Joanne Dugan is a visual artist who lives and works in New York City.
Her current practice involves the experimental use of traditional silver-based analogue materials and cyanotype processes to explore photography as a three-dimensional, physical medium. Her unique-image works utilize intricate, repetitive hand-cutting and painting techniques, chemical alterations and vintage equipment to pay homage to the physical limitations and opportunities found in analogue methods, while also exploring the potential for creating works informed by mindfulness practices. Each piece is fully rendered by hand, slowly.
Joanne’s works have been exhibited in the United States, Germany, Amsterdam and Japan. They are part of many public and private collections and have been featured in The New York Times Magazine and the Harvard Review.
As an author, Joanne’s image/text pairings have been published in seven books, including two fine-art monographs. Her limited-edition artist book Mostly True is in the permanent library collections of The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library and The George Eastman House. She is the editor of Summertime (Chronicle Books), a hardcover photography book featuring the work 46 emerging and established photographers.
Joanne is a faculty member of the International Center of Photography in New York City and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She has taught and lectured about the creative process in numerous institutions across the country. As an active mentor for students in many contexts, she is at work on a new book about the use of photography as a daily creative practice. Her studio and darkroom are located in a 19th-century building in Union Square and she lives in Harlem.