Desirée is a 25 year old artist living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Ever since she was a small child she has possessed the ability to experience beauty and wonder even in the most unusual and inconspicuous places. This proclivity in turn kindled a desire within her to create things which evoke a sense of beauty and wonder. Art was the means to this end; it captured her from a very young age and has yet to release her from its hold. Art was her main pursuit through her primary and secondary education, and she later attended Tyler School of Art for where she majored in Graphic & Interactive Design with a special focus on Illustration.

After experimenting with many media throughout the years, her current favored combination includes Prismacolor brand colored pencils, watercolor, sumi ink, and acrylic paint on toned paper. She also creates her own unique line of jewelry, leatherwork, and artisan craft items under the company name Phée Adornments.

In addition to visual art, Desirée also plays the Celtic harp, Native American style flute, and various other folk instruments. She has also been studying the art of bellydance both in its Cabaret and Improvisational Tribal forms. She frankly admits to being an amateur in both departments of music and dance, but as with visual art she is always seeking to learn and improve.

To date her work has been featured on the Endicott Studio of Mythic Arts Blog, in the online poetry journal Goblin Fruit, within Epilogue’s New Masters of Fantasy volume III collection, and in international magazines Pentacle and SageWoman. Desiree’s pieces have also graced the covers of If...A Journal of Spiritual Exploration, PaganNet News, and the GypsyRose catalog. Her artwork also appears on the cover of Harp, Pipe, and Symphony, a book by Paul DiFilippo published by WildSide Press. In addition, she has three pieces included in Gothic Art Now, a compilation of darkly elegant artwork, published in the US by HarperCollins and in the UK by Ilex Press.

Desirée was born at a very liminal time: on the cusp transitioning from summer to autumn, in the twilight just before dawn, when the moon was on the verge of fullness. Perhaps this predisposed her be drawn to those things which hover on the edges of perception between the present and the timeless Otherworld.

Her lifelong interest in folklore, mythology, symbolism, and Nature have greatly influenced both the style and subjects of her work as well as providing a deeper context for her art practice. She has a particular passion for mythopoetic portraiture wherein she seeks to capture the muses of Faery, often translating their presence into theriomorphic figures. Interfacing between man and Nature, the creatures often appear to her as if on some intermediary point on that fluid shamanic continuum between human and animal, human and plant, human and representative pattern. Endeavoring to capture elusive, prismatic likenesses of equally elusive figures, she seeks traces of their presence in mythology, legend, poetry, her own intuition, and in the very landscape itself, hoping to discover some iridescent residue or threadbare tapestry with which to make contact.

Desirée's artwork also possesses something of its own dark aesthetic - there are threads of melancholy, sorrow, and subtle traces of a morbid fascination to be found by the observant throughout her work. The chthonic, arcane, and mysterious have long been inspirational companions, stirring her imagination and leading her to explore certain aspects of myth and symbolism through art.

Additional locations on the web where you can find Desirée's art and writings:

disphording {at} gmail.com

Unless otherwise specified, all contents of this website including the artwork, images, descriptions, essays, etc. are copyright © Desirée Isphording 2009 and may not be copied, modified, or distributed without prior express, written permission. Please respect the artist and do not use her work without permission and acknowledgment.