N. Dash’s work in drawing, painting, and photography is rooted in her ongoing experimentation with materials. Constantly occupying her hands with working small bits of fabric between her fingers, Dash’s intentional process of touch yields artifacts that are the building blocks of her work. When the greyed, fraying fabric is just short of losing its structural integrity, Dash sets it aside and takes up a new piece of fabric to begin the process again. She then photographs these “artifacts”, arranging them individually or in small groups. The resulting silver gelatin prints range in scale and communicate the artifacts’ presence and meaning as manifestations of process, labor, thought, and time—they are the tangible evidence of intangible phenomena. Hammer Projects: N. Dash will include thirteen new photographs and a special project for the courtyard light boxes, taking these fabric works as a starting point. Along with her photographs, the exhibition will include new paintings. Since her first visit to an adobe building in New Mexico in 2003, Dash has worked with a variation on traditional adobe on jute in her paintings. Also working with naturally derived indigo and ochre; prepared oil and acrylic paints; canvas and linen, she combines stretched and unstretched elements into carefully constructed compositions that refer to both landscape and architecture. Often large in scale, they offer an immersive experience that suggests a portal to an ephemeral elsewhere. Organized by guest curator Corrina Peipon, Hammer Projects: N. Dash is the artist's first one-person museum exhibition.
N. Dash was born in Miami Beach, Florida in 1980. She earned a BA from New York University in 2003 and a MFA from Columbia University in 2010. In 2013, Dash’s work was presented in a one-person exhibition at White Flag Projects in St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been featured in thematic exhibitions such as The Possible, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (2014); The Independent: Dreams That Money Can’t Buy, Maxxi Museum, Rome, Italy (2014); Painting in Place, Farmers and Merchants Bank presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Los Angeles, CA (2013); My Crippled Friend, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH (2013); Notations: Contemporary Drawing as Idea and Process, Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis, MO (2012); Transient Response / Land Tender, High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree, CA (2011); and Something for Everyone, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2010). Dash lives in Brooklyn, New York. Hammer Projects is a series of exhibitions focusing primarily on the work of emerging artists. Hammer Projects is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Hope Warschaw and John Law, and Maurice Marciano. Additional support is provided by Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, the Decade Fund, and the David Teiger Curatorial Travel Fund.