About me
My name is Devon Bartlett, and I am based in Devon, England. I am a visual artist primarily across charcoal, chalk, and printmaking. My practice explores the tension between shadow and light, creating stark, uncanny spaces that evoke familiarity and discomfort.
My recurring motifs of windows and doors portray the feeling of familiarity, and also create an interesting interplay of shadow and light that I can transform into an extreme tonal world, which turns these mundane portals into something ominous, inviting viewers to confront what lies beyond the visible.
My work is created with the primary motivation to allow you, the audience, to step into the unknown and create a space for reflection, also to invite you into my artistic world to explore the unseen parts of yourself. By turning things that are familiar into the uncanny and the vast areas of black, you, as the viewer, can fill in the voids, tapping into your subconscious fears and memories. Each piece is as much about what’s hidden as what is revealed, turning everyday environments into an emotionally charged environment. I hope to create a feeling of suspense by doing this. These works are a good vessel for me to express my anxieties and fears; the things I draw are also things I would find uncomfortable in real life. This means these works have become an important part of self-expression, which means I can navigate certain thoughts or feelings that may go unspoken.
The primary medium of chalk and charcoal is important to me as an artist, as the immediacy and direct engagement reflect physical and emotional authenticity to me. My work is normally created on a paper ground, whether it be a large piece of paper or paper pasted onto canvas. This is my preferred ground since it is fragile and delicate, but can withstand the back-and-forth nature of the charcoal, but not imperfectly, leaving a rich history behind it.
My work tends to begin extremely ritualistically with covering the entire surface in an intense, rich layer of compressed charcoal, creating the velvety black background all of my works contain, which I then reductively work into to add the motifs into my pieces. Then I use white chalk to highlight the intense areas of contrast. This way of working for me is a labour of love and makes me completely immersed with my materials, having to push the pigment into the paper fibres with my hands, and then the intense back-and-forth to remove it, makes me feel extremely connected to my materials. I also enjoy seeing these scaled-down and translated into linocut prints. I will often think the intensity and the stark contrast that is the result of this method of print complements my drawings well, but pushes them even further into the monochrome world.
