BY ANYA SEBASTIAN | PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATE RUSSELL
Sasha vom Dorp captures moments in time working with elemental processes
Sasha vom Dorp has created a unique art form that is a fascinating fusion of art and science. Art is the final product, science the means to that end. As to how he interacts with that mix, he readily admits, “I’m an artist, not a scientist, so I can’t wrap my mind around that. I’m just hopelessly addicted to creating visual imagery.” Born and raised in Taos by parents who are both artists, he started out at the age of 19 as a plein air painter, exploring images of his local surroundings—landscapes, flowers and trees. That finally came to an end because, as he recalls, “I started thinking that you might as well take a photograph if you’re going to paint hollyhocks or something, so I began to be inspired to create art that wasn’t necessarily physically tangible.” As it turned out, photography was the medium through which he finally engineered a whole new world of artistic expression. Vom Dorp credits Rod Goebel, the father of one of his childhood friends and a well-known Taos artist, for introducing him to the philosophy that started it all. A notable portrait painter, his paintings conveyed more than recognizable images. “It was as though he was painting people from the inside out, painting the person’s spirit,” vom Dorp says. “I took one of his weekend workshops during which he said that, for him, it was important not to have any judgment in the act of creation, not to let the conscious mind be judging what you’re doing, but to just follow your instincts, let them flow free and trust yourself. I really took that to heart, and it has inspired my work ever since.” It also inspired him to remain a free spirit and forego any formal training, and he began his own artistic journey of discovery, in earnest, in 2003, exploring something that had been increasingly attracting his attention. As he explains it, “I started thinking about energy and the transference of energy. For example, if you’re walking down the street and you smile at somebody, you might have just made their day. That could start a ripple, as they then smile at someone else. That’s an energetic exchange that keeps on going. So I started thinking about energy and energy transference, and trying to make art that reflected that.”
“Curious to see if he could turn the in-visible into something visual, vom Dorp began experimenting in his studio, a historic and secluded adobe building in downtown Taos, combining elements that are not usually combined. He took a car battery, a little car stereo speaker and a small plastic cup filled with water. When sound waves from the speaker interacted with the water in the cup, patterns were formed. That in itself is an energy transfer and it was an exciting de-velopment; when light waves were added to the mix, color was born.
The process can be compared to what happens when crystals are hung in a window. When sunshine, which starts out as white light, hits the crystal, it gets split, opening up the color spectrum, and forming rainbows, because white light is made up of all those colors combined. In vom Dorp’s artwork, water acts as the crystal.
Things have progressed significantly since then, and his studio is now equipped
with electronics specifically designed to” “facilitate the process, and enhance the end results, which he then photographs. Since he requires direct sunlight in order to do his work, he has designed and put together what he calls a ‘sound palette,’ close to a window in the main section of his studio. The big, round, hollow metal base was once the nose cowling from a 727 jet, modified to fit his particular needs. A large, acrylic plate, installed near the top of the base, holds about a gallon of water, and underneath it is a speaker, connected by a cable to the source of the sound.
The sound itself can be music, sing-ing, chanting, speaking, drumming… anything at all. A local artist/pianist, Bill Arms, was recently inspired to com-mission an artwork created from the im-ages produced by him playing the piano. Sound waves are measured in beats per second, or hertz, and vom Dorp is able to adjust the speed, making it faster or slower, with different frequencies pro-ducing different patterns in the water. Images are constantly changing, never still, which means that when he decides to take a photograph, vom Dorp is liter-ally capturing and recording a fraction of a second in time, that will never be repeated. The variety of images, shapes, and color formations is literally endless, since the light is bent and split in dif-
ferent ways as it hits the shifting ripples” “in the water. Occasionally all the colors recombine on the crest of the wave back into white light, and not even vom Dorp understands how that happens.
He takes the digital images captured by his camera to a fine art reproduction studio, where massive printers turn them into works of art many times larger than life. Such places are relatively rare, but as luck would have it, there is one not far from the artist’s studio in Taos, so he is able to print his own work on archival pigment paper. “I use a high pixel camera that retains the integrity of the image,” he explains. “It can be reproduced by those printers, up to a maximum of 48 by 72 inches.” Finding that kind of wall space could be a challenge, however, so most exhibition pieces are 40 by 58 inches, still an impressive size. “I like them larger,” vom Dorp says, “so you can feel the energy around you. People tell me it almost feels as though you could walk right into them.” Each piece is titled, not with words, but with information: the exact sound frequency that was used to create it; the exact time stamp to a hundredth of a second; the date, and the GPS location of vom Dorp’s studio. As for an artist signa-ture, the nature of his work does not lend itself to having a name written across it, so his solution is both unconventional and unique. On the back of each piece”
is his fingerprint, stamped in blood. “I know that’s strange,” he acknowledges, “but it is my DNA, so it’s personal and does serve to identify me.” The fact that vom Dorp’s artwork is printed, not painted, means that multiple copies could be produced, so he makes it a rule to have a limited edition of just three, plus an artist’s proof. He places them in a white wooden frame, designed and made by him, with room to accommodate glass, if the buyer chooses to add that, and applies a thin acrylic seal, in a heat-vacuum press to each archival pigment print. The seal both protects it from harmful UV rays and is also impenetrable. “You could spill ketchup on it and wipe it right off and it would be fine,” he says. “Even without the glass, it should be good for a couple of hundred years.” Before becoming involved with the intersection of sound, water and light, vom Dorp spent a number of years exploring other artistic media. From his early days as a painter, he moved on to kinetic sculpture, prompted by a fascination with the tetrahedron, also known as a triangular pyramid. Within the realm of sacred geometry, it is the fundamental building block of the universe and vom Dorp made an outsize sculpture, which he has preserved to this day, in its honor. He also experimented with photography and interactive video installations, and has taken part in The Paseo arts festival, the annual outdoor celebration of the arts in Taos, a number of times. His work has also been shown at the Harwood Museum in Taos, as well as galleries in New York and Los Angeles. “One thing I really love about what I’m doing now is that it’s basically so simple,” he says. “Sound, sunlight and water, and how they interact. It’s like a little message from the universe.”
He has also lived and shown in other countries, including Sweden, Mexico, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, as well as spending time in Los Angeles, before finally returning home to the open spaces, blue skies, and rich, artistic environment of Taos. He and his wife, Rachel, and four children live in a contemporary, very striking, and appropriately white, house that vom Dorp and his wife designed. “So many of the people who live and work here are involved in some way with art of some kind,” he says. “I find it very nurturing, with none of the stresses and the intensity of life in a big city.” Now that he has mastered the art of combining sound waves with water and light, vom Dorp is using the knowledge he has acquired in order to explore yet another previously unknown territory, this time substituting brain waves for sound. In order to succeed, this cutting-edge project requires the assistance of experts in related fields, and he is currently working with a neuroscientist, a cognitive psychologist and two electrical engineers, to turn his dream into a functional reality. The work is already well under way, with a live demonstration being planned at Edition One Gallery, on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, before the end of this year. “Creating experiences for people is part of what I love to do with my art,” explains vom Dorp, “so this event, which requires a darkened space, no light, will be launched in the gallery’s back room.” The basic process, as he explains it is, “You will be able to sit on a gently vibrating bench, with a special device on your head, an EEG, that will pick up your brain waves, just thoughts, no words required. That will enable you to interact with your own brain and then see your thoughts transformed into color on a specially constructed light box.” The light box is built in the shape of a tetrahedron, and the idea is to eventually create a device that turns brain waves into music. Future possibilities can only be guessed at. “It definitely has the potential to do some cool things,” says vom Dorp, “and maybe one day I will even be able to take pictures of brain waves in sunlight.
From the Spring 2025 issue
