Darien Bird
Painting is a way for me to criticize the cultural dominance of male interpretation and the persistent influence of male emotion over female representation. I gather reference material from posters, magazines, lyrics, porn, video games, advertisements, literature, film, television, stock photos, music videos, and paintings of women created by male artists. Using these resources to compose my own images of women, I try to create tension between sensuality and discomfort, vulnerability and aggression, dreaminess and distortion.
Leveraging an ancient and ongoing authority over every sociopolitical hierarchy in human history, men have easily installed pervasive conventions that favor male interests and rationalize male behavior at the routine expense of women. Unsurprisingly, mainstream portrayals of female identity and experience have most often fallen under the same jurisdiction. As a woman, I cannot help but notice how frequently these examples of representation obfuscate 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 decisions.
In the visual depictions of women by men, there is an unmistakable pattern 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 today. From childhood onward, women are repeatedly reminded to measure themselves against these images as a way to determine their value, their safety, and their social acceptance. Because men are responsible for the tenets of female representation, however, they may apply the same metric to degrade women regardless.
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 now, especially with regard to the denial of female humanity and the interpretation of female nudity. In terms of personal experience, painting also allows me to convey some of the visceral sensations of womanhood under incessant male surveillance. Altogether, I want to emphasize the absurdity of male fantasy and challenge any presumptions about women and our naked bodies that linger only to accommodate men.
Darien Bird is a painter working in Boston, Massachusetts.
