Doug DeVinny

2012–13 RAM Artist Fellowship Award Recipient

Born in Montrose, Colorado, Doug DeVinny received a BA in painting from Colorado State University. After a brief military hiatus and tour of Vietnam, he returned to academia, receiving an MFA in printmaking from Indiana University.

For 40 years, DeVinny taught in higher education at various colleges across the country including Skidmore College, Indiana University, Mesa State College (now Colorado Mesa University), and UW-Parkside (from which he retired in 2009). In 1979, he moved to Racine from Colorado. Along with his wife Lana, DeVinny raised three daughters—Erika, Gabby, and Alex.

DeVinny’s work has been shown in over 150 exhibitions, including 13 solo shows (both regional and national), 42 regional and national group invitational exhibitions, 47 national juried exhibitions, 7 national invitational exchange portfolios (which have been widely exhibited, including at the Venice Biennale), and 17 Watercolor Wisconsin exhibitions. His work is in national collections including Indiana University, the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, University of Colorado, and the Racine Art Museum.

Artist Statement

When I began working on pieces for the fellowship, my intention was to create a body of urban images that evolved from the casual observation of familiar architectural nuances. Ideally, these images—which I would fragment and stylize—would create a visual context that would be simultaneously familiar and foreign. Technically, my goal was to create pictures in both digital and traditional mediums, hoping to allow them to complement each other. The resultant work satisfies many of my objectives and is visually very much about Racine—and a bit of Milwaukee—from a perspective not singly perceived.