Dara Friedman: Star People

A new exhibition at Nina Johnson brings a sculptural dimension to the practice of Miami-based artist and filmmaker Dara Friedman. Star People introduces more than a dozen newly conceived works that explore light, shadow, vibration and the body through a series of reflective figures, tactile forms and cinematic gestures.

Friedman, known for her structural approach to film and her earthworks rooted in sensory experience, extends her longtime engagement with movement and perception into an environment of mirrored silhouettes, felt-covered shadow beings and brass elements that chime with sun-like resonance. The works investigate how light bends around form, how darkness can carry its own radiance and how bodily awareness functions as a point of contact between the earthly and the cosmic. References to the Pleiades cluster, the horizon line and recurring thresholds in Friedman’s filmmaking echo throughout the installation.

Highlights include a group of towering reflective figures that mirror both illumination and the viewer’s gaze; Golden Hand (Night Journey of the Sun), a sculptural brass arm poised between emergence and disappearance; and Alligator Eyes (Hill), a low sculptural carpet that invites reclining and subtle attunement to the surrounding space. The accompanying film Gong Camp layers rising and setting suns with cloth-draped forms and reverberating tones, linking the exhibition’s physical works with Friedman’s continued inquiry into rhythm, light and emotional transmission.

Rooted in Miami yet oriented toward broader cosmological questions, Star People reflects Friedman’s interest in the thresholds between inner and outer worlds. The exhibition brings together humor, material precision and a contemplative sense of movement, creating a setting where light, shadow and sensation take on both physical and metaphysical weight.

This exhibition is on view Wednesday, December 1 through Saturday, February 7 in the Upstairs Gallery at Nina Johnson.