Devin Troy StrotherUS

Devin Troy Strother (b. 1986, US) plucks materials out of their expected context and gives them back refigured as complex and multi-layered collages, sculptures and installations that are characterised by a highly spontaneous, unmistakable individual style.

Trademark cartoon-like figures, many striking celebratory poses, fill basketball courts, discos, woodland, and domestic interiors in works abound with references to politics, music and sport. Strother openly explores clear references and influences that shape his lens on art and the process of its creation – the visual language of Philip Guston being a recent example.

Whilst the work maintains a brilliantly playful aesthetic, using colour to jubilant effect (rainbows and neons reoccur as a motif), its content muses on the multifarious – both overt and concealed – injuries to human dignity in our society. If Strother’s work is about conflict, it revels in an abundant creativity, melding the cynical voice of irony with a purist belief in beauty that, together, acts to overcome that conflict.

Strother studied at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, and has exhibited widely in solo and group shows, including at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2011), the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2010), and Marlborough Gallery in New York (2017). Recent solo exhibitions include shows at The Pit in Los Angeles (2021) and Broadway Gallery in New York (2023). His works are part of public collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.