Art is a language that I use to spark the imagination of viewers and create visual dialogue. Art, as a form of visual communication, has infinite possibilities.  I make art to experience the magic of materiality and transformation; for the satisfaction of executing skilled craft; and for the spiritual and intellectual journey of cultural discovery and reclamation. I explore these things and their possibilities and share with the viewer whatever I have learned and envisioned through my creative process.

I develop my work using standard commercial art supplies, found objects, and stuff that I fabricate from raw materials. I transform this matter into art objects and installations that are linked by recurring motifs and themes. Luminosity, translucence, repetition, layering, and tactility are attributes that emerge throughout much of my work. Texture and rhythmic gestures activate surfaces; conjuring up energy to fuel narratives that come alive during the making. I explore relationships between the past, the present, and imaginary futures, interweaving my ideas with physical matter.  Viewers engage with my results and contemplate their own points of view.

My creativity is activated by materials, techniques, and the process of problem solving. My primary working materials are canvas, paint, paper, wood, wire, and raffia. Photography is also integral to my creative process as a source of inspiration, documentation, reference, and creative expression. Handmade books as physical objects and intellectual spaces where the imagination can take flight, have a growing presence in my body of work. I create conceptual books as installations, construct one of a kind books as art objects, and embed book forms into other art objects. Intellectually curious with a propensity for research, I investigate African cosmologies and writing systems and embed African iconography into my work. As a visual resource it carries history and cultural memory; expands my conceptual framework; and enhances my visual vocabulary. When I work, my mind and my hands engage in a call and response ritual. The resulting visual experiences situate viewers within my sense of awareness. They, in turn, find their own meaning or pleasure as they engage with my art. Intention and design guide my practice, but ultimately, I surrender to an intuitive, organic process that allows the work to develop its own agency and define itself.

Adrienne DeVine

Pasadena, CA

Lives and works in Pasadena                                                     Email: artist@adriennedevine.com

Education

2017    MFA    Claremont Graduate University, School of Arts & Humanities, Claremont, CA

1992    BA       California State University Long Beach, School of Fine Arts, Long Beach, CA

Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

2018    Holding Up ½ the Sky, Roberts Projects, Culver City, CA

Viva La Vulva, Pembroke Taparelli Arts & Film Festival, Band of Vices, Los Angeles, CA

Aggregate as Selves, Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont Graduate University

GLAMFA 2018, Max. L. Gatov Gallery West, California State University, Long Beach

2017      The Photographic Imaginary, Nan Rae Gallery, Woodbury University, Burbank, CA

Bolt From The Blue, FAR Bazaar, Cerritos College, Norwalk, CA

2016     I Speak Art, The Creative House Gallery, Inglewood, CA

Peep, Claremont City Hall, Claremont, CA

Evoke, East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University

SoCalMFA Juried Exhibition, Millard Sheets Gallery, Pomona, CA

2015    Squaring the Circle, East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA

Colored Girls, Autonomie Projects, Los Angeles, CA

Take A Breath, Feel The Fire, Avenue 50 Studio, Los Angeles, CA

A Book as a Work of Art for All, Autonomie Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2013         A Tribute to Cecil Fergerson, Cecil Fergerson Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2012  Propaganda, Twenty Miles East Gallery, Pomona CA

2011    The 45 Show, Twenty Miles East Gallery, Pomona CA

2010         ROT, PØST Los Angeles, CA

Public Collection

City of Claremont Alexander Hughes Community Center, Claremont, California

Prizes and Awards

Black Scholars Award 2017 – Claremont Graduate University

Helen B. Dooley Art Fellowship 2016-2017 – Claremont Graduate University

Publications

GLAMFA Catalog 2018

CGU MFA Catalog 2017

Foothill A Journal of Poetry, Volume 6, Number 1, Art Contributor, October 2016

BAILA Zine, CODE, Issue No. 2, March 2016

BAILA Zine, Issue No. 1, March 2015

Bibliography

SKIN: The Un-Panel, Facilitator, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, April 2016

University of African Art Face2Facebook Art Talk with Moyo Okediji, Ph.D., December 2014

The 45 Show at Twenty Miles East: Forty-Five Artists, Forty-Seven Pieces, One Great Show, PR.com, April 2010

Adrienne DeVine at PØST, Coagula Art Journal, March 2010

Work Experience