Darien Bird

BIO

Darien Bird was born in Massachusetts and she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University in 2011. Her work has been exhibited in Boston, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Venice, Italy.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Darien Bird’s paintings address the experience of living as a woman in a society that often denies female humanity. Her work invites the viewer to consider the boundaries and connotations associated with feminine identity and female depiction; if women are not human, what exactly are they? Using lurid color, graphic imagery and the fleshy, material properties of oil paint, Darien creates a sense of tension between physical vulnerability and emotional intensity.

Interview with Darien Bird

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? Who or what were some of your most important early influences?

I cannot recall when or how I started, but I remember that drawing was my favorite way to spend time as a child and I never stopped practicing. My grandmother was a talented visual artist, so I also grew up under the impression that my ability to draw was something special that I inherited from her. Cats were the first subject matter that I preferred, but I became fixated on drawing women as early as second grade.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this place? Are there any aspects of this specific location or community that have inspired aspects of your work?

I live on the north shore in Massachusetts, about an hour away from where I went to grade school. In the spirit of exploration, I moved to San Francisco and then New Orleans in the middle of my twenties, but I still feel most at home in New England. There are so many beautiful places along the coastline where I live and I make time to run outdoors every day, even in January. After the past two years, I am also more thankful than ever to have almost all of family nearby.

Can you describe your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it functional? Do any of these specific aspects directly affect your work?

My studio space is very small, so organization is essential. I have not worked in a conventional studio space since I graduated college, so any room or corner that is a safe distance from where I sleep has so far been functional enough.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?

My best days are active and productive early so that I can devote all of the remaining time before bed to my studio practice.

What gets you in a creative mindset?

Engaging with the creative expression of others is the most reliable source of inspiration for me, but I feel most capable of creativity when I am able to completely free my mind from distraction.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? How long have you worked with this particular media or method?

I did not try painting until college, but this is where I learned to love the material versatility of oil paint. I enjoy combining direct and indirect painting techniques, and it has always been fun for me to collect pigments and experiment with layering alkyd and oil-based mediums. I also love the sensory experience of drawing and scribbling, so I have been working with crayon and colored pencil more and more often.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How long has this approach been a part of your practice?

When I am not painting, I have always spent a lot of time taking notes, brainstorming, sketching and collecting reference material. I usually develop a clear sense of concept and composition before I begin a painting, but I do my best to stay open to revision throughout the process. It often takes dozens of hours-long sessions to complete each piece, so there are many opportunities for reconsideration. I also have an ADHD diagnosis, so it has always been very helpful for me to set up my workspace thoroughly before I make any marks. Mixing paint can be very time-consuming and challenging for me, so I almost always build a robust color palette at the outset of each session.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

Painting is a way for me to express curiosity about the cultural dominance of male interpretation and the persistent influence of male emotion over female representation. With this in mind, I gather reference material from bedroom posters, magazine covers, mainstream lyrics written by men about women, internet porn, vintage porn, video games, 3D character design, advertisements from every decade, social media content, female characters in film and television, stock photos, music videos, passages about women in novels authored by men, and paintings of women created by male artists. Using these resources, I try to create a sense of visual tension between sensuality and discomfort, vulnerability and aggression, dreaminess and distortion.

In the visual depictions of women by men, there is an unmistakable repetition of certain gestures, angles, positions, expressions and activities. When I imagine the faces and bodies of men featured in a similar way, I am struck by the extreme disparity between these two categories of representation and I feel antagonized by the circumstances that sustain its endurance. From childhood onward, women are repeatedly reminded to measure themselves against these images as a way to determine their societal value, their safety, and their social acceptance. Because men are responsible for the tenets of female representation, however, they may use the same metric to degrade the women they desire; If you wish to obtain something out of reach, you might increase your chances of acquisition by trying to diminish its value.

From this perspective, the sexual desirability of women is something that is taken away from men and wielded against them. Instead of achieving more safety or acceptance, then, women are just as often subjected to resentment, liability, and punishment from men for trying to emulate the depictions of women that were deemed valuable by men in the first place. If this sort of contradiction was not to blame for so many serious problems - like the staggering rates of male violence against women - I would be amused by its stupidity.

More than anything else, I cannot help but notice how the representation of women by men obfuscates the simple reality that men and women are equally human. For this reason, women may still be denied the three-dimensionality granted to men, who are much more likely to be understood and valued for their actions and their decisions. As a woman, painting provides a natural outlet for the anger and revulsion that I carry because of men who have violated me, people I love, and so many others due to these maddening conditions. With this in mind, I hope to express some of the visceral sensations of womanhood under male surveillance.

When male emotion eclipses female humanity, delusion may take the place of reason. As a painter, I am interested in the breadth and the visibility of these delusions today, especially with regard to the denial of female humanity and the interpretation of female nudity. More specifically, I would like for my paintings to reflect the absurdity of male fantasy and challenge the presumptions about women and their naked bodies that linger only to accommodate men. Going forward, I hope that the development of my work might encourage others to become more curious about images of women as well as other problematic forms of representation and their origins.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?

I have been working mainly in restaurants for more than ten years and I started pursuing a sommelier certification at the beginning of 2020 with ongoing delays. Over time, the flexibility of my schedule in this industry allowed me to paint somewhat regularly and explore additional part-time work in galleries and a few startup companies. To be completely honest, however, it has always been clear that the viability of my studio practice hinges entirely on how much time and energy I can commit to my art. Supporting myself with full-time labor has been nothing but disruptive to my development as an artist and I anticipate that maintaining financial stability will continue to be the most significant challenge that I face on this path.

As a result of the pandemic, many artists have experienced limited access to their studios or loss of exhibitions, income, or other opportunities. Has your way of working (or not working) shifted significantly during this time? Are there unexpected insights or particular challenges you’ve experienced?

Living through this pandemic compelled me to reconsider my values and make the significant changes necessary to recenter my life around painting. About a year ago, I moved in with my parents so that I could begin working part-time and spending more hours in the studio than has ever been historically possible for me. In just one year of painting full-time, I have made more meaningful progress as an artist than I ever did trying to paint between shifts for over ten years. If my working conditions had not become so much more punishing like they did in 2020, I might not have developed the resolve it took for me to consider living with my parents. To be fair, I imagine that they might say something similar about their decision to allow me into their home. So many artists are unable make enough money to support themselves while sustaining a studio practice, and I understand how fortunate I am for ongoing access to my parent’s basement.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

I am always grateful to find a movie that I can connect to my painting practice. Some of my recent and all-time favorites are, Elle, Promising Young Woman, Sorry to Bother You, Midsommar, The Lobster, Lorena, Teeth, and Secretary. I read less often than I would like to admit, but there are a handful of books that I still reread and refer to in my work; Jia Tolentino’s essays about marriage, contemporary feminism, and ideal womanhood in Trick Mirror, All of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels and Rebecca Solnit’s essays about female credibility and violence against women in Men Explain Things to Me have all encouraged me to think critically about my experience as a woman. I also love watching and any and all of Natalie Wynn’s video essays because it is so satisfying to hear a much-smarter person explain challenging material, especially with intricate topics like gender and sexuality.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?

There are so many artists making exceptionally beautiful and awe-inspiring work today, so it is difficult to choose. Marlene Dumas was my very first favorite painter, and I still find myself looking most to other women artists like Sasha Gordon, Haley Josephs, Robin F. Williams, Elizabeth Glaessner, Shona McAndrew, Danielle Mckinney, Emma Stern, Ana Benaroya, Genieve Figgis, and Anna Mond. I visited New York only once since the pandemic began, but I was lucky to catch “The Interior,” at Venus Over Manhattan this past summer.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?

In 2010, I spent a summer at a student residency for painting. During one of the final group critiques, a male visiting artist warned me that - as a woman painting women - I present myself as a “spokesperson,” for women and that I should therefore be very careful of the messages my paintings send. Later that evening, I shared this criticism with Carole Robb, who was another visiting artist that summer. She encouraged me to question this type of gender-related feedback from men and asked me if anyone had said anything similar to the male students painting men. I still think about this conversation very often because when the comment about my depiction of women was made, I immediately felt contemplative and ashamed of my paintings; if she had not offered her skepticism, it would have never occurred to me that this man’s criticism was sexist or even problematic in any way. More than ten years later, I can recall so many other academic, professional, and social experiences that were influenced by cultural misogyny and the accommodation of male emotion. These issues are central to my work today, so I will always be grateful to Carole for encouraging me to be more curious about the way men regard women.

What are you working on in the studio right now? What’s coming up next for you?

I just finished a painting of two ghosts riding a horse, and I am deciding between tennis players and roller skaters next.

Anything else you would like to share?

At 32, I am just getting started!