Artist Statement/ Biography

Dakota Gearhart invents worlds of utopian hangover. Here disparate elements of video, sound, and sculpture collide. These staged paradises—parables of environmental consumption—are mirage-like illusions of stability, suffused with cloying emotion. Her intention is to cloak the viewer in a superficial narrative, one that both distorts and clarifies the question of whether we can imagine—let alone inhabit—an eco-system as synthetic as it is natural.

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Dakota Gearhart is the progeny of a philosophizing mechanic and a feminist director. Identifying as a bisexual mermaid, her practice in video and installation deconstruct hierarchical value systems of ecological desire and consumption. Dakota has exhibited at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; On The Ground Floor, Los Angeles, BronxArtSpace, New York, FalseFront, Portland; Vulpes Vulpes, London; and Taiyuan Normal University Gallery, Shanxi. She is the recipient of the Artist Trust Project Grant, the 4Culture Individual Project Grant, and the Jane Davis Fellowship. She received her BFA from Florida State University and her MFA from the University of Washington. Currently, she lives and works out of a decomposing cement box in the Pacific Northwest.