Dahlia Elsayed describes her art as documentaries of “place” using text and images. As a child of Egyptian immigrants, her family history is one of migration from place to place. As such, she is very influenced by her surroundings. Her artwork is a visual expression of the geographical stories that emerge from her environment.

Growing up, Dahlia enjoyed comics and cartoons for their use of images and words. Her personal journals were – and are – filled with both. As a graduate student in the fiction writing program at Columbia, she would use visual elements to map out her stories, much like storyboards are used for the film industry. As she progressed through the writing program, she began to realize that she was more interested in the visual expression of her ideas than writing.

That relationship between image and text continues to influence her current work. When Dahlia begins a project, she takes time to explore the landscape, talk to people and read. All these experiences are recorded in her journal. She then reads and rereads her journal, editing it down to words and phrases that resonate with her in her surroundings. Finally, she determines how those words and phrases will be presented visually. In other words, the text comes first and the art is constructed around it. As for her desire to write, Dahlia says that it is fulfilled by the work she creates in her studio. Language, metaphor, poetry, all are fully active in her paintings.

Being at Anderson Ranch has made her more sensitive to place. She has begun doing more installation work – work that literally exists in the landscape. The color schemes of her work also changed in response to her time at the Ranch. The mountains, sky and snow all can be seen in the body of work she created while in residence. Dahlia admits it will take her a while to absorb her experience as an Anderson Ranch resident. She’ll take what she has learned here and see how it affects her studio practice at home.

Duane McDiarmid describes his art as “relational aesthetics” – art that functions as a catalyst for people to have an exchange with each other. He creates sculptures, performances and events that address American culture and idiosyncracy. Each project is created to encourage viewers to interact with the piece and with each other and to allow people to interject his or her own point of view. Often disparate views emerge from the audience, but his work seeks to foster a sense of inclusion. According to Duane, these projects are like “modern campfire stories where strangers might gather and tell stories.”

For Duane, art is a social endeavor. He often plays the fool to elicit responses from his audience. “Being in a position of humiliation is certainly a way to start a conversation,” he says. In his playing of the fool he illuminates society’s follies with a sense of humor and reveals the silliness of not only himself but of the world. And as viewers interact with projects, smaller conversations emerge that go beyond the cartoon. “Talking to people, that is where art happens,” Duane says.

He aspires to make work that gets discussed at the highest possible level. While not interested in making consumable art as an end, Duane recognizes the difficulty of economic sustainability of art making. He recently began working in digital formats, a process that was expanded upon while at the Ranch, and is producing images of his projects that can be sold. In addition, Duane began working on paper again while in residence, something he has not done in 20 years. He leaves his Ranch residency feeling confident and invigorated, knowing that he now has the tools and motivation to increase the viability and productivity of his work.

Joel Seah’s art work investigates how gay identities and the desire for assimilation find their places in contemporary culture. Tinged with social and sexual politics, Joel uses his formal training as a printmaker to address, from a very specific place, the human condition. “It’s all about putting a lens on something that you wouldn’t expect to surprise the viewer,” says Joel. “I want them to rethink their preconceived notions.”

As a medium, printmaking appeals to Joel because the images are meant to be “democratic.” They exist in multiple forms and more than one person can own them. This has led Joel to reconceptualize several works from the grand masters of printmaking. His most recent project, completed while in residence at Anderson Ranch, was Passion, the Stations of the Cross told through the abs of Jesus from the woodcuts of Dürer. Previous works have been inspired by Goya’s The Disasters of War, John James Audubon’s Birds of America, Currier & Ives lithographs and Marie Antoinette.

Joel is always seeking out items of interest: books, prints, magazines. Once he finds something – usually from a second hand store – he places it in his studio, where he flips through it, reads it, generally fortifies himself for the inspiration to come. It is important that the source of inspiration is not the original – that it is a copy of a copy of a copy. “This gives me permission to make my own copies, my own edits, my own version,” Joel says. Once the project takes shape, the making is like decorating: just a matter of finding the right materials and the right colors.

Before Joel began his residency at the Ranch, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue to be an artist. He took a sabbatical from teaching and created work for one last show before thinking he would call it quits. Being at the Ranch has helped put him back on the path of art making. “I have had so much fun falling back in love with my studio practice,” Joel says. “The Ranch has given me the tangible products of studio practice and wonderful psychological reassurance as an artist and as a person.”