New Athenaeum exhibit connects two artists with (almost) the same name but different styles

Darren Bader and Daren Bader share a name and profession, but their styles and stories couldn’t be more different. They’ll meet in person for the first time this month as their works are featured in a unique joint exhibition.

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla is bringing the pair together for “Dar(r)en Bader,” a showcase of their unique styles while providing a message of togetherness.

The show marks the Athenaeum’s first exhibition of 2026. It will kick off with an opening reception at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23, and continue through Saturday, April 25.

One R and two R’s

Daren Bader was born in Monterey County and now lives in Encinitas. He has worked as a concept artist and an art director in the video game and entertainment industries for three decades. One of his most well-known work projects is the Red Dead Redemption game.

Today, he is art director for Secret Door games and does freelance illustration for trading card games on weekends.

He describes his art style as “kind of a chameleon.”

“I like so many different types of art [and] so many different styles,” he said. “I like thick paint, I like thin paint. I like fantasy, I like reality. I like abstraction. But ultimately, I think what I get the most joy out of is creating work that harks back to the 12-year-old me that just liked comic books, cartoons and that kind of thing.”

Darren Bader, a Connecticut native, spent several years in San Diego’s Mission Hills before eventually building a life in New York.

He’s made a name for himself in visual arts since 2004 and his work has been featured in collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Zabludowicz Collection in London, among others.

“What I try to deal with is understanding the limitation there is to more or less come to terms with the difference between verbal communication and verbal representation, and visual representation and communication — where word and image both do or do not operate,” he said of his art.

Getting connected

The Baders lightheartedly refer to themselves as “One-R” and “Two-R.” Though they’re set to meet in person this month, they’ve stayed loosely connected through the internet for more than a decade.

Their first conversation took place in 2013 through Facebook direct messages.

One-R recalled searching for his name online, only to come across the work of Two-R.

“I had set up my website for Daren Bader Illustration and all this other kind of stuff and with my name,” One-R said. “I’m never thinking there’s going to be any issues with it. That’s a pretty unique name, I thought.”

But soon after, One-R received an out-of-the-blue message from Two-R. It turned out his search results yielded a similar outcome.

Two-R’s outreach came with what he described as a “ludicrous” pitch: collaborating on an exhibition scripting and visualizing short moving-image works.

That exhibit never came to pass, but the two stayed connected. Eventually, One-R moved to Florida to work for Magic League and Two-R had children and further developed his career.

But around the COVID-19 pandemic, Two-R had a thought: Why don’t they do a joint exhibition?

“I felt comfortable in my shoes — I didn’t have anything else to prove in the art world as I knew it,” Two-R recalled.

Two-R and now-Athenaeum Executive Director Christie Mitchell had worked together on several projects at the Whitney Museum.

During the pandemic, Two-R and Mitchell stayed in touch as colleagues and collaborators, discussing film history and running ideas by each other. And the idea of an exhibition by the Baders came up again.

“They had talked about it as a concept for many years but had never found the right time in both of their lives or the right venue aligning with that kind of thing,” Mitchell said.

“When I moved here and took this role at the Athenaeum [in 2022] and started planning exhibitions and I knew Two-R, Darren Bader, it kind of felt like it all fell into place,” she said.

Looking ahead

“It does feel special to have them converge on the Athenaeum as a place where [that] initial moment of outreach comes full circle,” Mitchell said. “And their work is together and it’s culminating in this project they’ve both been trying to make happen for a while now.”

“These are two artists who I think … without the impetus of the artists themselves, wouldn’t have been put together into an exhibition,” she added. “And they may not have even ever known each other had they not had the same name. Their worlds don’t intersect all that much.”

Still, Mitchell said she sees a “core similarity in that they both have these full concepts in their heads that they put out into the world in very different ways visually [and] aesthetically.”

One-R said the exhibition could challenge viewers to search for people’s similarities.

“I kind of feel like it’s an opportunity for people to maybe think about the things we actually have in common, even though we may not initially think we have it in common,” he said.

“Somewhere in there is a message that I can’t necessarily articulate. But it’s about tolerance. It’s about openness.”

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is at 1008 Wall St. Find out more about the upcoming exhibition and others to follow at ljathenaeum.org.