Pocket Garden

June 13 - August 23, 2026

Solo Exhibition by Ari Bird

For Ari Bird, the mundane and everyday items of our lives are the foundation for her large-scale, fantastical installations. Bird has spent her career using mass-produced materials as both medium and muse; sourcing from hardware and dollar stores to fabricate her playful sculptures. As a self-taught sculptor, Bird emphasizes process by experimenting freely with materials and techniques. Her work resists the shiny and sleek look of hyper-realism and instead leans into the bold colors, patterns, and shapes to showcase her own artistic hand at work. The results are novelties that engage our recognition, readily sparking memories while punctuating the objects’ existence through size.

In line with fellow artists who idolize the object by enlarging it, Bird expands on the existing concept by approaching it with curiosity and compassion for the objects themselves. Bird aims to explore our relationship with collecting and how the very act of collection is bound tightly with assuming an identity. Whether it be a soothing habit, a proclamation of character, or a nostalgic need, acquiring things serves us in one way or another. Bird scrutinizes the significance we place on these items, quite literally expanding our perspective and encouraging us to reflect.

In Pocket Garden, Bird imagines an immersive world of forgotten items. Her large-scale sculptures of butterfly clips and bandaids actualize those things we accumulate only to lose out of our pockets or bags. Bird builds space and attention for the trinkets, charms, and detritus that overwhelm our drawers and fill our cabinets. Her sculptural transformations acknowledge the small tokens that we leave behind, unintentional markers of our humanity and a reminder of our inherent human nature to collect.

Cover Photo from Juxtapoz magazine: https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/studio-time/in-conversation-with-oakland-based-artist-ari-bird/