Series of small paintings based on advertising images and toy guns purchased online. Created in response to mass shootings in the United States by young men.
Oil on panel, ranging in size from 5”x5” to 6”x8”
Public participatory project, 2010-2016. Wire mesh sculptures filled with used and broken toys. Includes the 10 foot tall Receptacle and the 3 members of the Litter: Thing One, Thing Two, and Firstborn.
A striking visual of what our children are consuming, this project touches on environmental concerns while also creating an archeological portrait of an American childhood. Used and broken toys that cannot be easily recycled are 'fed' to the Receptacle through a trap door in its head.
MamaDotta is a collaboration of mother and daughter Joyce Dallal and Naima White NaimaWhite.com. Each of us have a distinct artistic practice separate from the collaborative. Joyce Dallal works primarily in installation and public art, focusing on themes of collective and personal history, migration, memory, and the evolution of contemporary cultural identity. Naima White describes her work as an exploration of texture and pattern concentrated on organic shape and color that result in both abstracted atmospheric pieces as well as figurative. As MamaDotta we combine these interests and approaches to create work informed by our experiences as women and as mothers.
36”x60”, mixed-media on panel with video.
Madonna Combine takes its inspiration from the name of Naima’s daughter, Joyce’s first granddaughter: Zadah Enheduanna Dallal Gannon-O’Gara. As her name exemplifies, names can signify and embody multiple things: family history, the place and time one is born in, and the dreams of the parents.
Naima was named after her great-grandmother who immigrated to the United States from Iraq. She in turn, named her daughter in honor of her grandmother. Zadah’s middle name, Enheduanna, is after a bronze-age Sumerian poet and priestess in the temple of Inanna, goddess of love and fertility. Gannon-O’Gara is the hyphenated result of two Irish surnames from her father’s parents. The migration of these families, from east and west and converging in the United States, has resulted in the birth of this child. Our piece considers maternal imagery from multiple eras and cultures, and mothering from a distance since we collaborated from opposite sides of the country.
42”x54,” Collaged and stitched quilt with rear projection video incorporating copies of bills from the birth of Naima’s first child. The onslaught of medical billing that accompanies the birth of a child in the United States forms the background of this cheerful baby quilt. Dollar signs create colorful patterns around the rear-projected collage of baby videos while the sound of a child squealing in delight can be heard.
60”x96”x96”, Painted and printed fabric tent with video
Life is bookended by birth and death. It is the one thing all living things have in common. What happens before birth or after death is a mystery, source of endless imaginings. Are we born as unique and original personalities, or do we carry memories and traits from past lives? Beyond the biological, what emotional, philosophical, or cultural information do our genes confer on us?
Interlude is a space to imagine this state between non-being and being. Temporary structure/den/womb. Volcanic cracks in the earth/rivers/stretch marks on skin. One shape echoes the other in repeating patterns and cycles that form a circular structure framing life as we know it.
Video collage of life during the Covid 19 lockdown, March-July 2020.
This video is a collage of images and sound recorded at home while my family remained inside during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic from March 16 through July 30, 2020. It encapsulates the fluidity of time as the days ran together, and all we knew of outside life was perceived through screens.
