Devan Shimoyama
Adjusting to the luminous Black, 2015.
About:
Born in 1989 in Philadelphia, PA. The figures in my work find themselves echoed throughout the paintings, attempting to connect, but failing to join and fulfill their sensual desires. Tender moments of touch are often displayed and echoed within these dreamscapes with skewed spatial perspectives and oddly vacant domestic rooms. From the tactility of the thickly poured and splattered paint, to the effervescent and luminously sprayed stencils, I create silhouettes of figures bursting with divine ecstasy, often sensually interacting with other figures of a different realm. Through traditional graphite portrait drawing techniques, the sensuous nature of rendering and rubbing the faces and genitals of the figures suggests a personal void through such specificity; the absence of a distant lover’s warmth or even a suggested self searching through an exploration of intimate personal touch. The figures are stripped, dauntless and brazenly inviting. They are wholly magical and universally human. (website Saatchi)
Daphne’ s Repose, 2016.
His Feet, 2015.
Let me help, 2015.
You will have to sing, 2015.
“I renounce the notion of one’s body belonging to oneself. My body serves as the home in which I reside, I maintain and utilize his functionality to navigate the world. He becomes a portal for the viewer to enter and thus to undergo a symbiotic relationship with him.” -Devan Shimoyama, 2015