New Des Moines Art Center exhibition highlights photography in Iowa Artist 2019: Noah Doely

On Friday June 21, the Des Moines Art Center will open Iowa Artist 2019: Noah Doely, which runs through Oct. 13 in the Blank One Gallery.

Based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Noah Doely produces work focused on science and the history of visual perception, as well as the origins of photography, myth and the world. Doely focuses on photography “because of its complicated relationship to truth and verifiability and its paradoxical ability to evoke both trust and skepticism.” Keeping this in mind, the artist creates pictures that are purposefully deceptive and blur the distinction between reality and illusion.

This exhibition features photographs from Doely’s Above & Below series, which look like subaqueous caves illuminated by rays of light. The underwater chambers are, however, sections of a diorama Doely constructed, lit from a single source and photographed using a pinhole camera. From these mysterious images Doely asks that we become active inquisitors, questioning authenticity and what’s presented before us.

Doely is Associate Professor of Photography at the University of Northern Iowa, and holds a BFA from UNI and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. He has had solo exhibitions at the Dubuque Museum of Art; Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, California; and the San Diego Museum of Art, among others. He is a 2018-2019 Iowa Artists Fellowship recipient and has been artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Penumbra Foundation.

Related Program

Artist Lecture + Public Reception
Friday, June 21 / 6 p.m.
Levitt Auditorium + lobby
*Reservations required

Noah Doely will discuss his work in a public lecture. A complimentary reception with the artist immediately follows in the lobby of the museum.

*FREE reservations and RSVPs can be made at desmoinesartcenter.org by clicking on the EVENT RESERVATIONS bubble on the homepage. An email confirmation will be sent shortly after a successful reservation.