Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit – Center for Art Design and Visual Culture

Fifty years of DeVane’s energetic, interactive sculptures, paintings and works on paper

Maryland-based artist Oletha DeVane (born 1952) has long been a prominent presence in the Baltimore-area art scene, working in all media, including public sculpture. Spectrum of Light and Spirit documents the first full retrospective of her work, from early paintings to video artworks and interactive sculpture.

Among the works presented here is a large-scale carved sculpture, N’Kisi Woman—Universal N’Kisi (2021–22); nkisi is a Kongo cultural figure invested with sacred energy. The work reflects DeVane’s fascination with how materials convey meaning and reemerge as myths and memories.

“Oletha DeVane is a wayfinder and a storyteller,” says the retrospective’s curator, Lowery Stokes Sims. “Over the last five decades as she has traveled in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, she has been inspired by the stories and characters she encounters, bringing the unexpected to light, while finding new nuances in the old and familiar, and unexpected correlations among those varied cultures.”

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Installation view of Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit. Three mixed media sculptures stand on a rectangular pedestal. — “Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit” exhibition, CADVC, UMBC. Photo: Marayna Demond

Installation view of Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit. Various colorful sculptures are displayed in display cases at the center of a gallery. — Installatoni view of Spirit Sculptures, “Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit,” photo: Marlayna Demond

Detail of a small sculptural bust, showing a person wearing a purple crown with a predominantly green ensemble. The sculpture is placed upon an ornate beaded pedestal. — Spririt Sculpture (detail), “Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit,” photo: Marlayna Demond

Individuals mingle about a gallery space, looking at multimedia artwork on a pedestal or on the walls around them. — Press preview, “Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit,” CADVC gallery, fall 2022, photo: Sandra Abbott

Photograph of a panel discussion in a gallery space. Five individuals are seated at a table, which is covered in a black table cloth. An audience is seated before them. Behind the panel are mixed media artworks, both hanging and on pedestals. — “College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Colloquium Panel on Resilience,” CADVC gallery, October 13, 4-6:30 pm, (from left) Christopher Kozjar, Artist, Andrew Harris Post-doctoral Fellow, college of Arts and Sciences, University of Vermont, Oletha DeVane, Artist, Oletha DeVane: Spectrum of Light and Spirit, Dr. Leslie King Hammond, Graduate Dean Emerita, Founder of Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art; former Senior Research Fellow, Robert Deutsch Foundation, Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art, Baltimore museum of Art, and Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, exhibition curator, independent art historian and curator, photo: Sandra Abbott

An abstract sculpture of a woman in blue. The subject is crafted from wood with a visible trunk around her waist. The work is placed upon a raw wooden pedestal in an outdoor space. — N’Kisi Woman—Universal N’Kisi (2021–22), Fine Arts Amphitheater, UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond

Several individuals gather around a blue wooden sculpture of a woman. A woman with a dark skin-tone dressed in white is crouched at the base of the sculpture. She holds a small piece of parchment in her white hand and waves it over burning incense. — UMBC Fine Arts Amphitheater performance. Photo: Tadia-Rice

About Oletha DeVane

For the last four decades DeVane has been a prominent presence in the Baltimore area art scene as an arts administrator, curator and educator in the arts. She began her undergraduate studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1968, where she studied with poet/artists David Franks and Joe Cardarelli, who in her words “fed” her “curiosity about poetry and language as they relate to visual art.” In 1973 DeVane went to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst to pursue her graduate degree, where her advisor was painter Nelson Stevens, a key figure in the AfriCobra group. She also took advantage of a course on Black Women and African Studies, offered by Johnnetta Cole and Esther Terry, which provided her with “a wealth of knowledge and challenge in thinking about the role of women and claiming self-determination.”

After receiving her MA, DeVane taught and worked for over a decade as an administrator for the Maryland Council on the Arts for 13 years, before taking a position at the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, MD in 1993, where she was Director of the Tuttle Gallery and head of visual arts in the Upper Level. In 2007 she was the recipient of the Rollins/Luetkemeyer Chair for Distinguish Teaching. DeVane started a mosaic in Camp Coq, Haiti with the help of local artisans and students in 2017.

DeVane has received grants, awards, and fellowships from the Ruby Foundation, Art Matters, the Trawick Prize, and other honors. In addition to her 2016 residency in Abu Dhabi, DeVane has also been an Artist in Residence in Banff, Canada, and in Leece, Italy. DeVane counts among the artistic cohort she has formed over the years: art historian/artist Leslie King Hammond, former graduate dean at MICA, bead and glass artist Joyce J. Scott, poet Charles Fox, as well as a women’s artistic collaborative known as the Girls of Baltimore, which includes King Hammond, Scott, Patti Tronolone, Ellen Burchenal, and Linda DePalma.