Devon Marinac

“What I really wanted to create was something that almost vibrated off the page; a hard bitten dance to the music of passing time.”

—Devon Marinac

Van Der Plas Gallery is pleased to present The Spin of the Whirled, a solo exhibition by Canadian born artist Devon Marinac. The Spin of the Whirled showcases a wonderful series of new works mined from the depths of Marinac’s life and imagination that attempt to capture a sense of vibrancy and constant pummeling action.

Marinac has spent his artistic life exploring and documenting figures, their faces, their rooms, the bars, playgrounds and spaces where they drink, drift, love, laugh and lose. A well of feelings and their portrayal comes through in paintings such as the titular piece “The Spin of the Whirled”, where Marinac wanted to be evocative of the earth, the soil, the street, the stars, the sky, and waters and rivers. The foundation of this piece is at the heart of the show, a couple dancing and gesticulating as it moves into something botanical, connecting the micro with the macro. It is through these connections that the idiosyncratic personalities presented in this work and others are defined. The figures in these works wittingly interact with the objects of the landscape—screens, bottles, and books brought from the background to the forefront, guiding the viewer's eye to the intelligence on and below the surface of the autodidactic Devon Marinac and the worlds he creates.

Presented across a palette of many colors pushing brightly into darks and the dark and light places of our emotions, Devon uses an array of material, from acrylic to pen to pencil to cut-ups and collage to depict an atmosphere where truth comes in layered expressions of the nudity of the selves we try to hide. As we can see in “Dark Passages”, “even though the piece started from a place of depression and caustic sensibility, it eventually saw some humor glimmer out of it,” which sums up much of Devon’s art overall. Colorful and joyful at first glance, the paintings hide an oppressive feeling of loneliness and melancholy and a thirst for recognition. It is through Marinac’s work that we are exposed —where we find each other so very human, in our day-to-day human selves and objects, bringing to life how each moment, in its nuts and bolts, is so very uncommon and ultimately beautiful.