DARLA TEAGARDEN: Altars

Altars is a collection of 13 prolific years of original image-making and is an extraordinary testament to the inventiveness and persistence of Darla Teagarden. At a time of acute difficulty in her life and drawing from her innate instinct for survival, the work within Altars describes both catharsis and a sense of place. Clearing a small space in her bedroom, Teagarden began building small theatrical vignettes from wood, paper, and plaster for images that also include handpicked vintage props, clothing, and hand drawn backgrounds. It is this same space, rebuilt and reimagined many times over, in which most of her images were created.

There is a story embedded in each of the profusely presented works in Altars, and it is the shape-shifting Teagarden herself that is most often the subject, merging fable and personal experience in her distinctly innovative and surreal self-portraits. Also peppered throughout are her whimsical portraits of visual artists, musicians, and performers. Rounding out the volume are her collages, or “storyboards,” that act as the basis for many of her images, and are published here for the first time.

Darla Teagarden’s Altars serves as a source of inspiration, wonder, mystery, and beauty to fellow artists and audience alike.

PRESS:

The Austin Chronicle

BUST Magazine (Spring 2022)

“[Darla Teagarden] is constantly changing roles, yet is always recognizable, a shape-shifter. The poet as a visual storyteller, her camera as a third eye.” —Jess Schnabel Horkey, from the foreword in Altars

“Profoundly resonant for those among us who view the world through a splinter of enchantment, Darla Teagarden’s surreal photographic narratives walk a tremulous line between fable and reality. These feverish visions are deeply imbued with fragile secrets, intense emotion, and an eerie sense of urgency—an otherworldly plucking at the senses, to whom for those attuned to the delights and delicate distortions of these works, feels like finally being called home.” —S. Elizabeth, Writer

“Darla tells magical stories, creating poetic collages that pull you in deeper and deeper until you think you understand, then enchantment pulls you further in.” —Chelsea Wolfe, Musician

“With Altars, Darla Teagarden has opened a portal into a beautiful and frightening world, one that she has willed into existence through a force that seems not of this time or place.” —Dan Winters, Photographer and filmmaker

“I love her art, her mind, and her bravery.” —Exene Cervenka, Musician and writer

“Control is one descriptor. Experimental precision is the other, and that is what truly defines Teagarden's work. Call her the pagan Cindy Sherman: Like the internationally revered self-portraitist, she is often her own muse and model, but her photography is gothic and fantastical, baroque and intricate, enigmatic and instinctual, playful and morbid.” —Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle

“Darla’s work brings together pained darkness and storybook wonder. There is a hypnotic quality to it. [When looking at her photographs] I feel transported into another time filled with ghosts and magical creatures.” —Bill Crisafi, Illustrator, sculptor and photographer

DARLA TEAGARDEN is a self-taught artist and mixed media photographer living and working in Austin, Texas. She has previously worked as a stylist, make-up artist, historical cabaret dancer, production designer, vintage clothing buyer, and model. Beginning in 2007, Teagarden applied these cumulative and abundant skills toward the medium of photography, creating portraits (most often self-portraits, either faceless or in-character) in small theatrical vignettes handcrafted out of wood, paper, chalk, and plaster. The act of making these narrative photographs express common experience and unity, and act as Teagarden's personal means of communication, protection, ritual, and formulating a sense of place. Her widely celebrated work has been exhibited in galleries including Roq La Rue (Seattle), Last Rites (NYC), and The Convent (Philadelphia) and published in magazines and books including Black Forest (Candela Books, 2014) and Series of Dreams (Skeleton Key Press, 2018). Altars is her first monograph.

JESS SCHNABEL HORKEY is the founder of Blood Milk, a Philadelphia based handmade jewelry design company. With an academic background in literature and writing, her creations are imbued with personal tales, historical contexts such as the Victorian Spiritualist movement and mythological references, mostly all of which surround the dark romanticism that the question of death often carries with it.

Published by Skeleton Key Press, January 2022
ISBN 978-82-692410-1-3
19 x 25 cm (7.5 x 9.8 in)
Hardcover, 160 pages, 104 b&w and color plates
Edited by Russell Joslin
Book design by Russell Joslin
Foreword by Jess Schnabel Horkey
Text in English