured in exhibitions widely in the US and abroad at institutions including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX; the Bluecoat, Liverpool, England; the Centro de Fotografía, Tenerife, Spain; the Chapter Art Centre, Cardiff, Wales; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; the Encuentros Abiertos Photography Biennial in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Exchange, Penzance, England; the Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull, England; FotoFest, Houston, Texas; Galerie Lužánky, Brno, Czech Republic; the Galveston Art Center, Galveston, TX; the Grace Museum, Abilene, TX; the Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, IN; the
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; the Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen, the Netherlands; the Museum of Photography, Rafaela, Argentina; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto, Canada; and the Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ. She has been invited to present scholarly papers and artist talks at over 80 institutions and conferences worldwide.
Her work also is in many permanent collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Lamar University, Martin Museum of Art at Baylor University, University of Texas at San Antonio, Museum of Texas Tech University, Milwaukee Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, Yale University Library, Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture in Denmark, UT Southwestern Medical Center, MD Anderson, City of Denton, Federal Reserve Bank, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Centro de Fotografía in Spain.
Dornith Doherty: Atlas of the Invisible will be on view at Moody Gallery October 19 – November 27, 2019. A reception for the artist will be held Saturday, October 19 from 5-7 pm with an Artist Talk at 5 pm.