ARTiculAction Art Review November 2014 (Special Issue)

November 2014

Special Issue

Fragment #3 BIACI 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Cartagena de Indias photography Barbara Krulik

SUMMARY

ARTiculA Action ART Feel free to submit your artworks, mailto: articulaction@post.com N O V E M B E R

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Laurent Quinkal

IN THIS ISSUE (France)

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"Photography has allowed me to travel all over the world and given me the opportunity to approach our presence on the earth in a more fulfilled way; philosophy, poetry, self- awareness, the force of love and the diversity of humankind ‌"

Jane Gottlieb

(USA)

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" I have been expressing my joy of art with paint, shapes and colors since I was very young. I started as a painter, evolved into a photographer, and eventually began painting on my photographic prints over 30 years ago."

Svetlin Velchev

(The Netherlands)

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"Art can be everything and nothing. Sometimes we have so much art flowing around us outside on the street and on the other hand a lack of it inside the museums and the theaters.

Cristina Zorrilla Speer

(USA / Mexico)

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Cristina Zorrilla Speer's goal as an artist is to convey a feeling of serenity, harmony and comfort....to create a Zen-like moment for the viewer. Her challenge is to express all this in a contemporary style and to continue exploring and trying to adapt new techniques into her work.

Carolyn Frischling

(USA)

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" I follow in the tradition of artists/printmakers such as Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Brice Marden, and Wade Guyton. Digital printmaking enables me to use the same thought processes of traditional printmaking without the toxicity of using traditional materials on a daily basis. "

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(France)

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Amélie Beaudroit

"I have long been fascinated by the blur, the fog, the light, all the invisible forces that surround us, modify us and keep us still. In my work I try to relay the emotion born from this contemplation. "

(United Kingdom)

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Mark Lloyd

"My work is based on the blurring of philosophical conceptions and science fictions. This is visually manifested through and in the experience of creating primarily mixed media paintings. "

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(Hungary / Germany)

Gábor A. Nagy

"Art today has become a kind of general refuge for all manner of projects which are not efficient or productive for consumer society. Art is no longer pure creating, but rather surfing on existing structures. "

(USA)

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Nevena Vuksanovic

““To build a sculpture we need physical involvement, greatimmediacy. Forms mature upon their long being createdin imagination. At the moment of personal separation fromthem, during the tension of my overall sensibility, ”

(USA)

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Jake Kelley

“ My work is primarily an exploration of materials in an effortto create images of lasting conceptual and emotional effect.As an abstract painter, engaging in a cultural dialogue isalso a concern. ”

(Turkey)

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“ My artwork is based on personal history, on relationships and memory (dreams, space, geography, land). It is broadly related to memory, dreams, space and connotations. These topics are drawn from daily life as much as from unconscious thoughts. Essentially, I’m attempting to create images accor-ding to my own psychological needs. “

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Çiğdem Menteşoğlu

Laurent Quinkal

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Gold, (background detail) Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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An interview with

Laurent Quinkal Hello Laurent and welcome to ARTiculAction.

To start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there particular experiences that impacted on the way you produce your artworks?

Hi! First of all I’d like to thank Articulation for giving me this opportunity to present my work to its readers and the chance for me to take the time to consider my creative journey.

A circus artist of origin, for the last two years, I have shared my professional time with photography, in order to make the leap into fulltime photography work. During my work in circus performance, I continued to dabble in fine and traditional arts such as drawing, painting, stone sculpture and woodcarving. Photography naturally came about as the artistic medium most adapted to my work, allowing me to capture these art forms together. In order to make an impression in this professional medium i studied in a well known photography school in Paris, which helped me to develop and refine my techniques in lab development, studio techniques, and the writing and interpretation of photographs.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your works? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Photography has allowed me to travel all over the world and given me the opportunity to approach our presence on the earth in a more fulfilled way; philosophy, poetry, self- awareness, the force of love and the diversity of humankind ‌all these things which give birth to the physical desire to create and to leave a graphic imprint of the beautiful experience that is life.

My work is essentially based on questioning the spiritual. Most of the time my creative process starts off with a very clear visualisation, although

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The time that it takes me to create an installation depends on the project; for one such project I wanted to dig a swimming pool in my garden and filled it with thick, white liquid in order to represent the ocean of life with a goddess bathing in it’s depths - This took me half a day to dig a hole big enough to immerse a human figure, and then I had to find a way to stop the seeping through the hole I’d just dug – further challenges included research into how I could make a liquid that had the right density.

I used flour to provide this density and I could see I needed at least ten times that amount in order to continue. I invited the model to dive in the water but at this point it was freezing. With a few saucepans of boiling water, we managed to get the temperature up in order to start shooting, but as it was October, by then we only had 15 minutes of daylight and time left in order to get the shot.

The art of creation is a living, breathing form, and we have to be open to surprises to improvise with what it gives us. Photography is the ideal medium for me, contrary to these drawbacks, to be able to speak about the universe. It underlines the real, at the same time giving me the opportunity to place my point of view of this reality. sometimes these mirages can stay a little blurry or in other cases the idea continues to germinate in my thoughts, for example, how can I show in a photo the density of a vacuum or the air and ether around it?

We have a tendency to place the supernatural on the top of the list of things that we do not understand. Magic is part of life, and whether we like it or not we are bathed in the greatness of the cosmos, it’s energies and laws. This is the material which brings my photography to it’s fore.

Next I look for the material and research the techniques in order to be able to realise my vision, and there’s always a large difference between this first picture in my head and the final realisation and sometimes this difference influences me in the next photo or project.

Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with Esprit de Femme, that our readers have already started to admire in the starting pages of this article: would you tell us

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from Esprit de Femme

from Esprit de Femme

something about the genesis of this project?

What was your initial inspiration?

the great beauty of ecstasy where love is at it’s greatness; illustrative of the teachings of Bhairava Tantra. My photographic task was to choose different materials in order to represent space and to arrange these materials in composition.

« Spirit of woman » is one of my photographic series, which has become several series aborded over a period of five years, on the theme of sacred femininity. This journey is inspired by spiritual experience as well as personal research by my model Emmanuelle De Gasquet.

I worked on both small and large installations with these different materials. Plexiglass was one of the key components to my work for a long time because through its transparency it allowed

Nudity is present to narrate the essence of women in their pure state, to remind ourselves of

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from Esprit de Femme

from Esprit de Femme

me to add material and colour as well as play on light and reflection, expressing the marriage between sky and earth, between male and female. This remains a huge area of experimentation, despite the work already done, there is a lot of possibility and research still to do with fabric, liquid, ink, pigments‌

Intim Origin: how would you describe the message and the narrative behind this project — that is, the idea you would most like to convey or the story you are trying to tell? Your art practice tends to be fairly diverse, from conceptual to narrative to emotive and anywhere in between and I would like to suggest our readers to visit your website at http://www.laurentquinkal.com/ in order to get a wider idea of you artistic production... by the way, I would like to ask you if

Another interesting series of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled

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from Esprit de Femme

in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process...

Do you think that a creative process could be 10

disconnected from direct experience?

"Intime origine" is the continuity of the work already realised on the sacredness of women,

Laurent Quinkal

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from Esprit de Femme

with the added element of the notion of origin in the process of evolution, a passage in given time, with a beginning and end. I started this

work with the overprinting of several photographs during a shoot, meaning that I would use my camera to superimpose one shot

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from Intime Origine

from Intime Origine

doing this post-production. This allowed me to keep the notion of reality and truth, to allow this present moment to expand and to lessen the dimension of a simple, ‘effect’.

heart of the creation will be a sculpted tree in wood and cast metal, which will act as as a support for the photographs printed on transparent fabric.

This series is not yet finished and the idea is that it will become an interdisciplinary creation.

Implemented by Cie L'Amdéis, and bringing together different artists, amongst them sculptor Jacky Gras, singer and dancer Emmanuelle De Gasquet and musician Dominique Besson, the

We are currently in creation for this work and looking for further funding.

To answer the second part of your question, of course all creative acts are linked to personal experience in our life’s journey, the interest

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from Intime Origine

from Intime Origine

being to share our own perspective of this, and

photography to reveal a more photogenetic world.

to see how, in group work, we are able to mix this in order to concretise and allow the reaction

This is the reason why I work with people in my close proximity to develop this fibre of my work and for sensitivity to my pedagogy.

from these experiences to see the light of day.

I’d like to add that, when working a shoot with a model, the essence of these sessions is a

A feature that I recognize in Conversations avec la Nature is the perception of the common in our environment and the challenging of it in order to create a new multitude of points of views: I would like to

sharing, that I direct very little their movement in order that their propositions stay vivid and truthful. I propose only a universe and allow myself to slow down their gestures in my

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stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the background of your pieces: most of the times it doesn't seem to be just a passive background... and I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Your interpretation of my work gives me enormous pleasure – it’s a wonderful description!

You’re right in saying that I have a larger will than to show simple landscapes or fragments of nature.

I have brought together several series under the same name called, “Conversations with nature”. I use the word “Conversation” because the aim of this work is to both directly question nature and the things it can teach us, as well as being a mirror to our existence. We are, as is nature, a living and breathing organism but even although we come from the same place, and are governed by the same cosmic and environmental laws, we express ourselves differently.

All transformation that it operates tirelessly, either from growth, adaptation to elements, outside attack…refer directly to human beings; sensitivity, physically, conscious and our unconsciousness. For example when we look at a drop of water we see a whole universe, the view in a puddle, an oak leaf frozen in the cold light of dawn, life in a river, movement without cess in the great oceans, the mist in a clearing of pines, what is this water telling us? Do we not, as human beings, also have all this experience and richness within us?

In a similar way, I have also explored at the end of my studies in Arles, a portfolio of work where I questioned the theme of light, referencing divine light. The photos were taken face to the light and mixed with different coloured liquids in vials and transparent containers. It was work that I developed on slides in order to strengthen the bond with the theme of light.

artists, would you like to tell us if digital technology as post-editing has impacted on your creative process? All in all, modern technologies allows us not only to make possible what was once hard to make, but are also and especially capable of helping us to conceive new kind of works...

Since many of the readers of our review are

I don’t really think that digital photography is

from conflit de nature digital

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from conflit de nature digital

helpful to creativity than traditional techniques

field and only use very basic tools : contrasts,

but rather in itself a tool that can ease our work

cropping, cleaning of an image, colorimetry.

as well as make it more difficult. We become less

The temptations to use these tools to their

manual, and this calls for a need to master digital

extremes, play with colour, different parameters

software. This can be more attractive to people of

means than we plunge into a sort of mediocrity

a cerebral nature rather than sensitive artists. I

towards a final product which is either

personally don’t have a lot of experience in this

exaggerated or ideal.

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from conflit de nature digital

Having said that I totally appreciate the possibilities that this new art form offers to the excellent work of certain artists.

responsibility to work on the post-production of photos where she had also been the model.

There is no ‘right’ or, ‘correct’ way for an expressive path, it is rather the accuracy and the integrity of the expression which is paramount and of course an ownership of each one’s creative work.

In order to have a little taste of what this new format could bring to my work, I worked on a project this year with the sculptor and digital photographer Catherine Ayella, who took the

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"Miroir de l'창me" with Cathy Ayella

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On the same subject, I’d just like to quickly talk about my work and pedagogy on my series, « Conflit de nature digital ». The work that you see seems to be the result of post-production treatment but in fact all of the photos are untreated and have been taken directly on the shoot. The idea is that they try and respond graphically to some of our questions about environmental and ecological order, confronting our photo hardware which is improving exponentially, and at the same time, determining the involvement of man it it’s deterioration. In order to do this I used specific in order to get a good shot.

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I can’t really talk about the concepts born from these meetings, but of paths which cross and ideas which spark mutual inspiration or the desire to create new images. As performance does, the art of photography can be revolutionary and activist, dismissing false truths and beliefs which freeze the evolution of mankind, denouncing certain political, social and commercial regimes which push humanity against the wall.

Resistance is the fundamental part, existing in every artist, directly echoing their persistence to create despite the insecurity and instability in this kind of profession. Some choose to show a side that’s more energetic, revengeful, and even violent but it still stays as art and we should see that as inoffensive.

Our audience is not at risk, no one is going to die contrary to savages who exist and wars that are happening right now on our earth.

We can see a grey which for me represents the camera’s intelligence; it is making a colour analysis, the pixels are more or less apparent depending on the movement and we can see a gradual and random collapse from reality.

My personal desire is to watch what I give to see when I give birth to a work. I chose the voice of love because, in my mind it is the most beautiful voice, and I defend to the death the right to freedom of speech, of opinions, of expressive work that helps to regain human dignity and to help give wings to an evolution that is more peaceful, more sensitive and freer.

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice ad you are involved into Scenography and Performances: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

As I said at the beginning of this interview, from my beginnings with circus arts, I have been able to photograph at the same time all types of performance work from traditional theatre to street theatre, circus, dance (one of my loves), and different live-art performance.

Times ago a well known artist told me that "the worst reaction you can have to an artist’s work is no reaction at all"... How much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? by the way, what are in your opinion some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between the business and arts?

I have opened up my photographic work in set design, recently working with choreographer Béatrice Gromb Reignier on her lastest creation.

My photos were printed onto on a sheet of backlit glass, allowing for colour to bleed onto the white of the dancer’s costumes.

The richness of this work bridged the gap between my photographic researches and my love of live performance.

I’ve never created my work in order to be appreciated as an artist. Once any art form has been exhibited, it exists in it’s own right. This is even truer for photography as it is not often that we see texts explaining the work, often seeing one image amongst many others. It’s not really useful to any artist to mourn a lack of response because it’s impossible to know where our audience, where the person is

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coming from; why are they so uncurious, what has made them lose the thirst to try new things or discover new tastes? We cannot know. We just need to do, to feed this need to create – if it really exists and to watch it grow and evolve continually and to determine our work more precisely, in the knowledge that art is as infinite as the universe.

Despite being 43, my path in photography is still in its infancy! I haven’t yet exhibited my work on a large scale and just until now I’ve been focusing on how I can specialise in the capitation of live arts performance. It is only this year that I’ve really noticed a slump in the profession and in doing so tried to refine my work as a photographic artist and do more exhibitions. The current market is impossible to guess; the era of the, ‘great photographers’ is over and fashionable photographers come and go. So it’s kind of impossible to give your readers the miracle recipe that links art to business because, I, like everyone else is stumbling in the dark (or even in the red where the bank balance is concerned!), but I still stay in the light of my deep desires and in this need to totally live through the passions which I love and which inspire me, whilst ensuring that I get closer to achievement.

best to make the most of it. My work has been covered in the web magazine "l'Oeil de la photographie" with my series avec "Conflit de nature digitale" and I’m hoping that the weight of both that article and this one my work will start to take flight. At the same time I’ll be finishing the work with Catherine Ayella and bringing the project, “Intimate Origin” to a close.

I would love to hear from any of your readers who would be interested in exhibiting my work and any kind of partnership or sponsorship would be generously welcomed! My last words I leave with you, if they were proclaimed on the boards of a stage would be, ‘Create or not, dear friends, but respect all creation, and especially that of life. Light, love and free peace’

An image which comes to me, and that I borrow for this purpose is from a seminar that I went to last week, and it is to understand that there is a thread which binds us all together, which links us, unconsciously or consciously binding and weaving us to make a beautiful and fine fabric.

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator articulaction@post.com

Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Laurent. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you?

Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thank you! Thank you for having given me this space to talk about my work. This year is dedicated to my work as an author and I’m going to do my

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Juggling rings Henry Bruère Dawson

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Jane Gottlieb (USA)

an artist's statement

I have been expressing my joy of art with paint, shapes and colors since I was very young. I started as a painter, evolved into a photographer, and eventually began painting on my photographic prints over 30 years ago.

I hand painted vivid colors on my Cibachrome prints, creating a wonderful new magical reality, before Photoshop.

Now I scan my one-of-a-kind hand-painted prints and my library of 35mm Kodachrome color transparencies taken over the last 40 years, and paint, collage and enhance them with Photoshop.

I produce limited edition archival chromogenic prints. This year I have been printing on aluminum, which is the latest new medium for museum quality art prints.

I have been shown worldwide in many solo exhibitions including: Butler Institute of American Art; Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, CA; Laguna Art Museum. CA; Petersen Automotive Museum, LA, CA; LA County Museum of Natural History, CA; Monterey Museum of Art, CA; Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York City; L’Image Gallery, Rome, Italy. Louis Stern Gallery, West Hollywood, CA; Wall Space Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA. I have been in many group exhibits over the last 30 years, and collected by museums, foundations, corporations and individuals worldwide. Numerous magazine articles and covers, two museum exhibition catalogues and two books have been published of my art, Garden Tales and Car Tales.

I am proud to announce that I have 65 large art works on exhibit for the next ten years in two important buildings at UCLA, The Ucla Law Library and the Anderson School of Management.

I just installed 20 artworks printed on aluminum, at the UCSB Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. Most of the images are 40” x 60” and will be on display for a couple of years.

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Gold, (background Svetlin Velchev, detail) Mixed Media on van canvas, 2012 photographer Theo Prooijen Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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An interview with

Jane Gottlieb Hello Jane, and welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art?

Hello, It is so hard to define ART!!! I don’t think I can tell the readers the features that make an artwork as a successful piece of Contemporary Art. Art has to speak to me in a non-verbal emotional way….hopefully stopping me in my tracks with a wow!

I want my art to be engaging, have a sense of mystery, intrigue, romance & emotion. I hope the viewer will want to live with my art, look at & enjoy my art, feel that their perceptions & fantasies are somehow enriched. If art can do all of that then in my opinion it is ART. Photography can be so intuitive. I get into a kind of looking & feeling zone of concentration & focus.

That’s what is it like for me to create art, from behind the camera to hand painting my prints & to painting, collaging & playing with photoshop & my images.

Jane Gottlieb

Would you like to tell us something about your background? You hold a BA degree of Painting and Art History that you received from the UCLA and you later specialized in Graphic Design at the School of Visual Arts, NYC: moreover I think it's important to mention that you had the chance to spend your junior year in Florence, Italy. How have these experiences impacted on your development as an artist and on the way you currently produce your artworks?

home & create my art. Getting out in the world & giving myself the time to take photographs of everything & anything has enriched my life so much & my vision of the world.

My junior year in Firenze had a profound effect on me…nothing like Living in an Art History class. I loved living in a new culture, with a family & being surrounded by all that fantastic art. I walked by Michaelangelo’s “David” twice a day! Art History classes were at the Ufizzi! I learned to speak Italian! One of the highlights of my life!

My fantasy was to travel the world, experience all the other cultures, take my photographs, come

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Path to House, from the Monet's Garden series

Living in NYC was quite a challenge after California, but I learned so much there too.

Getting to go to those amazing museums every week was so enriching, working in a series of interesting low paying jobs, learning to take care of myself in NYC.

your art let’s put it on the wall & sell it!”

Sometimes I did get lucky & about 30 years ago I got my first museum show, at the Laguna Art Museum & have had many of my dreams come true since then.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks?

In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

And how much preparation and time do you

All of our experiences help with one’s sense of self & confidence. I have shown my portfolio literally a thousand times when nothing happened…no feedback (art galleries & museums), a little something happens (magazines, etc.)….rarely my dream of “Love

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Monet's Bridge, from the Monet's Garden series

put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

push the color into the emulsion & get vivid bright colors. Each picture is unique, one of a kind artwork, that takes many days to finish. It was a very slow process & I was waiting for photoshop!!!

I have been expressing my joy of art with paint, shapes and colors since I was very young. I started as a painter, evolved into a photographer, and eventually began painting on my photographic Cibachrome prints over 30 years ago. For almost 20 years I hand painted with retouching dye individual prints, creating a fantastic new reality. When I came up with this technique I had many many photos that came alive when I added some color. As time went on I found I could paint a print 5-10 times & really

I went to the Kodak School of Photoshop in Camden Maine over 20 years for 2 solid intensive weeks of photoshop‌.great way to start.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from your Monet's Garden series that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this

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House, from the Monet's Garden series

article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit yur website directly at http://www.janegottlieb.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production... In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this project?

What was your initial inspiration?

Initially I was asked to do a book & posters for a poster publisher on the East coast of Monet’s Garden…great excuse to go there & photograph in a few different seasons. It’s such a beautiful & inspiring garden & home & I loved taking photographs there.

The book & poster never happened, naturally, but I had an sold out exhibit in NYC at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in 2000. I hand painted all the images in the show with bright colors & tried to create art that reflected the genius of Monet.

Monet’s palette was a inspiration to me as his gorgeous sense of color is a very important part of his art.

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial feature of your artistic approach: you produce sculptures, installations,monumental art as well as animations, and I have appreciated the effective synergy that you create between

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Quidditas II

Quidditas IV

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Quidditas I

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from the Joy Rides series

different materials and techniques: you scan your previous works, and paint, collage and enhance them with Photoshop... while crossing the borders of different techinques have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different techniques is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

whatever inspires me in the moment. Later I can look closely at my photos, choose the ones that speak to me & begin to work with them. In the old days I painted on cibachrome prints with the 5 colors of retouching dye. A very slow & tedious process & it was easy too mess up by dropping a dab of color in the wrong place (as the dye instantly went into the emulsion & did not wash out) & as the emulsion got soft with water it was super easy to scratch. I never ran into anyone else that did this technique. Now I get to scan my photographs (mainly 35mm slides) & play with them on photoshop. I can created a magical world with more than my saturated unrealistic

I don’t create in all those mediums, but I do create my art with photographs I take of architecture, sculptures & monumental art to landscapes and old cars. I love the freedom to take photos of so many different things, of

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from the Joy Rides series

color…I can add & take out anything I want….sharpen, clean up, collage, combine, paint with millions of colors…and on & on & on. I love photoshop! For me it’s the most amazing creative & inspirational tool that let’s me expand my imagination!

I think you should mention my “Joy Rides” series.

It has been a book & a show that went around the USA & to Rome, & back to the Peterson Auto Museum in LA for the first 3 years it was open.

They are still so popular, & right now they are on display at a few galleries & the Murphy Auto Museum in Oxnard, CA. Cars have their own personalities, they evoke romantic memories,

and they are symbols of freedom. As native of Los Angeles, I grew up having a love affair with the ever-present automobile. Cruising its streets I captured images that reflect my idyllic vision of a long lost, but not forgotten, Los Angeles.

Another interesting series of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitles Panoramas: I have highly appreciated the way your approach investigates about the concept of landscape, challenging the viewer's perception, establishing a deep involvement with the viewers, both on an intellectual

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Indian Stuff from the Panoramas series

aspect and - I daresay- on a physical one... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

lens, another favorite look of mine. A few years ago I brought out all the wide-lux film (Kodachrome 35mm) & started scanning & working on my favorites. I like creating art with photographs I took 30 years ago that still inspire me. It is very validating that the pictures I took so long ago are still relevant to me today.

For me personal experience is an absolutely indispensible part of the creative process. the only way to become confident of your self & your vision is to get out into the world and experience life with your camera by your side at all times.

That is what I did & I know most serious photographers do that.

One of the features of your works that has mostly struck on me is the dynamicity, the sense of movement that you have been capable of impressing on your works... and I have highly appreciated the nuance of intense tones which creates an interesting synergy rather than a contrast between such bright tones, as in Paris Intersection and in the extemely interesting Paris street, which I have to admit is one of my favorite pieces of this series... by the way, any comments on your

I am glad you like the panoramas pics. I used a wide-lux camera all the time for 5 years‌35 years ago! I love the drama & surprise it added to my pictures. It goes way beyond a fish-eye

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Paris Street Day from the Panoramas series

choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

time to add some favorite color to their lives.

Please see Home Sweet Home on my website.

I am happy you like the Paris Street…that was the view from my hotel room in Paris, where I stayed a whole month such a long time ago. I took many special pics out that window & in Paris that month…mostly wide-lux pics. For sure my color palette has changed over the years…mostly has just gotten brighter & more vivid & joyful. But sometimes photos just lend themselves to quieter colors which I like as well. I am open! I live in my art too…my home is painted just like my art & my furniture is all bright colors too. My dogs are black, brown & white…the only place you can find those colors in my house. I dress colorfully of course & encourage people all the

By the way, many contemporary landscape artists have some form of environmental or even political message in their works: do you consider that your images could have such a political connotation in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach?

I have never considered myself to be a very intellectual or political artist. I can certainly see the difference between accessible & inaccessible art & have always wanted my art to be hard to walk by but easy to enjoy.

Color is luscious to me. It’s a luxury to be able to fill my life with color. Color is energy; it evokes

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Firenze Sunset

to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

emotion and feelings. It’s the other side of intellectual, and it makes you feel good!

An I couldn't do without mentioning Firenze Sunset, which is part of your Dreamscape series... I would daresay that these works eloquently succeed in conveying the feeling of serenity and harmony: moreover, I would like to stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the landscape suggested by this stimulating series: it has suggested me the concept that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way-

The Firenze Sunset is 2 wide-lux pics put together to give it extra wide view btw. I do agree with you that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal the unexpected & unseen sides of nature. The artist will focus all their attention on their image, working on it for a long time, & hopefully can create an expression of serenity & harmony….or juxtapose things that don’t harmonize, but are moving & surprising.

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During your over 30 years career your works have been shown on many occasions: what impressions did you receive from these wonderful experiences? By the way, feedbacks and awards are capable of supporting an artist: I sometimes wonder if the expectation of a positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

spend so many hours & hours alone in my studio working. I don’t create art for anyone but me…if I don’t love it no one else will ever see it.

I have been lucky to have many shows over the years & have enjoyed a lot of wonderful compliments & sales. I know the images that everyone favors too…

They just have some quality that speaks to most people!

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jane. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you?

I love the positive feedback, especially since I

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Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I am proud to announce that I have over 65 large art works installed in two important buildings at UCLA, on exhibit for the next ten years. I also created my first mural size image for UCLA, “My Bilbao”.

This year I started printing my art on aluminum & I love this exciting new medium. The prints are Archival, super glossy & sharp, no framing, mattes or UV plexi needed… you can touch them & wash them!

I am installing at the UCSB School of Higher Education next week 15 new 40” x 60” prints on aluminum, & “My Bilbao” on an aluminum sheet that is 40” x 90”. This show will be up for a few years.

I encourage your readers to stick with their dreams… even if it might take a few decades of hard work & hustle…

For me each step along the way was really exciting, challenging & an adventure, (& there were many disappointments & dreams shattered too) . I feel very lucky at this stage of my career I could not be happier or more creative & my art is on display all over the place!!

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator articulaction@post.com

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Svetlin Velchev (The Netherlands / Bulgaria)

Svetlin Velchev is an independent performer/choreographer based in The Netherlands.

His current residency is Rotterdam,after an extensive dance education in NUTI Sofia and CODARTS Rotterdam.

Since 2008 he has been part of Cultural Centre OT301 Amsterdam where he is still working till nowadays. At the moment he is also involved with the dance organization CIRCLE Rotterdam as well as with the development and coherency of his personal work.

In 2012 Svetlin founded MANIFEST Dance Company, which has a mission to extend arm to broad audiences, inspire other artists, provoke interest in young or non-pro auditorium and provide cognitive understanding for dance in the ordinary public.

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Svetlin Velchev, photographer Theo van Prooijen

Gold, (background detail) Svetlin Velchev, Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed 2011 photographer TheoMedia, van Prooijen

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An interview with

Svetlin Velchev Hello Svetlin, and welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art? By the way, do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

Hello there! Thank you for the kind invitation as I am feeling thrilled by your interest in my work and to talk about art with me!

To tell you honestly - find it difficult to define what contemporary art is, especially nowadays when so many subjects, concepts and ideas has been explored in many ways and repeatedly used as an inspiration and theme. Even for a trained eye of an expert is not easy to understand what the current state of art is actually about. I know it must have certain qualities and social functions, but still very often they are simply not there or just hard to notice.The audience have seen so much stuff that its getting harder for an artist to be innovative and original, but luckily not impossible of course.

Svetlin Velchev, photographer Theo van Prooijen

artwork and that is what makes it significant, memorizable and recognizable.

When I look at art I do not really judge, but need to feel the power of it and what kind of vibe it has.

To accept it I somehow have to relate to it, try to understand why am I watching this and what the message would be about. I do not think there should be any actual dichotomy between the traditions and the contemporariness - the one can only support the other.

Besides if you want to create good contemporary art you should be familiar with the art history and traditions even if you decide that they should remain obscure. One cannot only invent , one may as well recycle or remake and that has to do with the past and what has been established by recognized artists before. If you’re unaware you

Generally it is not certain anymore whether life imitates art or art imitates life. Art can be everything and nothing. Sometimes we have so much art flowing around us outside on the street and on the other hand a lack of it inside the museums and the theaters.

Most important for an artwork perhaps would be the strong coherence by which is executed. It just has to make sense even if it is only in the imagination of the artist. Another important aspect would be I guess the means of expression and if that fits to the context of what you want to communicate across to the public. Clarity and personal signature for me plays major role in an

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Monologues, Contemporary Dance Platform DI U&A, photographer Richard Beukelaar

might trap yourself at doing something already done, thinking that you are discovering when actually you are just repeating what is already existing.

Our decade is way different from what it was in the 90’s, technology develops rapidly and values are changing constantly, therefore is very easy that one stays behind with criteria, tendencies and approach to his creation.

I guess what makes an artwork contemporary is the intention behind it, the social or political charge of it and how that resemblance to our daily life literarily - something that can easily connect to everyone at this moment of time.

Something that the society is going through right now, contemporary art would reflect on.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? After studying contemporary dance at the NUTI National School of Dance Art Sofia, you moved to the Netherlands where you are currently based and you studied at the CODARTS Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Rotterdam: how have these

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experiences -and especially moving from Bulgaria to the Netherlands- impacted on the way you currently create your pieces?

opportunities for such an artists in Bulgaria, the question was really if I want to continue doing it there or somewhere else, where I could get the sufficient amount of information and knowledge in order to grow. All I needed was a possibility for implementation.

I am born and raised at Sofia, Bulgaria. Being involved with theatre, art and performance from the age of ten when I started studying in my secondary school, which was profiled with animation, puppetry and drama by Small Puppet Theatre “SLON”. After a couple of productions with them I was genuinely directed towards what I was found to be good at - movement and dance. That is how when I became 13 years old I got into a professional ballet / contemporary dance school NUTI. The follow up was an engagement with the National Ballet of Sofia for three seasons by the time I’ve graduated from my education.

Meanwhile figuring that out, solution was on its way. I was working for two seasons at the National Musical Theatre of Sofia, dancing at Miss Saigon and Czardasz Queen. We went on a European tour for few months, after which I didn’t return to Sofia, but left to Amsterdam, where eventually I stayed and organized my life for good.

Coming to live in The Netherlands has a deep impact just as much as a turning point in my life and really think it changed my future. I got a chance to seek for what I mostly wanted - art, freedom, independence and knowledge. Quickly became part of an art collective, named OT301, where I am till nowadays and where in the embrace of my colleagues and the building’s strong statement and ideology, I found support and understanding.

By 18 I was sure that I will not continue with the classical ballet as it was completely not of an interest for me. I knew it is a strong foundation for my further experience in dance so I appreciated it, but did not want to be focused on.

I had friends dancers, which were also eager to discover the modern dance, which was not yet introduced that much to the Bulgarian art scene, so we’ve end up as a small collective chasing a common dream, all curious in the same direction and as a fellowship we’ve created several experimental performances like ‘Something else’ and ‘Metamorph’ under the umbrella of Dance Lab ‘Elea’, which was founded by the Bulgarian choreographer Elissaveta Iordanova together with us.

Two years later, after quite intense search of the right school and unsuccessful auditions, at 2009 I was accepted and followed the Choreography Studies of the Rotterdam Dance Academy CODARTS, where I’ve graduated successfully in 2011. Even though I have never considered myself a good student as I was quite rebellious, I have managed to finish it.

I had the urge to express and was always interested in making my own pieces not realizing I took it less seriously in the beginning of it all, but very soon after I knew why I want to do it and what I wanted to share. And you can see somewhat that in my creations now - they always has to expose free spirit and will. I only needed back then clearer vision and style. Since my years at CODARTS I am getting closer to the essence of my art. Surrounded by inspiration and access to plenty of data sources everywhere really gave me a push in a proper direction and I just became more literate and

A short while after that I had as well some very enlightening exchange with European companies from abroad like the Cypriot ‘Amfidromo’’, the Italian ‘Fabrica Europa’ or the Swiss ‘Cie Linga’’, which I think contributed to shaping my taste and opinion about what contemporary dance is and could be, seeing so different and super inspiring examples of it wherever I went.

When our young experimental company ‘Elea’ separated I had some time to reconsider what do I want to do and should out of my dance career further on and since there are not much

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Dialogues, Het Huis Utrecht, photographer Richard Beukelaar

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

could easily put my ideas into exploitation. Trying to highlight the qualities I have and enhance everything I have created.

While still being a student at Rotterdam had to cover my living expenses and education, so I worked parallel as a tech for the quite known Bulgarian performance artist Ivo Dimchev. We toured on some of the best festivals across Europe where I have seen some very fascinating performances including his own ‘Som Faves’ and ‘Lily Handel’. I would need another interview to tell you all about that experience as it was tremendous. Next time.

My artwork is a fusion from light, sound and bodies in space and its all about creating a movement or moving image out of those elements, under a specific theme or concept.

Rarely using text or speech in my performances.

We were once singing in my performance Serenity

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Monologues, Het Huis Utrecht, photographer Richard Beukelaar

from the program Mind in Motion, but that was one-time case. I am much more intrigued by the symbiosis between the design of the lights, the choreography and the music, merged together and used to achieve powerful visual effect and specific atmosphere, which carries symbolic, metaphoric or personal values. Sometimes I can be elaborating with props or stage-set, but that varies by the different occasions. The performances I make are rather abstract and open for interpretation.

If I choose to be using narrative it is most likely to be an absurd work as one of my shows All is everywhere was. In terms of being diverse I try to

reinvent myself with each next project, using different types of media from photography/video to installations, projections, dance on location or the traditional stage performance. You might as well refer glimpses of the underground subculture and the hip-hop street culture in my creations. To start up a creation always happens I think in a way that it is mostly depending on what the assignment is, what is the initial inspiration, how much time there is to prepare it, how long the final result should be and what all the rest of the circumstances would be regarding performers, rehearsal space and deliverance. These are factors which would influence my idea and decisions.

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Dialogues, Het Huis Utrecht, photographer Richard Beukelaar

website directly at http://www.svetlinvelchev.com in order to get a wider idea of it. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this project?

In many cases the period of preparing the actual piece is short, which can either make the work more exciting or tough to complete.

However from the moment of having an idea to the moment of really getting onto making it and how might take some time so that really evolves first in my head until it seems ready to come out.

Monologues / Dialogues is a spectacular show in two parts with a bunch of incredible artists participating - a result of the initiative ‘The Boiler Room’ by Contemporary Dance Platform DI U&A which is organized on a monthly basis at Utrecht, The Netherlands.

It is a project, which has already statutory terms and conditions for making it. The artistic director

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Monologues / Dialogues (2014), an extremely interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and I would suggest them to visit your

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Breaking Habits, 24UUR Cultuur Rotterdam, photographer Max van Pelt

Iris van Peppen invited me in December 2013 after one of their shows to participate and create one of the next editions so that is how I got to present it in May when the premiere took place.

This rather alternative project is almost considered as a curatorial - it is an art experiment of improvisational meetings between musicians and dancers where they share skills and contribute to an unconventional ways of expression and performance experience.

So I decided to invite a group of vibrant artists dancers, musicians, dramaturges, a photographer and a graphic designer to come

together and create the work. I came up with a principal idea,structure and frame for the show, so that I put it all into a certain context. And that was explicitly the theme of Contradictions as a nature of reality.

Monologues / Dialogues is the two sides to every story. Containing and opposing each other at the same time, both of the perspectives which neither one of them exclude the other - they eventually contradict each other. So you can as well see that in the complete stylizing of the work - in the flyer design , in the show construction, in the artists cast - that there are

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Breaking Habits, 24UUR Cultuur Rotterdam, photographer Max van Pelt

growing force in Art and that that most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project... could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, the artist Peter Tabor once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists?

always two meanings and it is not said, which is right or wrong, because we need both for balance.

Monologues / Dialogues has been officially selected to be presented during the next edition of Baku Biennial ‘Aluminium’ in December 2014, which was the greatest accomplishment for this creation so far.

Another interesting piece of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is Breaking Habits: by the way, Choreography is intrinsically based on artistic cooperation, and I do believe that this is today is an ever

Breaking Habits was last year CIRCLE production for Breaking Waves Festival Bergen and later on

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Breaking Habits, Breaking Waves Festival Bergen, photographer Max van Pelt

presented during 24 UUR Cultuur Rotterdam in September 2013. The official first performance was taking place on the beach at Bergen during sunset. Inspired by the title and the theme of the festival, Breaking Habits is symbolizing the urge to let go of old unconscious patterns and explore one's self-awareness.This dance piece has an architectonic composition based on choreographed improv. Full of meandering spirit, the essence of the work is defined by the habitual actions of the dancers, which are struggling to overcome these, forming different spatial structures through beautiful movement sequences. Wanted to express strong emotional

intelligence leaving everything behind and look ahead to new horizons, challenging myself to take different approaches and risks - something we shouldn’t be afraid to do.

Peter Tabor said it well - I was completely influenced by the collaboration with the performers and their affiliation, as they brought the piece to its final destination. The right synergy was there. One of my main responsibilities is of course not only to guide and direct, but also to listen and perceive anything that could perhaps suits the process., the idea and the piece.I really prefer to share responsibilities and evoke

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Street Fighters, photography Svetlin Velchev

crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

conversation with the artists I am working with, so that we all leave our footprints at the creation.

Each of my works is practically characterized by the people participating at it and this is very important to me - to give the freedom of one’s artistic talent and personality.

It is indeed and I like your comparison to Kaleidoscopic. Also because of the geometry of it, which is so inspiring to me and a visible feature of my work.This is very much an image, which is tangible to my creations and my attempts to perpetuate several layers to complete a visual artwork. For me in our contemporary times multitasking and

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice: and I have been asked to sum up in a single word your artistic production, I would say that it's kaledoiscopic In particular, I have highly appreciated the way you are capable of establishing a so deep symbiosis between Art and Choreography... while

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Street Fighters, photography Svetlin Velchev

And I couldn't do without mentioning Street Fighters, a dance video that you captured in the streets of Sofia: I have highly appreciated the way it reveals the freshness happiness of people who, as you have remarked once, are still doing what they love and happy with what they have... maybe I'm going wrong but I can recognize such a subtle sociopolitical criticism in this: I mean a constructive criticism... and although I'm aware that this might sound a bit exaggerated and naive, I'm sort of convinced that Art could play an active role in moving people awareness... what's your point?

multidisciplinary are keywords to art. If we say that these disciplines are options supporting the quality and resonance of my show then they must be by any means used. As an artist I am trying to bring excitement and complexity too, through the integration of each aspect bulging the concept of the piece. Dance is only one of the elements as the rest of the equally important ones - costumes, light and sound to fulfill the bigger picture. Not to be misunderstood though the best way I create is to first have plenty and afterwards subtract of what is unnecessary or too much, keeping it simple, accessible and pure.

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Street Fighters, photography Svetlin Velchev

Street Fighters is a very spontaneous video project pulled up completely out of the circumstances surrounding it - the places and the people, which consist of. Inspired by the street underground culture, I have even a little bit of a sentimental attachment to it as it was filmed out of the blue in my home town Sofia with close friends, which I know well and spend long time with. I was impressed by their persistence to do what they want and are good at, which I as well admire very much.

remember how striking the struggle of the youth was, how powerful the instinct for survival, the absence of justice, the beauty of uncertainty, the specific street sights of the city and the typical atmosphere were, which you might even sense through watching the video. And still on many levels people remain warm-hearted, empathetic and compassionate. So I felt like capturing and sharing this so special and unique spirit. And as you said above, there is a touch of a criticism that non of that is ever revealed in any way - there are not only negative sides of a poor country to focus on - there are as well talent, strength, love and

I was visiting Sofia during the Christmas holidays and for some reason had a revelation - I

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Dialogues, Het Huis Utrecht, photographer Richard Beukelaar

of a creative process both for creating a piece and in order to "enjoy" it...Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

dedication, which no one seem to notice. And that is a shame.

Nah, you are not exaggerating - I absolutely share the opinion that good art can affect the publics opinion, broadening their views and open their minds and hearts.

I believe so and completely agree on providing an intense inner involvement of the audience. No matter what situation I put the audience at to observe and perceive, its very valid that their imagination should be activated. I cannot say that there is much interaction with the public or provocation of any kind during my shows, but the connection is most certainly established. And I hope that everyone can enjoy his personal journey

Your performances are strictly connected to establish a deep, intense involvement with your audience, both on an intellectual aspect and - I daresay - on a physical one, as in the extremely stimulating Fresques. So I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part

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Limitation Sky BIACI 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Cartagena de Indias, photographer Rita Szili-Torok

watching my stuff. I only wish anybody can find and recognize himself for a moment in my world.

I mean there must be something about my art that should resemble to anything in the life of the artists I work with or the audience attending the performance to be able to touch their hearts and minds. It is all an ongoing process. I want to energize the viewer. The creativity and the direct experience are walking hand in hand, depending on each other.

Cartagena... It goes without saying that positive feedbacks are capable of supporting an artist: I sometimes happen to wonder if the expectation of a positive feedback could even influence the process of an artist, especially when the creations itself is tied to the involvement of the audience... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

During these years your creations have been shown in several occasions, in many different countries and I think it's important to mention your recent participation at the BIACI 1st Biennial of Contemporary Art

Yeah! I am very glad for the chances I got and grateful for the experience last couple of years the times right after I’ve finished my studies at 2011. See The Netherlands is in a transition period of the cultural sector since then and for

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Fragment #3 BIACI 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Cartagena de Indias, photography BIACI Colombia archive

quite sometime already as that started exactly the same time of my graduation. So hasn’t been fun all the time and ain’t much easier earning a living either, but I guess that was all worth - in the end beliefs, effort and constancy pay off. On a small land as Holland with so many good artists the aim is not to be just good, but to be better.

Been part of small to big scale events, made shows at remarkable venues, presented work on some of the well known local festivals like Fringe, Balkan Snapshots and State-X New Forms. My previous dance video Breathe On got to be presented in Honk-Kong, L.A. and Berlin. And last, but not least my recent exhibit of both of my solo works Fragment #3 and Limitation Sky

during BIACI 1st Contemporary Art Biennial Cartagena De Indias at Colombia.

Feedback and constructive criticism are best for me. In fact I can’t really deal without them. I learn to listen to the valuable opinions and expertise of people without prejudices.

Sometimes people just judge for the sake of it, but I believe only in the honesty and good intention of somebodies objective remarks.

I easily compromise in the name of the perfect solution and not afraid of change. I also believe in the power of mistakes as I think mistakes like anything else happens for a reason to tell us something right. For every artist is important what the public thinks or feels. Communication is a teacher for the artist, because creating a

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Fragment #3 BIACI 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Cartagena de Indias, photography Makers Magazine New York

dialogue can be very helpful. And each work can be oriented towards specific target group or either reach to a wider range of audience, which I most definitely prefer.

So after the launch of my latest work Monologues / Dialogues in May, I have been invited to perform it during the next issue of Baku Biennial at Azerbaijan upcoming December.

2014 was a prominent year for me and looking towards even a better one in 2015.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Svetlin. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you?

Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator

Thank you too, the pleasure was all mine! Hope you get to hear more from me in the near future.

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Fragment #3 BIACI 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art Cartagena de Indias photography Barbara Krulik

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Cristina Zorrilla Speer (Mexico / USA)

Cristina Zorrilla Speer is a native Mexican artist who now lives and works in Texas.

She was trained in classical restoration and conservation of antiques.

Cristina has painted professionally for over 25 years and has shown her work in Mexico, Cuba and in various galleries in the United States. She has over 20 solo exhibitions and has appeared in numerous group shows.

She has received several awards and recognitions for her work in Mexico and in the United States. Through her work she is able to communicate her love for life, for nature and for freedom.

She considers art a never-ending journey, a mirror of life and a representation of our hopes and dreams.

Teaching art for 20 years is one of Cristina's proudest accomplishments, she considers herself blessed to help awaken the artistic talent in enterprising students.

Her goal as an artist is to convey a feeling of serenity, harmony and comfort....to create a Zen-like moment for the viewer.

Her challenge is to express all this in a contemporary style and to continue exploring and trying to adapt new techniques into her work.

Butterfly Dreams

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Gold, (background detail) Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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Cristina Zorrilla Speer

An interview with

Cristina Zorrilla Speer Hello Cristina, and welcome to ARTiculAction.

I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artwork as a piece of Contemporary Art?

and of course a painting that lifts my spirit! I could go on and on as you can find possibilities for Art anywhere you are.

Every Age in time has been defined by a style in Art mostly dictated by what is happening at the moment and by the products/tools available. I would say contemporary Art has incorporated our actual culture with new products and techniques creating something distinctive of our Era. Contemporary Art is continually exploring new

A work of art in my opinion can be anything creative that makes my spirit “sing�. A soothing concert, a great architectural project, a breathtaking landscape, a sculptural masterpiece

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Butterfly Dreams, Drawing/Fusion Acrylic on canvas 48"x48

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Passion

ways of expression and has no fear of experimenting with anything that might help achieve the target.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? By the way, you are trained in classical restoration and conservation of antiques. How have these experiences impacted on your developement as an artist and on the way you currently produce your artworks?

To restore antiques you need to understand each different technique so you know how to approach an artwork. The principle of restoration is to use materials that can be reversed if desired in the future to bring the artwork back to its original state.

This knowledge of techniques and styles has allowed me to guide my students through their very particular taste but it has also opened my awareness of everything new that is coming out and widened my love for all the different creative

Blue Orchid

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ideas from the past and present. It has made me feel the need of exploring a wide range of styles and subjects from realistic to abstract using different techniques.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular,

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Breeze

Dragonfly

what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Butterfly Dreams and Yellow Lilly that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://www.cristinazorrillaspeer.com/ in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production... In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of these works? What was your initial inspiration?

All artworks need a specific setup, in my case I start by sketching and designing, this to me is the most important part of my painting. Then I decide a format, technique, colors and style and make sure I have every tool I think I might need ready to use.

I usually paint inside the studio, I like to paint on canvas or linen and lately I have been working with acrylic paint, fluid, heavy body and open acrylics and using different gels and mediums.

Every artwork requires different painting time and approach: a realistic painting may require you to sit in front of the easel for hours while an experimental fluid “pour” will make you run around the canvas trying to control the paint flow.

Both techniques are thrilling and challenging!

Butterfly Dreams is a painting where my challenge was to fuse an abstract background with the human figure and my intention was to create a zen-like moment, a relaxing quiet feeling when you look at it, while keeping it contemporary and simple.

Yellow Lilly is an acrylic fluid “pour” where the challenge is to allow the paint to run free and never use a brush. Inspiration for this style of

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paintings comes from nature, the feeling is very organic and the design can be kept simple or minimal as in color-field art.

paintings, the more you produce them the better you understand the way paint flows, mixes, how fast or slow, when you have to add more paint, more water, how much you need to incline the canvas, etc. Experience will always improve design and results.

One of the features of the pieces from your Abstract collections that has impacted me is the way it effectively challenges the dichotomy between the perception of the real and the onirical dimension... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Another interesting pieces of yours on which I would like to spend some words are entitled Five of Hearts, Red Symphony and Mist: one of the feature that has mostly struck on me is the dynamicity, the sense of movement that you have been capable of impressing on the canvas... and I have highly appreciated the nuance of intense tones which creates an

Personal experience is basic for this kind of

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your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Symphony and Mist are both fluid acrylic “pours” and the background on both was painted after the pour dried completely. They were finished with a very high gloss varnish to make them look wet.

Thank you for such a compliment! Five of Hearts fuses several techniques. The dresses were painted with fast wide strokes with a 6” brush and splattered with drops of paint, the red background was “poured” with fluid acrylic without using any brush and the figures were painted dry brush by using only the colors of the dresses.

My palette choices have changed as my subjects and mood dictate. My abstracts tend to be more colorful while my choice of palette for figurative will tend to be more subtle.

At last the red background was varnished high gloss while the figures and dresses were varnished satin to make a stronger contrast. Red

And I couldn't do without mentioning We Need a Hero and Feathered Friend, which are part of your HUMAN FIGURE collection... I

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We need a Hero, Drawing/Fusion Acrylic on canvas 40"x40"

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would daresay that these works eloquently succeed in conveying the feeling of serenity, harmony and comfort that you have mentioned in your artist's statement... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

It is always important to know that your work means something to someone so I believe that positive feedback is basic to keep your hopes up and keep you working. In our always busy world of speed communications, technology, activities, we don’t give our minds much time to rest, we forget to sit down and relax. The aim of my work is to give you a few moments of peace, to allow your brain to be quiescent, to sit back and feel comforted and calm. I have tried with my Human Figure collection to stop a moment in time, a moment of peace and tried to focus mostly on that feeling.

Besides producing your stimulating artworks, you have also gained a wide experience as a teacher, a work that you consider as one of your proudest accomplishments: have you ever happened to draw inspiration from the works of your students? By the way, I sometimes wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

Teaching is my passion and of course I learn much more from my students than what I can teach! Every creative mind has a different point of view, a different approach. I never stop being surprised by how many different ways you can do the same thing, and if you have a good design and technique you can never go wrong.

Having a formal training is very important to understand the basics of Art, the elements of design, to know your materials, to know the techniques. I feel that learning multiple techniques enables the student to be more creative as“Creativity lives in the studio”; the more you paint the more creative you become,

Feathered Friend, Drawing/Fusion Acrylic on canvas 48"x24"

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I recommend that now and then it’s good to “play” at experimenting with all the possibilities you can get out of your tools and colors.

During your 25 years career your works have been shown in several occasions: you have had over 20 solo exhibitions and you have appeared in numerous group shows. Moreover I think it's important to mention that you received several awards and recognitions for your work both in Mexico and in the United States... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if the expectation of a positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... and I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

I think that a positive feedback will always encourage any artist to keep working and to work harder, we all need to know that what we do is valuable either spiritually or financially.

I know several artists that have made a good business out of their work but I don’t think most artists are market-oriented though nowadays there are so many tools to promote your art. There are online galleries, publications, contests, etc., so I believe that if you take your time to look for the right venue you can profit from your art.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Cristina. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I have received a couple of invitations for solo Art Exhibitions for 2015 and 2016, At the moment I’m planning and starting my new collections. One of my collections is about wild life and the second one will possibly be about interiors…

Again I will enjoy fusing multiple techniques but always with the thought of creating a peaceful or exciting moment for the viewer.

Thank you so much for this very nice opportunity to show and talk about my work! an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator

Softly, Drawing/fusion Acrylic on canvas 48"x24"

articulaction@post.com

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Carolyn Frischling (USA)

an artist's statement

" I follow in the tradition of artists/printmakers such as Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Brice Marden, and Wade Guyton.

New media enables me to use the same thought processes of traditional printmaking without the toxicity of using traditional materials on a daily basis. "

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Gold, (background Svetlin Velchev, detail) Mixed Media on van canvas, 2012 photographer Theo Prooijen Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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Carolyn Frischling

An interview with

Carolyn Frischling Hello Carolyn, and a warm welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark an artwork as a piece of Contemporary Art? By the way, do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

Hello. Thank you for having me. I think there are three things that define a work of art. The artist Marjan Moghaddam stated that above all, what defines a work of art is a sublime quality.

Secondly, it is also the intention of the artist that makes it a work of art. Both of these require a synergistic effort of heart, mind, and hand. Thirdly is that the art exists for no other reason than for itself. For example, so much art that gets publicized in the media is art that is co-opted to serve a political purpose. This kind of art can be very powerful to effect positive change, but a complete definition of art encompasses so much more than its usefulness. I also like this quote about being an artist:

Graffuturism 3

essence, but how does that relate to us now? In our information age, where everything must be known, labeled, quantified, and de-mystified, I believe there are things that simply cannot be empirically known…that some things are simply felt. Questions are being asked at the quantum level, and yet certainty is elusive.

Quidditas/Unknowable relates to our time now because I have chosen to paint my particular kind of abstract enigmatic forms in pixels…in the digital medium… with a screen-like presence representative of our information age. This is the Ariadne’s Thread conducive to contemplation that is indispensable to a work of art. For me, the history of art is like a tree with the boughs being the traditional ways leading outward in many branches of experimentation with offshoots of nowness. Therefore, I do not see a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness in art.

He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

Most of all, I think that art-making is an activity necessary to human civilization since the dawn of time. Something marks a work as a piece of contemporary art because there is something about the piece that reflects ourselves back to us or has a certain nowness. If I may use the example of my Quidditas/Unknowable series to explain my thinking… the title is Latin meaning

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Would you like to tell us something about your background? You hold a MFA in printmaking that you have received from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993.

How does this experience impact on the way you currently produce your artworks?

Yes, the two years of hands-on instruction in traditional printmaking methods like lithography, etching, woodcutting, and collagraphy were the perfect training to prepare me for the digital world. The thinking processes that I use now making digital art are exactly the same as those in traditional methods, because I’m thinking about things like space, color, form, markmaking, layering, and transparency. It was there that I also had the opportunity to collaborate on an edition by Hung Liu, and observe other visiting artists like Sue Coe and Henrik Drescher.

And I greatly admired the work of my professors Peter Marcus, Joan Hall, and Dawn Guernsey.

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Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

That said, I focus mainly on the aforementioned formal aspects of art, as well as movement, and smoothness—avoiding all hints of aliasing and pixelation. I find that I spend about the same amount of time on a piece that I did working traditionally, sometimes keeping a piece for weeks or even months if I feel it isn’t quite ready, then suddenly finding a resolution to it.

Other pieces can come together fairly quickly, after an evening of working into the early morning hours.

Over the last three years I’ve downloaded and experimented with hundreds of apps that I use to create my work on my iPhone and iPad mini. I transfer it through the cloud to my Macbook Pro where I resize the work and get it ready to print.

This research and discovery involved hundreds of hours even before making any art. I do what has been coined app stacking by Dan Marcolina, author of the book App Alchemy, among others including the ebooks Mobile Masters, where I received a small mention in the book, which was unveiled at Macworld at the Moscone Center this past year in April. When I begin something new, I always begin with the idea of play, for it is only when you allow yourself the freedom to experiment that you make new discoveries.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Graffuturism, an extremely interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and I would suggest them to visit your website directly at http://carolynfrischling.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these works?

Thank you for visiting my website.

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Quidditas II

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The word Graffuturism was coined by @poesiatranscend. It is a style and a movement among Graffiti and street artists combined with and influenced by The Italian Futurists, like Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and Russian artist Natalia Goncharova. Representing movement is key. I was becoming more and more influenced by the work of a large group of graffiti artists I follow on Instagram http://instagram.com/carolynfrischling. I had always liked the Italian Futurists, and was reading about Dynamism which is a phenomenology describing the effects of force on matter. I wanted to describe dimension and movement, and to do it in a totally new medium.

Quidditas series: one of the features that has mostly impacted on me of this extremely interesting project is the contrast between deep, intense colors with a tactile feature that pervades your works ... it suggests me such a dialog between different nuances of tone, and a sense of movement capable of giving rhythm to the canvas...

Thank you for that very beautiful description. I am very happy that the work gives you these musical impressions, because music and in particular, rhythm and movement are very important to me.

I am an amateur of the piano and have a Lyon & Healy pedal harp on which I play Early, Baroque, and Irish music.

Another interesting works of yours that have particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words are from the

Art-making involves a series of inner and sometimes mysterious processes and during these years, while interviewing lots of artists,

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I have often been told of such therapeutic effects behind these processes and not few artists state that they use art as a form of catharsis... Since I have read that you have been influenced by a colleague of Robert Ault, Dr. Gong Shu, artist, art therapist, psychotherapist, author, and founder of The Yi Shu Expressive Healing Arts Research Center at Soochow University in Suzhou, China, I would like to ask you something about the curative effects of Art, and I mean not only as a natural pain-killer or something that "keeps us sedated" but as something that helps us to play an active role in the management of our life….

wonder about whatever it is I’m thinking about in the work. That said, I do not see how a creative

Yes absolutely these things which you have described are cathartic and help us to exist.

Making art is a way to channel energy in a positive way. Art is an expression that helps us to connect with others. I have taught both adults and children, and the effect is always positive.

Being surrounded by art is indeed curative. I feel very fortunate to have known Robert Ault, and both he and Dr. Gong Shu have been two of the greatest teachers in my life.

Your works establish a deep, intense involvement with your audience, both on an intellectual aspect and - I daresay - on a physical one, as in the extremely stimulating Hypostatization I and III. So I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process both for creating a piece and in order to enjoy it…do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Hypostatization III

I think personal experience makes up my weltangschauung…it is my gift to whomever views the work. That is why I never want to stop learning and growing. I try to make my work relatable to anyone on any level. If someone likes something, I think he/she might be interested in finding out more about it. So in that way I try to transmit a curiosity and child-like

wonder about the work. That said, I do not see how a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience, because direct experience also indirectly influences thinking.

Another one of the great teachers in my life is Rosaire Kopczenski, an 80 year-old Franciscan nun who holds an MFA in sculpture, with whom

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Quidditas/Unknowable II

Quidditas/Unknowable III

I have studied iconography and sculpture for the last three years. She has taught me about contemplation and about putting intentions into the work for the benefit of the viewer, because in iconography, every brushstroke is an intention for the person who will see the icon. That is why many icons like The San Damiano Cross are said to be very powerful… for all the prayers put into it over hundreds and hundreds of years. So I have taken this practice to my own work. I hope to use color harmonies and forms to produce a positive effect for the viewer, and to put positive intentions into the work too. It seems far-fetched, yet quantum physicists tell us that thoughts carry energy, and this phenomenon is illustrated by the Observer Effect in Quantum Physics. An artist I follow on social media is the artist Mark Dutcher, a painter from Los Angeles. One of his works is a video titled Transfer, which was about the

process of transferring the artist’s feelings and intentions into the work, an incredible and moving piece.

And I cannot do without mentioning Quidditas/Unknowable, which I have to admit that is definitely one of the my favorite series of yours. I love the effective symbiosis between the intense blue tone that perfectly mixes with red that gives pulsating life and moreover, I noticed that in many of your pieces blue is a very recurrent color. By the way, any comments on your choice of palette and how it has changed over time?

Thank you very much! The power of color is great.

One of my favorite artist books is Wassily Kandinkys’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which talks about the properties of color, and

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their effects on the soul with blue being “a celestial color evoking a deep calm”…”Red is a warm color, lively and agitated.” Kandinsky was also an artist whose personal experience and inner experience was very important to his work which he felt should express an “inner beauty.”

My palette is usually very saturated with bright color, but I think it is becoming a bit more experimental yet still harmonious.

During these years your work has been exhibited in several occasions as in Pittsburgh at Sewickley Gallery, Fein Gallery, and Mendelson Gallery, and at LACDA, The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Trespass Gallery, Kenneth Paul Lesko Gallery and The Westmoreland Museum of American Art.... It goes without saying that positive feedback is capable of supporting an artist: I sometimes happen to wonder if the expectation of a positive feedback could even influence the process of an artist, especially when the creation itself is tied to the involvement of the audience…. By the way, how important for you is the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

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Yes. positive feedback is very important to me because it lets me know I’m on the right path.

Becoming a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh was my first real feedback after I left graduate school. The AAP is the second oldest artist group in the country, second only to the Art Students League of New York, whose members have included Mary Cassatt, Philip Pearlstein, and Andy Warhol. I think your hypothesis is correct about the feedback even influencing the artist in return.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Carolyn. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thank you for asking ARTiculAction. I am very excited to be working on a collaboration with the ground-breaking digital artist LaTurbo Avedon who has constructed an entire virtual museum using Maya graphic software called Panther Modern http://panthermodern.org/ and has given me a space there. I am also excited to be working on a second collaboration with the brilliant 3D artist, innovator, and author of The Book on 3D Printing, Isaac Budmen http://teambudmen.com/. Thank you for these thoughtful, in-depth questions. To answer them was my pleasure. Thank you again.

The most exciting affirmation I have received was from Barbara L. Jones, Chief Curator at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, when she selected my work for the AAP 103rd Annual Exhibition this year. Yes, I put all good intentions into the work as I make it and hope it gives someone a positive feeling or makes a person feel well.

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AmĂŠlie Beaudroit (France)

"I have long been fascinated by the blur, the fog, the light, all the invisible forces that surround us, modify us and keep us still. In my work I try to relay the emotion born from this contemplation. When it succeeds, the result let a link appear between a personal history and a stolen vision of the nature of things."

Amelie Beaudroit

Her work intends to paint the blur as it is the best way to express the truth.

She finds in blurred visions beauty that can never be seen in bare clarity.

Haziness incarnates the movement of life, the dynamic of things that keep changing, it is the realm of infinite possibilities, the blur is a space where nothing is fixed and where anything can come into existence.

Man carries within his self this duality of a wandering spirit constrained to a motionless body dragging him to rationality. The myth of Icarus best illustrates this tragedy of the reduced mobility of a Man with an unlimited spirit. Art is an answer to the need to establish connections with the universe beyond this constraint. Painting allows to blend in the complexity of the world by mixing colours on the canvas. It is a way to think aside of thoughts, a way to live and feel without having to conceptualize life.

The artist makes connections with buried resources at the same time that he is the instrument of a force he blindly follows. He does not know where he goes, and does not seek knowing, he abandons himself to colour. It is on the path that the link between Man, Nature and the Cosmos builds up. The painting makes visible this blur we marveled at in secret, this alchemy of forms without edges.

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Redaction of Labor II [2014] Gold, (background detail) One pint of “Home Depot Orange,” 2×4’s, Mixed Media white on canvas, 2012 sheetrock, plaster, paint, labor Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011 Ground Floor Gallery, Nashville, TN

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An interview with

Amélie Beaudroit Hello Amelie, and a warm welcome back to ARTiculAction, we already had the pleasure to meet you in a previous issue, just about a year ago, as our readers can view directly at http://issuu.com/articulaction/docs/articulactio n_art_review__may_2013/32?e=7463746/7278 506 What has happened in creativity during this year?

Hello, thank you for having me here again. It’s been a great and busy year. I was selected in three artist residences in the US, unfortunately I could attend only two because of planning issues but I was already very happy to be able to do that. I’ve spent five weeks away both times.

The first residence was in South Carolina from mid February to the end of March at the Rensing Center http://www.rensingcenter.org. And the second one was in NY at the art students league for the month of may. It was two fantastic opportunities to focus on work, think about how to develop my approach and a chance to produce new works as well as explore new paths. I have also been represented on two art fairs in the UK and in one gallery in France, and I have more plans for next year. I’m very much looking forward to all the new opportunities that open.

Amélie Beaudroit (photo by Augusta Pittman )

By the way, you are back from an intense month that you have spent at the art students league residency in NY: would you like to tell us readers something about the impressions that you have received in this experience?

is so important. You need to know what’s happening around you, what’s questioning others, you need to be able to talk about what you’re going through and hear stories from others, at least I know I very much need that. Being part of an artist community is the ability to tap in the group’s energy to create projects and share the ideas, the work and the dream until it comes true. At the art students league there are also critics who come and visit your studio once a week, it’s good to have feedback from them

My main impression from both places of residence, is that when you want to be an artist you can’t be an island. I don’t really know how to put this but, the community, the exchanges with other artists, visual artists or not, just a group of creative people,

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to, they can point at things you wouldn’t see, both good and bad, it’s very motivating.

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Floral 4, Oil on canvas, 2014, 94 x 73 cm

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Do you see the cardinal? oil on wood panel, 2014, 61x61cm (photo by Augusta Pittman

to, they can point at things you wouldn’t see, both good and bad, it’s very motivating.

Now let's focus on your recent production: I would start from Floral that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages: and I would suggest to visit http://ameliebeaudroit.com/gallery/?page_id=14 to get a wider idea of your recent production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about what has lead you to conceive this sti-mulating series? What was your initial in-spiration? two peonies, 2012, acrylic and oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm

This series is a sort of recurrent thought, or a recurrent need, it’s seasonal, when winter ends, at one point I’ll paint flowers as if I could call for spring. The funny thing with that series is that I can never know in advance in which painting they’ll be and how they’ll look like. They have to bloom somehow. It’s probably the least intentional series I have, it starts with trying to paint the right gesture

and it ends when I can see the flowers coming out of the blur. I also find them quite emotional; there is something romantic to it, in the movement, soft, smooth. They are very free, like carried by the wind, they are full of this raw energy of just wanting to paint without wanting to represent, they aren’t

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lost in the rain, 2014,

inspired by flowers, they are not abstraction of flowers, they are a result of me being tired and wanting to paint a feeling rather than an idea. It’s about revealing our human condition, the ephemerality of happiness, the ever-changing movement of life. Two of them are paintings I did at the end of

Oil on recycled board, 45,5 x 23 cm

the residence in NY where I had kept questioning my approach alone or with my fellows or with the critics and I think I was tired of thinking about why

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see the edges 2, 2014, Oil on canvas, 34 x 37 cm

see the edges 3, 2014, Oil on canvas, 34 x 37 cm

I paint or what I paint, and I just wanted to paint away from the thoughts and the questions. Good things emerge from this type of energy, I generally like them but it’s difficult to explain them. I think they tell us about letting go, not always searching for a direction but just doing what feels right. They carry this romantic ideal of art, as an expression or an attempt to beauty. They shout as best they can.

When you are an actor, there are scenes you must prepare, rehearse so that your expression is perfect, so that you slowly learn to become your character.

But if you have to shout, cause you’re surprised, or scared or extremely happy, I don’t think it’s something you can really prepare, you just have to let it go, believe it’s really happening to you and let your guts do the work.

Painting is similar, depending on the topic you rehearse, make sketches, train your brushes or you just let go. This is the type of art that I tend to, but I also like to create things as the result of a reflection, as in the cosmic forces series for instance. Letting go is scary and stressful. While you’re

doing it, you need to maintain that state and that intention constantly, even when it starts looking like something you like you should not start planning to make something of it and that’s very difficult. Our brain is trained to recognize familiar shapes and if you start to illustrate you’ll fail it, but it’s very tempting. The result has to look like brushstrokes that look like something and not the other way around.

By the way, I noticed that the pieces of this series, although marked with a deep abstract feeling are inspired by subjects and patterns that are clearly extracted from our so called reality ... I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be discon-nected from direct experience?

Yes I think it is possible, I think it’s an approach but it is not mine. What I appreciate in a work of art is the quality and the identity of the painter’s brushstrokes. What I like in a book is the way the

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see the edges, inside out, 2014, Oil on canvas, 38 x 37 cm

story is told, it’s very similar, it’s the voice. This identity is built from experience. It is what I intend to achieve through abstraction, I want to give space for the gesture to express something that goes beyond representation. But to abstract something you need to have a very complete understanding of the thing you want to paint, you need to have lived it, felt it, smelled it, touched it.

It has to be raw but full, it is not rationalized in words, it is not the result of an analysis.

Planet Principle, 2014, Oil on canvas, 92 x 62 cm (photo by Augusta Pittman

In my approach, personal experience is core, it shapes what I want to paint and how I want to paint it. It is part of the art to explore in the paintings but to explore in life too, to go beyond your comfort zone, learn not to settle for something that is not exactly right. It is directly linked to an experience that can hardly be shared through another media than the one it has chosen to express itself, without being distorted.

struck with the way you have been capable of merging delicate and thoughtful tone of colours with a deep - I daresay sometimes bloody red, that seems to reveal such a deep tension and intense emotions, a feature that I can recognize in as well... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

As you have remarked once, you love especially the nordic light and I can recognize this feature in your recent See the edges series: I have been

Thank you that’s right yes, they focus very much on the impact of light on our perception of colours and our capacity to distinguish between tones of

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see the edges 6, 2014, Oil on canvas, 34 x 37 cm

in general than I used to, I still find refuge in the blue which I’ve always used a lot but I’m now working with brighter tones. The see the edges series intends to use a limited palette, two or three

colours that I alter and layer to create a contrast and a heavy atmosphere. Sometimes I like to have a sharp line between the two and sometimes in the contrary I like to blend them and make them

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NY pier, 2014, Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

impossible to distinguish. I depends on what I want to « say ». The apparent simplicity of the painting helps creating a tension with the edges of it, which are part of the art work. The edges are no longer folded back and made invisible. They are raw, they’ve been ripped, they are bright white, they support the painting in its status of an imagery, of a tangible object, but which content is not real, it is not figurative, it doesn’t intend to depict any reality.

The limited colour palette I used aims at empha-

sizing this duality, this frontier between the world of reality and the world of the painting.

As you have told us once, the essence of an artistic approach is to go without knowing where it will take you to... By the way, in your series Aliens I can recognize that one of the possible ideas underlying this work is to unfold a compositional potential in the seemingly random structure of the space we live in... Even though I am aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I am wondering if one of the hidden aims

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see the edges 9, 2014, Oil on canvas, 34 x 37 cm

see the edges 10, 2014, Oil on canvas, 34 x 37 cm

of Art could be to search the missing significance to a non-place... I am sort of convinced that some information and ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... What is your point about this?

science, philosophy, literature. Artists from almost all times have questioned our perception of the world, if we look at it, it might be the common ground for us all, it’s just the way we do it that varies. Every person has a question that keeps hovering on them, maybe the difference with artists is that they don’t really try to answer it, they want everybody to know how it feels to live this question, they want to turn it around, maybe they just like to search. I wonder if the answer interests us or if we are just interested in finding the best way to lay down the question. I think for me it’s the second one. I just want to lay down a question, point at an edge, so that others can see it and feel it for themselves.

I totally agree. Again I think there are as many arts as artists and approaches to what our role is. Some of us are very involved in pointing out the flaws of our time and society, criticizing a trend, a government or a social measure. I believe artists are good at pointing glitches, they pay attention at things that most people would consider unim-portant, and they also manage to sometimes unravel hidden beauty out of the most unnoticeable places. My personal belief is that we have a role to explore what people consider boundaries, edges and question what’s the significance of that. Question a common interpretation of something, question the relation between art and other fields, like

Next year you have plans to explore questions with an astronomy research center, can you tell us more about this project and the bridge you’re trying to create between art and science?

This is a dream project to me, I’ve been fascinated by both astronomy and quantum physics for a really long time and I talked about this with Ellen

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see the edges 1, 2014, Oil on canvas, 32 x 35 cm

Kochansky, the director of the Rensing center http://www.rensingcenter.org, the residence I stayed at last March. That’s what’s great about artist residences it’s that people know people who know people who have the same sort of questions than you do.

So when I told Ellen about my art and science ideas she said I had to talk to Nancy who runs SymbASA http://symbiosisartscience.org an art and science organisation. So I did and we talked about our approach to art and science, how rich it was for both communities to interact and to work on common projects. While I was there we contacted the PARI http://www.pari.edu, which is an astronomical research institute and they told us about their outreach programme and that’s where our project fits. My intention is to retrieve various data about Pulsars the PARI has been working on or is archiving data on. We have to select several pulsars and for each of them we’ll study their spectrum, which means we look at the wavelength pattern of the particles produced by this object. From this you can know the type of

Uncertainty Land, 2014, Oil on canvas, 92 x 62 cm

energy they emit and how they “flash” it and you can make hypotheses about the nature of the object, its density or magnetism for instance. If we can also have visual data on the Pulsar we will be able to show a photography along with a painting.

The work that I do on this, is that I take the graphs representing the radio and gamma rays emissions of the pulsar and I layer these sort of wave shaped lines using different colour to create a portrait of the object. I’m trying to find a way that the public can imagine that these data, this energy that the pulsar produces is characteristic of his nature, it defines it but it’s invisible to us.

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Amélie Beaudroit

NY open studio wall of Amelie’s studio to paint about but it doesn’t change what painting is or means. Depending on your context or what is happening in your life this source of inspiration varies, if you have to do a commission it varies but it is still painting. I can paint about Pulsars or I can paint a pier, it’s still my painting, it’s how I live the thing how I connect with it, it’s about what’s at the crossing between me and this other object of the same world. Sometimes I have feedbacks about what I paint, feedbacks from people who are interested in my sources of inspiration because it inspires them too, because they feel a connection with the same topics. But most of the time if people come to you it’s because they like the way you painted it, they like what it does to them and they don’t necessarily need to understand what it is, it’s only about what they see and these are great moments of joy.

The end results will be a series of portraits of these specific stars, based on tables of numbers, which is the way the machine shows us things we can’t see directly. It is to represent something that lives and changes and influences our world but that we can normally not see.

So far your works have been exhibited in several occasions... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if the expectation of positive feedbacks- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

The reason why I paint is primarily to answer a personal need. It is because it is what I like to do the most, it makes me feel like I belong somewhere. It is a quest for a moment of grace that you feel when you achieve something that is right, that is a hundred percent true, that is what it had to be.

Painting is an expression of life, it’s a poetic of the gesture, a movement. All artists have their own source of inspiration, they are the things they like

It’s like when you laugh at someone else’s joke, or you cry at someone else’s loss, it connects you for a brief moment on something that defines you. It is hard to say how these feedbacks influence me although it’s obvious that it has some influence. I think it makes me happy when I see people who connect with my work and it makes me sad when they don’t notice it, I think being ignored or boring

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bition in November. They are the floral paintings, I find them soft and despite their colourful compositions there is something melancholic about it, a feeling of a moment that has ended before you could completely give yourself to it. I’m also sending three works for an exhibition with the other rensing artists and its Director in Greenville, South Carolina for a group show and the theme there is Natural wonder, it will be from November 10 to December 5.

people is the worst. But it never changes the way you paint. To be able to paint and enjoy the process I have to be in a flow and that can be achieved only by being true to myself, that is aside of thoughts and therefore aside of the feedbacks, it’s an energy.

I accept rather easily that what resulted from this process and felt true to me doesn’t look pretty or interesting to someone else, it’s like the rest of life, there are people who won’t laugh at the same jokes than me. When you paint you give something from you, there is no guarantee someone will take it and like it, my focus is on what I create and how I create it, on improving this fluency, I don’t think I have control on the reception side.

Next March I’ll be exhibiting with Olivia Connelly in London again. I will go back to the Rensing center in South Carolina, to find peace and concentration and focus on painting away from the business of our lives in the city. I may also collaborate with a French band called Hord to create the artwork for their future album, this is another very exciting project. it’s a complex commission to make a music and its text match with a visual and the right ambiance, let’s see how it turns out. These are the plans I have for the moment but life is full of surprises so we’ll see what else happens!

Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts, Amelie. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you that you would like readers to be aware of?

I think that for the end of the year I’ll focus on my work and the Pulsar Project. The exhibition will be at the PARI itself in North Carolina and we’re planning an opening for the end of May. I have a lot to do to prepare it so I’m confident this will keep me busy. I will put some works that I have done during my residence in New York at the Obre Enea gallery in Anglet for their “Nouveaux Romantiques” exhi-

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator articulaction@post.com

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Mark Lloyd (United Kingdom)

Lloyd's work has been defined as post post-modern, metamodernist, and nascent. The key ideology that underpin Lloyds work are philosophy, science, and science fiction. Weighty concepts such as; consumption, search for God or higher powers, evolution, human advancement in the age of technology, globalization, dystopia and apocalypse, and failed utopian dreams have influenced his conceptual practice intentions. The work of Baudrillard, Lacan have influenced him, however one philosopher has had a significant role on Lloyd’s work; Slavoj Zizek. Science fictions from Mary Shelly to Philip K Dick inform crucial factors in his work. Lloyd has created a rich visual language that incorporates imagery from high and low cultural themes, which interconnect complex narratives that revisit history and gaze upon science fictions.

Lloyds diversity of processes are influenced by traditional and contemporary art practice, from Renaissance compositional theory and established oil painting methods to Hip Hop mediums and processes such as; repeating, remixing, editing, layering, combining, and synthesizing to form a multiplicity of versions from a selected criterion. Computer programs and digital technology are fundamental components of his practice and he has also explored; printmaking, sculpture, installation, drawing, collage, and photography. He utilities digital printing, projectors, and found objects which act as stencil apparatus in his work. He values these found objects as vitally important as they add value, meaning and purpose. ‘My work is based on the blurring of philosophical conceptions and science fictions. This is visually manifested through and in the experience of creating primarily mixed media paintings. My work takes two differing pathways in imagery and application of materials. In the first pathway the work is highly controlled and formed through a specific process which is minimal and conceptual in appearance. The second pathway is more painterly and expressionistic in application and form and is manifested through dialogue quotations of created text. Most of my work directly references postmodern philosophical concepts, science theory, and science fiction. It intends to address as yet unknowns of human advancement in the age of computer technology, genetic development, and future possibilities and catastrophes of human evolution (often from a dystopic viewpoint). This is relevant and important in the context of escalating global corporate power and our ever increasing reliance and dependence on technology.’

Mark Lloyd

ARTiculAction

Gold, (background detail)

'Is It Safe' (Red)

Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business Pleasure 7 Mixed Media,x 2011 Mixed & Media on Canvas 160cm 200cm

from Esprit de Femme

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Mark Lloyd

An interview with

Mark Lloyd Hello Mark, and welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art?

Hi Articulaction and thank you. In answer to your first question, what defines a work of art is perhaps in modern times become the impossible question to answer. I believe Aristotle came close when he stated; ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance’. I also believe Nietzsche offers an interesting opinion on a definition of art when he said; ‘art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence’, I like that and relate to that statement. Sometimes I believe art is a thought experiment made visual, sometimes I don’t.

As for, what are the features that mark an artwork as a piece of contemporary art? Well in my opinion it is everything opposite to the concept that ‘everything is art and everybody is an artist’, I think this concept is utter rubbish and has proved to be damaging.

Mark Lloyd and make sculpture out of cardboard and tape, I will be eternally grateful to my mother for these experiences. I remember fondly memories of long concentrate periods of time immersed in the process and wonder of making things. Of key significance was practicing as a graffiti artist which began in my early teenage years which was incredibly exciting, and when I first began to consider formal qualities of painting, composition, colour, line etc. My academic training of course was vital to my practice. Firstly on my BA I was lucky enough to go to one of the last traditional

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that have particularly impacted on your developement as an artist and on the way you currently produce your artworks? By the way, you currently hold the position of Lecturer B’mth University, so I would take this occasion to ask your point about formal training: I sometimes wonder if a certain kind of training could even stifle a young artist's creativity...

My background as an artist began through encouragement from my mother to draw, paint

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'Is It Safe' (Blue)

'Is It Safe' (Meme)

Mixed Media on Canvas 160cm x 200cm

Mixed Media on Canvas 160cm x 200cm

art schools in the UK which specialised in traditional art practices, for example oil painting methods and techniques, stone carving, printmaking, colour theory etc. This gave me a solid grounding in process. My MA at Winchester school of art was invaluable as it developed my conceptual and ideological approach to my work; it was there where I firstly really became interested in philosophy and science theory at a much deep level.

which have impacted on my practice and me as a human being were the darkest times in my life of which I am lucky to have survived. I believe I had a profound spiritual experience which completely changed my life. Since this time my practice has been reignited with vigour and purpose. After this experience I knew what the purpose of my life was.

Yes I do lecture in art and art theory and this is an incredibly rewarding process and definitely a two way exchange for both me and the students.

However the most significant life experiences

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As to whether I think formal training can stifle a young artist, I believe there are many variables, such as the lecturers, facilities, curriculum, institution etc. But young artists with willingness and desire will make it happen despite of these things or with these things will make it happen anyway. I do think formal academic training is important, the dialogue and discourse and exchange of ideas between staff and students can be astoundingly creative. I believe; if I want to be a doctor I need to study medicine, therefore if I want to be an artist I need to study art.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I as mentioned my work is based on a ‘thought experiments that are made visual’, all my work is based on philosophy this is my starting point.

The technical aspects of making my work vary immensely depending on what I am making. All processes of making from the materials utilised and manner of application have been developed of years of study and experimentation. I have many established processes which have been polished through the years. This however does not mean I have ceased experimentation, on the contrary I continue to experiment with new materials. I believe the materials and subject matter have to reflect the times I live in. Making art is not easy and not full of joy, most of the time it’s like going to war. I used to fight in muay Thai and its uncanny how many of the qualities I used in the boxing ring I now use in making art.

I take much from the artists of the past, for example many compositional theories of the renaissance in particular those of Piero Della Francesca and also the constructivist artists like Malevich I reuse in my work. Turner, Matisse etc for colour and many other artists I either borrow or reinterpret their ideas, imagery and processes.

As for preparation time, some works can be made in two to three days others can take up to a year; I have a portrait that I have been working on for four years so it can be extremely varied. I always work on multiple artworks at the same time this way there is always something to do and avoids becoming stale on one piece.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Is It Safe: Everything & Nothing that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit yur website directly at http://lloydfineart.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production... In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration?

The ‘Is it safe; everything and nothing’ series or project had a bizarre origin. I will never forget the incident. I was in a Skype lecture in a university with a high ratio of Chinese students.

At the end of the lecture when it came to the question and answers section, not a single Chinese student would speak. The lecture finished and before everybody left another lecturer asked the Chinese students ‘why are you so silent?’ After persistence by the lecturers one of the Chinese students spoke, and said ‘we could be being watched’. They all genuinely thought that there were hidden cameras watching them placed by the Chinese government. This conceptually profoundly affected me. The concept of being watched by some ‘big other’. I researched into philosophy on this concept. I then began the series of work ‘Is it safe; everything and nothing’ and it expanded into the concept of begin watched by ‘the big other’ whether human, mechanical/technological, spiritual (deity). I continue to work on these themes today. Much of these works are in a triptych format, relating to the philosophical, spiritual and psychological theories based on the significant

Mark Lloyd

ARTiculAction

Gold, (background detail) Is It Safe (Yellow) Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business Pleasure 7 Mixed160cm Media,x2011 Mixed & Media on Canvas 200cm

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It is safe, installation view

and importance of the number three. For example in psychology Lacan’s – real/ symbolic/ imaginary, in the spiritual – mind/body/soul, and in philosophical a number of systems of ontology derived on the concept of 3.

As you have stated once, most of your work directly references postmodern philosophical concepts, science theory, and science fiction: while many of your works reveal references to scientific subjects, the visual features of your pieces seem far from being -in a certain sense- "contaminated" by the usage of digital technologies that nowadays deeply pervade visual arts... do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and such kind of technology? By the way, I would go as far as to say that in a way Science is assimilating Art and viceversa: what's your point about this?

The work has to have that uncanny or odd presence to represent or evoke the feeling one has when being watched. I intend to create an uncertainty. I intend with the large work to

evoke the present and emotions one has when visiting a religious site or object of pilgrimage.

The work encourages viewer interaction, as in the works change as you move closer and further away. At a distance the work looks organic and soft, the closer you get to the work the detail of a multitude of dots and pixelated quality is revealed suggesting a machine or mechanical quality. The boundaries between organic and machine are blurred.

You mentioned the term ‘contaminated’ and ‘dichotomy’ in reference to humanity and technology; I believe there is no dichotomy and no contamination. We live in a transitional age, the borders and boundaries between these things have fractured and blurred. I believe this is the evolutionary process, the bonding or joining with man and his tools, it will push man and technology towards the next evolutionary step; the technological singularity. I make art about these things and the philosophical posits that arise. Much of the science I see explained on computer screens to me is art and many of the

Mark Lloyd

ARTiculAction

consumption series 'Aint no love in the heart of the city' mixed media on canvas.180cm x 180cm.2012

theories in science have a beauty and poetic quality, take for example the multi-verse

theorems, wonderful. So therefore again there is no boundary, border or separation all is one.

ARTiculAction

Mark Lloyd

Transcendence II

Transcendence

Another interesting series of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Consumption: I have highly appreciated the way your approach investigates about the concept of individual and societal over consumption , challenging the viewer's perception, establishing a deep involvement with the viewers, both on an intellectual aspect and - I daresay- on a physical one... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

So much of art made since the 1990s lacks these qualities and is vacuous and only significant by its monetary value. So much of art in modern times has lost its “soul “or as Walter Benjamin put it “aura“. It would be like me trying to make art about Inuit tribal women in Alaska, I have no experience of this I have no experience of this and my work would contain no integrity. A recent Turner prize winner in the UK made art about working class struggles and he was educated in the best schools in the UK, how can he possible relate to his subject matter, rubbish and lies.

Cheap tricks, teenage irony, disgust, pointlessness etc have replaced the value of experience. So yes it is possible but in my opinion it valueless and shallow.

Do I think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience, yes it can.

However to have value and integrity, depth and meaningfulness then personal experience is vital.

One of the features of your works that has mostly struck on me is the dynamicity, the sense of movement that you have been capable of impressing in your pieces... and I have highly appreciated the nuance of intense

Mark Lloyd

ARTiculAction

Gold, (background detail)

Will I Dream Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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tones which creates an interesting synergy rather than a contrast between such bright tones... by the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

My choice of colour is dictated to an extent by the conceptual theme of the work.

Colour and lack of colour and its power to evoke feeling and meaning is an important formal quality in my work. Again I look back to the past to reuse theories and ideas of the artists who came before me. Currently I am looking at Rothko, Hokusai, Monet, Dondi White, and 1950s horror movie posters. So yes it changes over time but always dictated by conceptual intention.

Hidden and encrypted meaning intrigues and fascinates me I enjoy this process when it is evident in other works of art, similar to that pleasure one gets when deciphering a puzzle. It is an element I often incorporate into my work.

Hidden and encrypted meaning add layers of information, or pathways in a labyrinth that can engage differences of time or suggest other dimensions or realities, and provide wonder and amazement. Hidden and encrypted meaning can provoke thought in the viewer or experience-er of the work of art, encouraging them to wake up.

An I couldn't do without mentioning The Question of Expression in the Digital Age of the Indexical Image that I have to admit is one of my favourite projects of yours : it has suggested me the concept that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so

I don’t believe the role of the artist is to reveal or answer questions, I believe the role of the artist is similar to that of the philosopher, that is one who questions but never provides answers. Only through questioning can we make sense of the world around us and the continuous changes that occur.

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THE QUESTION OF EXPRESSION IN THE DIGITAL AGE OF THE INDEXICAL IMAGE; The paradoxical shadow of art (all) Oil, 8 pigment made from ash of burnt prints of Pollock, Malevich

Mark Lloyd

Mark Lloyd

Gold, (background detail) Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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Mark Lloyd the artworks. I have attempted this through a similar process to that of the Hindu practice of ‘Antyesti’, burning of the dead to carry the soul to join the abode of the ancestors.

I burn multiple prints of artworks (indexical images) to form an ash which I bond into pigment with oil and mix this into paint. I then use this mixture to form paintings that evoke the artworks based on the burnt prints, thus I reintroduce the aura/soul back into art through this process – rebirth.

During your career your works have been shown in several occasions and you have been awarded as well: what impressions did you receive from these experiences? By the way, it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I sometimes wonder if the expectation of a positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

Archetype

This series of work is my most current, and in this series I have broadened my art processes and mediums. As well as painting, I have also utilised digital photography, CGI, and sculpture. The work is concerned with questioning and exploring what happens to expression in art in the digital age of repetition and mass indexicality. Much of the work is begun from the starting point that art has no ‘aura’ or soul in modern times, as many have suggested. In some of the work in this series for example I have intended to reintroduce ‘aura’ or ‘soul’ back into the very essence and materials of

Any award I deeply appreciated and consider it an honour. The impressions I received from the shows and awards has been positive. I feel tremendously honoured, inspired and affirmed.

However this does not at any point influence my processes or outcomes of what I make, if it did I would be painting psuedo post pop art style portraits!

The feedback from shows and awards never influences my practice and neither do I consider the audiences or market when I make my work.

It has taken many years to formulate my practice and as such I believe in what I do. I do however have a small group of artists who are friends who I discuss and debate art practice with, this feedback I find this invaluable and integral to my practice.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mark. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you?

Mark Lloyd

ARTiculAction

Gold, (background detail) Mixed Media on canvas, 2012 Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011 Exorcism

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Artist with friend and Will I dream and Exorcism.jpg

Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

show in February Brick lane Galleries in London 2015.

Firstly I would like to thank all staff at Articulaction for your help and hard work in making this interview happen, and I would like to express my deep gratitude for this opportunity. What you do is valued and extremely important for the arts.

I would also like to make readers aware of a special show for me in 2015 an installation of paintings at the resurrection chapel St Peters church in Bournemouth. I would like to make readers aware that my work will be on show throughout the UK in 2015, all details can be found on my website and social media platforms. Many wonderful blessing to you all.

Next for me is an exhibition from the 16th of January 2015 at the Abbey Life building in Bournemouth where I will be exhibiting works from the series ‘History of shit’ (look out for press releases). Also look out for my work on

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator articulaction@post.com

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I want more life 8

(United Kingdom)

Gรกbor A. Nagy

Be Calm, Be Strong, Be Patient 2013, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

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Gábor A. Nagy

An interview with

Gábor A. Nagy Hello Gabor, and welcome to ARTiculAction.

I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art? By the way, do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

I think, art today has become a kind of general refuge for all manner of projects which are not efficient or productive for consumer society.

Art is no longer pure creating, but rather surfing on existing structures. Or let´s say, art is more like creating special links between the most diverse disciplines from social sciences to music, political criticism to information technologies, but in a more complex and metaphoric way. Art is something what we don´t need but still exists. Art is always something strange. Therefore nearly everything can be an art piece today, it depends on the way how we contextualize it.

And yes, in a way all the masterpieces in the art history were contemporary in their own time, it´s just about how an art work is relating with its present time.

Gábor A. Nagy

and you hold a MA degree, that you have received from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest: moreover, you had the chance to study a year in Germany, where you are currently based. I would like to ask you how much these experiences have impacted on your artistic approach and on your evolution as an artist.

The quality of an art piece is more relevant issue for me. Quality is always about touching eternity a little bit, even if it´s incredibly contemporary in the same time. So, for me, the dichotomy is rather between bad art and quality art only. They´re really two different things. And if there´s no magic, you can be sure it´s bad art. Art has its own tradition, it´s a fact, but we have our free choice how to handle it. We are living in the age of Aquarious... and we are soooo individual

To be honest, my evolution as an artist started after finishing my studies. It´s quite difficult to answer how my art schools influenced my progress. The art academy in Budapest is a more than 150 years old conservative art school with some rebel spirits, founded in the era of the good old Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy. And even

Would you like to tell us something about your background? You have formal training

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Nagy's Studio though we are living in the 21th century most of those old art schools still suffer from their historical herritage. Fortunately Hungary was always one of the less weird Eastern- European country, so all in all my school years were not that bad. However when I ask myself what I learned there... hmm... what to say? A kind of craftmenship maybe? Or certain general attitudes like how to be persistent, not to give up dreams, how to work hard, and so on ...

consciousness. And about networking, and carrier management... I guess, the real difference between the 2 art schools was the difference between the Eastern and Western system and tradition in general. But OK, back to my so called artistic development I would say the more exciting period started with those artist in residency programs after my school years in Paris, Rom, and several German cities.

And finally the most intense period started in Berlin. Berlin was really amazing 10 years ago when I moved here, huge, vivid, colorful, sparkling art scene, a lot of inspiring people, and a certain „healthy“ euphoria. It could give me a lot of drive to work.

They all are important things of course but becoming an artist you need something else as well. And in this way my school year in Nürnberg was completely the opposit. It was about the importance of inspirations, freedom, focusing,

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Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Well, then maybe first I have to talk about my strange relation with computer. Not like many others, after almost tewnty years I still can enjoy working with my computer. I guess, the secret is that I try to use it as intuitively as possible. It´s like playing synthesizers without piano playing knowledge, let´s say. It´s always a creative adventure... something very right brain activity :) And for us, for artists, doing art always has to be adventurous otherwise we are only cold hearted professional, like contract killers e.g.. So my work is based on daily computer use, collecting a lot of visual inspirations intuitively, and collecting a lot of inspiring texts also intuitively.

As I mentioned earlier, surfing on the existing structures, or in other words surfing on the memories of our collective subconsciousness via Internet. Actually the Internet provides fantastic collection of the universal subconscious human mind´s projections. So in my work I´m focusing on the depth of human psyche, our subconscious, desires, dreams, anxieties, fears, as well as those happenings in the world out there whose effects linger in the subconscious.

Despite I´m not a story teller I use some kind of texts in my work to combine them with images.

However both of them are fragmented enough to require a certain extra effort from the viewer figuring out what the hell is on the canvases. My aim is involving the viewers as my co-creator in the creative process and invite them to complet my paintings with the images of their own personal memories. With my paintings I try to create an atmosphere in which the diverse elements can turn into their opposit easily: the certain becomes uncertain, the familiar unfamiliar, the light dark. Combining all with the

viewer´s creative fantasy, the personal is mixed with impersonnal, the singular with the general.

In the end everything is familiar but nothing is exactly recognizable.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Be Calm, Be Strong, Be Patient and A Day In Space, an extremely interesting couple of works that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and I would suggest them to visit your wesbite directly at http://gaboranagy.blogspot.de in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these works?

Like most of my paintings these two works are also based on using lyrics of indie songs. I have wide range of music taste from classical music to dark electro but I have a special interest of indie rock/pop stuffs because of their lyrics. Not like the main stream giga hits, these lyrics are pure poetry and their atmosphere, themes, and sensitivity is perfect raw material for me combining them intuitively with certain atmospheric images to create my own bubble world digging deep in the collective unconsciousness.

Furthermore this indie scene is full with fantastic guys, they are talented, open minded, inspiring.

E.g. when I ask their permission to use their songs they happily say yes. They easily understand the importance of creating links between diverse disciplines, especially when it´s under the radars of the commercial and entertaining industries or the elite of the art market... For me it looks like a kind of alliance or brotherhood, our production is for the people first and not for the market.

James Yorkstone, Malcolm Middleton, Scott Matthews, Ballboy, Sophia,and many others, thank you guys for your support! Back to the genesis of my works I have to admit these wonderful songs are getting fragmented mercilessly during my creative process because

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Gold, (background detail) MixedDo Media canvas, 2012 youon need a friend?

Business & Pleasure 7 Mixed Media, 2011

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A day in space

I want only some keywords to give the viewer as one layer of my work. C´mon I´m a painter! So the next layer is the vivid lines of those thick, handpainted letters, which exist as a mosaic structured image. And the third layer of my works is a kind of free associative connection between the above mentioned text and image layer.

recognize that one of the possible ideas underlying this work is to unfold a compositional potential in the seemingly random structure of the space we live in... Even though I am aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I am wondering if one of the hidden aims of Art could be to search the missing significance to a non-place... I am sort of convinced that some information and ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher

Another interesting work of yours that have particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Soft Crash Coming Back... By the way, I can 7

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extraterrestrials, achangels, etc we can talk about certain cosmic energies which are there, which are everywhere. Thanks to e.g. quantum phisics, a paradigm shift is more and more there, and it seems our old material world view is less and less valid to describe our more and more expanding Universe. If we can agree with the ancient wisdom „as above as below“ art definitely can help finding answers for the big questions of the Universe. In this sense one of the roles of an artist really could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature or our inner nature.

them, as you seem to suggest in the stimulating The Universe Is Not Your Friend, which has reminded me the wll-known Einstein's quote "God does not play dice with the universe". Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature...

What is your point about this?

Even though we would like to avoid the trap of the New Age spiritualism, some kind of life style yoga movements, or channelled messages from 8

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Ask The Next Person, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

But in the same time maybe it´s better not to have big illusions, art is more like about asking questions and not about delivering answers.

Answering is still the scientists job, I guess... or spiritual masters if you like. Otherwise, my piece „The Soft Crash Coming Back“ was much more inspired by our everyday life reality, it´s a kind of allegorical manifestation of the financial crises, wraping in a more cosmic context.

Exactly this is what I enjoy, making metaphoric connections between things which are seemingly light years from each other and

trusting my beloved audience´s detective talent starting to investigate. I guess, my paintings are quite open structures in this way to play with the viewers fantasy, memory, and subconscious mind.

Now let's deal with the tones of your artworks; in particular, I would like to linger on a couple of pieces that are from my favourite ones of your recent production: Ask The Next Person and Can you help me? in which I daresay that you have focused on the

Gábor A. Nagy

abstract quality of images from daily imagery making them seem ethereal... As in all of your recent paintings, these works consist of three different layers which stratify on a dark background: could you tell us something about your choice of such deep darkness that pervades the space of your canvas? by the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Concerning colours let´s talk about black first. As a certain darkness is always needed to see the

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stars, the empty black canvas for me is the unconscious itself. It´s deep and dark as hell and full with secrets. And then there are motives, figures, faces, like flashing images of the memory... images which can invocate fear, anxiety, dreams, desires. All the images are transformed to vibrant energy of colours and colourful letters, like a kaleidoscope. Because of the fragmented mosaic structure, the vivid colours, and the thickness of the paint, our visual perception turns more physical and the

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Ask The Next Person, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

paintings come closer and closer to our personal time, space, and reality.

Actually the motives of both works, „Ask The Next Person“ and „Can you help me?“ was inspired by my childhood when I was afraid of clowns and nurses as well. We all know from psychology how dangerous some bad experiences or behavior patterns can be for children, how intense energy blockages can be generated, and how hard to remove them in adulthood. Of course when we become adults, characters like clown or nurse are not scary for

us anymore, but maybe it´s not a coincidence that e.g. the nurse is such a popular figure in kinky sex role plays and we want to face and getting rid of our childhood fears instinctly...

So, never underestimate the importance of your own subconscious mind!

What has mostly impacted on me of My Piece of Eden and Stop The Clouds is the way you have been capable of creating a bridge between the unsuspecting images and the truth about "what happens there", bringing a new level of significance and

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Can you help me? 2011, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm forcing the viewer to explorate, and in a certain sense to challenge the usual way we perceive reality, mixing familiarity with recognizability... I would go as far as to state that these work, rather than simply describing something, pose us questions...

Exactly. As I mentioned earlier, I´m not a story teller and I don´t want to be. I think, there are incredibly lot of stories in the world already and everybody has his/her own stories. I also don´t want to repeat other people´s stories or repacking them. I don´t want to make narrative

paintings at all. However, here in the 21th century, I believe in parallel Universes, parallel realities, parallel truths, parallel stories and open structures. What I really want in my work is creating links between these parallel worlds, between your world and my world. And that´s why I need an adventurous, creative audience to play. My works come alive by the active support/effort/assistance of the viewers. If I were more idealist maybe I would say we all are connected in this planet, and we need each other´s active contribution to build a New

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My Piece Of Eden, 2012 acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

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Love Will Destroy Us In The End 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

Paradigm. And in this sense the real raw material of my work is not canvas and paint, but more like the collective memory of mankind. Using text and image fragments in free associations I just want to ignite and liberate the human mind and heart... This is my way how to „Stop The Clouds“ and this is „My Piece Of Eden“ . And maybe this is a possible way for my audience as well not to feel „Like A Wasp In A Jar“ Your art practice strictly connected to

establish a deep, intense involvement with your audience, both on an intellectual aspect and - I daresay - on a physical one, as in the tryptich Love Will Destroy Us In The End which in a certain sense seems to be a prelude to Death Comes So Slow, an extremely stimulating piece that effectively mixes anguish with the impulse of knowledge that pervades all your works... So I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process both

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Death Comes So Slow 2012, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

for creating a piece and in order to "enjoy" it...Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Never. Not in my world, at least. Direct experiences are extremely important and that´s why we are here on Planet Earth. Experiencing the phyisical, the emotional, the spiritual is the key for human existance and personal progress since thousands of years. Without direct experience we have no memories as well. We have no references, no self identification, no

worldview. We have no coordinates and we can´t navigate. Maybe in a Brave New World, in the Matrix, or „long time ago in a galaxy far, far away“ it could be different, but not here and not now. Here we have love, even it destroys us sometimes and yes, our time here is limited, and death is coming. We are ghost driving meat coated skeletons from stardust in the end.

Otherwise this is why the title of my works are so important for me, they try to break through the concret walls of our ignorance, insensitivity, desperate self-protection, emotionally

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ou Are Afraid Of Us, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 100x280 cm

unavailable personalities, and try to lead us back to our own vulnerability and hidden self, at least for some seconds.

During these years your work has been exhibited extensively in many occasions and it goes without saying that positive feedbacks are capable of supporting an artist: I sometimes happen to wonder if the expectation of a positive feedback could even influence the process of an artist, especially when the creations itself is tied to the involvement of the audience... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I guess, people don´t need to enjoy my work, it´s enough if they just can be involved to play the game what my works provide, and then we will see... During working I never think about any kind of audience, I just do what I have to. On the other hand I´m super exciting to see the reactions of the audience after I present my „finished“ works because then the second act beggins and my audience start to

do their job. And that´s the moment when my mission is really accomplished, when the miracle happens, when an art piece is really born. Concerning feedbacks I would say the negative feedbacks are somehow more important for me, they are more supportive for my future development. And maybe it´s also true, when your audience is so actively take part of the creative process, and they really enjoy the game, they are also more brave to criticize. And this kind of dialogue is really inspiring! I think, nowadays the work of an artist is also a kind of team work, working with curators, gallerists, assistants, journalists, special consultants, etc. Why is it so surprising when an artist in a certain way wants to work with the audience as well?

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Gabor. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

The problem is that sometimes my mind is much more faster than the practice of

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Stop The Clouds, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 100x140 cm

realization. I always have incredibly lot of creative ideas and I enjoy experimentations as well.

However I will have 2 different solo exhibition in 2 very different places in next February, and I want to show brand new pieces only, so the near future means nonstop hard work in my studio, I´m afraid.

There will be a more dark and melancholic exhibition in Bremen and a more playful one in Liechtenstein. Fortunately, if you are living in Berlin, it´s not that hard to manage this two ,

seemingly so different mindset parallel, because here they both are so present everyday...

Thanks for the opportunity and greetings to all ARTiculAction readers.

an interview by Dario Rutigliano, Curator articulaction@post.com

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Nevena Vuksanovic (Serbia / France) an artist’s statement

Animal nature, complete but without identity, stands opposite the human inadequacy and susceptibility towards personal development.

Animals I admire but I look at people critically.

The humanlike beings point out the human deficiencies I myself possess while creating them.

On our way of development and growth, we are, as people faced with personal shortcomings. These deficiencies may seem terrible, dreadful, insurmountable.

Nature is what directs us towards out inner landscape, towards our ability to achieve completeness.

To build a sculpture we need physical involvement, great immediacy. Forms mature upon their long being created in imagination.

At the moment of personal separation from them, during the tension of my overall sensibility, I become one with the created object. My body is released from something that was up to then part of it. During its creation, the sculpture builds into itself memories, dreams, fears, aggression, a sense of helplessness.

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Cheetah, 2008 Wire, Wool 1,20m x 2m

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Flea, 2011 1,5m x 2m , Metal, rubber, leather, vinyl, paper

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An interview with

Nevena Vuksanovic Hello Nevena, and welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art? Do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

An art work is always a sum of artistic aspirations.

For me personally it is a man's search for something that is everlasting, transcendent, meant for the world beyond, a pursuance towards spiritual heights and universal goals.

I think that an artwork should be an act of selfgiving, a sort of self-surrender, irrelevant if it is about contemporary or traditional art work. There is a bond between tradition and contemporaneity, namely one refers to another.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? After graduating at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrad, you attended lots of workshops, and you have recently been in Abu Dhabi on a residencial program... How have these experiences impacted on the way you currenly produce your artworks? By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

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is also my first international residency experience.

I was privileged to work with a team of hard working, smart and competent people who provided trust and gave support to each other. They were always there to accomodate us with everything that we needed and I have learned a lot from them. I will always remember my experience from Abu Dabi.

I was born in Belgrade, Serbia. Since my early age, I was attracted by art. After my third grade in high school I attended private lessons of painting and drawing at the same time. I have finished high school for graphic design where my professor discovered my talent for sculpture just two months before my the entry. In 2007.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I enrolled in Faculty for fine arts in Belgrade – department of sculpture and 2012 I finished master studies at the class of professor Mrđan Bajić. Art residency for Eastern Europe at ArtHub in Abu Dabi has finished at beginning of January this year. That

Usually in the beginning I do a lot of sketches and drawings trying to find the right composition and

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Dream Of Shiver, 2012, Par foam, pulp, silicone, wire

creepy feeling to run through my body and then I woke up crying in fear not to fall asleep again.I wanted to reflect the same feeling to the audience.

The sculpture ,,Flea" is a display of a flea , a hundred times enlarged. I wondered what impression would we have if we ever came across such a creature.First I did a series of drawings and then I decided to do the sculpture.

measure. I concentrate on proportions , anatomy and that initial feeling of the very idea itself. After that everything kind of opens itself , I just do the corrections and take care that the sculpture contains intensity , strength and energy that have initially motivated me to create it.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Dream of Shiver and Flea, an interesting work that our readers have already admired in the starting pages of this article.

Would you tell us something about the genesis of these pieces? What was your initial inspiration?

Under the material there is a metal construction, followed by sponge, leather jacket stitched with a woolen rope with a peaces of paper on the back side. I always build my memories, dreams and fears in the sculpture while I am creating.

The sculpture ,, Dream of shiver " is in fact an illustration of one of my dreams. I was dreaming that it began to shiver from my toes all the way to my neck , tingling through the entire body. I felt great pain and fear, helpless I had to wait for that

A feature of Chaos that has mostly impacted on me is your capability of creating a deep intellectual interaction, communicating a wide variety of states of mind: even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I have 55

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Chaos, detail, Gypsium, branches, paint, 2m x 1,5, 2012

to admit that in a certain sense it unsettles me a bit... it's an effective mix between anguish and thoughtless, maybe hidden happiness...

I would go as far as to state that this piece, rather than simply describing, pose us a question: forces us to meditation...

train his temper, defects,passions, vices, weaknesses feeling of nothingness, because all of this inevitably causes downfall. That is man's attempt to resist decadency.

Should one give himself up to decadency, indulge himself? By progressing, it could possibly deplete and allow the emergence of another forms!?

With the sculpture ,,Chaos" I have tried to present balance that a man is eager to achieve through his whole life. I have always found biologically unchaste beings very interesting because chaste beings keep staying away from the depths , they are incapable as such.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement "to build a sculpture we need physical involvement, great immediacy. Forms mature upon their long being created in imagination" I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespen-

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tone of red with solid shapes... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

,,Fatherhood of hunchback"s is an illustration from the story of the same name that has been written

by Anry Misou from the book ,,In the land of magic". The story starts when a small hunchback is being pulled out of another hunchback who is obsessed by fatherhood and than it comes to a strange face off between two hunchbacks which are both cripples‌ I tried to express that intense moment through my sculpture.

The smaller hunchback disappears after a couple of days without a trace, while the older hunchback stands up straight. The shock was needed. The shock is primarily important, galvanization of individual which makes him shiver above all. But if hunchback looks upon a new being raising out of his hunch with a sense of indifference , the whole effort is in vain and his state would not improve.

Chaos, Gypsium, branches, paint, 2m x 1,5, 2012

sable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Personal experiences can help by giving an artists own personal mark to his work while genuine creativity comes not from memory but from consciousness.

Another interesting piece of yours on which I would like to spend some words are Paternity of Hunchback which I have to admit is one of my favourite work of yours: I have been struck with the way you have been capable of merging intense -but at the same time thoughtful-

Paternity of Hunchbacks, gypsiun, patina, 2011 Illustration of story by Anry Misho

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In that case we are talking about a real, genuine hunchback. I find this story very interesting and every time I read it I find a new meaning and message...I used red color out of my inner feeling, because I somehow thought that it can evoke this intense and painful moment of separating one hunchback from the other in the best way possible.

Your works have been awarded in several occasions and moreover you have recently had the solo ,,IDENTIFICATION’’ at DOB Gallery, in Belgrade: it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist... I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

Exhibition ,, Identification" in Belgrade's Youth Center is my first

Paternity of Hunchbacks, gypsiun, Illustration of story by Anry Misho

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Work in Abu Dhabu Art Hub

solo exhibition right after finishing my faculty. I have exhibited seven art works which were completed during my studies and which I find highly important in my artistic maturation. Feedback was positive which I find it very important. I can't believe that an artist can create his works only out of ,, self expression". Self expression is useless if not followed by the answers of others. For me the creation of spiritual bonds with other is utmost important. The internal fulfillment that I get while creating is the most important for me, something that is priceless. Awards have meaning only if you don't love your work, in which case they represent some sort of replacement for that.

Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts, Nevena. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you?

Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

My artistic work so far has also been my own personal development throughout I gradually became more and more aware of myself and my assignment. My motive is to keep on growing and eventually develop into something within.

That is why I think it is important to move and travel in order to keep up with the events in connection with my work.I plan to go to art residencies in as many places as possible in order to bond with other credible people, learn from them and collaborate with them.

patina, 2011

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Jake Kelley an artist’s statement

My work is primarily an exploration of materials in an effort to create images of lasting conceptual and emotional effect.

I utilize a wide variety of mediums and techniques that have developed organically from hours of experimentation. I am also interested in mark-making as a method of exploring the inherent tension between opposites such as Euclidian/Platonic, organic/geometric, painting/drawing, etc.

As an abstract painter, engaging in a cultural dialogue is also a concern. Therefore, perception itself is always a primary subject.

Jake Kelley

EDUCATION M.Ed., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN, BFA, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN, 2007 SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012, Piss Business, Woo Kelley Gallery, Chattanooga, TN TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2011, A Disturbance in Mirrors, B+B Gallery, New York, NY AWARDS AND HONORS 2013, Featured Artist, Four Bridges Arts Festival, Chattanooga, TN 2009, Best in Show, Doubt,Chattanooga Theatre Center, Chattanooga, TN 2008, Best Emerging Artist, Four Bridges Art Festival, Chattanooga, TN 32

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An interview with

Jake Kelley Hello Jake, and welcome to ARTiculAction. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artworks as a piece of Contemporary Art? Do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

For me... the very act of "naming" something "art" makes it art. Anything goes. I guess Duchamp changed the game in that regard. It's like the garden of Eden when Adam went around naming everything. That's how it works if you ask me‌ Which you did.

As far as the traditional/contemporary dichotomy goes... I tend to think of those artists who are pushing the envelope a bit as contemporary which generally includes some sort of reference to the game/dialogue that is painting itself. So... Post modern if you will. Self aware/conscious Metacognitive art making.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? You have graduated at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where you received a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing. How has this experience impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks? By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

Jake Kelley

tools and then go back in with charcoal and edit out information until I felt finished. It was all about the positive/negative spatial dialogue.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Well first of all let me say that as with most students (perhaps especially those of art) your professors are going to have a profound influence on you. With art school you either start by mimicking your teachers or rebelling against them. I was very influenced by my teachers and tended toward mimicry during the early years although I didn't realize it at the time. I guess I started to find my voice during my senior thesis which was made up almost entirely of black and white drawings. (You can see them at jakekelley.wordpress.com) I would lay down a constellation of marks with a variety of

Materials are probably the most important thing for me. They get me started. It is within my process that meaning is made manifest. I paint on aluminum with baked on acrylic so it is very smooth and non-absorbent that in and of itself is

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lic, latex, resin, and ink on aluminum) and it was very much the product of experiment. It was a huge break through and really set the bar for me.

Tiger/Tiger came about a year and a half later and was much more premeditated. I knew I wanted to use an animal of some sort as the subject and I eventually settled on the tiger. At some point I decided to flip and repeat the image which not only made it more interesting compositionally, but also injected it with a sort of ambiguity of meaning that i found compelling.

Tiger/Tiger took on a real spiritual direction...something I have become interested in lately...The artist as shaman...finding that trance state and returning with a higher understanding. "My River Runs To Thee" and "Doppleganger" also utilize the flipped and repeated or "mirror" image as a way to commu-nicate the dichotomies of the "self"‌ body/spirit, good/evil, simple/complex, etc, etc.

very important to my process which involves everything from cutting back in and removing particular layers of paint skeins to water manipulation, sanding, screen printing, etc. many of these techniques I simply couldn't do on canvas. I really don't like the toothiness of canvas either. I usually work on one painting for about 2 months or so. I tend to spend a lot of time waiting for paint to dry.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Tiger Tiger and Soul-crusher that our readers have already admired in the starting pages of this article. Would you tell us something about the genesis of these pieces? What was your initial inspiration?

Soul-crusher was the very first painting I made using this particular combination of materials acry-

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Tiger/Tiger

A recurrent feature of your works that has mostly impacted on me is the intense, almost flooding tone of red in Contemplating A World Clear as Water and in The Sun Dissolves, which seem to reveal such a struggle, a deep tension and intense emotions... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

to "elevate" them to something more. In the end we both win (or lose) depending on how you look at it. It is a compromise between to waring factions. It is in that struggle that visual/conceptual tension is created‌ and that is the stuff of good painting.

Another interesting pieces of yours on which I would like to spend some words are the diptych Aquatic Nocturne and especially Cross Section which I have to admit is one of my favorite work of yours: moreover, I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process...

Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I used to think that color was arbitrary...an "extra" that had little more than a decorative role in painting. Of course, I was wrong. I now view color as perhaps the most important choice/choices that is/are made during the painting process. I certainly don't feel the need to make "easy" appealing color schemes but I do strive for a certain "Matissian" harmony in my pallets. Like good music, this usually includes dissonant tones as well as harmonious ones. As far as your reference to "struggle" goes‌ yes, I view every painting as a struggle between myself and the materials. They want just to be themselves...paint as paint‌ I generally am trying

I do believe personal experience effects the creative process. I have found that growing older and going through the many hardships and joys of life have made me a more reflective person and if painting isn't a reflective process then I don't know what is. I am glad that you asked about Cross36

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Cross Section II

section as it has grown to be a favorite of mine.

Like Soul-Crusher, it too was largely the result of blind experimentation. Thus the name Crosssection, as I tend to feel like a mad scientist sometimes alone in my studio doing things that honestly make little sense outside of those walls.

Contemplating A World Clear as Water II

During these years your works have been exhibited in several occasions and moreover you have been recently chosen to be the Featured Artist 2013 at the Four Bridges Art Festival. It goes without saying that feedbacks

and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art... I do try my best to make what needs to be made without thinking about who will like it and who won't. But in all honesty, it is hard not to catch yourself making choices that you have to question... " am I doing this because it is pushing the painting in an Aquatic Nocturne (diptych)

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And I couldn't do without mentioning your piece At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day‌ It shows a stimulating synergy between the apparently contrasting ideas of circularity suggested by the circular shape and the straightness of the lines on the border: this gives a sense of rhythm to the canvas...

I am indeed very interested in the visual and philosophical/conceptual friction caused by the cohabitation of two apparent opposites...organic/geometric, flatness/depth, reality/illusion, warm/cold, and most recently reflective/nonreflective.

At Length...was one of the first paintings on which I screen printed an image after having applied the resin finish. This created a very interesting positive/ negative play between the two surfaces and really changed the way I make painting.

Piss Business

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Fizzle Pop

Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts, Jake. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Well let me end by saying... Thank you and your publication for allowing me to share a few of my thoughts with my fellow art lovers! I do have a few shows coming up in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee and I will be featured in a show of contemporary abstract painters in Sacramento, California in the fall. Other than that I will just be in my garage trying to make decent paintings. You can keep up with my success and failures directly at my website jakekelley.wordpress.com P.S. I am looking for gallery representation at the moment if anyone has any good suggestions!

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