Artist Statement
I have been honing my craft since receiving my BFA in studio art and minor in psychology at Northern Arizona University in 2021. My realist work serves as a visual dialogue confronting the enduring issues surrounding the active and passive violence against women within the United States. I address the ways women are forced to navigate the world utilizing the enduring medium of oil paint, my brushstrokes actively graphic and my base consistently red and often seen fringing my subjects to suggest an underlying layer of emotion, whether it be brutal or passionate. I revisit these graphic hues and imagery to express themes of rage and danger, hunger and courage, showcasing the spectrum of the “female experience.”
Artist Biography
Devany Dellis is an Phoenix-born and -based painter, honing her craft since receiving her BFA in Studio Art at Northern Arizona University in 2021. Dellis’ work has often showcased social injustices, but has been centered around women’s issues in the wake of the recent mass retractions of their civil rights in the United States. Her work serves as a visual dialogue confronting the oppressions surrounding the active and passive violence against these communities. When violated, there are often little repercussions, and control over one’s body is regressing within law and social fabric alike. Dellis’ paintings address the personal and shared reality of living in a vessel that isn’t yours, the agency of it lying with a husband, an aggressor, a government, a god. In using the enduring medium of oil paint, she explores the definition of what it means to be “feminine” – which is vast and paradoxical; the struggle of eternal self-defense and perseverance.
