About

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• Dorie Dahlberg grew up in New Jersey on the Atlantic coast, a crowded summer destination for New Yorkers and North Jersey vacationers although ­­­quite desolate in the off-seasons. She interrupted her university education to live in the cold northern Midwest of the US and the deserts of the Southwest. She returned to New Jersey to finish a Bachelor of Fine Arts, at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, drawing/intaglio concentration. For 25 years, Dahlberg was an art educator in Newark Public Schools, an urban district in the New York City area. She attended graduate school at Pratt Institute (NYC) & completed a Master of Education Administration at St. Peter’s University. For 21 years Dahlberg lived in metro NYC, where she raised her daughter. At present, she is an adjunct professor at New Jersey City University, President of Pro Arts Jersey City, an artist-run non-profit organization, and a resident of the Jersey Shore once again.

Above: Johnny, Nantucket 1983 or 84

Poetry of the Ordinary

The Photo Place, Middlebury VT

Outliers Gallery, Jersey City NJ - People I Once Knew

     From the review in Eye Level April 2025: "Then there are the Dahlberg photos that are simply so intimate that they seem to belong to a private moment. They chronicle a transient but inviolable bond between the photographer and the subject. We feel a bit voyeuristic checking these out, but they’re so lush, detailed, and skillfully composed that we can’t help but stare. “Johnny: Nantucket,” a gorgeous photograph, captures a man making a cup of Maxwell House on a vintage range. It is drenched in bleary morning-ness, but there’s a sense of determination to the shot, too. Dahlberg’s camera finds an association between the cottony steam from the coffee-maker and Johnny’s chest hair, a silver nimbus that surrounds his torso." 

Tris McCall

• When I was 19, I joined a small photography interest group learning pre-digital camera & darkroom basics but never thought of showing photographs. As an art student, I didn't study photography academically: my concentration was intaglio printing making and drawing. In 2004 I began self-study to transition from drawing to digital photography. I had some immediate gratification by winning awards and gaining exposure. While scanning my early negatives in early 2016, I realized I was more comfortable with analog cameras. I now have a small collection of 35mm & 120mm cameras to which I assign specific projects. I have recently been shooting digital photographs again. I don't plan to give up analog photography. 
• I think in series and narratives. Although I often include people in my photographs, sometimes I'm more interested in the things they leave behind.

• Because of the pandemic, my eight month project about commuting and the failures of our transit system had to become a video instead of photographs hanging on a wall in a physical space. This year Pro Arts had three multi-disciplinary groups; I was a member of The Commentators. We were a group of five women artists; two painters, a sculptor, a film maker, and me.
• Eyes on the Road became a series of photographs taken with a Rollei35 during my 100-mile roundtrips from my home to New Jersey City University, visiting my daughter, or attending art events and back again.

                 https://youtu.be/ANZiv9nHJ_0

doriedahlberg@gmail.com