Devin T. Mays' practice is an auto-ethnographic investigation of the in-between -- an intermediate space navigated by the social polarities of his identity. These social polarities, ranging from corporeal to celestial, demarcate spaces that define an in-between. This in-between-ness is measured both horizontally and vertically – horizontality as a measurement of time and verticality as a measurement of transcendence. Time tests the durability of polarities and transcendence tests the limits of their existence. This visual language develops a vocabulary that defines and redefines the in-between being explored in his practice, and the iterative formal gestures create conceptual underpinnings that create grammatical rules for the work. By creating conditions that infiltrate, imitate and mine his familial, spiritual and cultural landscape, the work proposes and repositions what’s in-between.

Photo: Andrew Henderson.