Dasha Pears V. 2

Dasha Pears is a self-described psychorealist photographer who has exhibited around the world throughout Europe and in North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia. Her most recent exhibitions include NordArt25 in Büdelsdorf, Germany, TEOS25 in Helsinki, Finland, New Vision Photo Festa in Ulsan, Korea, San Francisco Open Studios, TINT Gallery in San Francisco, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, and Prague International Art Exhibition. Dasha’s photographs remain in over 100 public and private collections all over the world and she has won recognition from prestigious awards such as Luxemburg Art Prize, Julia Margaret Cameron Award, N D Awards, The Prix de la Photographie in Paris, and the Fine Art Photography Awards.

With a methodical and lengthy process, Dasha Pears starts each staged theatrical photograph with a concept and narrative which becomes put down on sketches. She then spends weeks crafting the props, searching wardrobes, selecting the right makeup and hair styles, and finding the right actors to execute the photograph. Upon capturing, she ponders on the photographs for several weeks or months and then digitally alters them in Photoshop and Lightroom to give them their dreamlike qualities. The theatrics in Dasha’s works are themed on synchronization and symmetry, such as a flock of birds in sync amidst a flight formation or symmetrical presentations of the ocean’s horizon repeated upon the composition. Also, her works vary from heavy digital alteration such as an entire shoreline and sky filled with oranges or with minimal digital enhancements with models engaged in naturalistic yet conceptual behavior with one and another in unaltered scenery. 

These fantastical environments are rich in prognosis of a magical narrative and provide a subtle overtone of dream-like scapes enhanced by the realism of photography. Usually the photographs will contain a focal point of bright colors, colorful wardrobe on actors for example, followed by monochromatic or neutral-colored scenes, such as a beach. Repetition such as a levitating staircase by the ocean or performative, conceptual actions such as a woman wrapped in paper followed by flying paper birds in the sky reveal a playful sustenance within Dasha’s portfolio. In essence, her work can be described as a cross between performance art and digital art by using the tool of photography as the source of documented fusion. Dasha’s integrative process and carefully planned conceptual approaches reveal characters and landscapes which touch upon our deepest inner senses and desires of longing to relate to each other and our habitats. 

You can't leave me alone here. In this wide wild world. (pictured above) depicts a woman having her neck unwrapped by a distant man with what appears to be paper or linen. In the distance, the streak of what could be a private jet, but most likely a paper origami bird, blurred in the speed of flight. Also, the cement barrier and distant ocean flow smoothly in an almost monochromatic pale tint. The work can be described as one of Dasha’s most conceptual and minimal pieces because of the enhanced performative actions combined with the strategic behavior of objects and actors along a pristine landscape. 

Dasha Pears takes us on a journey through her elliptical lens revealing a dreamy narrative drenched in psychological impulses of belonging and desire. We feel the caresses of her ocean waves on the surface of her pale surfaces and the subtle actions of the actors reveal a source of suspension hovered in fantastical environments. Her works are playful metaphors on the purpose of existence during the contemporary era. The use of digital technology in Dasha’s photography becomes strategically used to heighten the careful process in a way which enhances the stories of her creations, rather than sully in over-technicalities. Nuanced and harmonic, Dasha Pears’ compositions create a theatrical play of actors and landscapes reassuring the viewer of acceptance towards embracing our dreams and conceptual, indirect altered realities.

https://dashapears-art.com