Nan Darham at the Russo Gallery

Nan Darham at the Russo Gallery

Dickey Center for International Understanding

Haldeman Center

Dartmouth College

Exhibition dates January 9-February 9, 2019

Yellowstone Exhibition at Russo Gallery

 

“You could find her body bound up in the layers of hand-me-down jackets and parkas and hats and gloves, enjoying the high-altitude rays that last glimmer in October. In this getup she was more of a sorry sight than the sight for sore eyes she once had been. Her ears crinkled from a raw north wind echoing like notes off fingers on a glass harmonica. Minnie conjured it to be an actual harmonica made of glass, but it wasn’t really. More than a couple chiseled snowflakes had found their sly way down from a furtive cloud, landed spritely on her cheek, and cast a small rainbow arcing over her brow. She opened one eye and noticed the magenta Fairy Slipper orchid peeking out from the bed of tender pine needles. Aisles of mature trees had been felled left and right by the road for improvements. More turnouts for looky-loos like herself gawking at Yellowstone wildlife, better for dodging bison bulls, cows and calves, and bears, sows and cubs plus other critters. Minnie smelled the sap turpenes bleeding off the ragged stumps. She loved the thin air, how it shot down to the bottom of her lungs she only felt just at the top of the Yellowstone caldera. It was easy for her, made quick work of her energy and never failed to spirit her up for unknown trails ahead.”  From Glass Harmonica, Nan Darham MALS Independent Study

 

Nan Darham is a graduate student from Bozeman, Montana in the Masters of Arts Liberal Studies program, Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies at Dartmouth. Her artwork and stories chronicle the culture, landscape, wildlife and characters that populate her life in the West. Raising a sixth generation of Montanans, she configures a changing geography that includes immense historical and contemporary issues of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Her narrative drawings and paintings have been exhibited in many galleries and museums and are held in private collections including the Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis.  Her work was on display in the Washington, D.C. offices of Senator Max Baucus for over ten years and published in the New York Times.

 

Nan Darham has a M.F.A from CalArts and a B.S. from Boston University. Her thesis concentration at Dartmouth focuses on creativity, innovation and genius studies.

 

Her floral study, “Jewel Flowers (Greenhouse Flowers),” created at the Dartmouth Greenhouse, will be on display at the Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings January through March 2019. Selected pieces can be seen in the current edition of the MALS literary journal, Clamantis, and The Whitefish Review, edited by MALS graduate Brian Schott.