Ralph Dashner

Background

About Ralph Dashner

click on gallery images below)After so many years of leading public tours at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, I’ve developed a sense of what Americans want from art: a moment of heightened awareness, familiar circumstances revealed in an intriguing new way. Each of these images began as a photograph taken with one of my digital cameras. Sometimes the image was well composed by nature and I was satisfied that the photograph could be a successful final product – after I meticulously edited it in Photoshop so that your attention would be guided the way I imagined would best discover the image’s beauty.Other photographs demanded transformation. Sometimes I used the photograph to burn silkscreens, pulling layer after layer of sticky ink through the delicate fabric. Other times I wanted the soft focus of aquatint or the rough lines of acid etching. Each of my works takes months to produce.For me, it’s not enough for you to glance at my work and say, “Oh, that’s pretty.” My work is only successful if it lingers in your mind. My purpose in leading your eye to notice certain details is to spark your own meditation about how wonderful it feels to walk in nature, or to contemplate relationships you’ve known, or to reminisce about the adventures you’ve had in foreign lands.