Why are all these empty boxes taking up so much space in my living room? Well, these mysterious wooden boxes are the frames for my latest body of work. I'm very excited to finally announce that I have a new art installation that will debut at this year's Gender Odyssey conference. After years of solely creating linocut prints, I'm expanding my artistic horizons with sculpture artist Flynn Bickley.
Remember making dioramas in grade school? Yeah, I loved making them back then and apparently I still love making them, this time with a wee bit more focus on the content. In other words, I still like to drive myself bonkers with the smallest of details. So many small details that you, my lovely friends will get a chance to view a total of 12 interactive dioramas! And yes, you will get to see some of my signature Darius X linocut prints, but you will also see monotype prints, felted planets, miniature stuffed life jackets, the world's tiniest vial of T, lot's of glue of every variety (but hopefully you won't actually see the glue) and just about everything and anything we could get our hands on.
We started working on this show in mid-December, right after the devastating presidential elections. When thinking about the themes and content for an audience of mostly trans and queer people and their allies, two things we knew was certain: we wanted to address safety and we didn't want to make a show about you-know-who. Instead, we wanted to focus on love, outwardly and internal love. We wanted focus on the bigger picture. We wanted to spark conversations about problem-solving and finding our own solutions to the problematic and scary political climate that we live in. We interviewed over a dozen community members to get their feedback and thoughts on matters that are important to them. In response to all of the amazing feedback, we have created quite the epic visual eye-candy that offers 12 thoughts on what we can be doing to make ourselves feel better and stronger all while remembering to care for others in need.
Where? When?
Washington State Convention Place Center 6th floor lobby
The opening reception is Friday August 25, 2017 from 6-7:30
There will be food, drinks and a book fair!
Please note that you do NOT need to be a registered conference participant to attend this event! This is free and open to the public. Please and come and invite your friends. The exhibit will only be on display during the conference, which ends Sunday August 27.
We will have some prints for sale. Some of these are very limited edition prints that we created for some of the dioramas.
And speaking of $, Flynn and I could REALLY use some financial support for the cost of our materials. I didn't feel like putting together a typical crowd-sourcing campaign since those companies often take a cut. However, for the time being we are keeping this fundraiser casual and if you'd like to support in small or large donations, we accept all kinds of digital payments. We especially need money to hire a photographer to archive our works. Thanks Loves ❤️
Darius
Square Cash: $DariusX
Venmo: @dariusXstudio
Flynn
Venmo: @Flynn-Bickley