Visual artist Denis Evin Follow.Art Card

About me

I’m Denis Evin, aka deviniska, a performance artist and actor. I live and work in Riga, make interactive installations, performances, video and texts, and act in theatre.

At the centre of my work is metal that comes alive. Iron, steel, brass, old industrial machines: hard, cold, built to protect. For me they stand for what we build inside ourselves after something has broken us: a shell that keeps us alive and at the same time keeps everyone else out. In my pieces this metal starts to breathe, react, light up, answer a hand or a voice. What was meant to lock the psyche up becomes a place where contact is possible.

My work deals with trauma and with the silence that grows around it: shame, the fear of being seen, the habit of hiding behind texts, irony and complicated constructions. I don’t illustrate trauma and I don’t explain it. I try to build a controlled, safe space where it can be spoken, looked at and witnessed.

The other side of this is loneliness. Many of my works can’t be completed by one person: they need a second body, a second voice, two people holding hands. The object is only an intermediary. Ideally, at some point it becomes unnecessary, because the people around it have already found each other.

That’s why I see my practice as psychological rather than technological. The electronics, the mechanics, the invented characters and legends are tools for one thing: a meeting. With another person, and with the part of yourself you’d rather not look at.

Theatre taught me what it means to stand in the light in front of others. In my work the audience is never just a spectator: the leading role is always left open for the person who walks in.