By Virginia Brown

Kalin Devone is on a journey of self-discovery.

The Charlotte-based artist is a recent recipient of a $10,000 ASC Emerging Creators Fellowship and is using the funds to develop a new body of work examining self-perspective through portraiture. She plans to showcase the works in a gallery show in January 2023.

“I was just really excited,” said Devone, 29, when she learned she would receive the funds in early 2022. “It’s the first big grant I’ve received as an artist.”  

The fellowship came at an ideal time: Devone had left her day job at a law firm to pursue art full-time. “[Before the fellowship,] all of my funds went toward getting more supplies,” she said. Now, she has the time and space to think more deeply about her work.

“I get a little jumpstart in my art career.”

Originally from Wilmington, Devone moved to Charlotte in 2011 to pursue a fine art degree at UNC Charlotte. After graduation, her early work examined societal influence and social culture. Her first solo exhibition, “Perpetual” (2019), featured pop icons like Michael Jordan and Lauryn Hill.

Devone’s work can be found all over Charlotte. She has collaborated with the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture and Charlotte Museum of History, among many others, and she was one of the artists who created the Black Lives Matter mural in Uptown Charlotte in 2020.

She is a member of the 2022 ArtPop Street Gallery Cities Program. And she is one of three artists behind the mural across the street from the Charlotte Convention Center, inspired by the artist’s friendship with Dionna Bright, a local photographer. 

Now Devone wants to spend some time looking inward, with a focus on self-portraiture.

“A lot of well-known artists painted mainly portraits of themselves—Picasso, Frida Kahlo—so it’s a staple,” she said. 

For Devone, self-portraiture is a journey of self-discovery.

“It’s about figuring out who I am, versus how people see me,” she said. “A lot of my work is about the perception of others versus the perception of myself. 

“I’m constantly questioning, Why do I feel this way?” she said. “That’s really big for me in my body of work right now.”

So far, she has traveled to Colombia, where she went to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá and met several artists. In New Orleans, she visited the New Orleans Museum of Art and met artists Gabrielle Garcia Steib, Alia Ali, and others.

Her travels culminated in a recent trip to Thailand.

“That’s the highlight of all of this for me,” she said. “I’ve been inspired mainly by painters and photographers that specialize in self-portraiture, pattern-making, and pieces reflective of their culture.”

The Emerging Creators Fellowship, she said, provided her with the safety net she needed to jump out on her own.

“I am a whole, working artist now, because of the time I have been able to devote to my career,” she said. “And it’s just from the grant. I’m so grateful; I’ve been able to do great things.”