T E S T A M E N T

Craig Dongoski

The Zodiac Man is void itself—a negative form—and he is formed through the meticulous scattering of dust that gives him outlines. He divides his body as he divides the sky; he makes both representable by marking them. The Zodiac Man feels pain; he tries to save his organs and viscera. Does he choose to remain trapped in the maze, or does he face death squarely? Does he have a choice?

T E S T A M E N T features two recent bodies of work by Craig Dongoski including DUST & DREAMS, which is a meditation on life in isolation, and a prolonged investigation of that meditation. The exhibition is an experimentation in gauging time through new forms of mark-making and visual language. 

The first room of the exhibition begins in the vast expanse of the night sky with the ZODIAC series. This series of twelve drawings are constellations whose lines appear like strata of the Earth, connecting the celestial to the ground we walk upon. The work is interested in how the zodiac, which means circle of little animals, maps to the body of the human. The process of creating these works is indeterminate; the undulating lines cannot be mapped in advance and are not constrained by definite shapes.

In the second room, instead of oscillating lines we encounter a visual vocabulary made up of dots, dashes, and circles of the T E S T A M E N T works. Unlike the indeterminacy of the first room’s lines, these marks take definite shape and organization. Like stardust, the marks integrate to form the human figure while simultaneously fragmenting and disintegrating it. The explosion of color, in contrast to the works in the ZODIAC series, bring us down to an embodied experience of feeling and subjectivity.

Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
Installation view of Craig Dongoski, "TESTAMENT" in whitespace gallery.
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Installation photography: Mike Jensen

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Craig Dongoski is a Full Professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Dongoski has been exploring and articulating the mark in its most basic form (both graphically and aurally) for much of his career. The intention is to contribute to the art historical dialogue about the origin of human expression through an exploration of varied interpretations of the mark.

Professor Dongoski has performed and produced work on the island of Kefalonia, Greece since 2011. His solo exhibition The Primates Notebook, employing his drawing-sound experiments and innovations in tandem with chimpanzees, was presented by the Language Research Center in Atlanta. He was included in the Timeless Fragments exhibition in Brindisi, Italy. He has been an invited lecturer at Dolphinity: International Symposium on Dolphin Consciousness at Dolphin Embassy in Tenerife, Canary Islands; Cairotronica at Palace of the Arts in Cairo, Egypt; and more recently for the exhibition Handprinted Editions at Tong-In Gallery in Seoul, Korea. Most recently, his solo exhibition DUST & DREAMS was presented by Columbus State University’s Illges Gallery accompanied by the performance The Crooked Storm in the Coca-Cola Space Planetarium.

Dongoski has been nominated twice for a Ford/Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in New Media. He has also released CDs on Hydra Head Records and Aucourant Records. In 2015, he directed an important improvisation collaboration with filmmaker Larry Clark resulting in a limited press LP entitled Drawing Through. He is represented by whitespace gallery in Atlanta and James Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.