To many artists, creation is innate. Our art comes from within, a core part of ourselves. But taking our art to the public means we must consider which parts become the artist that others see. Where is the line between private and public identity, and how do we establish healthy lives for ourselves when we share so much with the world?
When I started performing as a child, I only knew how to be me on stage. Growing up undiagnosed autistic, I couldn’t even mask to fit in socially, so I gave no thought to the expectations of live performance like projection and facial expressions. I looked up to songwriters like Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell, whose material appeared deeply personal in its hyperspecificity, and rejected artists who worked with more generic lyricism, thinking that creating something widely accessible diminished its value. It took years to realize that even if something is cliche or commercial, it can still be an honest performance, because it’s about finding what’s authentically you.
Kiwi performer Princess Chelsea told Chris Schulz in 2025 that “If you’re trying to perform, if it’s an act, people won’t buy it. You have to tap into a side of yourself that’s primal so you can go for it. We’re all animals. You can tell if someone’s bullshitting or if someone’s really in the performance”. Indeed, people can recognise what it means to be “in” the performance with ease, even though it’s hard to put into words. The most moving songs aren’t necessarily sad or profound, but they’re real for the artist, and that hits the listener’s emotional core in an indescribably raw way that can shine through even the most opaque character experiments.
In my music, I am a caricature of myself. I am unfalteringly confident, yet shakingly vulnerable. I’m your best friend, your celebrity crush, and a mirror of your darkest inner thoughts all at once. To create that persona, I create a visual version of myself who exists for public consumption. I never used to appreciate music’s need for visuals. I’d question why the songs weren’t enough. But as I grew, I found that dolling up for a performance allowed me to activate Danica Bryant as a star, bigger than the real person underneath.
I believe performance is best when it’s a celebration of excess. You’re never quite so untouchable, nor exposed, as up on stage, larger-than-life beneath the lights. Although you’re at the mercy of the audience’s reaction, you can choose to be unreal, and to escape reality in favour of the world you build up there. While art can have many virtuous roles, like education, critique, and truth-telling, it is also ultimately to entertain, and sometimes offering people an out from daily mundanity is what keeps them coming back.
There are few places during the day where it’s appropriate to cover yourself in glitter, wear bombastic colours, or show a little too much skin. But I grew up in the late 2000s when Lady Gaga told me to act famous, and the actual fame would follow. In 2008, she declared “When we walk down the street, people wonder who we are, and that’s that inner fame,” It’s liberating to find that confidence and embody my dream self. Maintaining that caricature everyday would be impossible, but I control when to turn it on. Until I’m international tabloid fodder (unlikely), I will into existence that people only see my highlights. I embody Gaga’s theory of “inner fame”.
In my youth, I looked up to many women who distinguished their celebrity from their real selves. As a Hannah Montana fanatic, I studied how Miley Stewart got to live a normal life with friends who loved her without the money and glory. Then her platinum blonde alter ego played out her dreams to adoring fans when she felt emotionally ready. Recently, American songwriter Chappell Roan has caught flack online for requesting fans leave her alone when she’s out without her Chappell costuming. She sees her musician identity as a drag persona, and when it’s off, she’s a regular girl named Kayleigh who has no business with paparazzi.
The world of drag offers a fascinating perspective on this topic. Although music is my game, I learnt so much of what I know from drag. There’s no art form that treats that separation of art and artist with more importance. Drag is an exploration of one’s gender, taken to the extreme and equally satirised as it is celebrated. Many performers have strong, sharp distinctions between their daily and drag selves, behaving as an entirely different and essentially fictional being when they’re all dolled up.
Pōneke performer Bunny Holiday tells me she’s recently decided not to let people film her out of drag, as it “shatters the illusion” she wants to create. Bunny is a character “cultivating a mythology” that requires intentional performance. It’s jarring when people recognise her in day-to-day life, as she receives noticeably different treatment depending on her gender presentation, and her daily self is a much more grounded person than the fictional Bunny.
Of course, other drag artists find the people they want to live as all the time through drag. Some essentially perform their true selves until they can safely transition. Drag personas can be distinguished by different make-up, different genders, different names, but the separation is not necessary. The experience varies greatly between artists.
Nonetheless, for any art form where we’re visually perceived, an artistic persona is arguably essential to success. Aotearoa-born songwriter Catherine Bullock, who recently moved to England partially to pursue music, sees cultivating an identity distinct from the self as vital to building a following.
“Music has always been a part of who I am, but as it’s become my career, it’s now become its own track,” Bullock explains. “I spend a lot of time thinking about marketing… What I say on stage, what I put online, because it is a performance to be perceived… It’s an interesting dichotomy [because] I’m very anti-capitalist, but to succeed in the industry, you do need to capitalise on who you are… I’m now viewing Catherine Bullock as an entity. Whenever I’m referring to myself by my full name in third person, it’s the artist project.”
Both Catherine and I chose to use our full legal names as our artist names in high school. At the time, stage identities would have been decidedly uncool. As Catherine quips, “It feels weird to get on stage at your school assembly and go, ‘And this is Lorde’!” It’s also quintessentially Kiwi to shy away from acting too proud of your accomplishments – “People make you feel embarrassed for doing anything interesting.”
Now well into adulthood, Bullock has gradually found an “extreme middle ground” where their special interest in science creates their artistic niche. “My stage self has to be who I am… it has to be so insanely saturated that everyone who listens has no choice but to understand, but there has to be a place where I am able to step back from that.”
Stepping back, however, is more difficult than it may seem. Artists commonly joke that they don’t want a standard 9-5, so instead we work 24/7. Knowing when to switch off without a rigid schedule is compounded with the complication of maintaining strong social connections. In the arts industry, the professional collides with the personal more often than not. We often form intimate bonds with our peers and collaborators, through the emotional intensity of creating. But this blurs the lines between personal and professional, creating another pressure point and entanglement between the private self and the artist self.
In the process of making myself accessible for business enquiries, I struggle to switch off socially. This makes differentiating between fans, work colleagues and friends complicated. I love to engage about my work, but frequently feel guilt or fear that I’ve come across as rude when I don’t want to talk personal lives. It’s not a lack of care, but rather a lack of knowledge on how to navigate this relationship and power dynamic. I make myself reachable to please fans, but then cannot figure out when to set boundaries in order to protect my wellbeing.
Separation is necessary self-preservation, especially as our careers and recognition grows. Several artists I know have experienced harassment as a result of presenting themselves for public consumption. One hides their surname from even close friends after a stalker pursued them in their youth. For several months, I’ve received a constant stream of emails from one man who believes we are good friends, because he feels so connected to my work.
Wellington songwriter Floyd Marsden has experienced such “crossing of boundaries”, and notes that solo artists are uniquely impacted by how their brand and personal lives intertwine. “Whatever people will say about you… will be linked to your art no matter what, instead of regular workplaces where the two are often kept separate,” she observes. “Sometimes this can be scary and uncomfortable, especially when people attach themselves to your art and do not separate your performance from your personal life.”
It’s easier said than done to separate our work in art from our daily professions. Few amongst us can sustain a life off of art alone. When we play many roles to make ends meet, there needs to be a solid professional persona depending on which hat we’re wearing at the time.
Tristan Cordelia thinks a lot about identity, as a trans rights activist, solo musician, and guitarist and vocalist for Wellington metal band Screenburnt. When it’s just her on stage, she’s comfortable using her platform to promote the rallies and fundraisers that make up her professional day-to-day. But blending this with fronting a band proves more complicated.
“It’s very tempting to use the platform I have as an activist to plug my music, given how hard it is. We are a working class band… We have to fund everything we do from low-wage jobs. While the band are all supportive… We want to be known for our music, not as a side-project of activism,” she explains. Whilst music is a core facet of Tristan’s identity, her political role is “to lead chants, to make people feel safe, and to rep our kaupapa as an organisation of which I’m only one member, so it is important to draw a line between that work and my music.”
The cost of success is that every artist has to grapple with public perception. Depending on context and personal circumstances, we all have our own levels of comfort with what others see, and there’s no one right method to coping. The performing self can be an extremely raw expression, an exaggerated fictional version, or perhaps some happy medium. As long as the art feels honest in some way, it will find its audience. In fact, the journey to that destination is in some ways part of the performance, and part of the art.
