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Daphane Park creates paintings, objects, installation and performance experimenting

with energy, transformation, and healing ritual. Her work inquires into mythical realms

of humanity and nature, an invitation to sense the physical, emotional and energetic relationships between nature and human.

Park's investigations and work highlight a need to question the basic categories and values through which we look at societies today. This is in part an expression of unifying opposites such as science/spirituality, human/non-human,  idealism/realism, and utopic/dystopic, male/female, micro/macro, especially in relation to the multiplicity of the forms of nature.

Park’s inquiries into ancient and indigenous land-based cultures as well as her own Native American ancestry led her to study energy medicine from across the globe, including work in the far interior Amazon, where she lived and studied under two Shaman Dreamers (Zapara communities of Peru and Ecuador).  Daphane has also studied performance from Joan Jonas, Anna Halprin, and Linda Montano.

In her youth Park began traveling south from her homeland Indiana hitching rides through Mexico and Central America. She was investigating research in Mayan Cosmology and Central American politics and was part of a group to help escort Guatemalan refugees from a camp in Southern Mexico back into Guatemala. In 1992, after traveling into the mountains of El Salvador, Park contracted Cholera and was pronounced dead. She miraculously recovered, suddenly waking up on a horrible cot to the excitement and urgency of being

late for a meeting in Nicaragua with a strong love interest. This was the beginning of her life’s quest to understand 'life force energy.'

 

Many of her installations engage all of the senses including the subtle energy body through the use of sounds, fragrances, elixirs and materials specific to each environment she creates. Park’s work has been shown at special projects for the New Orleans Biennial and Moscow Biennial as well as the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, and Museum of Old and New Art, Australia.

CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2017

Let’s Meet in the Mineral World, MASS Gallery, Austin, TX.

 

2016

ArseTotem, commission for Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), TAS, Australia.

2015

Maggots 2 Riche$, New Media Art Sound Summit, Austin, TX.

2011 - 2012

‘Gangster Mini’, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), TAS, Australia.

2010

Superconductor II, Honey Space, NY.

2009

Superconductor, Creative Research Laboratory, Austin, TX.

2006

True Originals, Volitant, Austin, TX.

2006

Guess Who The Fuck's  Coming to Town

Lisa Boyle Gallery, Chicago, IL.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019

Every Woman Biennial, La MaMa Galleria, NY.

2017 - 2018

Light Bodies, performance commissioned for the grand opening of PHAROS, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), TAS, Australia

2015

Heavy Metal, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), TAS, Australia.

2013

Family Business, Cold Castle, NY.

2012

Gangster Mini, Museum of Old and New Art, TAS, Australia.

2012

Never Ever Ever Land, Anna Kustera Gallery, NY.

2012

Apocalypse, Old School, SPRING BREAK, NY.

2012

Honey me to Tears, Honey Space, NYC

2011

Nomadic Tea Room,

Moscow Biennale Of Contemporary Art

2011

New York Tea Ceremony

Festival of Ideas, New Museum

2010 

Ex Deo Libertas!

Life is Art, West Sonoma, CA.

2010

Order of 8, Eiffel Society, New Orleans, LA.

2010

Do You Want Gold?, Honey Space NY.

2009

Voodoo, City Park and New Orleans Botanical Gardens.

2008

New Orleans Biennial, Life is Art Foundation, New Orleans, LA.

2007

A Course in Minerals, Life is Art, New Orleans, LA.

2007

Femme Fantastique, Volitant, Austin, TX.

2005 Pool video, A Covenant of Creatures

Art Basel, Miami Beach, FL.

2005

Aqua Art Fair, Miami 2005 Magnan Projects, NY. 2004 Group Exhibition and

Beach, FL.

1999

Cartografías, cuerpos y el deseo, Traveling Solo Exhibition Art forum, Quito, Ecuador, Museo del Banco Central, Cuenca, Ecuador, el Museo del CEN, Guyaquil, Ecuador (catalogue).

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

2002 – 2003

Lecturer, University of Texas, Castiglione Fiorentino, Italy.

2000 – 2002

Lecturer, University of Texas Austin, TX

1997 – 1999

Lecturer, Universidad Central, Quito, Ecuador.

RECOGNITIONS / AWARDS / RESIDENCIES

2020 

Artist in Residence, Casa Wabi, Mexico

2009

Joan Jonas Invitational Performance Workshop and Private Performance Creative Research Laboratory, Austin, TX.

2004 - 2006

Chashama Studio Residency at 40 worth, NY.

1999

Creative Projects Grant, US Cultural A airs, US Embassy Quito, Ecuador.

1997 - 1999

Fulbright Research Award, Ecuador (with 9 month extension and traveling exhibition).

1996

University of Texas Continuing Fellowship.

1996

University of Texas Art and Art History Research Award.

 

 

EDUCATION

1991 - 1997

University of Texas at Austin, MFA. Indiana University, Honors BA

 

1996

University of Study Abroad.

 

1996

University of Texas Scholarship for Texas Travel Grant, Italy.

1994 - 1996

David Price Endowed Presidential Scholarship, University of Texas

at Austin.

1993

Indiana University Honors Division Creative Research and Travel Grant, Central America.

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