byrd
 

Tattooed figure 2010
stencil, drawing
sheet 204.0 (h) x 85.0 (w) cm
Acquired with the support of Calypso Mary Efkarpidis, 2010
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2010.509
© byrd

Byrd (aka Dan Maginnity) is a local Canberra artist. His work is inspired by a wide range of sources: from fairytales and comic books, to the work of canonical artist Egon Schiele, and the Post Modernist aesthetics of appropriation.

The faerie is a recurring image in Byrd’s oeuvre that began as a stencil made from drawings inspired by comic book characters. The menacing lizard-like creatures that result subvert our notion of the faerie as a benevolent being. “Who says faeries need to be naked girls?” asks Byrd, “…there’s plenty of stories about faeries being/doing no good.”

Byrd has a particular interest in the production of stickers as artworks that exist as multiples. He creates hand-made recycled stickers by “grabbing whatever stickers I can find (mostly music and community groups) and resurfacing them”. These stickers are then pasted up and his creations enter a loop of production, distribution and discovery between the creator and the viewer/receiver. This collection represents a broad cross-section of Byrd’s stickers, and includes examples of both text and image based work.

The waif-like Tattooed figure is derived from the emaciated bodies painted and drawn by Expressionist Egon Schiele. Byrd brands the figure with images of mortality, the skull and skeleton, perhaps drawing a parallel between the vulnerability of Schiele’s figures and the impermanence of his own street based art.

Emilie Owens