PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is pleased to announce Devan Shimoyama as the winner of the 2016 Miami Beach PULSE Prize. This jury-awarded cash grant is given directly to an artist of distinction exhibiting within a solo presentation booth at every edition of PULSE since 2006.
Los Angeles-based Samuel Freeman Gallery, a new PULSE Miami Beach exhibitor, presents Shimoyama’s work as an immersive installation, reminiscent of a moody and magical tropical forest with dark walls, black glittered banana leaf foliage and stark white bedazzled swings. Shimoyama offers viewers a study of himself as a contiguous and connected part of nature through his bold, colorful self-portraits. “I renounce the notion of one’s body belonging to oneself. My body, inhabited by my spirit, serves as my home in which I maintain and utilize his functionality in order to navigate the world. He becomes a portal for the viewer to enter and undergo a symbiotic relationship with him in his exploration of magic and self” explains Shimoyama calling out the separation between spiritual and physical states.
The multi-disciplinary artist lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he holds the position of Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He has recently participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency, NY, and in group shows at Emmanuel Gallery, Denver, CO; Alter Space, San Francisco, CA; Fondation des États-Unis, Paris, France; Bravin Lee Programs, New York, NY; Kravets Wheby Gallery, New York, NY; as well as solo exhibitions at Samuel Freeman Gallery and Lesley Heller Workspace. Shimoyama received his MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University and holds a BFA in Drawing/Painting from Penn State University.
Shimoyama was selected by a jury of leading art-experts including Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Curator at El Museo del Barrio; Rozalia Jovanovic, Editor in Chief of artnet News; Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions and Senior Curator at Dallas Contemporary; and Bahia Ramos, Arts Program Director of the Knight Foundation
The nominees for the 2016 Miami Beach Prize included Sam Burford (FIUMANO PROJECTS), Sharon Butler (SEASON), Chen Chen + Kai Williams (kinder MODERN), Jessica Drenk (Adah Rose Gallery), Henriette Grahnert (KLEINDIENST), Thrush Holmes (BEERS London), Mark Joshua Epstein (Vane), Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos (Sarl Galerie Christophe Tailleur), Andrew McIntosh (bo.lee gallery), Sean Newport (Cordesa Fine Art), Rashaad Newsome (De Buck Gallery), Adriana Ospina (DANTE AND RANDALL), Fernando Otero (CEDE GALERIA), Hiroshi Shinno (YOD Gallery) and Bradley Wood (Sim Smith).
Shimoyama joins a list of notable past winners including, most recently, Front Room Gallery’s Thomas Broadbent who presented a series of delicate watercolor renderings at PULSE New York 2016.
