LUMINOUS VISIONS: DORA SOMOSI

LUMINOUS VISIONS: DORA SOMOSI by Galina KurlatJuly 14, 2025

This week on Lenscratch, we look at a selection of artists creatively engaging with analog photographic processes within their practice.

Dora Somosi’s series By Her Side and Mending bear witness to the invisible connections between landscape, self, and the lives of historical women. Through meticulous research, Somosi photographs locations where these women once lived, focusing on trees that would have been alive during their lifetimes. This approach creates a tangible link to the female artists, writers, and thinkers who inspire her—allowing viewers to see what they saw, to breathe the air they once breathed. Her work reclaims and honors a history of women so often overlooked in the collective legacy of great thinkers.

In Mending, Somosi draws on her Hungarian heritage and the traditions of women’s handwork to upcycle and repair otherwise discarded cyanotypes. She reimagines each piece, thoughtfully transforming it with threads dyed from materials gathered directly from the land. These natural pigments stand in contrast to the deep blues of the cyanotypes, reinforcing the conceptual throughline that binds us to these remarkable women. What does it mean to mend—as an act of creation? By stitching into these works using traditional methods, Somosi slows down time, turning repair into reverence.

Instagram: @dorasomosiphotography

Upcoming: By Her Side book is on sale here

Feb 2026 By Her Side and Mending series Solo Show, Gilman Contemporary

https://www.gilmancontemporary.com/artists/92-dora-somosi/

Dora Somosi is a Hungarian-American lens-based artist living and working in Brooklyn and Upstate New York. Her work has been shown at Gilman Contemporary, Klompching Gallery, The Sarah Shepard Gallery, Carrie Haddad Gallery, the International Center of Photography (ICP), Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Penumbra Foundation, Bolinas Art Museum, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Kraushaar1885 Gallery, NeueHouse, and BRIC Arts. Her photographs have been published in The Atlantic, Taschen, Cultured Magazine, Architectural Digest, and The New York Times. Somosi has been accepted into residencies at Kala Arts, Penland School of Craft, Poco a Poco, Grand Marais Artist Colony, Anderson Ranch, and Trillium Arts. Her works are included in the collections of notable collectors and interior designers in New York and Los Angeles, including Trustees of the Brooklyn Museum, BRIC Arts, and the Brooklyn International Studio and Curatorial Program.

Somosi has received awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), the Society of Publication Designers (SPD), American Photography, Photo District News, and the Art Directors Club for her work as Director of Photography at Condé Nast and Hearst Publications (2004–2014), as well as an Emmy nomination for short-form video content. She has collaborated with leading editorial photographers and lectured at the International Center of Photography, the School of Visual Arts, MassArt, Collegiate, and Packer. She has served as Vice President of the Society of Publication Designers, Visuals Director for Tatter, and Secretary of the Board of Directors for the W. Eugene Smith Fund. She consults buyers on emerging artists and has curated exhibitions under the curatorial program Second Nature.

I am a lens-based artist whose practice is rooted in the landscape—not as a passive backdrop, but as an active collaborator. My cyanotype series By Her Side began with a question: how do we live in the landscape, and what can we learn from the women who were profoundly shaped by it? I traveled to the homes and workspaces of historical female artists, writers, and thinkers who have influenced my creative life, photographing trees near each site. I carefully researched each tree, selecting one that would have been alive during the woman’s lifetime—an arboreal witness to her presence. These deep blue cyanotypes function as portraits by proxy, marking what I learned and inviting reflection on how we shape and preserve both our perspectives and our environments.

That series culminated in a limited-edition artist book I recently published titled, By Her Side. My current body of work, Mending, continues this exploration with a shift inward. This collection centers on the concept of upcycling, transforming imperfect cyanotypes into new compositions through double exposures and hand-dyed embroidery. Drawing inspiration from the Japanese art of kintsugi, these works celebrate the beauty of repair and reinvention. Each piece undergoes careful transformation, with threads dyed from materials sourced directly from the land—madder root, acorn, walnut, mushroom, and marigold. These natural pigments highlight areas of the print and invite us to consider what we carry, what we inherit, and what we can choose to mend.

The process is slow, intuitive, and deeply physical. Threads trace not only landscapes but also personal memories embedded within them. Drawing from my heritage, I look to the Hungarian folk traditions of women’s hand work while grounding the work in contemporary questions about embodied women’s craft.

In both series, I turn to historical photographic processes—not out of nostalgia, but to slow time and allow materials to hold meaning. Yet my work is only made possible by the tools of contemporary digital photography. This interplay between past and present is what excites me most: pushing the boundaries of what photography can be, both as a material practice and as an evolving art form.