Making Space
with John Devlin
Works by John Devlin will be exhibited from February 27 to September 26, 2021 at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax, Canada).
The worlds of art and architecture intersect in Making Space. Featuring a multidisciplinary mix of practices, this permanent collection exhibition looks to the broader attributes of the built environment as a thematic point of departure. The selection of photographs, sculptures, and works on paper navigates the physical and philosophical constructs of the spaces and structures within which we live and work to reveal a wide range of present-day concerns.
In reflecting upon architecture and its ability to generate and communicate meaning, the artists in Making Space not only document our ever-evolving surroundings but also pose important questions that underlie contemporary life and culture.
John Devlin was only 25 years old when he left Canada to study theology at Cambridge and set himself on the path to priesthood. Although he adored Cambridge, he had to return and abandon his ecclesiastical dreams because of a psychotic disorder. He thus devoted his life to drawing his own Nova Cantabrigiensis, an idealized Cambridge that became both a symbolic projection and a healing protocol. Once his great work - developed in secret - was discovered in the late 1980s, he was the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications including the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles for the iconic exhibition Photo Brut.