The work of artist Fayen d’Evie prompts us to consider how we encounter, describe, understand and create art. With her practice spanning writing, publishing, sound, performance and touch-based works, d’Evie explores questions of materiality, embodiment, knowledge and translation.
Having recently completed a summer residency at BLINDSIDE, d’Evie’s work is currently on display in the regional touring exhibition Seeing Voices, as well as the upcoming show Museum Incognita Beechworth: Blind Tommy at HM Prison.
She describes her work is marked by “an interest and curiosity about how we encounter the world, about how we understand it, about how we talk about it, about how we remember it; and that can be thought about through text, through recollection, through making, and not segregated silos of activity.”
While this involves many facets, in recent years d’Evie has focused on the position of blindness and the dominance of sight when encountering artworks. “I’ve always had low vision, ever since I was really tiny,” explains d’Evie. “A few years ago I came to a tipping point where I realised I was going to have to change a lot of things about art making; the kinds of sign engravings I’d been doing on paintings in stainless steel was not something I could really do and I started to question what my practice was going to be.”
d’Evie began to use this as a new space to operate within. “The notion of thinking about having a perceptual approach that is different to the ocular standard of 20/20 brings up fascinating questions in relation to artworks and even in relation to bigger questions about communication and translation,” says the artist.
As well as her various modes of practice, d’Evie also talks about the critical links between writing and contemporary art, how museums can be holders of stories rather than custodians of objects, and how her touch-based works can prompt new engagements with art.
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Museum Incognita Beechworth: Blind Tommy
Fayen d’Evie
HM Prison, Beechworth
16 – 18 February
Seeing Voices
Mildura Arts Centre
Live performance artist: Rosie Isaac
1 March – 2 April 2018
Cairns Regional Art Gallery
Live performance artist: Erik Bünger
27 April – 17 June 2018
Riddoch Art Gallery
Live performance artist: Sean Dockray
13 July – 16 September 2018
Bathurst Regional Gallery
Live performance artist: Hannah Donnelly
15 February – 7 April 2019
Devonport Regional Gallery
Live performance artist: Hannah Donnelly
1 May – 30 June 2019
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