Es Devlin believes people make things, or art to fill a void. Her process, according to her: every project starts with blank paper & two people- the artist and the client. She starts drawing while they’re talking, and begins her creative process. In the beginning, she was painting, and welding her own sets.
“I don’t make anything, or know what I want to make, until I know what the space is going to inhabit”
She has created innovative ideas like using a rain box as a curtain- even if she has no idea how the rain system works- she can design things without knowing how they f*cking work.
She is always coming up with new information/stimulus. She hosts a number of meetings through the process, and has her team make models. She listened to Kanye, made a model off sketches he loved- and he hated the model instantly.
She was invited to make a piece for a Belgian exhibition on the relation between music and art: she wanted to make cube that would revolve, that would have different apertures and sides reflecting shows she’s done over 20 years. Music was the gateway to her love of art. She saw boring band performances with her ex, and wanted to make them better. She put a four piece band in boxes- wanting to deconstruct the idea of a band.
Other interesting ideas she has had: she sliced a box in half with a mirror- metaphor for the tricks being played in MacBeth. She also used mirrors a lot in the fashion shows for LV- two way mirrosr- using light to her advantage. She was inspired in the 80s by Mark Chagall, and the windows he made for a church- she saw all of Chagall’s work. To her, the windows feel like paint turned into light.
To her, concerts, festivals, or even Stonehenge feel like a big sleepover- when the sun goes down there’s a change in the energy. 80,000 humans have all come to focus their gaze- not worship- their energy on one individual. In most concerts before 2003- most photographers were done by professional photographers- close up. After cameras on phones became prevalent- events are now being recorded from every angle. Her work is being recorded from every angle- which is a big shift/
The word show suggests you’re revealing something. She has to make sure the showing of things is actually the revealing of things. She compares her work to the footage of babies playing with sorting boxes- extraordinary footage to watch. Every time they discover something new they get a dopamine rush. She loves the discovery of the experience.
The word show suggests you’re revealing something. She has to make sure the showing of things is actually the revealing of things. She compares her work to the footage of babies playing with sorting boxes- extraordinary footage to watch. Every time they discover something new they get a dopamine rush. She loves the discovery of the experience.
Scale is one of her “big ingredients” She likes to position a human, huge or tiny, in relation to the same object. For Adele's show, her makeup artist became the biggest painter- since they knew her eye would be such a large scale.
She likes finding the patterns, and finding a tension between power and falability. She is so driven- her imagination needs its own show. She does not have ambition in a normal sense- about exploring the imagination.
Set or experience design is time that you’re making- time perceived by an audience. Objects themselves are not what you think they are. The objects themselves in an art gallery would not be behaving in the same way. What she does is her idea of utter heaven as a child- the things she makes are a bit more contemporary. For Hamlet- she created exact replica of real Victorian home, infiltrated it with horrible black death. She does this for love- if she made a beautiful object she knew it would be the most important use of her time. She knows when she sets out to make it it’s soon going to be gone- it's not permanent.
In the end everything’s only going to exist in the memories of people who saw it.
In the end everything’s only going to exist in the memories of people who saw it.