Dorian Goldman’s sculptures emit a kinetic energy as if they could sway off the pedestal and dance into the room. “There’s so much life coming out of something that is static,” she says of her work which reflects both the human form and the natural world. Rooted in a tactile, material-driven practice, her sculptures range from intimate figurative studies to monumental organic forms, rendered in clay, wood, marble, and cast bronze.
Photo: Steven Paneccasio
Goldman’s journey began in California, where she apprenticed with production potter Larry Murphy in San Francisco and studied at Big Creek Pottery in Santa Cruz. She earned both a BA/BFA and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania and later traveled for a residency with master potter Otani Shiro in Shigaraki, Japan. Along with practicing her craft, she has also been a university teacher, educating the next generation on nuances of the process.
“Every human form is different,” she explains, “It’s noticing the little differences, the specific that makes the art.” Goldman will often work sketching from a live model which she equates to playing scales for a musician. “It enhances your eye, hand coordination and keeps you looking at live form and its inspiration.” She starts with a concept then plays with it, making a series of maquettes of different ideas on how to tweak the forms before casting in bronze.
Photo: Angela Strassheim Photography
Influenced by her love of gardening and the botanical life, she also finds forms in seed pods which mimic the resilient female body, a sculptural language grounded in growth, transformation and strength. “All the forms in nature interest me,” she says, “I look at a covering over a living form inside, how it starts out flat and then it swells, like a seed or a bud emerging with energy.”
A highlight for Goldman was the opportunity to travel to Carrara, Italy to the marble quarries, evaluating which piece of marble would give birth to her artistic vision. “Quarries in Italy are spectacularly beautiful. You go down seven stories and you can see how stone is taken out over centuries in layers. You see the veining and imperfections and colors. If a stone has too much character it would be about the stone, so I have to marry the character of the stone with the form I want to create.” Luckily, she now has a closer access, discovering a stone yard near Riverhead.
Home on the East End for Goldman is a restored Norman Jaffe house in Bridgehampton first constructed by her parents in the 1970’s. Here she brought her honed eye, applying her sculptural sensibilities to architecture, landscape, and interior design to its restoration. “My father called it a shack on the dunes,” she recalls, “It was a summer beach house which needed a full restoration.” She consulted with Alastair Gordon who suggested they create a competition to see which architect came up with the best vision. In the end, it was actually her son Asher Israelow who conceived the renovation as a senior project for his architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design which she liked best and led to a “great collaboration.”
Dorian’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the Art Students League of New York, Women’s Art Center of the Hamptons, Yellow Studio, The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), Lift Trucks Art, Next Level, The Nippon Gallery, Merrimack College Gallery, and her work is held in numerous private collections She recently won first prize in Sculpture from the National Association of Women Artists. A new collaboration for Goldman is exhibiting her work in Lisa Perry’s Onna House in East Hampton, opening right before Memorial Day alongside other noted women artists.
