home to someone
identity flash, Morgan DeVillier, 40 x 50, acrylic on canvas, 2025
identity flash-corn, Morgan DeVillier, 14 x 50, acrylic on canvas, 2025
Great and Great Great, Morgan DeVillier, 36x48, acrylic on canvas, 2025
A place to sit, Morgan DeVillier, 36x48, acrylic on canvas, 2025
home to someone, Morgan DeVillier, 30x48, acrylic on canvas, 2025
These piece explore nostalgic symbols as a clustered representation of the multi-racial identity. The shapes gather together in a time capsule of cultural heritage and exploration. Only a few of the shapes represent historically categorized ancestral symbols. The shapes that are abstracted depict the unknown or uncertainty in ancestry, a refection of the erasure of culture through assimilation. By exploring new shapes, Morgan embraces the unknown to reshape their sense of self and identity as a person with diverse and unknown ancestry and culture. The empty and sketched spaces emphasize the notion of erasure and the disconnection from cultural practices, creating a sense of emptiness and tension. The represented symbols and shapes clustered and unorganized emphasize the childlike nature of discovery.
Pinata Pieces, Morgan DeVillier, 30x48, acrylic on canvas and digital collage, 2025
Note from artist
"As I dive into my art practice and the art world, I am confronted with questions about my outward appearing identity and what practices I associate with that define those identities. These pieces serve as a self reflection to those questions along with symbols that have resonated with me significantly throughout my life. I am now exploring the meanings to those symbols and family stories by researching their cultural significance while strengthening ties to living relatives. Up until recently I had not correlated these symbols and stories with personal ancestral importance and am now considering their relevance to me as a person who is far removed and disassociated from my own cultural heritage. These symbols are an exploration of mark-making that express my identity and connection to myself as a human and my connection to my family, both dynamic and imperfect. The unfinished or under-painted look is deliberate to express my identity as in progress, personifying my identity as an ever developing experience. These pieces represent a place of affectionate introspection, to explore others perceptions of “who I am”, and my experience of navigating life as a multi-racial female with a severed connection from my ancestral roots and family stories."
-Morgan DeVillier