Dara Friedman: Star People

Nina Johnson presents “Star People”, a solo exhibition by Dara Friedman, an artist whose practice spans environmental earthworks and film. The show brings her exploration of light, sound and bodily experience into a new series of sculptural forms. More than a dozen works are conceived for this presentation. Mirrored shadow figures rise throughout the space, reflecting light and the viewer’s gaze; some hold brass gongs, while others are clad in black felt, offering an opaque counterpoint. Their reflective and dark surfaces evoke the infinite depth of shadows and mirrors.

Friedman invokes the Pleiades star cluster and ideas of kinship and passage between realms. “Golden Hand (Night Journey of the Sun)” suggests emergence and disappearance, while “Alligator Eyes (Hill)” invites visitors to recline on a carpet shaped like a low mound. The film “Gong Camp” interweaves rising suns, turning figures and reverberating sound. Across the exhibition, Friedman considers the body as both matter and light, grounded in Earth yet connected to wider cosmological rhythms.