Wishful Thinking

by Didi Dunphy

Dunphy’s recognizable interdisciplinary approach and social engagement imagines a playful place using materials from video, steel, sewing, hopes and dreams. Inciting the potential absurdity of wishful thinking yet always, if not overly optimistic, Dunphys work combines high tech post studio fabrication with “women’s work”. Trained in the performance of the female body, Dunphy utilizes her physical form to drive scale. Whether miniature or monumental always feminine, her work demands to insight joy as an endless pursuit. A practice of looking big and small, bending over to collect lucky pennies from parking lots, pulling over in front of a Mellow Mushroom on Peachtree to meet a sign spinner, Dunphy finds inspiration in the extraordinary ordinary. Happily burdened with a love of dominant minimalism, Dunphy throws in public domain icons and low rider car culture to have fun with her personal art history.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Didi Dunphy is a native New Yorker, Los Angeles transplant, having moved to Athens with her family in 2000.  Ms. Dunphy received an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in the contemporary arts.  She is an accomplished artist having 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, 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 represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta.

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 as the Gallery Director at the Hotel-Indigo-Athens, Indigo’s GlassCube project space and the Albany Museum of Art.  She has been the Program Supervisor at the Lyndon House Arts Center for seven years, directing exhibition, education programs and events.