Because Im an Artist
BCIMANARTIST
Darian Deshawn Stewart
About My
Work
Merging materials such as beads, rhinestones, fabric, and paint together to create complex compositions full of layers. My passion draws from personal experiences within the work navigating life as a queer Black man, a father, a lover, and a free spirit. My work explores the notions of identity, the African diaspora, sexual liberation, queer navigation, HIV awareness, mental health, escapism, and the dichotomy of being black and white.
SERIES TITLE:
THE LONGEST NIGHT LASTED YEARS
A navigation through escapism and surrealism.
My experience with Mental Health.
Step Inside
The Longest Night Lasted Years
The Longest Night lasted years turns inward, positioning the mind as both refuge and battleground. I explore the weight of living alongside the complexity of escapism, centering on themes of solitude, psychological fragmentation, and the quiet negotiations required to endure when existence feels overwhelming. The work is deeply informed by inner landscapes shaped by anxiety, depression, HIV stigma, and isolation, particularly within Black and queer communities, where vulnerability is often suppressed or left unspoken. This is a journey of conquering mental health through my imagination.
Motifs
Pill Bottle
Symbolizes survival, healing, and the daily realities of mental health and HIV stigma.
Portal
Symbolizes imagination as both refuge and passage, offering a way through isolation toward transformation.
Head Wrapped in Fabric
Represents protection and concealment, reflecting unspoken vulnerability and inner struggle.
Car
Represents the desire to escape pain, loneliness, and stigma while carrying those experiences along the journey.
AMERICA
HAS A
PROBLEM
SERIES TITLE:
A navigation through the lense of being Biracial.
My experience in the South.
Step Inside America has a Problem
As a bi racial Black individual, my experience is a complex tapestry woven from threads of identity, belongings, experiences, and societal perception that becomes the future on canvas. Navigating on both sides of the white picket fence, being black and white. In a country that often reduces individuals to singular narratives, I find myself navigating a landscape that is both familiar and foreign. My artwork reflects the duality of my existence, caught between worlds, yet fully immersed in the richness and struggles of black culture. By telling my stories it reclaims space as a pivot for my community, and creates an experience for the viewer they can see themselves in.
Motifs
White Picket Fence
Represents the American dream and the boundaries that separate communities, identities, and experiences. A duality.
American Flag
Represents being engulfed in America while being Black, living within its ideals, histories, and contradictions while navigating the realities placed upon Black identity.
Car
Symbolizes movement between cultures, communities, and perceptions of identity.
Gun
Represents the realities of fear, protection, vulnerability, and survival within Black experiences.
Grill
A symbol of pride, self-expression, and the celebration of Black culture and identity.
Memories and experiences hang amongst the white picket fence. A memorial of loss. An honorable sculpture stuck in the silence of space.
Paintings turned Reality
INSTALLATION
Immersive yourself in the duality.
SERIES TITLE:
BLACK
EUPHORIA
A navigation through sexual liberation, Queer intimacy, and Black spaces.
A space of the erotic.
Step Inside Black Euphoria
This series focuses on creating an immersive experience for visitors, transporting them into the erotic worlds explored in the paintings. These figurative, constructed collage paintings that include beads, plastic, fabric, rhinestones, paper, textiles, and oil paint, are compositions of spaces informed by the trauma and bliss that arises from the erotic. The worked is engulfed by black organic framing and columns, taking over the surrounding space. The space wallows the viewer to "enter" in into the world. In these queer utopias, trauma doesn’t exist within the subjects, but rather the erotic is a source of power and pleasure.
Motifs
Staircase
A symbol of transition and transformation, the staircase represents the journey into queer spaces where pleasure, desire, and liberation replace trauma.
Grill
The grill represents adornment, confidence, and self-expression, transforming the body into a site of power and erotic agency.
Pill Bottle
The pill bottle speaks to survival, care, and the quiet rituals that allow us to keep moving forward.
Snake
The snake represents transformation. The constant shedding of old versions of ourselves to make room for something new.
Telfar Bag
The Telfar bag celebrates queer Black culture, serving as a symbol of community, aspiration, and belonging.
INSTALLATION
Immersive yourself in the erotic.