Josh Dorman '88 to discuss 'Imagined Geographies' Feb. 16

Artist Josh Dorman '88 returns to campus Tuesday, Feb. 16, to talk about his work in a slide and lecture presentation titled "Imagined Geographies," beginning at 7 p.m. in Davis Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public.

Dorman's work has attracted the art world's attentionsince 2004, when he began to show new works that featured paint and ink drawings executed on antique maps. Dorman's paintings?with their Turner-like vistas of volcanoes, animals, trees, buildings, and other visual elements doodled atop the lovely old maps?sometimes obscured the maps' delicate topographic markings, sometimes highlighted them. His paintings have been described as "playful works that feel as though Klee has met Kandinsky" ( TheLos Angeles Times).

From 2004 to 2007, Dorman spent several weeks with elderly dementia patients, working with the Memory Bridge Foundation in Chicago on a project involving the "mapping" of the internal geographies of Alzheimer's and dementia patients. After sketching, taking notes, and observing interviews with social workers, he created six collage paintings, each based on a particular patient's memories, imaginings, and physical transformations. The project was documented and included in the PBS film, There Is a Bridge, narrated by poet Robert Pinsky.

A student of oil painting at Skidmore, Dorman received an M.F.A. degree from Queens College and taught painting in and around New York City (including a stint at Skidmore's Summer SIX program). A combination of events?rediscovering his childhood interest in drawing, plus picking up two antique maps in Saratoga's Lyrical Ballad bookstore?tempted him to start mark-making directly on the rare vintage papers. A resulting 2004 exhibition at New York's prestigious CUE Art Foundation served as a turning point for Dorman, leading to numerous exhibitions and favorable notice in everything from Artforum and Art in America to TheNew York Times and TheNew Yorker.

Last year, Dorman received a $7,000 grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts - one of 134 awarded to New York State artists for excellence in various media. His Skidmore talk is co-sponsored by Artist & Audience Exchange, a NYFA public program.

Please click here for more information about Dorman's work.