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John Devane
Born 1954
Lives and works in Coventry, UK
www.johndevane.com

John Devane's recent works are part of an on-going engagement with painting in the context of a culture increasingly
understood through the mediating prism of digital technology. Some of the pictures included here are portraits in the
conventional sense and others are more obviously concerned with the serendipitous and transformational aspects
of painting.
Inspired by Holman Hunt's painting of the same title, The Awakening Conscience is a double portrait of two siblings. Both
fi gures are self-absorbed and are to some extent contained in their own respective worlds.

Laura, completed in 2013, this is a portrait of Laura Devane. The primary interest was the play of light on the venetian blind
and the correspondingly dramatic lighting of the fi gure which adds a note of disquiet to an otherwise straightforward portrait.
Alison is a portrait of the artist Alison Lambert. Having undergone considerable revision during the process of painting,
the resulting image has a degree of informality and ambiguity in terms of the depiction of space. Some areas are more
deliberately fi nished in the conventional sense, but the overarching aim was to size on a particular moment in time.
Jonathan is a portrait of the artist Jonathan Waller. In this picture, Jonathan mirrors the gaze of the viewer and thus reinforces
the gaze of the artist. The head is deliberately located slightly off centre so that the background plays a more important role
in the composition. Capturing the intensity of the gaze was important aspect of this picture.
JOHN DEVANE has exhibited widely since graduating from the Royal College of Art. He was a fi nalist in the 2013 BP Portrait award and exhibited
in the 1995 BP Portrait award. He was shortlisted for the Garrick Milne Prize for Painting in 2005, and has work in a number of private and public
collections including: Brunel University, Coventry University, the Imperial War Museum, Unilever Collection, Henley Business Management College
and Ocean Transport and Trade PLC. John Devane is currently Head of Department of Design and Visual Arts at Coventry School of Art & Design,
Coventry University in the UK.

Left: The Awakening Conscience, 2013,
Oil on Canvas.
h: 152cm w: 152cm d: 5cm, Artist’s Collection.
Right: Laura, 2013, Oil on Canvas.
h: 100cm w: 100cm d: 5cm, Artist’s Collection.

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