Mandy Darrington

Mandy Darrington is an artist and writer from Boise, Idaho. Working primarily in printmaking and drawing, her practice involves themes of ecofeminism, land management, and a study of savage girlhood and the feral feminine. With dirt and organic materials hand collected from Western roadsides, mountaintops, and burn scars, her work directly addresses issues in land use and the complicated morality of managed ecological spaces. 
Using tropes and archetypal characters like coyotes, fences, and hares from her own undomesticated childhood in the mountains, her work explores intersections between girlhood and land management practices like prescribed burns and reintroduction of predators into damaged ecosystems. She asks questions of human impact on natural (read: non-human) spaces through acts like large-scale agriculture, commercial land development, and the tourist industry. Her practice relies on time being equally split between working inside the studio and being outside with her boots on the ground foraging for pine needles, natural pigments, and memories. She finds having her hands covered with dirt is as important as them being covered in ink.

Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions including Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences (Lovelace, NJ) and the Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy). She is currently an MFA Candidate at The Ohio State University.