Didi Dunphy
The exhibition evolved from the Milton poem L’Allegro, speaking to Euphrosyne, meaning “Joy”, of the Three Graces, to the popular song, The Sidewalks of New York. Dunphy trips the light fantastic, nimbly moving through dance, travel and art.
Dunphy’s art practice is a catalyst for inciting serious joy and a spirited connection. Using her interest in industry fabrication, time-based media and detailed handwork, Dunphy places happiness, invention and curiosity at the nexus of the artistic experience. Looking for imagination in the most of unusual places, from a concrete plant to a disco carwash, Dunphy creates an art world we want to live, work and play in. Centering on the female, her work invites a playful serious need for togetherness and fantastical life.
Loving minimalism, driving in her Element, iconic Hollywood movie titles, her graph notepad, and a Hello Kitty color palette, Dunphy works and has fun with this wonderful art journey
About Over Under
With a background in performance, a centerpiece of the show is Over Under, an art happening maypole-braiding video work. Using the body and cooperative movement, Dunphy centers her sculpture as performative designed objects readying for the attainment of joy. The endurance of action, over under, becomes a shared memory.
Both her best girlfriends and professional dancers gathered in monochromatic colors to wrap the pole in the midst of a concrete plant at Dunphy’s studio.
Placing art and happening, vibrant color and wonderful women, in the bleak landscape of the industrial plant, is the stage for the braiding of the maypole.
Over Under, and as in other video work, Dunphy uses Hollywood film titles, particularly Saul Bass’s designs, as inspiration. Although so very far reimagined, Dunphy adapted elements from Bass’s Psycho and Man with a Golden Arm titling.
About Travel and Future Plans
Art and Work, Art and Play. Through my curatorial efforts, designing exhibitions for multiple statewide venues, I have traveled much, pat and through thick carpet-like woods, barren lumber stripped hills, smoky fire ridden routes.
With much small road traveling in the southern states, Dunphy recreates a strange and wondrous landscape. Trench thistles, dandelion weeds, vast lumber fields of naked pine trees, all trenched by torrential rains, make for a weird and wild Georgia. Dunphy reconsiders her surroundings to organize beauty in subtle complexities. Yet organization is welcomed. Pastel screen prints, (ed. 3) are pages for note taking and travel planning and for giant size loose-leaf binders.
Change is afloat. Much to see. It’s a lot of work for a woman to juggle it all. Dancing with friends is fun hard work. Thankful for the colorful carwash meditation. Thankful for you all.
“Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round.” – Milton, 1637
Xoxo
Didi Dunphy, 2024
Images by Mike Jensen
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Didi Dunphy is a native New Yorker, Los Angeles transplant, living in Athens GA. Ms. Dunphy received an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in the contemporary arts. She has had exhibits in major venues such as the Atlanta Contemporary, COCA, St. Louis, Telfair Museum in Savannah, the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art in Florida, the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA and more. A number of features have been written about Ms. Dunphy including Southern Living, Athens Magazine, Craft, CMYK, as well as art and exhibition reviews in the LA Times, SF Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution, burnaway.org and ArtsATL, and others.
Ms. Dunphy’s design works; Recess of Modern Convenience Studios, have been placed in a number of collections and included in design publications such as Elle Décor, Paper, Interior Design, Vogue Living, Cookie, Metropolis as well as design book publications including Downtown Chic by Rizzoli, Toy Design by Braun Publishing and Fun Rooms, Collins Design publishing.
Ms. Dunphy is a former Visiting Scholar and Professor in the contemporary and digital media arts at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA, Ms. Dunphy works in the curatorial field previously as the Gallery Director at the Hotel-Indigo-Athens, Indigo’s GlassCube project space and the Classic Center as well as the guest curator at the Albany Museum of Art. She is the curator for the Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia series with the Georgia Museum of Art, Ms. Dunphy has been the Program Supervisor at the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens GA for ten years, directing exhibitions, education and studio programs and community art events.
Ms. Dunphy received the Georgia Governors Award for Arts & Humanities 2022, the Louis Griffith Hospitality Leadership Award, Athens, in 2017, and is a Hambidge Fellow.
Ms. Dunphy is represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta.