Ross + Kramer is pleased to announce the opening of Camilla Marie Dahl’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery, Weathervane, on view July 29–August 11, 2023. The opening reception will take place July 29, 2023, 3pm–6pm, at the gallery’s East Hampton location.

The exhibition includes 12 new paintings in which the artist reflects on her upbringing in Cornwall, Connecticut, a rural area populated by barns, mountains, and open fields. By way of Dahl’s pumice stone and perlite covered canvases, a muffled yet colorful introspective reality materializes that is at once peaceful, reminiscent, and inquisitive. The artist’s textural surfaces coupled with vivid, layered colors form minimalistic images. Defined by light and color, they serve to emphasize the silence and stillness of passing time.

Nostalgia and a sense of home are at the core of Dahl’s work. The iconography—derived from the visual landscape of her upbringing—while personal, is equally representative and observant of comprehensive human experiences.

With this show, I’ve decided to paint a handful of Cornwall barns. I've painted them through the lens of nostalgic remembrance, with childlike simplicity, color, and whimsy. There are nearly 100 documented barns in my hometown…they’re a point of pride for the community.

For me, these barns have a maternal quality. They’re built to house hay, livestock, and farm machinery, and protect them from the harshness of the outside world. The barns featured in this exhibition highlight this protective, motherly role—this combination of strength and warmth. Some structures feel weathered and welcoming, others, more newly built, appear impenetrable. But they all have this stoic quality, like comforting monuments throughout the town—symbols of the past and of the present.

There’s a certain element of nostalgia inherent in the New England style barn. They largely remain red, even though the use of red paint stems from a practical financial concern that no longer applies. Similarly, the weathervane, once a useful tool to indicate wind direction, is now far from the most reliable tool in meteorology, but we continue to adorn our barns and buildings with them because we are taken with their aesthetic and historic charm. From their post and beam construction, to their hay doors, and cupolas, and paint jobs and molding, these barns remain true to their historic selves. In maintaining that aesthetic I think we feel a romantic kinship with the past, and indulge ourselves in a communal nostalgia for a ‘simpler time’.

(Camilla Marie Dahl says about her newest body of work)

Camilla Marie Dahl (b. 1993) lives and works between New York and La Bisbal d’Empordà, Spain. She holds a BS from Skidmore College and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. Dahl was a recipient of the prestigious Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant in both 2019 and 2021. She has participated in El Castillete Artist Residency, Madrid Spain; Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residency, Cuttyhunk, MA; and La Ceiba Grafica Artist Residency, Veracruz Mexico. Dahl’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally with recent solo exhibitions at El Castillete, Madrid, Spain and Long Story Short, Los Angeles, CA and group exhibitions at F2T Gallery, Paris, France; Cohle Gallery, Menorca, Spain; Sotheby’s New York, New York, NY; and Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT.