February 6 – March 1, 1997
If one of the great powers of photography is the staving off of loss… of places, persons, or times, then to transcend that loss is to remain connected to the essence of something (once) lost we (now) see in those images. But what is in those images- those photographs of importance to us? What is underneath the likeness of ancestors and loved ones; what is felt or unconsciously assumed when we look at these distant specters: is there a language in this photographic form? This is the most interesting question of all. This is where my work directs me.
Each day is another enmeshed with social images. Exploring the power and impact the images has become an obsession for me. I’m constantly alert, watching for new or emerging culturally-coded messages of consumption and assimilation – major forces within our society.
Understanding the power this imagery has in determining the sum of our self-image is fundamental to my conceptual position on art itself. If art (the practice of image making) is capable of shaping so much of our social activity, then art can also have a large role in understanding and critiquing these cogent images.
Any description of the work is somewhat inexact, but it’s essentially a digital, computer-arranged collage utilizing old family photos, original photographs, newspapers clippings, physical objects (scanned and) placed onto virtual surfaces, plus literary quotes, paper tears, burns, scribbles, etc. It’s complex at times, but speaks to the representative nature of photography; its power as an image creator; a purveyor of myths; and a construct for social management.
I purposefully raise issues of darker, less sublime aspects of the photographic medium, but (also) try not to answer, too neatly or at all, the questions provoked by these issues.
Originally from Dallas, Texas Darryl Baird has a fifty-year(+) career as a photographer and educator.
His initial education was at the United States Naval School of Photography in Pensacola, Florida. He next earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Broadcast-Film Arts, from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
He worked for twenty years as a commercial, architectural, advertising, and editorial photographer. He left the commercial field for graduate school, first in a doctoral program in Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas-Dallas, later earning a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at the University of North Texas.
Darryl retired as Professor of Art (Emeritus) at the University of Michigan-Flint where he created and taught graphic design and photography programs. He led the department as chair of the Communication and Visual Arts department for a critical transition into a combined discipline.
He currently works across a wide spectrum of techniques and media, including large format with vintage portrait optics and printing with antiquarian processes, to high-resolution digital images, frequently using the same vintage optics.
His work is included in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Art in Houston Texas, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
He lives with his wife and son in Newport on the Oregon Coast.