Painter and Visual Arts teacher Josh Dorman has more than 60 works on display in the 7th Floor Gallery at 91st Street, showcasing the myriad media and subject matter he explored during his year away as a Brizendine Scholar. For Dorman, the year was spent studying animation and participating in long-term residencies. 

Dorman traveled the globe during the year away from Spence: In October of 2024, he sailed aboard the ship Antigua throughout the Arctic glaciers of Svalbard, making watercolors by melting 5,000 year-old ice and Arctic sea water as a medium, and completing a collage using plastic detritus washed ashore in Lilliehöökbreen. He secured artist residencies at both UCross in Wyoming and MacDowell in New Hampshire, where, in addition to painting, he produced a 24 frames-per-second animated music video. Dorman spent part of the spring at a month-long artist residency at Cill Rialaig Arts Center in County Kerry, Ireland. The residency is located atop a cliff overlooking the Atlantic in a 1790’s pre-famine village, and Dorman was able to paint by natural light in his studio until 11 p.m. 

One of Dorman’s larger paintings, The Long View, was in the making for 22 years; Dorman completed it during the Scholar year. How does an artist know when a work is finished? “For me, it's when the journey is exhausted,” says Dorman. “When no elements feel irksome or unbalanced, and when I am genuinely surprised by what's there. For me, a painting only works when time feels eternal and just in this moment.”