Central Server Works is pleased to present our inaugural exhibition: Darius Airo Hankering for Bliss

Our first show with the artist and his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, the exhibition will be on view from August 7 - 28, 2022 at CSW Horner, a residential exhibition space in the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles.

There will be an opening reception for the artist on August 7 from 12 - 5 PM. Hankering for Bliss presents a new body of work by Chicago-based Darius Airo (b.1995, Chicago). Emerging from a period of refined studio practice, the paintings, created in 2022, act as a definitive statement in the second-generation artist’s work in oil on canvas. Airo’s practice pulls from an evolving language informed by his work in drawing, design, and murals; but the works in Hankering for Bliss, set forth a bold step forward in both composition and subject matter.

For Airo, the idea of bliss is central to his studio practice in 2022. He moved into a new studio and devoted himself to his practice as a painter full-time, after stints working as a tattoo apprentice and graphic designer. He began the year with a refreshed sense of energy and focus which in turn caused an analysis of universal ideas of the search for happiness. Creating a new body of work, equally figurative and metaphorical, Airo began to turn the subject matter of his works inward. Centering on a series of motifs (religious iconography, domestic and city spaces, and the artist/institution) relating to the idea of his own happiness, the new works alternate between universal reflections on time and place, to deep analysis of aspects of life of a young artist living and working in Chicago.

Airo’s work engages the art historical canon and paintings like Hodegetria, 2022 reference classical painterly images directly. Depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus at her side while pointing to him as the source of salvation for humankind, Airo’s version of a Hodegetria centers the image clearly as a “painting of a painting” doubling the imagery and meaning of the work as art in conversation with longstanding traditions of the depiction of the image of the Virgin Mary and Child in domestic setting as a form of spiritual guidance.

For Airo, these forms of searching, or hankering for bliss are far-reaching beyond ideas of the religious and metaphysical. 2022 entered the artist and his practice into a state of deep analysis, with his physical surroundings, Chicago to be specific, permeating throughout the work. Large-scale paintings like Backyard, 2022, and Pavement, 2022 directly reference the city environment of Chicago. Airo looks to his youth growing up in apartment buildings for an analysis of what his ideal yard would look like in Backyard, 2022 and critiques the city of Chicago through the lens of an artist who may be wary of seemingly nefarious forms of fiscal engagement in the arts in Pavement, 2022.

Darius Airo’s “Hankering for Bliss” acts as an introduction to the artist in LA during an important and prolific moment in his practice. Succinct and timely the works speak directly to the idea of hankering, the artist has no interest in a simple analysis of what a blissful life could be, he hopes to take action through the work he produces.