Our modern world has continued to add degrees of separation between the consumers in our society and the agricultural resources that sustain us. It is therefore significant and yet not entirely unsurprising that an active artist today should choose to delve so attentively and deeply into a study of nature, seeking to portray in detail what we all know well, but don’t see so closely or as regularly as perhaps we should.

Devin Gaviria’s Rooster Study presents us with portraits of chickens and roosters. These are creatures that our society subsists on every day, and yet, if you’re not a farmer, or you don’t keep a chicken coop at home, you might not interact with frequently. Gaviria’s hyper-detailed portraits force the viewer to admire these animals in a new light.

Born in Queens, New York and a native of Cooperstown, Gaviria earned his Bachelors of Arts in Game Art and Animation from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona. The artist learned color theory, composition, anatomy, perspective, and value studies while studying the art of 3D modeling in a computer. He has taken these skills and seamlessly transferred them back into the age-old medium of canvas painting; Gaviria has chosen a subject that is as primal and far removed as one can be from the computing instruments that he learned to work in.

Gaviria works with acrylics, layering the entire canvas in color and allowing the paint to dry in stages. Each work is composed in seven to ten such sessions. The attention to and refinement of detail used in creating these portraits, results in works that seek to accurately capture the color and light of the natural world.

When asked “why chickens?” the artist responded: “Just a curiosity; but as I did more of them I found there was something special about them. They have a lot more character than I think people realize and I wanted to express that,”

Exhibition Checklist

Logos Rising, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Curmudgeon, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Empress, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Rainbow Rooster, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Oskuro, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Colonel, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Orange Rooster, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Little Chick 1, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 in.

Little Chick 2, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 in.

Brother Chicks, Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.

Light, Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 30 in.

Shadow, Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 30 in.

The Rooster, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 in.