josh dorman

JUNE 13 - JULY 12, 2026

“Paper Dolls” began at the MacDowell artist residency in December of 2025, and was completed during the following year. Part of Dorman's “Idylls” series, it begins with layers of 1940's "Americana" wallpaper. Dorman then builds and excavates, interweaving antique collage elements with drawn and painted imagery to create multi-dimensional worlds and open-ended narratives. His studio is filled with antique collage materials, ranging from 1920s topographic maps to player piano scrolls to turn of the century textbooks– filled with outdated information and diagrams. With a goal of displacing the viewer in time and space, Dorman contrasts the weathered patina of old paper with saturated painted colors. With a Boschian obsession to detail and absurd invention of hybrid entities, he draws the eye closer and closer. His work touches on themes of human hubris and our (dis)connection to nature and the earth. Equal parts examination and escape, Dorman has referred to his worlds as “a joyful apocalypse”.

“Living in a Fishbowl” is a painting that’s lived multiple lives. Originally completed in 2016 as part of his “Mountain” series, Dorman revisited the piece in 2024 and re-worked it completely. “I embraced the chaos–englufing the mountain with bizarre flying creatures (loving or menacing?), adding collaged elements from a 1890’s book of ornament and turning small elements into massive architectural structures, and populating the central globe with floating krill or nymphs.”