Hidden and Forbidden Identities
In times like this, when the whole world spins around internet, which follows by the hyper-fast transmission of information, and vanishing of the real “singulis”, Naomi Devil wonders in its excitingly flowing cascade to dig deep and find reality.
Devil discovered her talent very young (age 16), ever since she focuses on the carrier path she visions for herself so seriously, that by now at the age of 24 she is an internationally known young artist, gets invitations from Vienna, Venice, Prague and London.
She mostly paints. The last of this series that was nominated for the Power of Self Award, called “Deep blue se(e)lf” “invokes a wonderland of sorts, taking the viewer past a beautiful, innocent surface and into deeper, more complex conceptual territory… with a spoonful of sugar” says Daria Brit Shapiro (art historian and curator, New York).
Her main idea is to send a message to the viewer. If there is none, also there is no point in start painting.
For her latest series, she uses a digital role playing game program called Second Life, and focuses on the question of different identities, personality and the psyche of one. Her technique contains 3 steps: First she makes the different avatars and textures, using programming, put together in the virtual space of Second Life (see video!). Next she builds up similar organic shapes (like flowers or crystals) in 3D, which she uses to show under the textures mentioned above. Then uses Photoshop to create the remainder pieces of forms and figures to put the whole composition together at last.
“I have moved on to digital art, because while using Second Life and programming I can create such detailed and complex visual pictures, which I could not by hand or with using conventional / traditional techniques. Also with placing different layers on top of each other, I want to create a new meaning and a contrast between natural and artificial. This contrast is in connection with the other dual elements and themes of my pictures – such as: surface-inside, existing self- non-existing avatar, real “me” – social “me”, good - bad, or who we really are and what we become by ourselves artificially.
I’m interested in the human form, what the ego makes out of it, how people act during social interactions, what they show to the world, what are the hidden tensions or reality behind the social mask. What can depict a human being as a human being emotionally and formally, as an individual and as a social creature? I’m thinking all the time to understand all these things and visualize a person in one picture. Every detail and color has its meaning and is in connection with the person and its history.
This is not surrealism or fantasy like it seems to be. These works are not about dreams or the subconscious, this could be called ‘realistic symbolism’, the way I express my own life, my own feelings.” – Naomi Devil
text by Dorottya Varga
curator, art manager
