This month, Devon sat down to chat with us about art school, working with fabric and David Bowie. What do all these things have in common? Keep reading to find out…
Why don’t you start by giving us a short introduction to yourself and your background:
I started out by getting my BFA at the University of Alberta with a specialization in painting. I then got an MFA in painting and drawing from Concordia University in Montreal. I always thought I was a painter, but I don’t really know anymore. Grad school encouraged me to explore other media like sculpture, installation, music, etc. This was great because now I don’t really paint anymore. I love painting but I felt limited by it; my first year of grad school was a struggle because I was painting but didn’t really want to be anymore. An instructor suggested I explore other mediums, which came full circle for my Master’s thesis show, which was all painting. After graduating, I came back to Edmonton, but I didn’t really make any work for almost 2 years.
After getting studio space (at The Drawing Room), I’m now making things that are an extension of what I was doing in Montreal. I have my first solo show coming up here at The Drawing Room in November.
Skullet, 2013
Let’s talk about what you’re working on at the moment and the inspiration behind it:
It all comes back to David Bowie – he is my biggest influence. I grew up watching The Labyrinth, and I remember asking my mom why they referred to Bowie in the movie as “he” – I thought that wearing makeup meant he was a woman. This changed my outlook on what makes someone ‘masculine’ or a man, and what makes someone ‘feminine’ or a woman.
I started to become interested in Bowie’s changes – he’s explored different styles of music and looks/personas. It’s interesting to me that he never stuck to one style. I’m interested in fashion and spectacle, and how Bowie became an androgynous sort of ‘alien’ persona on stage, which is different from his off stage persona. I also learned that there are different types of androgyny. There’s situations when you look at someone and you can’t immediately identify them as male or female, which can be uncomfortable. There is an element of that in Bowie’s androgyny, but it’s beautiful and elegant, instead of uncomfortable.
Along the same lines, I’m interested in androgynous formations. After I started working in other mediums in grad school, my thesis show was based on a series of fabric sculptures. I made paintings of the sculptures, and named each after a different Bowie persona. The sculptures were never shown as part of the exhibition; the ‘real’ pieces weren’t there, just the ‘fakes’ or the personas.
Now I’m just making fabric sculptures, but I’m not painting them anymore; you can see them in three dimensions. I’m trying to concentrate on the materials I’m using and playing around with the gender associations we have with them. I’m interested in fabric and sewing, and I just started weaving with mason twine, which is a construction material. The colour is pink, which has a feminine association, but it’s used at construction sites.
I became interested in textiles in grad school, when I was friends with the ladies in the fibre department. I was interested in what they were doing and started collecting the fabrics that they were throwing away and making puppets out of them. Manipulating this material is different than painting; it’s very direct.
Coeurl, 2013.
Can you tell us about your feature piece?
They all have androgynous qualities, whether comfortable or uncomfortable. For Coeurl, I found this leopard print fabric that I wanted to use, and I started playing around with materials and seeing how they interacted with each other. I’ll stop working when the thing I’m working on becomes it’s own entity with it’s own rules.
Any observations on working in Edmonton as an artist vs. Montreal:
Because I was in school in Montreal, I had an automatic community there, but I didn’t get to experience the city in the same way as if I was working there. In my third year I got my own studio space outside of the university, which was part of the pr. It was on de Gaspe, which is a street of all artist studio spaces. I spent a year working there – I only taught one class, and I would have studio visits with professors, and mostly prepared for my thesis.
In that location, there was a lot of music, art, etc. happing on a huge scale. Having this studio space in Edmonton feels similar; we have a little community here, and the shows so far have been well attended.
It’s not easy to reconnect to the art scene here after being gone for 3 years. The community is a lot larger in Montreal, but in Edmonton you pretty much know everyone. I’ve noticed that there are less opportunities to show here, but is less competitive, so I don’t feel like I’ve lost any opportunities but the game has just changed a bit. Right now I’m just working towards a new body of work.
Any artists you admire, local or otherwise?
Other than David Bowie, Mike Kelley has been a big influence on me. He also makes fabric sculptures. I’m collaborating with Edmonton artist Richard Boulet right now; we’re working on drawings and a textile piece together. I don’t take a lot of influence from visual art; it mostly comes from music, animation, or books. One of my favourite writers is Murakami. I consciously avoid looking at other people’s work because I’m too easily influenced by things. But you also have to keep yourself informed, so it’s a balancing act.
Watch for an upcoming exhibition of Devon’s work at The Drawing Room in November!
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