The Dreamscapes of DevNGosha : Cartwheel Art

The Dreamscapes of DevNGosha

Posted by Eva Recinos

On a chilly Saturday night, the walls of Soze Gallery felt less like spaces for mere art and more like projections of strange dreams and fragmented nightmares.

The same white walls stood there but getting lost in a piece by artistic duo DevNGosha meant virtually leaving the gallery and entering a completely different world. That result came from the creative, collaborative efforts of Devin Liston (formerly of CYRCLE.) and artist Gosha Levochkin, who that night shared their strange visions in a show entitled “Pressure.” Levochkin normally works with watercolors, displaying cityscapes and urban scenes that feel familiar but have a whimsical twist.

I first saw Levochkin’s work at the now-closed Hold Up Art, he had painted wires on the wall, connecting the electrical poles featured on each canvas. Together, as DevNGosha, Liston and Levochkin have begun working on canvas pieces as well as larger murals around the city. As a member of CYRCLE., Liston obviously understands the city and human psyche, as CYRCLE focused on the themes like order and chaos. Separately, the duo of DevNGosha had explored issues of modernity, and now together they’ve created some fantastic work for “Pressure.”

According to the press release for the show, the artists wanted to explore “the social, psychological and spiritual nature of the internalization of pressure” and oh, boy, did they do that.

Whether pressure for financial or work reason — see for example, the eerie painting Wall St (below)– or something to do with the effects of people on the human psyche, the many pressures of humanity get translated onto works that felt somehow both simple and complex. An initial look at each piece revealed a familiar image, such as the face of a woman or a man’s body falling, but a closer look revealed plenty more layers. Unspoken Infatuation is a visually tantalizing piece that hides clues upon clues. When you look long enough, you begin to notice things like hidden faces and a strange, frightening fish that didn’t come through on a quick glance.

The soft colors contrasted with bolder tones make parts of the creations even feel ephemeral — much like the visions that come with all of life’s pressures. As much as DevNGosha’s dreamy creations seem to alter reality, they ultimately tune into something more humanly basic — the things we internalize until the pressure becomes too much.