Read artist statement
review by Kim Power in the Brooklyn Rail: “Dina Brodsky: Cycling Guide to Lilliput”
article by Jeffrey Carlson in Fine Art Connoisseur: “Dina Brodsky: Progressing to Smallness”
article by Sung J. Woo in KoreAm Magazine: “First-World Problems: In the Palm of My Hand”
press release by Lisa N. Peters for Island Weiss Gallery, “Cycling Guide to Lilliput”
“While the wanderer who is adept in meditation can use a small concentration object, such as a pebble, the beginner should use one the size of a barn door”
-The Vimmuttimagga, following an oral tradition that can be traced to 50 B.C.
The year I turned eighteen, I discovered two things that have become a permanent part of my life. The first was painting; the second was long-distance bicycling. Over the following fifteen years, I have continued to do both – painting became a passion and a career, while long distance cycling tours became my preferred form of travel, a way to gather ideas and information for the next year of painting. Specifically, I was drawn to miniature painting, studying first Islamic miniature art, then medieval manuscript illumination, combining that with the classical painting techniques I learned through the years. Until recently, I have always treated miniature painting as a guilty pleasure, something I did almost entirely for myself, since it was too small to exhibit. But the fact is, the moments when I am most excited and inspired by painting are those that I spend working on my miniatures.
The series “Cycling Guide to Lilliput” is a combination of my twin passions. Each miniature is an attempt to capture a specific moment throughout my travels that I can return to vividly in my memory. I like to think that the reason my works have gotten so tiny over the years is that painting itself is partially an act of meditation, of being able to hold something still enough in my mind that I can capture an image of it. As it becomes easier to slip into that meditative state, the object I need to concentrate on becomes smaller.
-Dina Brodsky