Darren Waterston's (born 1965, Fresno, CA) decades-long interest in representing idealized states metamorphosing into natural forms, and the reverse, has led to a hybrid practice in which the artist merges figurative and abstract styles, and allegorical and phenomenological meaning. He reanimatesseemingly anachronistic experiences—the medieval bestiary, the Victorian funeral parlor, Renaissance panel paintings—as contemporary sensory reflections on apocalypse, afterlife,and human endurance.
Darren Waterston graduated with a BFA from the Otis Art Institute in 1988, having previously studied at the Akademie der Künste and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, both in Germany. He has been exhibiting his paintings, works on paper, and installations in the U.S. and abroad since the early 1990s. Recent solo exhibition highlights include Peacock Room REMIX: Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre, The Smithsonian Institution's Freer/Sackler Galleries (2017); Architectonic Forms, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2017); Darren Waterston: New Work, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY (2016); Pavo, Inman Gallery, Houston, TX (2015); and Uncertain Beauty, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2014).
In 2007 CHARTA published a monograph on the artist, Darren Waterston: Representing the Invisible, and in 2013 Prestel published a collaboration between the artist and poet Mark Doty, A Swarm, A Flock, a Host: A Compendium of Creatures.
Waterston's paintings are included in numerous permanent collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; New York Public Library, New York City, NY; Portland Art Museum, OR; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.
Waterston lives and works in Hudson, NY.