Valerie Hird (March 20-June 13, 2027)

Limric/Parmelee Gallery

SET PIECE by Valerie Hird

Storytelling is at the heart of Valerie Hird’s work. Using classic literature, stories familiar to many, and invented narratives drawing on traditional folklore, fairy tales, and her own life, Hird’s multi-disciplinary work suggests interpretation is never singular or static, but multiple, embracing past assumptions, present perspectives, and future speculations. Her work explores stories as shapeshifters, weaving in and out of time and context to change and evolve informing generation after generation.

SET PIECE traces the relationship between process and play in three animated films by Valerie
Hird: What DID Happen to Alice?, Hird’s life in 4 acts; The Cost of Believing by Paul Brill: a hybrid musical; and FLUX, a fable made in collaboration with Kenyan performance poet, Aleya Kassam.

Hird uses the moving image as a container to hold multiple disciplines: painting, sculpture, and book forms. She explores storytelling by combining material from the places she’s been and the stories she’s heard into her process. This immersive approach highlights her use of paper mechanics and theatrical lighting as primary tools when developing her hand-painted 3D sets and characters. Viewers can watch how they are re-envisioned in the computer to create the type of hybrid animation for which Hird is known.

*Image: the Girl with the Pure Unclouded Brow