Projects

“THIS LAND AIN’T YOUR LAND” @Convey/or Gallery

Dan Goldman's latest photo exhibit doesn't whisper—it withholds. "This Ain't Your Land," now on view at Convey/er/or Gallery in Poughkeepsie through June 1, features a series of striking portraits of anonymous subjects shielding their faces with slips of paper. These are not acts of modesty or mystique. These are refusals. Refusals to be seen, to be claimed, to be archived, to be erased.

The title, of course, rewrites the inclusive gospel of Woody Guthrie into a protest hymn. This land ain't your land—not if you're undocumented, not if you're Indigenous, not if you're on the wrong end of a border drawn in ink and blood. Goldman's work delivers a visual rebuke to the myth of American inclusivity, offering a quieter, tenser landscape, where survival demands invisibility and resistance is often silent.

Shot in black-and-white, the photographs have the stillness of mid-century documentary work but hum with contemporary unease. That's no accident. Goldman cites Dorothea Lange as an influence—specifically her impulse to bear witness with a lens and a conscience. "There's something about that era's visual language that still speaks to this moment," Goldman says. "But instead of faces of suffering, we have covered faces. Not because there's nothing to say, but because the system won't listen."

In one image after another, a man stands in a sunlit field, body square to the camera, face partially obscured by a blank piece of paper. In another, a person's face has been washed away like a wave on the sand. It's protest by redaction. Each photo confronts the viewer with what's missing—and dares them to fill in the silence.

Goldman began this series in response to the surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy over the last decade. "I was seeing people disappear—figuratively and literally—from the American conversation," he says. "And I felt like the only way to respond was to build a kind of visual record that acknowledged their presence without exposing them to further harm." There's a long tradition of artists responding to national trauma with metaphor and myth. Goldman goes another way. His myth is already broken. His metaphor doesn't hide the message—it carries it, blank-faced, toward the camera, like a protestor who won't give you their name.

- Brian K. Mahoney

Smoke Signals

From its conception Smoke Signals was inspired by the social injustices levied on the Native Americans of North America for centuries and the DAPL protests. The exhibit’s title, Smoke Signals was chosen to homage the Native Americans living on Turtle Island. This exhibition at TAG brings together artists working in diverse media from various geographic locales across the United States and sits at the intersection of art and environmental activism, social justice and education. 

Beyond an art exhibit, Smoke Signals connected with local communities through programs that were created to serve and educate in an aesthetic way.  On the schedule for Saturday March 18th., a panel discussion with Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountain Keeper and guest artist Norm Magnusson to discuss the intersection of "Art, Activism and the Environment."  In the following weekends local students will be visiting the gallery for tours. 

Cages

Cages is a work in progress, a provocative photographic essay exploring the relationship between freedom and confinement.  The malevolent of colonialism and the box our culture has created and lives in.  Both in its physical forms and in the recesses of their mind. 

Cooper Lake: my muse

Cooper Lake: my muse is a collection of ethereal photographs and writings created over a period of 2 years while living in the woods of Mink Hollow - 

Devereux School Art

I have had the privilege of teaching art to the students of the Devereux School.  In between the laughter and singing great things happen! The art they have created is nothing short of spectacular and has been exhibited in local cafe's and galleries in the Hudson Valley.