Penchant: Oil Painting
Artist Statement
In my current series, “Penchant,” I am exploring our culture’s obsession with consumption and waste by analyzing our relationship with trash. Through experimentation with color and texture, threatening piles of trash evoke feelings of curiosity and playfulness while also creating a sense of foreboding. I aim to confront my audience with this obsession, allowing them to rethink their own individual relationship with the things they consume, while also making them pay closer attention to the amounts of trash around them. Even with all of the current reports on climate change, I still see too many of us wasting, dumping, and littering. We, as a collective, have become too used to seeing cigarettes being flicked out of cars and garbage piling on the streets. My paintings are a reminder of what that can look like. I frequently turn towards nature and, in order to assist in the cultural shift in mindset that I feel is imperative, I even more frequently focus on the more unpleasant realities of nature. This shift in mindset can manifest internally or as a larger call-to-action. “Penchant” fetishizes our relationship with trash in hopes of convincing others that even with the endless social and economic issues compounding around us, our planet is always of the utmost importance, and we, as a species, must work together to preserve its beauty for generations to come.
Devan Horton is an emerging Northern Kentucky artist who creates oil paintings to call attention to the ongoing issue of waste in our culture. Since receiving her bachelor of fine arts in painting from Northern Kentucky University, Devan has crafted and promoted her artistic career by showing in local and national galleries as well as undertaking entrepreneurial endeavors such as a series of pop-up galleries and shows named “Perennial” in her hometown of Covington. When looking for new subjects and concepts, Devan frequently looks toward nature, oftentimes at its more unpleasant subjects in order to instill a change in her audience, whether manifesting itself in an alteration in perspective or a call to action. Devan’s most recent work fetishizes our relationship with trash in hopes of convincing others that even with the endless social and economic issues compounding around us, our planet is always of the utmost importance, and we as a species must work together to preserve its beauty for generations to come.
