Jessie Dunahoo
(images of artwork below)
----------------------------------------
Professional Summary:
Jessie Dunahoo born 1932, Kentucky
2008 Folk Art Takes a New Form, Artsplace Gallery, Lexington KY
2008 Solo Exhibit Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC
2008 Solo Exhibit Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC
2007 Group Exhibit Jones Art + Design, Lexington, KY
2007 Installation Woodland Arts Fair, Lexington, KY
2007 Recycled Lexington Art League, Lexington KY
2005, 2003 Rasdall Gallery, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY
2005 Featured Artist, UK Sanders Brown Series On Aging, Lexington, KY
2003 Featured Artist Successful Aging for People with Disabilities Conference, University of Kentucky
2003, 2000 Shearer Gallery, Transylvania University , Lexington KY
2001 “Strung Along” (performance/installation based on Jessie Dunahoo installation with Mecca) Mecca, Lexington, KY
2005, 2003 Rasdall Gallery, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY
2005 Featured Artist, UK Sanders Brown Series On Aging, Lexington, KY
2003 Featured Artist Successful Aging for People with Disabilities Conference, University of Kentucky
2003, 2000 Shearer Gallery, Transylvania University , Lexington KY
2001 “Strung Along” (performance/installation based on Jessie Dunahoo installation with Mecca) Mecca, Lexington, KY
Media:
2008 Featured Artist ABC Television "Extreme Home Makeovers"
2008 Featured Artist ABC Television "Extreme Home Makeovers"
2008 Featured Artist "Bernson's Corner" Fox TV affiliate, Louisville
2007 "Blind Ambition" 'W' Weekly, Lexington , KY
2003 Fox 56 News "Personality of 2003" video
2000 Lexington Herald- Leader “An Impressive Touch of Genius”
2000 Lexington Herald- Leader “An Impressive Touch of Genius”
2001 “Strung Along” (performance/installation based on Jessie Dunahoo installation with Mecca) Mecca, Lexington, KY
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
Links to articles featuring Jessie Dunahoo:
'W" Weekly, Blind Ambition:
http://latitudemedia.blogspot.com/2008/11/blind-ambition-w-weekly-august-2-2007.html
"Bernson's Coorner" Fox Television, Louisville:
http://latitudemedia.blogspot.com/2008/11/blind-ambition-w-weekly-august-2-2007.html
"Bernson's Coorner" Fox Television, Louisville:
Lexington Herald-Leader, An Impressive Touch Of Genius:
Latitude Blog: Jessie Dunahoo, Folk Art Takes A New Form
----------------------------------------
About Jessie Dunahoo:
Jessie Dunahoo has created indoor/outdoor environments for many decades. Mr. Dunahoo was raised on a farm during a period when supports for people considered to have disabilities were even more limited than they are today. Apparently Mr. Dunahoo attended the Kentucky School for the Blind for at least a couple years. Beyond this Mr. Dunahoo was largely left to his own devices. Living on a farm in the 1930’s- 40’s allowed Mr. Dunahoo an opportunity to manipulate outdoor space and in so doing to created environments which he composed by moving earth and brush often by hand and also by finding and assembling objects/debris which were then placed in an ordered way throughout the manipulated area. Sometimes objects were places in significant places on the ground but most often they were placed in trees and bushes. Jessie used various fences and trees to hang intersecting strings, ropes, wires, etc. – which could be grasped and threaded- in reality following a 3-d road map which he used (uses) in finding his way around outdoor space.
This practice continued as Mr. Dunahoo aged and became a client of various social service supports. In various group/residential facilities Mr. Dunahoo has lived in over the years he has created many variations on this theme, sometimes to the bemusement of various housemates and neighbors and on at least one occasion- their hostility.
Mr. Dunahoo is very aware that others view and evaluate his constructions and he is always delighted to play the docent and escort an interested viewer around/through his installation.
Jessie Dunahoo has created indoor/outdoor environments for many decades. Mr. Dunahoo was raised on a farm during a period when supports for people considered to have disabilities were even more limited than they are today. Apparently Mr. Dunahoo attended the Kentucky School for the Blind for at least a couple years. Beyond this Mr. Dunahoo was largely left to his own devices. Living on a farm in the 1930’s- 40’s allowed Mr. Dunahoo an opportunity to manipulate outdoor space and in so doing to created environments which he composed by moving earth and brush often by hand and also by finding and assembling objects/debris which were then placed in an ordered way throughout the manipulated area. Sometimes objects were places in significant places on the ground but most often they were placed in trees and bushes. Jessie used various fences and trees to hang intersecting strings, ropes, wires, etc. – which could be grasped and threaded- in reality following a 3-d road map which he used (uses) in finding his way around outdoor space.
This practice continued as Mr. Dunahoo aged and became a client of various social service supports. In various group/residential facilities Mr. Dunahoo has lived in over the years he has created many variations on this theme, sometimes to the bemusement of various housemates and neighbors and on at least one occasion- their hostility.
Mr. Dunahoo is very aware that others view and evaluate his constructions and he is always delighted to play the docent and escort an interested viewer around/through his installation.
------------------------------------------
Essay on Jessie Dunahoo's Installation at the Andrew Edlin Gallery
By Randall Morris
blog reference to Jessie Dunahoo's work from Randall Morris, co owner of the Cavin- Morris Gallery NYCJessie Dunahoo's pieces at Andrew Edlin Gallery fill me with that same awe, slightly uncomfortable, a thirst not quite slaked...not in terms of aesthetics but in unanswered questions about the universe. Dunahoo is blind and so the fact that their is such a tender fragility to the massive patchworks he puts together is all the more poignant. He has made blind man's maps from textiles in order to navigate through an unseen universe. Figuratively and literally. He travels along his tied guidelines to move. They are intimate, he has reduced the world to manageable means by stitching together cloth and plastic, shopping bags and scraps ways that are less about detail and line than they are about huge concepts. Words do not quite convey the sense of delicate tactility they are executed in.
There is something epic and affirming about the idea of this man moving in these spaces. And seeing this exhibition and interacting with parts of it may be the only time on earth any of us will ever get to share this space. It is truly an alternative universe but not internalized, it is very externalized. You are rewarded by the patterns of some of the quilts but they do not have the same language as the Japanese boros or the African American Quilts. The proclaim themselves but for other reasons, they glorify the resistance of survival. By merely being they epitomize a sort of street zen.
For me this exhibition was art brut of a high order. Ephemeral, hovering on the edge of anyone's definitions, flirting with giant ideas through virtue of their near intangibility. What can be wrong at all with an exhibition that makes you shake your head with wonder at the organic genius we have as a species to find different and amazing ways
------------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo, Quilted Wall Piece, Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC------------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo, Quilted Wall Piece, Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC--------------------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo, Installation, Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC---------------------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo, Installation, Andrew Edlin Gallery NYC----------------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo, Installation, Andrew Edlin Gallery, NYC--------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo Installation, Andrew Edlin Gallery, NYC-------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo with Crystal Bader of Latitude. preparing installation at Transylvania University
-----------------------------------------------
Preparing Jessie Dunahoo installation at Transylvania University
-----------------------------------------------
Jessie Dunahoo with Crystal Bader Preparing installation at Transylvania University-------------------------------------------------
