Artist Es Devlin creates large-scale public art works and stage sculptures that combine light, music and language.
The imperial war museum commission, I Saw The World End (2020) invited viewers to engage simultaneously with opposing perspectives while the monumental 360 degree sculpture Memory Palace (2019) mapped shifts in human perspective over 73 millennia as a reminder that we have achieved profound alterations in our behaviour and mindset in the past, and we can do so once again in response to the threat of extinction.
Her first large scale maze work , Mirrormaze (Peckham, London 2016), explored perforated cinema and memory and identity through reflective labyrinthine geometries. Her immense mirrored maze Forest Of Us (2021) examines the striking visual symmetries between the structures within us that allow us to breathe and the structures around us that make breathing possible. Alongside work by James Turrell, it forms part of the inaugural exhibition at the new Superblue Arts Centre in Miami.
In Devlin’s work, the viewer becomes a participant. She developed her deep understanding of the terms of audience engagement through two decades of collaborations in theatre - designing The Lehman Trilogy, (National Theatre London, NYC, LA); Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch at The Barbican, A Number, Girls and Boys, The Nether (Royal Court), Chimerica, The Hunt (Almeida), Faith Healer (Donmar), operas including Don Giovanni, Salome, Les Troyens and Mahagonny at the Royal Opera House, Carmen on the lake at Bregenz, Austria, Olympic ceremonies (London and Rio), Super Bowl halftime shows (Dr Dre, Kendrick Lamar et al 2022 and The Weeknd 2021) and has created some of the most renowned stage sculptures (with Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Kanye West, U2, Jay Z, Florence and the Machine, Imogen Heap, Petshop Boys, Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish) seen by mass audiences in stadia and arena around the world.
Her work has been displayed in Trafalgar Square, the V&A, the Louvre, the Serpentine Gallery and the MET Museum and she is the first woman to design the British Pavilion at the World Expo (2021-2022). Her practice was the subject of the netflix documentary series Abstract: The art of design (2017) and she has been awarded the London Design Medal, Evening Standard Award, the Tony Award and three Olivier Awards. Dr Dre’s Super Bowl 2022 halftime show and Adele’s Griffith Park show both won multiple Emmy awards this year, while the Future Utopia song on which Es is featured alongside Dave, won an Ivor Novello award. Having been awarded the OBE in 2015, Es was made CBE in 2022.