Fenestra Falsa
August 8, 2026 – October 10, 2026
OS Projects, W Wisconsin St, Chicago, IL 60614, USA
Dan Devening is an image builder who combines decisive subject matter with gestural mark-making, spray enamel, collage and stitching to express a life experience shaped by the unexpected, the surprising and the unknown. Like much of what has held his interest over the years, the works in this exhibition engage the ways in which perceptual nuance and optical and spatial play come alive in compositions built on rigorously considered parameters. The project’s point of departure is the rounded rectangle, a shape that is ubiquitous in the devices that connect us to the outside world: iPhones, iPads, computer monitors and televisions. All these devices employ the "friendliness" of the rounded rectangle to suggest comfort and simplicity while effortlessly holding us captive. The shape’s affability—and invitation to use, peer into, and be mesmerized—mirrors the current state of culture, reflecting not only how we consume information, find entertainment and create connections but also the darker, more sinister undertones that are ever-present.