Gomma Photography Grant 2020
Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit
Photographer
Antone Dolezal
Part of Fortune and Part of Spirit
31 Jan, 2022
The Southwestern United States possesses a strange tale of western settlers seeking a utopian future. For those who aspire for divine knowledge it’s a place that holds the key to the mysteries of the cosmos. Luminous globes falling in arcs from the night sky, giant craters in the earth and unidentified radio signals all create fertile ground for conspiracy and myth to take root. Here beliefs both old and new intertwine, creating a realm where the magical and the ordinary are one and the same. This work focuses on new religious movements of the region and the beliefs to which they adhere. Influenced by folklore of the American West, Sci-Fi cinema, secret military programs and Eastern and Indigenous mysticism, the religious faiths I follow form a complex and entangled story. One aimed to illuminate the boundaries of belief and offer a meditation into the ideologies meant to eclipse the cycle of conventional life.
About the photographer
Antone Dolezal
Antone Dolezal is a visual artist who uses photography, video, sound, text, bookmaking and the archive to create narratives investigating the cultural and political dynamics of American folklore and mythology. His work has been exhibited widely and is held in notable public collections including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Museum of Contemporary Photography, New Mexico Museum of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art and Portrait Gallery Library and the Whitney Museum of American Art - Special Collections. Antone’s photographs have been published with Conveyor Editions, Fuego Books, GEO, Mossless Magazine, National Public Radio, Oxford American, Smithsonian Magazine and Usbek & Rica, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Daylight Photo Award Juror’s Pick, MoCP Snider Prize, OVAC Visual Arts Grant, Syracuse University Visual and Performing Arts Fellowship and has been shortlisted for the Anamorphosis Prize and PH Museum Grant. Recent exhibitions have taken place at 555 Gallery (Boston), Candela Gallery (Richmond), Filter Space (Chicago), Museo Nacional de ArqueologÃa y EtnologÃa (Guatemala City), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Photo Vogue Festival (Milan), Red Hook Labs (New York) and Webber Represents (London).
