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KNACK Magazine is requesting material to be reviewed. Reviews extend to any culture related event that may be happening in your community. Do you know of an exciting show or exhibition opening? Is there an art collective in your city that deserves some press? Are you a musician, have a band, or are a filmmaker? Send us your CD, movie, or titles of upcoming releases which you’d like to see reviewed in KNACK Magazine. We believe that reviews are essential to creating a dialogue about the arts. If something thrills you, we want to know about it and share it with the KNACK Magazine community—no matter if you live in the New York or Los Angeles, Montreal or Mexico. All review material can be sent to knackmagazine1@gmail.com. Please send a copy of CDs and films to 4319 N. Greenview Ave, Chicago, IL 60613. If you would like review material returned to you include return postage and packaging. Entries should contain pertinent details such as name, year, release date, websites and links (if applicable). For community events we ask that information be sent up to two months in advance to allow proper time for assignment and review. We look forward to seeing and hearing your work.
EDITORS & STAFF Andrea Catalina Vaca Co-Founder, Publisher, Editor-In-Chief, Artist Coordinator, Digital Operations, Photographer, Designer, Circulation Director, Production Manager, Business Manager Jonathon Duarte Co-Founder, Creative Director Ariana Lombardi Co-Founder, Executive Editor, Artist Coordinator, Writer Chelsey Alden Editor, Writer Fernando Gaverd Digital Operations, Designer BFrank Designer
Front Cover Art: Paul Thompson First & Last Spread Photography: A.C. Vaca Photography Magazine Design: Andrea Catalina Vaca
CONTENTS Artist Biographies 10 Featured Artists IRAM ALAM MARY KAADY SEIGAR RESUL JUSUFI NATE MATHEWS RAJ LAXMI SINGH
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SRUSHTI PALKAR
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Quick Look
KNACK Magazine, Issue #65
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Iram Alam Iram Alam is a Delhi-based street photographer and has a Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts with First-Class Honor from Jamia Millia Islamia University, a Central University, New Delhi. Alam was a finalist in the Miami Street Photography Festival, 2019, and has worked in advertising, multimedia, and graphic design firms in New Delhi and Pune.
Mary Kaady Mary Kaady was born and raised in Lebanon, specifically in Beirut. She has collaborated on projects with fashion designers, and exhibited her art within collective exhibitions in Lebanon and abroad. Kaady earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the American University of Science and Technology, and a Master in Fine Arts from the Lebanese University. Kaady currently teaches art on a freelance basis.
SEIGAR Seigar is a passionate travel-, street-, & social-documentary photographer, and a conceptual photographer based in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Seigar’s most ambitious projects so far are “Plastic People,” a study on anthropology and sociology that focuses on the humanization of mannequins he finds in shop windows all over the world, and “Tales of a City,” an ongoing urban photo-narrative project shot in London. He writes about photography for Dodho and The Cultural, and music for Memoir Mixtapes. Recently, he received the Rafael Ramos García International Photography Award. Seigar currently is a philologist, and works as a secondary school teacher. WEBSITE: seigar.wordpress.com FACEBOOK/IG: @jseigar Galleries: flickr.com/photos/theblueheartbeat/albums 10
Resul Jusufi
Resul Jusufi was born in Kosovo. He studied at the University of Pristina (Kosovo), the University of Arts in Tirana, Albania, and the University of Warsaw, Poland. His surrealist book, titled “Tomorrow,” was published in 1995 in Tirana, Albania. Twenty years ago, Jusufi found his way to abstract painting, and since then has participated in many individual and collective exhibitions. His art has been presented in Kosovo, Albania, Poland, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and Austria. Resul Jusufi has lived in Graz, Austria, since 2017. WEBSITE: www.resul-jusufi.at IG: @jusufiresul FACEBOOK: @resuljusufiart
Nate Mathews Nate Mathews is a Chicago-based artist whose work explores how inhabitants respond to architecture. His work has recently been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Governors State University and the McLean County Arts Center, and in group exhibitions at the Ralph Arnold Gallery at Loyola University Chicago and the Rockford Midwestern Biennial at the Rockford Art Museum. He received an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, and is currently an Associate Professor of Photography at Northeastern Illinois University.
Raj Laxmi Singh Raj Laxmi Singh is an ex-journalist turned full-time photographer. Singh is currently working on the ground level, capturing & covering art, cultural, and heritage events across Delhi and India. EMAIL: rajlaxmimall102@gmail.com FACEBOOK: @rlphotography
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IG: @rajlaxmiphotography
FEATU A RT I
URED ISTS
Iram ALAM My work describes human emotions, connections, and feelings. Street photography, as Henri Cartier-Bresson said, is “instant sketches of everyday life.” The philosophy behind my work reads like the simple mantra by Ernst Haas, “the camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But you have to see.”
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portrait
religious material selling men
ayurvedic material selling woman watch selling man face expression
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butter milk man groundnut selling woman
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clothes selling men
beggar
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happiness
groundnut selling man
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Mary KAADY My artwork swings between painting and sculpture. My style has changed many times while I attempted to find myself and my artistic identity. The Beirut Explosion was an experience that helped shape my identity. Art in my point of view is a way to escape and to take refuge at the same time.
Beirut Resurrection Gypsum, wood, resin, metal mesh, acrylic 70cm x 50cm October 9th, 2020
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Beirut Resurrection is an art piece about the collapse that happened in Lebanon on August 4th, 2020. Beirut will never die and despite its destruction it will rise again. This piece of art is about resurrection after death. That’s why this piece is divided into two parts. The first is the front view where the floor is ruined and the buildings are burned and destroyed, the blood of injured people is everywhere. The second part is the backside where the buildings are clean and absolute, their color is light, they are reconstructed and the floor is white and clean.
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Suburbs is about the suburbs, the space surrounding Beirut.
Suburbs Wood, gypsum, acrylic 90cm x 60cm 2019
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Life and Death People are surrounded with the sorrow of the dead, who’re divided between soul and body. The dead, at the moment of goodbye, are suspended between earth and heaven, between life and death. He will leave as a soul from the earth and go to heaven. There the body will have another place to live and then will become ephemeral.
The ascendance Cement, mesh metal, gypsum, wood 110cm x 55cm July 2020
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Between life and death Cement, mesh metal, gypsum, wood, red fabric 95cm x 40cm June 2020
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Between heaven and earth Cement, mesh metal, gypsum, wood, red fabric 150cm x 90cm June 2020
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SEIGAR This series, Trans-Love, presents the love relationship between Yuli (24) and Alekai (27), who have a strong bond between them. Covid-19 and the “new reality” have slowed down their plans. Difficult experiences have made them able to deal with obstacles in life. They both are activists and have fought actively for social rights and against all types of discrimination. They are trans people, both straight-oriented, and they fell in love with each other because they understand love is above genitalia. Trans-Love shows the intimate interactions of two people who love each other, and it looks for respect and understanding through empathy. TransLove is about identity, everything that defines us.
Participants:
@alekaihi & @la_bichoo
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respect understanding empathy
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Resul JUSUFI Many people ask me what the numbers in my paintings mean. The numbers you see in my paintings are no longer numbers. They represent emotions. I paint feelings, not objects.
Open your mind, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100cm, 2020 Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 80cm x 115cm, 2020
Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100cm, 2020
Maybe, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 90cm, 2019
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Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 90cm x 130cm, 2020
Enjoy the life, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100cm, 2020 Good things are coming, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100 cm, 2020 Peace, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100cm, 2020 45
Untitled, Acrylic on Canvas, 70cm x 100cm, 2020
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Untitled Acrylic on Canvas 70cm x 100cm 2020
Untitled Acrylic on Canvas 70cm x 100cm 2020
Untitled Acrylic on Canvas 90cm x 130cm 2020
Nate MATHEWS Ersatz: [er-zahts]: an artificial substance or article used to replace something natural or genuine; a substitute. Ersatz examines artificial features that are incorporated into publicly accessible spaces, commercially, corporately, and institutionally constructed environments, in an attempt to mitigate or lessen the effect of structures. This collection seeks to draw the viewer’s attention to the presence of these elements in modern architectural spaces. All of the images depict elements added to the environment to simulate comfort.
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E R S A T Z
Bulletin Board, 2007
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Green Window, 2009
Mammoth, 2009
Ivy Tree, 2009
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Night Class, 2007
Stairs to Nowhere, 2009
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Three Flower Pots, 2010
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Ten Hexagons, 2009
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Sunset, Tree Shadow, and Benches, 2009
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Garden and Red Chair, 2007
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Bike Rack, 2007
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Leaning Tree, 2011
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Raj Laxmi SINGH Photography offers both limitations and opportunities as documentation. I don’t just point my camera and click. My two goals as a photographer are to create the kinds of images which combine a strong sense of story and expression of people, and to promote Indian art & culture around the world.
M A N O B H A AV
Dance is a form of vibration of our body and mind. It is a form of worship through which a dancer can reach the Almighty. The performing arts are most temporal - the moment you perform it dies. So I must capture the artist’s expression, feeling, and emotion.
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QUICK LOOK
Srushti Palkar Srushti Palkar is an introvert, born and brought up in Mumbai, India. She is currently pursuing her undergraduate studies in English Literature after trying her hands at writing in 2017. Palkar has contributed to multiple anthologies, including The Great Indian Anthology Vol.I. IG: @cronicas.creativas
Things I want you to know: i. You are art, and I adore art. ii. Everyday, I see the sun kiss you and leave a trail of veiled tattoos on your skin making you breathtakingly beautiful. iii. Your presence reminds me of first love, which wafts around and never fades. iv. Those Van Gogh sunflowers in the museum: powerful and gorgeous, just like you wanting me to stare at them forever. v. I love you.
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