MEDITATIONS (2022)
Today’s political discord, pandemic, economic inequalities, and geopolitical strife are challenging the emotions of every individual. Harmony and truth are harder or more difficult to experience. The Mediations series provides an oasis from these challenges by evoking a feeling of stability, truth, and harmony through contemplation. Geometric shapes and color bring harmony and connection among and within humans. Through geometry — a cube, sphere, cone, or hedron — the foundation of the universe is revealed. Often referred to as “sacred geometry” it brings together a system of spatial relationships and proportions that are the core of the natural order.
VOICES IN MOTION (2021)
Voices in Motion is a single channel video based on the WORDS on WORDS print series. Distinct single-word responses derived from the answers of the more than 3000 participants in the WORDS project are layered throughout the panels in a vast array of colors. Interjecting his voice in a collaborative manner with the project’s participants from 131 countries, the artist combined these individual answers into two- or three-word phrases to create iconoclastic yet playful statements reminiscent of Dada and Surrealist word play.
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 45 Minutes 53 Seconds
WORDS (2012-2020)
Brian Dailey’s ambitious artwork, WORDS, is the creative summation of an odyssey that has taken him to 120 countries over the course of seven years. WORDS is the artist’s investigation into the impact of globalization and its effect on key human structures of language, society, culture, and environment.
WORDS Whitewash (2020)
The WORDS Whitewash series of 13 prints are unique individual collages of one inch strips from the 131 national flags used to represent the more than 3000 participants in the project. A cross-section of the participants’ answers are embedded in each of the 13 words used for the project.
WORDS on WORDS (2020)
WORDS on WORDS, a print series of the project, comprises 13 lenticular works. Distinct single-word responses derived from the answers of the more than 3000 participants in the project are layered throughout the panels in a vast array of colors enhanced by the 3D effect. Interjecting his voice in a collaborative manner with the project’s participants from 131 countries, the artist combined these individual answers into two- or three-word phrases to create iconoclastic yet playful statements reminiscent of Dada and Surrealist word play.
14 STATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS BOOK (2020)
This artist’s book is a multi-dimensional reconceptualization of Brian Dailey’s 14 Stations at the Crossroads project, an autobiographical series of paired staged photographic tableaus and paintings linked through the symbolism of corresponding colors. The series is a narrative of the artist’s journey and a portrayal of the decisions that helped define his identity and character. When viewed in its totality, 14 Stations at the Crossroads reveals the full circle of an odyssey beginning in art and later to government and business, and finally back to art. Digging deeper into the various stations in the narrative arc, one finds hints of, if not the cause for, each pivotal point in the artist’s journey.
TOUS LES MOTS (2018)
Tous les Mots, is a play on the French expression tous les monde, which in its most literal sense translates as all the people in the world. By interjecting the French word for words—mots—it creates a double entendre highlighting both the global and individual voice of the project. The print series documents every response uttered by the nearly 3,000 participants for each of the thirteen words. The prints give voice to all the individuals who engaged in the WORDS project. The various responses were calibrated and scaled to reflect the frequency in which they were articulated.
LAMENTATIONS (2017)
Lamentations is a two- and three-dimensional series exploring the exponential increase in the destructive capabilities of military weapons and the relationship to contemporary nuclear theology and ultimately the implications for human survival. Comprised of diverse works on canvas, paper, glass, Plexiglas or constructed in granite, steel, plastic or wood, the series defines an aesthetics of nuclear iconography in post-Cold War culture. Like much of Dailey’s work, Lamentations reflects the artist’s decades-long engagement in international affairs, national security, and arms control.
QUIETUS (2017)
Over the course of the artist’s wife’s protracted battle with cancer, Dailey took note of the wide-range of emotions that consumed him while caring for her. These single word notations are combined with the self-composed sounds of Tibetan singing bowls, culminating in the passage from Hamlet’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s eponymous play: “When he himself might his quietus make...”
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 7 Minutes 1 Second
RIDDLES (2015)
The Riddles helical series leverages the artist's past experience in intelligence and geopolitical matters. The artist composed poetic riddles and “wrapped” them in his own De Stijl like cipher that serves both as an art form and the key to unraveling a contemporary conundrum.
MORPHEUS (2014)
Morpheus, the mythological god of dreams in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is invoked in this autobiographical series recounting the artist’s nocturnal journeys from 2010-2011. He leverages these dreams as vehicles for subconscious investigation.
BULGARIA IN DEMOCRACY (2014)
On the 25th anniversary of democracy in Bulgaria, Dailey embarked on a photographic journey of the country, capturing its political electorate in all its complexity. Building on a similar series he conducted in the United States from 2010 to 2012 – America in Color – he set out to portray the character of the Bulgaria voter as it completed its latest national election in the fall of 2014. Bulgaria in Democracy took him and his team across Bulgaria, resulting in a series of more than 450 portraits encapsulating this unique culture whose origins dates back to 5000 BC. From the Bulgar to the Turk to the Roma and beyond, he captured the ethnic character of the nation and its political diversity during the 2014 election, which included more than 25 political parties.
IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA: REDUX (2014)
In the specter of otherworldly and fantastical imagery, Impressions of Africa Redux (2014) composes flora, fauna, and cosmological imagery into its own universe. The series is a pastiche and tribute to the French proto-surrealist writer Raymond Roussel and his 1910 novel of the same name. Mounted on Plexiglass and backlit with LED panels, the five-foot tall composite images provide a three-dimensional quality.
EIDOLON (2014)
In title and form, Dailey’s Eidolon series is both myth and metaphor. The eidolon of ancient Greek literature is a spirit-image or doppelgänger. As in Walt Whitman’s 1892 poem Eidolon, this ancient term serves in Dailey’s compositions as literary and visual manifestations of phantom forms.
CROSSROADS OF HISTORY (2013)
Spanning 2500 years of human history, the artist uses color and crossroads symbology to express the dynamics of consequential moments during this period of time. The fast moving symbolism is paced with the soundtrack of the Persian musician, Fared Shafinury, and his regionally inspired work entitled “Rio Grande”. Through the symbolism of color, crossroads, and the contemporary musical tempo of Mesopotamian, the valley where early human civilization developed, the artist brings together in five minutes a kaleidoscope of human history and emotion.
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 5 Minutes 23 Seconds
JIKAI (2013)
Like the moth drawn to the light in this video’s hypnotic dance with death, we are all irresistibly attracted to danger despite knowing its potential for negative consequences. Making an allusion to Shakespeare’s line in The Merchant of Venice, the moth in Jikai is a metaphor for self-destruction and its fluttering around a light bulb is a meditation on societal disintegration.
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 4 Minutes 55 Seconds
AMERICA IN COLOR (2010-2012)
Amidst the cacophony of the bitterly polarized political environment in the United States, the artist embarked on a multifaceted two-year endeavor of photographic portraiture. America in Color comprises over 1,200 individual portraits across 20,000 miles of both rural and urban America. The project addresses questions about democracy, diversity, identity, and stereotypes. The project is also a color-coded time capsule (blue and red for the official political parties—Democratic and Republican, respectively—gray for Independent, green for Green Party, and yellow for those who can’t or choose not to vote) of the myriad faces and character of the American electorate.
AMERICA IN COLOR VIDEO (2012)
Featuring select portraits from America in Color, this video is a dynamic archive revealing a broad diversity of the individuals—socially, professionally, and politically—who constitute the demographic that is the democratic foundation of America today.
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 34 Minutes 10 Seconds
POLEMOS (2012)
The cacophonous and politically prescient 2010 video Polemos presents a hovered view of the state of political discourse in the United States during these polarized times.
Single-Channel Video
Running Time: 15 Minutes
14 STATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS (2011, 2020)
Dailey often mines his life experiences through art. No work epitomizes this approach more than 14 Stations at the Crossroads, an autobiographical series of paired photographic tableaus and paintings linked through symbolism and corresponding colors. The series is a narrative of the artist’s journey and a portrayal of the decisions that helped define his identity and character. When viewed in its totality, 14 Stations at the Crossroads reveals the full circle of an odyssey that has taken him on an eclectic journey of life-time experiences.
TABLEAU VIVANT (2010)
Employing props, actors, stage design, and theatrical lighting for this series, Dailey creates composite photo-based images that draws on the historical genre of tableau vivant. In the complex scenes, he utilizes this format as a vehicle for commentary on contemporary social and political issues.
PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATIONS (1970s)
Dailey’s evolution as an artist was greatly influenced by the milieu in Los Angeles in the 1970s where his career began. This was a period of explosive creative activity in California where artists up and down the West Coast of the United States were engaged in a dynamic process of questioning and experimentation that led to the proliferation of new and divergent genres, mediums, and modes of production. The pioneering employment of alternative approaches to art making embraced by this community of artists is evident in Dailey’s installation and performances from this period in which the political and social challenges of the time are reflected.
