Make-Believe Georgia Saxelby and Devan Shimoyama

September 10–December 11, 2022

Georgia Saxelby, Architectural Ornament 1, 2022

Georgia Saxelby, Architectural Ornament 1, 2022. Earthenware, glaze, lustre, gold metal leaf, glass frit, resin, iridescent film, 18 x 18 x 7 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Shan Turner-Carroll.

Related Event

Virtual Gallery Talk: Make-Believe
November 13, 5-6 p.m.
 

Exhibition Overview

Make-Believe explores artistic world-building and the crafting of alternate realities. The exhibition presents sculptures by Georgia Saxelby and paintings by Devan Shimoyama in the context of a post-pandemic world where fantasies and the imagination have played increasingly vital roles. Make-Believe considers the artists’ shared use of decoration, craft and visual pleasure, both using highly saturated, lustrous and reflective surfaces to blur the real and the imaginary.

The artists draw on cultural and aesthetic histories outside the fine art canon, such as, fashion, drag, cinema, animation, furniture, costume jewelry and interior design. These new bodies of work allow the artists to better understand the contributions of queer, black and women practitioners, as well as, the ways fantasy intersects with ideas of camp, queerness and femininity.

Devan Shimoyama, Self-Portrait as Aaliyah, 2022

Devan Shimoyama, Self-Portrait as Aaliyah, 2022. Mixed media on canvas over panel, 48 x 36 x 3 in. Courtesy of the artist and Kavi Gupta.

Devan Shimoyama, Winning Love By Daylight

Devan Shimoyama, Winning Love by Daylight, 2022. Mixed media on canvas, 84 x 68 x 4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Kavi Gupta.