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BQE Vertebral Alignment, 2024, Hydrocal, burlap, dye, hardware & varnish, 14 x 33 x 3 inches

Saône Dredge, 2024, Mild steel, polyurethane foam, galvanized steel, burlap, paper pulp, dye and enamel, 66 x 23 x 28 inches

Hematite Tablature, 2024, Oil on canvas, 54 x 84 inches

Shallow Suture, 2023, hydrocal, burlap, dye, varnish, hardware, 15 x 47 x 3-1/2 inches

Travertine Nightmare Submersible, 2024, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

Wedge of Sky with Stars Squeezing Through, 2024, Hydrocal, burlap, dye, hardware & varnish, 16 x 20 x 3 inches

Mask I, 2024, Aquaresin, dye, mild steel, resin, fiberglass, insulation batting, polyurethane, 20 x 9 x 6 inches

Marlinton Shimmer, 2024, oil on linen, 36 x 48 inches

Corps Flottant I & II, 2022, hydrocal, burlap, dye, hardware, 52 x 6 x 4 inches each

Somnambulant, 2024, Aquaresin, dye, mild steel, resin, fiberglass, polyurethane, enamel, 77 x 33 x 29 in

Prancing Vespers, 2024, soft pastel on paper, 8 x 12 inches

Mending Plate, 2022, hydrocal, burlap, dye, hardware, 14 x 12 x 3 inches

Dancing in the Firmament, 2024, oil on linen, 45 x 77 inches

La Mouche, 2023, hydrocal, burlap, dye, varnish, hardware, 19 x 23-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches

CV

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Christopher Daharsh
b. 1990, Omaha, NE
Lives and works in Queens, NY

EDUCATION

2012    Bachelor of Fine Arts, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
2010    Art History and Writing studies, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, Paris, France

AWARDS

2024    Artist in Residence, Goldey House, Huletts Landing, NY
2024    Artist in Residence, Hayama Artist Residency, Hayama, Japan
2022    Artist in Residence, Factatory, Lyon, France
2021    Artist in Residence, Art Farm, Marquette, NE
2016    Charlotte Street Foundation Award and Grant Finalist, Kansas City, MO
2015    Reflections/Casts, Public Installation, Downtown Council's Art in the Loop, Kansas City, MO
2012-2014 Urban Culture Project Studio Residency, Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO
2013    Resident, TA, Kansas City Art Institute’s New York Studio Residency Program, AICAD, NY
2012    Artist Inc. Live Professional Workshop Fellow, Kansas City, MO

SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2024    Dancing in the Firmament, Picture Theory, New York, NY
2024    The Gleaners, My Pet Ram, New York, NY, with Earth Angel
2022    Encasement, Capsule Bikini, Lyon, France
2019    MILD PAL, New Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2016    What Remains, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO, with Molly Kaderka
2014    ALL MET, MCC-Longview Cultural Arts Center, Lee's Summit, MO
2013    Awareness, City Ice Arts, Kansas City, MO, with Jason Bailer Losh (curated by Gehry Kohler)
   Rises Zora, La Esquina, Kansas City, MO, with Gerry Trilling (curated by Jamilee Polson Lacy)
Soma Athanaton, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO with Alli Litwicki

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024    Hayama Artist Residency Exhibition, Koki Arts, Tokyo, Japan curated by Dexter Wimberly
   A Suitcase, Kunstraum Super, Vienna, Austria
   A Suitcase, Picture Theory, New York, NY
Postcards for Ukraine, Sperling, Munich, Germany
2023    Trading Cards, Field of Play, Brooklyn, NY
Art of Access, Visionary Projects/New Collectors, New York, NY
   Francis Forever, Outlet Projects, New York, NY
   Perpetual & Nocturnal, Underdonk, Brooklyn, NY ~ curated by Georgia Hourdas
   I Am the Passenger, Mother, Beacon, NY
   Trove, Deanna Evans Project, New York, NY
   Duck, Duck, Goose, Field of Play, Brooklyn, NY
   Forecast, Haven, Brooklyn, NY
2022    Bas Relief, Les Limbes, Saint Étienne, France
   The Patriot, O’Flaherty’s, New York, NY
   Shifting Instinct, The Ekru Project, Kansas City, MO
2021    Market Place, Sincerely, Tommy, Brooklyn, NY
2020    What’s in Your Queue?, Straight Line Studio, Snowmass Village, CO
2018    Living Room, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY
   Anxious Abstraction, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS
2017    Nite Lite, Re: Art Show, Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, NY
2016    Fresh, Epsten Gallery, Leawood, KS
   40th Anniversary Show, Artist's Gallery, Omaha, NE
2015    Show Me the Love, Rebekah Templeton Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2014    RE-FEED, Paragraph Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2013    Thank You Come Again, So What Space, Brooklyn, NY
   Walkabout, Paragraph Gallery, Kansas City, MO,
2013    If Only a Fool, City Ice Arts, Kansas City, MO, (*curator)
2013    Line, Pattern, Repeat, Warehouse Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2012    Plug Projects Grab Bag Project, MDW Art Fair, Chicago, IL, organized by Plug Projects
2012 Flatfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO

Curatorial Projects

2024    Signs of Life, Below Grand, New York, NY
2023-Present Member/Curator at Below Grand Gallery, New York, NY
2023 Universal Transmission, Field of Play, Brooklyn, NY
2015-2016 Member/Curator, 50/50 Gallery, Kansas City, MO

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2024 Brutus Magazine, “Gallery Guide”, June 2024, (Brutus.jp)
   Art Forum, “Art Guide, Must See Shows”, March 2024, (artguide.artforum.com)
2023 Hyperallergic, “Eight New Art Spaces to Visit in Brooklyn”, January 2023, (www.hyperallergic.com)
2022    New York Times, “Was This the Art Party of the Summer?”, July 2022, (www.nytimes.com)
2022 New York Times, “Divine Excess on Avenue C”, July 2022, (www.nytimes.com)
2020    Aspen Times, “Snowmass Art Show Focuses on Quarantine, Isolation
   Experiences”, July 2020, (aspentimes.com)
2018    Whitehot Magazine, “Anxious Abstraction at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art” (whitehotmagazine.com)
2016    The Pitch, “New Exhibitions at Haw and KCAC Look Back in Different Ways” (pitch.com)
2015    Artblog, “October Picks” (theartblog.org)
2014    Informality, Miranda Clark, “Short Review; All Met” (informalityblog.com)
2013    Bad At Sports, Jamilee Polson-Lacy, “Kansas City Wishes You Were Here (And Everywhere Else)” (badatsports.com)
2013    Wichelroede, “Featured Artist Page: Chris Daharsh and Alli Litwicki” (wichelroede.net)
2013    Explore KC, “Nelson’s Music in the Galleries” (explorekansascity.com)
2012    Spray Booth Gallery, Neil Thrun, "Neutral Spaces, Empty Geometry: Why all artists need to re-engage with Ideology"
2012    The Pitch, Theresa Bembnister, “XOXO Rediscovers the Salon in the Age of Crowdsourcing” (pitch.com)

Personal Statement:

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My practice functions as a visual filter to my pedestrian and nomadic experiences in natural and built environments. I am searching for a source of empathy within my environment through crowd sourced mark making and the slow hand of geological time. This search finds its roots in constellations of blackened gum peppering sidewalks, sprouting mussels reclaiming an abandoned dock, ad hoc constructions and other such contours of my surroundings. Emulation of this unconscious hand becomes apparent in works like Saône Dredge or Somnambulant, where barnacled and patinated forms, fungal and cancerous, attach themselves and climb steel fabrications that may have been dredged from the depths of a river. My work, in addition to searching for it, acts to elicit empathy, as the mashing of “man-made” and “natural” components confront a host of environmental and psychological concerns.

Sculptures begin with field observations: through analog and digital photography, drawing, frottage, and the collection of objects: seed pods, sea shells, bits of metal, driftwood, etc. I bring these findings back to the studio, as a bowerbird to its nest. Combining foraged objects with plywood, foam, pistachio shells and other studio material, I make an assemblage. I then make a silicone mold of the assemblage and cast it in paper pulp, resin or plaster, making a uniform and democratic impression of the original. They are then dyed over and over again to achieve a patina, or a look of containing time, memory, and accrual. These ritual bathings of sculpture with dye become meditational periods in the process. Often I feel like an ant during these projects; my choices in the studio can be reduced to moves made by following pheromone trails, unconscious as individual decisions but sentient through their emergence as a collected whole.

Sculptural composites come into focus in the studio tethered to the scaffolding of various assemblage and material traditions. Artists like Mario and Marisa Merz, Phydilla Barlow and those holding up the torch of Arte Povera influence material choices and methods in my practice. Interests in artifact-making and biological abstraction are driven by influences in Eva Hesse, Paul Thek and Lee Bontecou’s work. The cinematic sculptures of Tarkovsky provide a view of material interests through the moving image - the single eye of the camera traverses his apocalyptic environments and exude exhaustive detail among their textures and patinas.

A central goal for graduate study at Queens College with an emphasis in Sculpture is an expansion of my current practice into one that can encompass new processes such as bronze casting, 3D printing and other appendages of sculptural techniques that I can grow into my practice and expand on in my own visual language. While I have a base knowledge of metal and woodworking, mold-making and casting, adding other experiences to these skills will lend itself to a diversity of process, and an ongoing theme of absorption in my work, where multitudinal forms, processes, textures, etc. are employed to maximalist effect. Beyond the skill-gaining aspect of joining a cohort at Queens College is a desire to continue to hone my sculptural (and painterly) language through connection and dialogue in the form of studio visits, discussions, critique and reading groups. This essential part of graduate programs, the human component, has always been top of mind. The experience and perspective of professors paired with those of a diverse student body not only expands knowledge, but challenges preconceived notions, expectations, and world views. This expansion of perspective and the ability to dialogue about and problem solve a multitude of subjects, is dearly needed especially in this contemporary moment.

Recommendations:

John Newman, professor, mentor.    johnnewmanstudio@gmail.com
Rebekah Kim, gallerist.    rebekah@picturetheoryprojects.com
Andrew Woolbright, professor, writer, gallerist. andrewwoolbright@gmail.com

Christopher Daharsh

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Personal Statement:

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