Haley Darya Parsa

BIO

Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1996, Haley Darya Parsa received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin before moving to Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives and works.  In 2020, the artist’s work was the subject of two solo exhibitions at Third Room Project, "Haley Darya Parsa: The sun leaves me to find you" in Portland, OR, and "Haley Darya Parsa: Sharing Suns" online. In 2019, a solo presentation of the artist’s work, "Haley Darya Parsa: What is Lost in Distance and Separation", curated by Carlotta Wald, was on view at Winterfeldtstr 56 in Berlin, Germany. Parsa attended the New York Arts Practicum in 2017, is the 2016 recipient of the University of Texas System Regents' Outstanding Student Awards in Arts and Humanities, and is the 2016 recipient of the Marshall F. Wells Scholarship and Fellowship Endowment to attend the Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI.

STATEMENT

Haley Darya Parsa works in a variety of mediums, engaging in painting, drawing, fabric-dyeing, cyanotypes, print, and sculpture. Parsa investigates the ways in which images, objects, and rituals embedded in personal histories can relate to a larger cultural context. Having grown up in Texas as Iranian and American, she places her family and Persian heritage under an intimate meditative lens, reflecting on ideas of distance, separation, and connection. Her work is both sentimental and critical, thinking about how we read, identify, and value things.

Interview with Haley Darya Parsa

Written by Andreana Donahue

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? What were some early influences?

I grew up in Texas in an Iranian-American household. I see my first introduction to art in the Persian rugs in my childhood home, which are now a significant inspiration and element in my art. I also took with me the Southern landscape and heat, as I use botanical elements and the sun as materials in my workflow.

I went to an arts magnet high school in Dallas, Texas (Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts) which gave me an early and amazing perspective into art during a very informative time. No one in my family knew that I was artistic in any way but I privately made a portfolio to apply and I got in, and that started everything for me.

From there, I went to the University of Texas at Austin as a painter to study art (and business–that’s another story). I was obsessed with David Lynch and how he is both a filmmaker and a painter, and I couldn’t understand how his paintings and films felt the same but was amazed and wanted to figure out how to do it too.

My next big inspiration was Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who I learned about during college from a professor who previously taught her. That really opened up my mind to the possibilities of print, painting, and collage, especially in the context of personal storytelling.

I ended up moving between painting, filmmaking, printmaking, sculpture, and textiles, back to painting, and I left doing a combination of all of those, and that’s where I’m at now.

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

I’m based in Brooklyn. I moved here after college to be connected to a bigger arts community. My mom lived in New York before having me too, so I always had a dream of coming here. All of my high school friends were here before me, so I visited often and romanticized New York as being somewhat of a utopia for art. Of course being here now, I know it’s not as simple as that, but it was still the right move for me. I feel inspired and engaged here, and at the same time it can be overwhelming and exhausting trying to keep up.

I have a tiny home studio here. It has limited me in terms of scale and medium but it has also made me work within those limitations and get creative. I turned from oil to acrylic, traditional printmaking to cyanotypes, and I make more fabrics and less sculptures. I work in so many different mediums that these limitations have pushed me to pair down with a deep and thorough focus.

Can you tell us about your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it workable for you?

My official studio space is a corner in my apartment, but I also consider the outside to be my extended studio because I need sunlight to make cyanotypes and open air to dye fabrics. I’ve adapted to being more mobile, I even make cyanotypes on my windowsill and balcony.

I like being surrounded by my art because I’m constantly looking and noticing new things and getting new ideas even when I’m not in studio mode.

What is a typical day like?

My week and my weekends look different. I have a full-time job throughout the week that shapes the majority of my schedule, so evenings and weekends are when I get to make art, see shows, and be social. I see live music regularly and watch a lot of reality TV too.

What gets you in a creative groove? What puts a damper on your groove?

I like putting on music, podcasts, or TV. It’s supposed to be in my background periphery, but sometimes I get too distracted and way too into it so I have to switch back to a chiller vibe. Teen Age Riot by Sonic Youth is my go-to for that. Somehow that song always recenters my focus.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? Do you prefer to maintain a narrow focus or work across diverse media? How do you navigate the limitations and possibilities that result from this path?

I let the materials guide what I do. Some of what I do is intuitive, and some projects take weeks and months of meditating on an idea, so I’m constantly switching between mediums. If I’m painting, I will narrow my attention to that one canvas from start to finish. The fabrics and cyanotypes are a lot more fluid, as I’m able to create more quickly and, at times, multiple works at once.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How would you describe your approach to manipulating materials? What about decision-making and editing?

I would say I have two different modes of working:

My cyanotypes and fabrics are really intuitive and on-the-fly. Of course a certain amount of planning is involved to prep the materials and set up, also considering that the processes are time-sensitive and dependent on the sunlight, but there’s still a considerable level of control that I willingly give up and give into. Those are the magic moments. And then they really come together and feel complete when I can assemble and install them altogether in a space. Sometimes they are stored in sections, and I’m just waiting for the moment to see how they interact alongside each other in full context.

My paintings, prints, and painting-print combinations are much more methodical and calculated. I will usually outline the general composition, pulling my own personal photos and archive into a digital collage. I paint each next decision that I’m sure of until it’s all built out, adding and adjusting objects and patterns along the way. The little imperfections, deviations, and add-ons become the really special moments. My painting style is already tight and careful, so most of the improvisation happens when I get impatient in the planning phase.

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?

I keep coming back to rugs, and patterns inherently follow – whether that’s using real fibers or depictions of textiles through painted or printed imagery. Handmade carpets amaze me. I think of lineage, legacy, family, and what connects us to our ancestors throughout time and history. In recent years I’ve gravitated towards using actual fabric, and I’d like to continue on that path and get more technical and see what else I can learn and do with it.

More recently, in relation to my cyanotypes, I have been thinking about the sun conceptually and poetically. As I’m in the U.S. and much of my family is in Iran, the sun is comforting as it represents a point of connection as it travels back and forth between us. It becomes a border-crossing mechanism, encompassing both distance and connection, bringing out ideas of family, separation, immigration, and even global warming.

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’m also the Communications Coordinator at David Zwirner. Most of my day is spent monitoring and reading press on our gallery and artists and general art world news. So I would say constantly consuming all of these materials adds to my knowledge and perspective, especially how I contextualize my own art and practice. Seeing the art world on such a large scale is something I never had access to before.

On the other hand, it’s difficult having two identities in the art world, being on both the admin side and the artist side. I never know how to introduce myself.

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?

I was very fortunate to have kept my job and income throughout the pandemic. Working remotely, I’ve been able to make more often and not be tied down to one spot. My studio itself hasn’t changed but I’ve become more mobile in utilizing different spaces.

I had a solo exhibition planned for Spring of 2020 at Third Room in Portland, OR which was postponed due to the pandemic. I went back to Texas to spend time with my family and ended up making a lot of art there. Third Room hosted an online solo exhibition, Sharing Suns, to display these new works installed where they were created in Dallas. We then held the original planned physical exhibition, The sun leaves me to find you, in Portland later that year and I was able to show an additional series of all-new works. So in the end I put together two solos, along with a small related publication, which was amazing and unexpected.

In a time that seems to be marked by uncertainty, collective anxiety, and increasing social unrest, why do you think the perspectives and contributions of artists remain meaningful? Do you feel a natural relationship exists between your work (or the role artists play more broadly) and confronting established systems—of power, cultural institutions, or otherwise?

Art is so powerful in that it can provide context and commentary to outline the present moment, and it can connect us to each other across history. It can also imagine possible futures.

I thought about this a lot while forming Sharing Suns for Third Room. Specifically about how the word “sharing” implies active, thoughtful participation. We all share the same planet and resources and need to be united in caring for it–environmentally, geopolitically, socially, culturally, and in terms of borders and immigration–rather than prioritizing wars tied to capitalism and racism.

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

A few come to mind. Rachel Whiteread and Heidi Bucher were transformative for me, seeing the way that they both use architectural fragments to talk about absence, presence, individual experience, and collective memory.

Another artwork that comes to mind is Derek Jarman’s film, Blue, which was created at the end of his life. It is one of the most powerful, poetic, heartbreaking works I’ve ever seen, and I’m still processing it.

I have more general historical influences too. I love reading about the history of Persian rugs and researching the significance of certain symbology and colors. I look to ancient Middle Eastern art, calligraphy, and architecture too, which is some of the most amazing art in history in my opinion.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory?

A big highlight for me was God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin, curated by Hilton Als, at David Zwirner in New York in 2019. That show brought it all together in so many ways. It was a moving tribute to Baldwin and at the same time deeply personal to Als.

A few other artists I’ve been admiring and following are Lakela Brown, Michael Rakowitz, Eric N. Mack, Becky Suss, Vivan Suter, Noah Davis, Shirin Neshat, and Kerry James Marshall. There’s so many more.

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

Tune into Kenya (Robinson)’s Instagram lives.

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

I’m a featured artist in the 22nd issue of Art Maze Magazine, which just came out in print this month and I’m really excited about. I’m focusing on my studio practice, getting more and more into cyanotypes and fabric-dyeing techniques, and specifically looking to incorporate more natural dyes and flowers into the dyeing process.

I really want to learn how to make a rug!

To find out more about Haley Darya Parsa check out her Instagram and website.