Artworks

Devan Shimoyama

American, b. 1989

Potted, 2018

Oil, color pencil, Flashe, rhinestones, acrylic, collage, and glitter on canvas stretched

over panel

84 x 72 in. (213.36 x 182.88 cm)

© Devan Shimoyama, courtesy of Craig and Lynn Jacobson, Santa Monica, CA

Devan Shimoyama is a professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, where he recently purchased his first home. He is conscious of the achievement and responsibilities of home ownership, something out of reach for many people his age today due to the state of the economy and long denied Black people in America due to systemic racism and resulting inequities in education, employment, banking, and housing markets. He also lives in a predominantly white and older neighborhood, conscious of how he, as a Black Queer man with Black Queer visitors, stands out to his neighbors.

Here Shimoyama tends his private yard, a source of personal contentment and occasionally vexing responsibilities, in mind of more civic engagements and the prying eyes and minds that impose upon them.