We spoke with artist Caitlin Devoy about her upcoming presentation with mothermother at the Fair. Read on to discover more about Caitlins’s creative journey and what we can expect to see:
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What can we expect to see in your presentation with mothermother at the Aotearoa Art Fair?
I’m very fortunate, and excited, to be showing at the Aotearoa Art Fair with mothermother, an intergenerational collective of artists. We share an appreciation for the interconnected networks that support and sustain us, the bodily connections we hold to the land, our societies, each other and our futures. I will be showing works alongside Tori Beeche, Phillipa Blair (1945-2025), Inga Fillary, Nat Tozer and Anouska Wallis-Lewis.
My tactile, sculptural works reference aspects of our experience as thinking bodies stumbling around in the world. The works combine humour with the erotic and explosive politics of the body, subverting binary attitudes to gender and bodies. I often think of my works as quite behavioural objects, dangling temptingly in front of the viewer, sometimes like an artifact of an action, sometimes a provocation.
Image credits: Caitlin Devoy
Your work explores the relationship between materials and the body. How do you choose materials, and how do they engage the viewer physically?
I enjoy the humorous associative possibilities afforded by making objects which have body-like qualities. A flaccid recorder, a cheeky toggle switch, a pinched cleft in a portrait frame.
I choose materials which are very tactile and which don’t feel inert. For example silicone, reacts to touch and can move like our bodies. It could be my dance background influencing my thinking and feeling for the material’s kinetic weight, bounce, touch, flex.
Silicone carries a lot of associations with the body. Medical devices, sex toys, prosthetics, for example. Its base is silica, the same as traditional sculptural materials like marble, yet it is rubbery and movable rather than static. It’s like the kink version of marble, undermining the gravitas.
What do you hope visitors to your booth at the Aotearoa Art Fair will take away from their experience with your work?
A feeling. Maybe when you’re looking you can feel the touch of the work (not necessarily literally). Some of the humour is located in that feeling of self consciousness or bodily awareness.
We’re all just flailing around trying to project intelligence or sexiness or power or whatever else with varying degrees of success. To a detached observer theres a lot of ridiculousness. Like watching a dance video with the sound turned off.
Image credits: Caitlin Devoy
How do you imagine yourself, your practice, to look in 10 years time?
I want to develop a business which financially sustains my art practice. Having the means to travel and take up residencies overseas is another goal. It’s hard work surviving as an artist and managing to balance time to make art with time spent working to pay all the bills and support my kids.
I want to have the funds to be able to bring to life all the larger works I have in mind. My notebooks are bursting with sketches, plans and drawings of sculptures. Making those larger works, being able to devote more concentrated hours to my practice, and exhibiting both in New Zealand and internationally are my focus.
Photo credit: Ryan Greer