Dion Ogust

Artist Statement

DION OGUST worked in film, animation and photography in New York City before moving to Woodstock in the 1990s where she established her freelance photography and photojournalism career. Her award winning photography has appeared in international and regional publications such as The New York Times, Time Magazine, Corriera della Sera and others. She has exhibited her work at the Kleinert Gallery, The Woodstock Framing Gallery, The Wired Gallery and the Woodstock School of Art, among others. Active in the arts community in Woodstock, Dion began studying drawing, printmaking and painting and joined the advisory board of the Woodstock School of Art. Her paintings and printmaking express a liberation of color and space that defy a linear world. Here we find her vibrant exploration of the rural landscape that surrounds her in Ulster County, of barns and mountains that thrum with energy, both kinetic and contained. We become beneficiaries of her travels and her imagination, as witnessed in her triptych portrayal of a rich red mountain in South Africa.                  Dion sees art as a way of connecting and nurturing us in challenging times. “If Art is absent, we feel it. We may not be conscious of its lack, but even a small jolt of color in a grey world can awaken our minds, clear vision, and feed us energy and beauty…It reminds us that there is beauty and beauty is love and that indeed, beauty can save the world.”