By Cansu Peker

Devis Bergantin is a visual artist, writer, and atelierist based in northern Italy. His artistic practice centers on experimental drawing and glitch art — often blending the two to explore spontaneity, unpredictability, and the beauty found in error. In addition to his creative work, Devis is also an expert in vegetable and wellness gardening, cultivating both land and imagination through interdisciplinary collaborations with independent projects and spaces across Italy and abroad.

Glitch art has profoundly reshaped his approach to drawing, shifting his focus from precise control to a more fluid and intuitive process. For Devis, a drawing no longer follows a predetermined path — it meanders, surprises, and evolves. What may appear as a mistake becomes an invitation: a creative “prosthesis,” an expansion that deepens the work’s meaning and visual terrain.

As a writer, he crafts short and micro texts in both Italian and English, often echoing the same experimental ethos that guides his visual practice. Whether working on paper or in the garden, Devis’s work embraces imperfection as a source of growth and discovery.

We asked Devis about his art, creative process, and inspirations.

*Devis Bergantin, Untitled, 2025, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1801 x 1173 pixels*

Can you tell us about your background as a glitch artist? How did you get started?

My first contact with glitch art took place on Tumblr, in the simplest way, namely by scrolling through the dashboard. I was a self-taught artist who painted and drew dominated by perfectionism: the contact with this aesthetics of error was liberating. I began to learn about the possible techniques to make photographs, drawings or videos go crazy. This is how I learnt to work on the threshold of subject destruction. I have never been a lover of realism, which I find limiting and really not very expressive, whereas I consider glitch art techniques as a kind of means to break through the first layer of reality, of appearance.

*Devis Bergantin, Untitled, 2025, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1057 x 837 pixels*

Glitch art is often associated with randomness and accidents, while drawing can be a more controlled practice. How do these two mediums interact in your work?

Glitch art has changed my way of interpreting drawing, shifting the focus from absolute control of the stroke to its generation in a spontaneous, wandering manner: I don't know where drawing will take me, it becomes more and more unpredictable. In the event that I notice an error in the stroke (but isn't an error something subjective?), I know that it will lead me to produce an extension of the drawing itself, a creative “prosthesis”, a continuation in the space of the sheet. I also work in this way: by expansions produced by presumed oversights.

I love to combine drawing and glitch art in the same digital work, superimposing the two elements through an old software: Corel PHOTO-PAINT 7. I always start from the digitised paper work, then apply databending and photo editing to create dialogue and interference between the original drawing, without manipulation, and its altered versions.

*Devis Bergantin, Untitled, 2024, digitised drawing, databending and photo editing, 1721 x 1325 pixels*

Experimental drawing is an expansive term — what does it mean to you?

Yes, it is a very expansive expression. By experimental drawing I mean a practice that allows me to dig into my mind in search of subjects that cannot be directly traced in external reality. I often draw with my eyes closed and then reconstruct what I have traced more or less casually, according to instinct or perhaps the unconscious. In this case, I clearly sense that certain signs recall each other and ask to be connected in some way. If I have a subject in front of me, I try to capture only a few essential elements, while I add the rest according to my imagination or loss of rational control. I call this technique semi-automatic drawing.

*Devis Bergantin, Mimicry, 2024, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1353 x 1193 pixels*

What is an event which you consider a milestone in your digital art career?

Without any doubt my two participations in The Wrong Biennale, to be precise in the group exhibitions: ESSENCE/ABSENCE - SECOND WAVE (2021/2022) and And We Gonna Crash It When Nobody's Home (2023/2024).

*Devis Bergantin, Microworld, 2024, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1445 x 1309 pixels*

Can you tell us about some of your favorite pieces? What makes them special to you?

I would like to talk about a project in development, it does not have a title, but all of its constituent works have in common a text superimposed on the accompanying glitched image. The written element is not necessarily a commentary on the visual component. In some cases the text may be altered by the glitch effect, making it difficult to read.

I love to compose texts capable of conveying a mysterious and intimate message: it is a way of pushing the viewer/reader to make a completely personal interpretation of what he sees and reads, but at the same time I want him to hear my voice, my words, even when they are upset by the distortion.

In other cases, the text is perfectly clear in terms of graphics, again I follow my instinct or the communicative need of the moment.

What makes this project special is that it makes the combination of glitch art and textual expression possible. My aim is to write increasingly poetic and incisive texts.

*Devis Bergantin, Microworld, 2024, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1421 x 1241 pixels*

How would you say your traditional art practices have an impact on your digital art?

Both practices enjoy their own autonomy, I do not draw thinking that the work will be modified by databending or photo editing. However, semi-automatic drawing has taught me to search for the figure in the abstraction of many of my glitches, reconnecting parts and colours of the digital work. This possibility gives me the opportunity to interpret the work, but also the process, as a kind of symbolic narrative. In short: I tell myself a story that many titles partially explain.

*Devis Bergantin, Memento, 2025, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1861 x 1153 pixels*

What role does imperfection play in your work, both in glitch art and in drawing?

Imperfections are open doors for the imagination. They invite me to work on them to amplify their form and meaning. This can lead to further imperfections thus giving the work the opportunity to enrich itself visually and semantically.

*Devis Bergantin, Memento, 2025, digitised drawing portion, databending and photo editing, 1097 x 897 pixels*

What is a profound childhood memory?

I distinctly remember holidays spent at my paternal grandmother's house near Venice. I stayed in the middle of the countryside during the month of August, getting up very early for long walks on the beach, which was not too far away; once back home, I used to hang out in the shade of the house to draw near the chicken coop, whose odour I can still smell.

The afternoon was devoted to idleness, games with my relatives (mostly card games over a small, somewhat rusty table) and again drawing.

In the late evening, in almost total darkness, we gathered in the large courtyard to enjoy the relatively cooler temperatures: we barely saw each other.

It was a perfect artist's residence!

*Devis Bergantin, Breath, 2023, digitised drawing, databending and photo editing, 1185 x 977 pixels*

What is a dream project you’d like to make one day?

I dream of being able to open a small, intimate space, perhaps in the mountains, that gives visibility to artists committed to bringing together traditional disciplines (without renouncing experimentalism) and digital arts. I hope to create a truly independent space and not, as often happens in Italy, to be faced with branches of galleries or at least of the mainstream, something that too many artists pretend not to see and know, overwhelmed by selfishness.