VISUAL

FALL 2026

Michael Dax Iacovone

 
 

All images from A Circle Made by Walking.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There is an overwhelming corporeal sense of scale that can be felt when standing in the desert, miles from civilization. I have been going to the desert in Nevada and Utah each summer for the past ten years to work in the landscapes, and document my interventions in those spaces.

 
 
 
 
 

I spend months looking at maps, drawing diagrams, and creating formulas to create a work specific to a space, and time.  The idea, the planning, and the formula lead me to a performance of labor that takes place in solitude.  Each drawing takes six to ten days to create.  

 
 
 
 
 

To create these lines, I use a handheld garden tiller to break through the salty crust revealing the darker earth underneath in the Bonneville Salt Flats on the Nevada Utah border. The lines are temporary, and disappear within a few weeks of drawing them. To document the labor I use a drone to capture photos and video as artifacts of an intervention. I am hopeful that those documents will draw attention not only to my process and intervention, but also into the fragile beauty of the landscape. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Michael Dax Iacovone

Michael spends his time walking through cities, driving across bridges, and digging in the desert.  He has a BS in Photography from the State University of New York, an MI in Contemporary Art History from Middlesex University in London, an MFA in Photography from VCU, and an MFA in Studio Art from MICA.  His work has been exhibited internationally in Sarajevo Bosnia, Belgrade Serbia, Warsaw Poland, Budapest Hungary, Jeddah Saudi Arabia, London England and Pyramiden (a soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle).  Domestically he has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St.Louis, Orlando, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Washington DC.  www.mikedax.com | Instagram: @mikedax