Devra Fox
Bio: Devra Fox (b. 1989) grew up in Seattle, WA and received her MFA from Columbia University in 2016 and BA from Bard College in 2011. Her art explores themes of transformation, identity, growth and deterioration, permanence and temporality. She creates sculpture, installation and print to transform intimate memories, objects and environments into tangible structures to express and display her internal perceptions to the outside world. Devra lives and works in NYC.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: I am inspired by a wide range of cultural practices and iconographies, often religious in tone. In many traditions the belongings or body parts of the deceased are encapsulated, preserved and displayed as an homage, a prayer, a reminder. I allude to Mexican Day of the Dead altars, baroque Italian reliquaries and Catholic milagros in my art. I utilize pebbles as a recurring motif, referencing the Jewish tradition of leaving pebbles on the graves of the deceased to represent the permanence of the soul. I am fascinated by the elevation of the profane to the sacred, not just in a religious context but in a secular one as well. I explore this elevation in my work, manipulating common materials to illustrate a transformative process. I combine a variety of materials into sculptures and installations to address relationships with people and objects I hold dear. My art blends diverse cultural signifiers with my personal narrative, oscillating between controlled and permeable systems of representation to create palpable expressions of life.
L to R: Passing Between (47˝× 27˝× 30˝, Wire, string, metal, pins, metal tubes, glass, wax, clay, acrylic, washers, puffy paint, 2015); Wearing You (112˝× 57˝× 8˝, Clay, ink, rope, 2016)