Of oxidized metals, lined plants and botanical inks and colorants, Cyrah Dardas derives colors and textures from materials found in the earth. The artist is located in Detroit and reflects the juxtap positions of her surrounding landscape in paintings on cotton paper, in which people made and organic materials in works are resulated from Persian tapestries.
In abstract compositions that occur to Georgia O’Keffe’s sensual flower shapes or the symbol -rich paintings of Hilma, clint compared to the spiritual movement, collages paper painted with handmade watercolors and quilts textiles with hand -painted factories.
“In recent years I have thought a lot about hearing and trying to understand it through a more loving relationship to place,” she tells Colossal. “All my work as an artist flows from this search.”
Dardas uses the language of abstraction to explore the human psyche and “patterns, behavior, shapes, colors and movements that I see in the living world,” she says. Recently she considers the impact of people who, as an increasingly, consider separate from both nature and each other, at the same time no empathy or respect for how it will influence others.
“In my practice, I wonder, I might be able to promote a certain degree of reciprocity with all – or all – of the many elements and beings that have brought me here and have taken care of me?” Says Dardas. “To do that, I know that at least I have to find one way to connect differently than the models that modernity offers us. Art is for that my portal, a different type of connection. “
Dardas calls old, ancestral ways to be in the world by consciously connecting with its natural environment. It honors ecosystems and relationships that are naturally cooperative, nourishing and supportive, and draws contrasts between processes that it regards as extractive, such as capitalism, patriarchal attitudes or too much dependence on technology. She uses locally available materials and relies on analogue techniques to prepare and process them.
Dardas describes itself as a ‘queer, eco-romantic artist and care provider’, Dardas investigates the nuances of mutual dependence, growth and life cycles. Much of her recent work is a reflection of her own pregnancy, because she is currently in the “volatile baby phase” of new parenting. She says:
I became curious about other beings who swell and gap to create life – all plant bodies of water that hold, nourish and cherish seeds. I wanted to mirror them, thinking of myself like a gourd, a seed pod, a fruit. Just like the many facets and expressions of queernness, I felt that the experience of pregnancy was enormous and wonderfully indisputable, and I wanted to translate that feeling or reflection into something visual.
Dardas’ work can be seen in the group exhibition Warp and Weft: Technologies within TextilePresented by Library Street Collective At the shepherd in Detroit, which continues until 3 May. Find more about her website And Instagram.
