Bio

Visual artist Dawn Watson is a long-time resident of New York’s Hudson Valley in the US. After a successful career as a professional dancer/choreographer, Watson found a new language for visual storytelling through photography. How we engage with the natural world and inhabit physical space continues to influence her work, both in her photography as well as in her poetry which has increasingly become a pivotal part of her practice. Watson’s photographic renderings continue to explore transformation through shape, space, light, and movement as she did as a performer. Current work takes form as archival digital prints and handmade artist books. Watson’s work has been widely recognized both in the US and abroad with solos shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography and The Los Angeles Center for Photography, among others. In this year’s FotoNostrum 21rd Pollux Awards, her series Alchemy and Portals were chosen as category winner and honorable mention, non-professional. In the Julia Margaret Cameron 18th and 23rd Awards her work received honorable mentions in the non-professional fine art, digital manipulation and collage categories and series winner in the Nature category. Watson is a member of an international roster of independent artists presenting work in the Salon des Beaux Arts exhibitions, excerpts from series Alchemy receiving a Bronze Medal in 2023. Juried US exhibitions include the Center for Fine Art Photography, Center for Photographic Arts, dnj Gallery and Tilt Gallery. Watson’s work has also been featured in Diffusion X Magazine, Elizabeth Avedon Journal, Lenscratch and SXSE Magazine. Her work is held in private collections and is on permanent display at The Lodge at Woodloch. Watson graduated with Honors in Dance from Skidmore College and has studied at NYC’s International Center of Photography, Maine Media College in Rockport, Maine and NORDphotography in Norway, among others. She was a member of Find Your Vision/Sandi Haber Fifield critique workshop from 2012-2022. Based in Hastings on Hudson, NY, Watson continues her long association as board member of regional environmental organization Scenic Hudson.