Gallery
Representation
Darien has worked with international galleries such as Addictive Art House (Palm Beach), Graffik Gallery (London), and Kulture Cartel (Toronto & Dubai).
Artist
Collaborations
Darien has collaborated with notable artists including King Saladeen, known for his vibrant, urban-inspired iconography, Richie Billion and Mike Mozart, whose subversive takes on pop culture have earned cult status. These collaborations reflect Darien’s ability to merge diverse visual languages into his own signature style.
What are your inspirations? Or where do your ideas come from?
My work lives at the intersection of mythology and memory, fantasy and raw reality. I’ve always been drawn to the timeless power of myth, the grandeur of gods, the way their stories have echoed through thousands of years and still feel urgently relevant today. The idea that gods once walked among men has always fascinated me. Like in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, I imagine a universe where these ancient deities still linger—some reinvented for the modern world, others fading into obscurity. To me, myths aren’t just old stories; they reflect who we still are—our desires, vices, and contradictions.
But my mythology is never just classical. It’s filtered through the foggy lens of my Cuban upbringing, where reality was often laced with limits and longing. With its cracked walls and sunlit streets, Cuba taught me that beauty can bloom even in the imperfect. As a kid, I’d catch glimpses of another world: the shimmer of the American Dream, the unapologetic freedom of forbidden films, the quiet seduction of a Playboy left on someone’s table.
These fragments were never truly mine, which only made them glow brighter in my imagination.
Fantasy became my obsession, not as an escape, but as a challenge. I asked myself: What if I could reach through the screen, step into the picture, and touch the life I’d only imagined? The female figure became my muse, not just for her form, but for what she symbolized. She became a modern goddess, part Pop Art, part pin-up, painted with the boldness of Warhol and the sensuality of rebellion. In my work, glamour is subversive. Desire is divine.
Today, I paint from the tension between two worlds, the one I lived and the one I imagined. I’m not painting dreams. I’m painting the friction between what was withheld and what was worshipped. Between mythology and memory. Gods and girls. I hope the result is personal but universal, a visual mythology for those of us raised on legends, longing, and the lure of what lies just beyond reach.
“I’ve always loved Rococo for its celebration of beauty, indulgence, and fantasy. I’m drawn to how patrons cast themselves in classical myths, reimagining their lives as heroic narratives. There’s something so unapologetically grand and self-indulgent about the whole movement—and the color palettes are just incredible. ”
