Throughout the pandemic Dooling has been documenting discarded face masks as a diaristic practice. During her daily walks in isolation, she found transformations in these vitally necessary and politically charged objects not just into mundane mementos but also sculptural forms. Dooling found in the causal, unintended gesture of their discard, complications of shape and literal signification. In these photo collages the imaged physical space around each mask, the ground where it lay, its context, has been hand cut out in an ongoing investigation of the mask’s form, use, and meaning.

Daniella Dooling’s work resists genre definition. Her recent projects are activated through sculpture, collage, archival practice, and installation. Solo exhibitions include The Esther Massry Gallery, Albany, N.Y.; Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, New York, N.Y.; Anna Kustera Gallery, New York, N.Y.; and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, N.Y. Her work has also been shown in numerous group exhibition venues, including Magenta Plains, NY, NY; Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA; Re Institute, Millerton, NY; PAN/Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, Italy; American Academy of Arts & Letters; Chelsea Art Museum; Kerry Schuss Gallery; and Exit Art, all in New York. Dooling received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and MFA from Yale University. She has taught in the Studio Arts Program at Bard College since 2003.