Dymph de Wild
The Solace of Silence

January 26 - February 17, 2024

Digital photographs, artist book

Artist Statement:
I create handbound books as a record keeping of my thoughts. My books have become my survival mechanism as they let me cope with the world around me. For all of my books, I work in silence, listening and breathing. John Cage said that deep listening creates a space of transformation capable of shattering complacency and despair. Intentional stillness, as Terry Tempest Williams wrote in When Women Were Birds, can then infiltrate our imaginations.

When the ground is covered with just enough snow to record a track, I gather several of my bound books and an arsenal of found objects from my studio and head outside to play. I have been taking photos of my snow performances with my journals for the last 10 years. I compose in silence, thinking of this white blanket as a huge blank book page. Each time a new story unfolds I capture the action on my camera holding on to this fleeting moment for just a little bit longer.

— Dymph de Wild

Biography:
Dymph de Wild was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to the U.S. in 2006. She received her BFA from the Corcoran College of Art + Design and earned her MFA from James Madison University. Growing up, de Wild would build tree houses in the forest near her home and would construct homemade circus tents to perform backyard hocus pocus tricks for her neighbors. This sense of play, still visible in her art practice today, is somewhat Dada-inspired. De Wild has been working and exhibiting in the U.S., Europe, and Africa as a conceptual visual artist. She teaches studio art at James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Website: dymphdewild.com
Instagram: @dewilddymph