Artist Statement
Stewards or destroyers of the natural world? I explore such themes of humanity in my work,
informed by a personal lens rooted in Western, Native, and Eastern cultures. My intention is to generate new thinking towards decoloniality and pluriverse ideas, and to spark curiosity and understanding to support social change and environmental protection.
Working as a multidisciplinary artist, I utilize a range of media: painting, drawing, fiber art, repurposed materials, contemporary basketry, digital and analogue photographic techniques, and public art, separately or combined. I use cyanotype processes on vintage linens featuring our sacred lands and Chiricahua Apache people. The interaction and contrast between imported colonial craft traditions and native imagery highlight the past struggles of the opposing cultures and offer a new direction for the future. In this way, material informs the concepts of the two-dimensional and sculptural work.
Artist Bio
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, artist Delia deVer studied visual art at the California College of Arts and Crafts and Graduate studies at Eastern Illinois University with an emphasis on Fiber Arts and Public Art.
Exploring beyond her California roots, she worked her way to New Mexico, where she maintains a Studio in Silver City within the Traditional Territory of the Chiricahua Apache People. With descendant ancestry, deVer is a member of the Chiricahua Apache Nation. Much of her current artistic practice centers around concepts that bring attention to and acknowledge the rich history, heritage, current affairs of the Tribe and the decoloniality movement.
deVer works as a multidisciplinary artist that includes experimental basket-weaving techniques, analogue and digital photography, drawing, painting and public art. Recently, she received a grant from the 30Something philanthropic group for a mural project in Silver City, New Mexico. Her work is curiosity, learning, and action towards intercultural understanding and healing through restorative justice, cultural preservation, and environmental protection of the sacred lands we share.
contact: deliadever@gmail.com
