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.