byrd | Tattooed figure

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

ARTICLE | PROVENANCE | PREVIOUS

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




Street by Lister

Subscribe to newsletter


You can also follow developments on twitter or facebook