Hird constructs her ‘Biomythology’ – a personal narrative that lies uneasily at the intersection of biography, history and myth. As a white woman raised in the margins of post WWII colonialism, she now finds she’s a foreigner - a confused stranger in her own land. She uses past and current pop-culture icons to chart the distance between perceptions of herself in 60’s middle class America and now, four and a half decades later. Constructed from her memories, she finds her present sense of home to be an unreliable if humorously contradictory structure.
Don’t Ask Alice – Nohra Haime Gallery, NY, TBA
Embracing the stories we tell – both ancient and contemporary, fact and fiction - Hird sifts and blends those stories to create an alternative mythology in line with the origin stories of animist, agrarian societies. Using a wide range of media, Hird blends her distinctive patterns and gestures to create a unique narrative cosmology. Presented as large-scale scrolls, she describes a complex primal world inhabited only by the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. The entire series evolved to include flora, fauna and finally humans.
Fifth Day – Nohra Haime Gallery, NY, (2012) Columbia (2013)
Origination – Nohra Haime Gallery, NY, (2014) Columbia (2015)
Genesis Tree - Art Prize, Michigan, MCLA Gallery, MA (2015)
Genesis Tree NY16 - Nohra Haime Gallery, NY (2016)
Hird’s work explores cultural mythologies and the roles they play in our societal perceptions of each other. She has spent years moving across cultures listening and collecting stories. She’s fascinated by the way some tales survive and evolve to transfer easily between illusion, reality, myth and metaphor. Several bodies of work are devoted to our cyclical – and sometimes obsessive - fascination with the superhero. Historical figures mix it up with Marvel, DC, Greek and Persian heroes and heroines in their bid for iconic status.
Cycles Of Faith – Cycles Of Fiction Nohra Haime Gallery NY, (2004) DIVA, Paris, (2004) Bridge Art Fair, London, (2008)
Myths Now And Then, Nohra Haime Gallery NY (2006) FIAC (2006)
Sacred And Profane – Portsmouth Museum Of Fine Art (2010)
Hero Worship – Art Basel, Red Dot, Miami (2008)
Everybody Wants To Be A Superhero – Art Chicago (2008), Tampa Art Museum, FL (2008)
Vessel - An Exchange With Saul DeWitt, MASSMoCA (2011)
Hird, based in Amman, Jordan, explores the cultural differences among four women from Jordan, Iran, Egypt and the Palestinian West Bank and herself – an American. Each participant wrote a diary of a single day – the same day – each month for a year. Hird translated the written diaries into an extensive series of sequential drawings. The project was lightly animated and given free access on the Internet. The Maiden Voyages inspired a series of presentations, lectures and exhibitions both in the US and abroad discussing preconceptions between cultures, and the realities of daily life near the arenas of war. The project also inspired a series of pedagogical workshops exploring the diverse interpretation of image-based communication in social media
University of Jordan (2010)
Trifold: MVProject, Williamsburg Art And Historical Society, NY (2010)
Center For Book Arts, NY, NY (2013)
American University of Dubai (2014)
CTL Conference Florence Italy (2015)
Global Center for Drawing, Melbourne Australia (2014)
Digital Checkpoints, FLEEF, Sharon Lin Tay (London Curator) Dale Hudson (Abu Dhabi curator) (2011)
Hird, a Vermont native, has close creative ties to the people and countries of the Middle East and Central Asia where she has worked and traveled since the early 1970’s. For many years, Hird traveled with the semi-nomadic Turkic, Berber and Kirgiz tribes tracing the connections between their oral narratives and the patterns and symbols found in their iconic textile art.
Museum of the School of Visual Arts, NY, NY 1999 - 2001
Peter Pap Gallery, San Francisco (2000)
Visual Arts Museum At The School Of The Visual Arts (2001)
Nohra Haime Gallery, NY (2001)
From Andalusia To Kirghistan – Nohra Haime Gallery, NY (2000)