Dalia Amara, "Nylon Stocking," dye sublimation on aluminum, 24 x 16 in, $1,200

Artist Statement

I created this image while at the Surf Point Foundation Artist Residency in Maine in February 2022. I had the opportunity to connect deeply and wonderfully with my fellow artists in residence, the amazing Surf Point Foundation staff, and gracious local residents of Maine but I also had the chance to let my mind wander in the isolated natural beauty of the house’s location with the ocean on one side, and the forest on the other. In this image, I incorporated old bricks that had been collected by prior residents and left near the house. I loved the metaphor of these stones that were once bricks from Maine’s manufacturing past that have been reshaped by the ocean over time and washed upon the shore.

My work is heavily influenced by my interest in science-fiction, and the codes of femininity in printed beauty advertisements from my childhood and adolescence. With the push to virtual connectedness, constant interactions with screens, and at one point our fear of touching things at the height of the pandemic, I can imagine a science-fiction dystopian future where touch and textures outside of screens and consoles become almost illicit and fetishistic as we isolate in safety from harsh changes to the outside environment.

Bio

Dalia Amara is an American-Jordanian visual artist working in photography, video, performance, and sculpture. Dalia was raised in the USA, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, and UAE. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago.

Her work is influenced by the cultural whiplash she experienced in her childhood and adolescence moving back and forth between the Midwest (USA) and the Middle East. She felt like an alien observer, attempting but failing to fully assimilate. She uses this feeling of the familiar but alien to question societal ideals, and how they are at times in opposition to the individual self. She is concerned with
examining our relationships with power, desire, beauty, domesticity, femininity, and mortality.

Dalia has exhibited, screened, and lectured in the USA, Canada, and online at White Columns, Gallery 44, Selena Gallery, MOUNTAIN, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid. Her work has been written about or featured in The New Yorker, Observer, Artnet News, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, and Pre-cog Magazine. She participated in the Surf Point Foundation Artist Residency in York, Maine. Dalia is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid in New York.