Peripheral ARTeries Art Review - Special Edition by Peripheral ARTeries Art Magazine

Anniversary Edition

CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Special Edition Installation • Painting • Mixed media • Drawing • Performance • Public Art • Drawing • Video art • Fine Art Photography

TIAN MANGZI ALEXANDRE GONDIM DUSTY ROSE PARKER BEAUDOIN JONATHAN SCHUIT JASMIN CARTER LINNEA MARTINSSON IDIT MAKOVER LOREDANA BRADASCHIA Night and day, 10x11 cm, acrylic, 2017 a work by Loredana Bradaschia

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Regarding unsolicited submissions, if you wish to have an artwork considered for publication in our art review, please contact us via email: peripheral.arteries@europe.com and please provide our editorial board with any material (as photos and texts) including links to your website or webpages. Be that as it may, this catalog or any portion there of may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from Peripheral ARTeries and featured artists.

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Contents 96

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Lives and works in Opatija, Croatia

Francine LeClerque I Am Your Labyrinth, Installation

Lives and works in Washington, D.C., USA

Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

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Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

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Lives and works in Maryland, USA

Lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Shai Jossef Jungle

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Hila Lazovski, David Bowie, work in process Photo by Meital Zikri http://www.lazovski-art.com

Lives and works in Kissimmee, FL, USA

Lives and works in Shangai, China

Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

Special thanks to: Isabel Becker, Julia Ă&#x153;berreiter, Deborah Esses, Xavier Blondeau, Margaret Noble, Nathalie Borowski, Marco Visch, Xavier Blondeau, J.D. Doria, Matthias Callay, Luiza Zimerman, Kristina Sereikaite, Scott D'Arcy, Kalli Kalde, Carla Forte, Mathieu Goussin, Dorothee Zombronner, Olga Karyakina, Robert Hamilton, Carrie Alter, Jessica Bingham, Fabian Freese, Elodie Abergel, Ellen van der Schaaf, Courtney Henderson, Ben Hollis, Riley Arthur, Ido Friedman, Nicole Ennemoser, Scott Vogel, Tal Regev, Sarah Hill, Olivia Punnet and Simon Raab

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Loredana Bradaschia Lives and works in Opatija, Croatia

My work is a reflection of my inner world where emotions, memories and music are captured through the way I express myself. Art is very important to me in order to liberate my most authenticself. Every time I paint I have a different approach with no expectations which allows me to be more creative. Curiosity and playfulness is important in my creation. I realized that many colours and actions I've used while painting I could never predict. Titles that I give to my paintings are not coincidental and it becomes an important link in interpretation of my expression. They are like keys to the deeper meaning of my paintings. So beneath the surface the intended viewer can find a deaper meaning. My intention is to inspire the people and to remind them of importance of having the life purpose and I leave them to conect to my painting in their own mode. In case I manage to establish the strong bond with people through my work, the words become unnecessary. At the same time we all speak the universal language of love that everyone understands. Art makes me feel alive and I'll keep to express myself through daily dose of inspirational paintings.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator

spectator's emotional sphere, to draw them to such a captivating visual experience: we are particularly glad to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

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Spontaneous and marked out with intense and vivacious tones, the paintings of Loredana Bradaschia speak the universal language of love that everyone understands: rater than attempting to address her viewers to a meticolous work of decryption, she choose to walk them to the point of convergence between the real and the abstract. Her body of works that we'll be discussing in the next pages, reflect the artist's inner world, but at the same time establish such intense bond with the

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Hello Loredana and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You started to paint in 2001 as a member of the Art Section "Romolo Venucci" in Italian Community in Rijeka under the direction of Prof. Tea PaĹĄkov: how did this experience influence your evolution as an artist? And in

The butterfly's dream, 7,5x10 cm, acrylic, 2016

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Precious dreams, 9x11 cm, acrylic, 2017

Oneness, 7,5x10 cm, acrylic, 2016

particular, does your cultural substratum impact on your creative process?

hand, our Professor Tea Paškov was very persistent and rigorous in order to get the best out of us and I just could not give up. I have discovered a new world when I found a batik technique. I enjoyed spontaneous application of colours and wax and started with abstract motives. I could work on multiple materials at the same time as it was the process in the phases. At the end I could hardly wait to take wax out from the material to finally see the painting I was working on. So, I'm very grateful to my Professor Tea who in

Art has always been present in my life. I've been singing in various choirs and frequented dancing lessons since school days in Rijeka. So in 2000. while I was singing in the choir of the Italian Community I found out about their Art Section „Romolo Venucci“. I've learned basics of Art there. It was very hard for me to accept classic rules of drawings and completely realistic motives. On the other

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the meantime became my close friend for a big support of all these years. It is precisely she who was responsible for the organization of my first personal exhibition in batik technique in the Italian community in Rijeka 2007. I can't see any impact of cultural substratum on my creative process for I consider the creativity is universal. There are no limits for open and curious minds just an endless freedom of possibilities. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.facebook.com/Loredana BradaschiaArt/ in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist. We all have a secret place deep inside us, where we keep our inner child, the unconscious part of ourselves,a capacity for innocence, wonder, joy, sensitivity and playfulness. Each one of us has his individual way of expressing it. This strong emotional feeling is an essential part of our nature. We were all once children, and still have that child dwelling within us. Unfortunately most people are quite unaware of this. My central idea is to keep my inner child alive and eternal while creating

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Where the Sun meets the Sea, 13x9 cm,acrylic, 2017

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Night and day, 10x11 cm, acrylic, 2017

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Whispering water, 20x20 cm, acrylic, 2017

positive vibrations that will spread everywhere and maybe help the viewers to access their own feelings and emotions that they might neglect or not realize they feel .

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Oneness and The butterfly's dream, a couple of captivating paintings that our readers have already started to get to know in

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The whisper from the soul, 7,5x10 cm, acrylic, 2016

Happy people, 8x11 cm, acrylic, 2017

the introductory pages of this article. We have really appreciated the captivating abstract feeling that marks your artistic production and when walking our readers through the genesis of Oneness and The butterfly's dream, we would ask you shed light to your usual process sources of inspiration.

experience I caught from my surrounding. In the youth I have read the biographies of renowned painters such as V. Van Gogh, Camille Pissaro, Pablo Picasso, which had influence on my later creative work. I liked their art and after reading more about their lives it all had a bigger meaning for me. I also love to spend time outdoors which allow me to ponder in solitary serenity and remain unbothered. The sea promenade, walking path that streches from Lovran to Volosko with scienic views is one of the important places of my inspiration as well as many

Curiosity and playfulness are essential in my creative work. Inspiration could come through some words I've heard, from dialogues, from music I was listening, from books I've read from complete

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Sleeping Beauty, 7,5 x 10 cm, acrylic, 2016

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The Little Prince, 7,5 x 10 cm, acrylic, 2016

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The sign, 9x14 cm, acrylic, 2017

Black flowers, 7,5 x10 cm, acrylic, 2016

forest paths near the place I live so I'm lucky to enjoy the seaview or scent of the forest within walking distance. Spending time in nature make me feel more alive and creative. Watching all the trees , rooted deep in the earth and listening to the soothing sounds of stream water I feel amazed and joyful and I'm whole again. My children are a special inspiration to me. As strong emotional feellings are the essential determinant of my creation, it is enough to note that in

2010, three weeks before the birth of my first child, I organized a personal exhibition for my friends, and in 2013, a few hours after the opening of an exhibition, my second child was born. Motherhood has completely enlightened my world with joyful colors and gave a deeper meaning to my life. Speaking of Oneness the source of inspiration was certainly the haiku poetry of my primary English and art teacher

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Subhija Selesković Merdanović and our creative meetings.

layers and it takes a while. That allows me to work on multiple canvas at the same time. I just play with colours and textures and leave the painting to lead me its way. I do not make selections of colors. I just let them in as they come.

Spontaneity is a crucial aspect of your creative process: when you start painting do you already have a slight composition in mind or do you rather go with the flow?

Your artworks seem to speak of emotions and memory and as you have remarked in your artist's statement, your work is a reflection of your inner world. How would you consider the role of memory in the way you conceive your artworks? Do you draw more from memory or from your imagination?

When I start painting I do not have any composition in mind. That allows me the freedom while painting. In case I keep myself guessing I could loose that miracolous spontaneity. For my creations is important to be by myself, in silence or with music background and then my emotions just flow onto the canvas. In that moment I become totally absorbed in painting that I completely loose track of time which gives me a fulfilling and pleasurable experience.

I would not make any special accents on separating both items. Somehow, everything is mixed up since in our life, we keep information on a conscious and unconscious level. So while I'm painting , the unconscius part, the thought, impression or a feelling comes to the surface creating a new experience which is not predictable and remains imprinted with colors. In case I use logic I wouldn't have never come to the same result as I do now. There is no need to set the limits. I prefer to use a blank base and a wide range of possibilities.

Your paintings are often marked aout with such intense tones that seems to communicate a sense of struggle as well as deep emotional involvement. In particular, red is a quite recurrent tone of your pallette, that we can admire in such a viciacious nuance in Precious dreams. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture?

We like the way you paintings accomplish such captivating combination between reminders to reality and to the sphere of imagination: our perception of reality is informed by imperceptibly interwoven experiences: how much does everyday life's experience fuel your imagery and your

My approach to the creative process is very spontaneous. No rules or special preparation. I develop the texture in

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I can see clearly now, 8x11 cm, acrylic, 2017

The maze of moments, 8x11 cm, acrylic, 2017

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creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

always opened to listen the interpretations of my work from different observers which enables me new ways of looking at my paintings through another person's perspective.I'm very grateful for those moments. Art has different meanings to different people.

Yes, it would be possible. You can make a cake from an orange pulp, but if you use the orange juice that will improve the taste. Literally speaking, it's very important to implement your life experience into your creativity. In certain way it impacts on your personal growth and gives a depth and meaning to all you create. I'm grateful to all life's experiences I had so far for the influence it left on me to become a person I am now. It's always up to us to make the most of what we have. On the other hand, the rhythm of everyday life is accelerated and it simply force you to choose priorities and make decisions to maintain a harmony. Not to mention the challenges if you are a parent. There are only 24 hours a day. You still have to be a good organizer.

Each artistic gesture is an attempt to elevate humanity, or at least to communicate what goes beyond the limit of traditional languages: do you feel a sense of relevancy or urgency regarding the subject matter of your artwork in terms of contemporary society? In particular, can you recognize a particular role that artists can play in our everchanging age? We live in a world where everything moves very fast and often it's hard to keep up. Our daily lives are overloaded. We are drowned in a sea of unnecessary information.Without enough time to ourselves, we cannot have any for others either.

Pervaded with abstract feeling still provided to reference to reality, your painting seem to address the viewers to 'finish' in their mind the images you create, urging them to reinterpret them: how open would you like your works to be to be understood?

So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very important to achieve the life balance, looking for greater fulfillment and happiness . In short it's important to have a life purpose which gives us a deeper meaning Living on purpose feels alive, clear, and authentic. If we make some space for silence we will create one for the melodies of life, too. We all have our own way of doing it. My way of dealing with this is through painting, and everything I paint comes from my inner

Actually I do not analyse the openess of my work to be understood in advance. At the beginning of my work, positive critics from observers meant a lot to me. As time passes, I rely more on the inner need for creation. On the other side, I am

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source. Art is the great stimulus to life and the variety of approaches to Art is endless. It can make possible to share emotions and visions beyond cultural and language obstacles. Artists have the important role in society by leading, provoking or uplifting with their art which depends on the personality of the artist. Well, I admit, I like to provoke a little bit with titles of the paintings, but only for a very simple reason to awake those who are still „sleeping“.

point of view Like William Shakespeare said: “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.” Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Loredana: we wish you all the best for your career. Finally, we would like to ask you something about your upcoming projects: what are you going to be working on next? Well, I still plan to keep expressing myself through daily dose of inspirational paintings. My intention is to organize creative workshops for young children where art would be based on exploration allowing different outcomes. The children need to make own decision in their artwork to develop a sense of selfexpression by making mistakes and experimenting with their own ideas and materials without knowing a final result. I have several procjets in my mind but it's too early to talk about. When you enjoy your work and you have no great expectations, wonderful things can appear in your life. Like this stimulating interview.

So far you have more than 10 solo exhibitions and you participated to anumber of group exhibitions, both in Croatia and abroad. We like the way your artworks inspire your spectatorship to follow their dreams, so before leaving this stimulating interview we would like to ask you something about the relationship between your cretive process and the expectation of the reactions of the viewers: do ever happen to consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process? My personal experience of art is completely emotional. I cannot just give a piece of myself. While painting I completely immerse into the process of creation with my whole being, and I think that people can feel it. I do art for the pure joy of it. Anyway, I like to hear the comments of the observers, their impressions of my paitings, which can be stimulating in the further process of creation, but this does not affect my

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Thank you so much. It was a really nice experience for me.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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ISSUE On the bright side, 8 x 11SPECIAL cm, acrylic, 2017

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Dusty Rose Lives and works in Washington, D.C., USA A fragment is a part broken off, detached, or incomplete, leaving their parent groupâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a network develops from these pieces. As an American, born in Pakistan, raised in Turkey, my artwork showcases the juxtaposition of the parts of me that extend into my creative process. There is still residue of my unique upbringing. I sense it in my fascination with textural pieces. My desire to touch and feel, to connect different forms that have a seemingly disordered arrangement. My work is based on making fragments, created from a diverse amount of materials, in the hopes to develop it into a completed form. The sources and sentiments from my childhood serve as a conceptual pool that allows me to consider where I frame my work and life. The reality of my work relates the complexity, the potpourri of the experiences around me. I create forms and textures, placed into spaces, using a fairly neutral palate. My work is formed from thinking about the exhaustion, aloneness and desolation of a neutral state. Through eliminating other variables, such as hue and saturation, I reduce the information presented to the viewer in hopes to focus on the artistic elements that matter most to me.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

Hello Dusty and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formation and you hold a BA, that you received from the University of Maryland, College Park: how did this experience influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, having spent the majority of your youth living in Istanbul, Turkey, how does your cultural substratum due to the relationship between the years you spent in Middle East and your current life in the United States inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general?

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Working primarily with textures, materials and fragments, Dusty Rose's work reflects the humanistic, natural curiosity of the wealth and heritage presented in this world. Her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages are marked out with an ambivalent quality that combine figurative and abstraction, to draw the viewers through a multilayered visual experience.

First, I want to thank Peripheral ARTeries for your interest in my work.

One of the most impressive aspect of Dusty Rose's work is the way it forces the viewer into a state of exteroceptive sensitivity exposing the artist's incentive, establishing a direct connection with its ego: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

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Although my art education did not begin at the University of Maryland, it grounded me with core skills that continue to shape my work. It gave me a foundation in art history, technical skills, ways of creating and expressing myself, and the ability to

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In the Pink learn and crossover mediums and techniques. Before college, I had assumed that all I was good at was drawing and painting, as that is all I had tried. I eagerly absorbed as much information and experiences as possible, as well as learning and

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experiencing other artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work. Working closely with the graduate students influenced how I develop and produce work, often asking them for critiques and advice before art shows. Visiting lecturers and guest speakers added another layer into my process, as I

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In the Pink tried to think beyond the walls of school and end of semester projects.

explored the idea of layering, reconditioning, and reinterpretation in much of my work, similar to how I have had to redefine and update myself in the many phases of my life thus far. As an American, born in Pakistan, raised in Turkey, when I

It is true to say that every artwork is autobiographical in nature, if not in intent. I have

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In the Pink moved to America I became aware of these parts of me that made me different. Due to my diverse upbringing, I have difficulty pinpointing specific influences to a certain culture. Analogous to most of my work, there is a blended sense of

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disorganization, the confusion of similar patterns and shapes, and the dreaminess of uncertainty under multiple layers of meaning. My identity is therefore as much a work in progress as my pieces, and they react to and reform each other.

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In the Pink The results of your artistic inquiry convey together a coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://dustyrose.myportfolio.com/home-2 in

order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist.

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In the Pink There is still residue of my unique upbringing. I sense it in my fascination with textural pieces. My desire to touch and feel, to connect different forms that have a seemingly disordered arrangement. My work is based on making fragments, created from a diverse amount of materials, in the hopes to

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develop it into a completed form. The sources and sentiments from my childhood serve as a conceptual pool that allows me to consider where I frame my work and life. “The truth of art,” wrote Herbert Marcuse, “lies in

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In the Pink its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real.â&#x20AC;? The reality of my work relates the complexity, the potpourri of the experiences around me. I create forms and textures, placed into spaces, using a fairly neutral palate. My work is formed

from thinking about the exhaustion, aloneness and desolation of a neutral state. Through eliminating other variables, such as hue and saturation, I reduce the information presented to the viewer in hopes to focus on the artistic elements that matter most to me.

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For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected In the Pink, an interesting artworks that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your work is the way you provided the visual results of your artistic inquiry into the relationship between rigorous geometry and such vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of In the Pink would you shed a light about your usual process and setup? At the start of this project, I switched from an emphasis in sculpture to printmaking, relying on heavy research and development on a conceptual level, rather than focusing on aesthetics alone. Between learning a whole new process for formation, as well as a new process for creation, I felt rather disjointed. My initial print pieces were an accumulation of these feelings, as most art contains elements that can be traced to the artist’s subconscious. I burned geometric shapes—mainly triangular— onto my screen. Through different opacities and layering, I repeated these fragments into a confined space. The limitations of triangles were comforting to me. Triangles are my favorite shape and visually signify many concepts important in my work, such as cults, religion, fertility, and mystery. Composed of three points where two lines meet, triangles represented my attempt to close gaps in my practice. We have really appreciated the way the tones of In the Pink create both tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture?

In the Pink Woman’s March On Washington. It seemed to fit. Working on top of water color base, throughout the layering process, the gradient spectrum increased and added unique texture to the paper.

When I work with color, I am drawn to earthy tones such as browns and reds, as if I was out playing in the dirt. Pink was not only on my mind, but on the mind of most of the city after the

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The title comes from multiple sources. In the

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Pink as a saying means good health. In the 1500s pink meant "the embodiment of perfection," but it is also a reference to a woman's genitalia (indicative of the pink flesh, of course), specifically referring to intercourse or penetration.

The visual stories that you create, often reflect activisms and various subjects you individually became a part of: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not

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In the Pink to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize

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the viewers in our unstable contemporary age? Following the historical elections of November, my creative senses hit feelings of paralysis. As the Chicago musician and critic Doyle Armbrust wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Engaging isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working and neither is

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this world has become one of casual cruelty, and as an artist living in close proximity to the capital, questions about artistic tactics as a response increased. Do I continue as before, through resisting the devastation of free rhetoric? Or do I turn to a different position, parting from the confusion and mirage of artistic autonomy? Since I live and work in Washington DC, everything tends to become political, even something as ordinary as a coffee order, and it is hard to escape politics even if one tries. My work does not take politics head on, or try to be a judge of what artists should or should not do in the face of political turmoil. The biggest judge of art is what the work says to the viewer, and as an artist, how to consistently produce pieces that resonate with the same my basic emotions. So it is no surprise that some pieces speak to my inner frustration, anger and eventual despair of how little control I have over the world around me in this politically heightened time. This collection of work was done over a summer studio residency at NYU. I was exhausted from the constant stream of news, hated the term news media, and was looking for relief from DC local news in NYC is vastly different than local news in DC, which is almost always international news, and I could digest it at a proper rate. Throughout this residency, I bused up and down from NYC-DC, in order to keep my job and participate in this program. The biggest difference I noticed between the two cities was the amount of trash that coats the streets of NYC. I suppose one is a full-blown New Yorker when they stop noticing the trash bags that surround every street corner, every day of the week. Most of the materials that I used during this residency are reflective of this concept that it all just fades away (newsprint, copy paper, painters tape) and tends towards decay. disengaging.â&#x20AC;? I struggled for a sense of purpose in my art. There was trial and error as I learned to continue to work, even if the inspiration was no longer there. What is the point of making beautiful things or appreciating the beauty of the past when ugliness runs rampant? The climate in

I Am Clearly Not an Optimist shows the reluctance of the viewer to a situation that they have no control over. The scale of this work was much larger than most of what I had done before, as if to compensate for how insignificant it all is. Every generation has a sector that believes it is the end of the world. Why fight and why give up had equal merit. There is a

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flatness to this piece, like the road you have to drive home on knowing the traffic, gutters and bumps. You know they are there, you hate them, it ruins your drive, but yet you must use it.

You are a versatile artist, capable of crossing from a discipline to another, including painting, works on paper as well as sculptures, as the interesting. What does draw you to such cross disciplinary approach? What are the qualities that you are searching for in the materials that you include in your works? And in particular, when do you recognize that one of the mediums has exhausted it expressive potential to self?

While the imagery of your artworks refers to reality and figurative, your artistic production is pervaded with captivating abstract and dreamlike quality, as the interesting The Nothingness Shows Through. How do you view the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your works? In particularly, how much everyday life's experience does fuel your creativity?

It was access to all these different tools and processes at school that allowed and encouraged my disciplines. I’m the literal expression “all over the place,” being a jack of all trades but master of none. I like to do things myself, and have always tried to learn a little bit about everything, so it doesn’t surprise me that that comes out in my practice. I appreciate that the definition of an artist grows almost as rapidly as the idea of art itself, and the need to be identified as a ‘painter’ or ‘wood sculptor’ is becoming less and less relevant.

People tend to hold an unconscious bias against creativity because it represents uncertainty unless they are able to distinguish that uncertainty in a positive light. Reality as it appears as an exact image can have an infinite number of sources in the real world. The perception of these images, whether it is seeing, feeling, hearing, or sensing- lacks objectivity. We have evolved, as humans, to make sense of things and set them into comprehensible tables, sets and categories. With each new stimulus that comes to mind, our brains react in an efficient manner by responding based on past experience. Through this process, our brain continually redefines normality through its shifting and shaping of trial and error. Relying on unconscious knowledge for context works until it doesn’t. It is that encounter that I hope my work spreads a light on. Children are often thought as competent navigators between imagination and reality, as if aspects of a pretend game or stories are only extensions of reality. The presentation of much of my work is through a fog, or level of indiscernibility, that challenges not only the concepts presented in my pieces but the ability to relate and absorb them as a viewer. To be aware and observe curiously, in the most common activities such as water stains on a car window, or an interesting spill of coffee onto a napkin, is to install a sense of wonder and awareness of what connects us to our past and the present. As Tom Robbins put it, “You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans.”

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Texture is important to me, and the idea of relationships within one’s own body of work began to make sense. I choose to limit my materials to a select few: ink, burlap, paper, wood, graphite and plaster. This collection of materials was a development of several lines of thought. Whether I was working on a print, a sculpture or a painting, this core group of materials would begin to cross pollinate. Applied in various ways, I could begin formulating a unique dialect of my own art. I built this visual vocabulary through a more permanent set of relationships. These relationships created stronger bonds, and from this I was able to focus on what I am really trying to relate. I have to learn to respect and understand the materials that I choose to work with while simultaneously learning how others respect the materials presented to them. For instance, canvas has a certain language that paper does not, and steel carries an entire vocabulary of its own. More than the material exhausting expressive potential is my ability to control, or lose control in many cases, of the resources. Do I understand my materials the way I should before assuming I can

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use them? If so, do I anticipate the weight of the end result of my creation? Will it serve its purpose, will it honor the materials and will the memories of what I produce have an interesting or compelling story so that others can feel the same? Questioning myself keeps me open and

honest to my work, my materials, and my techniques. This Complexity/Density piece was developed from hyper complicated subjects; basilica floor plans, roots, heart pressure diagrams, medical

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beyond the traditional walls of its definition. Cutting and removing parts of the material as much as I added to it was a slow, careful process, as it was delicate paper. In a way, the slow deterioration of an environment forces many natural substances to develop a new form and changes to fit the foreign elements and surfaces it will encounter. Relying on the verbal context and clues of these materials, I was able to immediately establish a faster way to communicate the struggle to live in the physical reality of instability. As you have remarked once, you have never liked to explain a certain piece of work - your art speaks for itself: we like the ambivalent quality of your works, that walks your spectatorship through the liminal area where the concepts of beauty and perception blurry their elusive borders to urge the viewers to dive into a deeply rooted aesthetic and empirical perception: would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? Audience participation is completely voluntary. That is the exciting and nerve-racking thing about art; once itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s out there, for others to view, you, as an artist have relinquished control. It is now, ultimately, up to the viewers to digest, understand, question and form their own relationships to the work they are presented with. Before leaving this interesting conversation we would like to pose a question regarding the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

diagrams, and nervous system technical drawings. These multiple surfaces and mediums integrated and unified within the drawing. Working on this piece stretched my concept of drawing and the versalitliy of paper as a medium.

Elements of framing reality like a script, or carefully calculated roles derive from an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intention, allowing more or less participatory influence from the audience. I try to unframe reality, as my relationship to art and society is an inquisitive one, as I strive to keep things open-

I am Struggling to Determine the Context of My Own Irrelevance is a continuation of my work with paper and discovering its ability to function far

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ended. I have questions and look for answers by the observers. Usually I've got a concept which provides the piece and its participants with a framework. It is on the audience to decide if they want to rethink or not.

pieceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parameters, but its reactions can inspire me to new concepts. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Dusty. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

In case nobody partakes the concept remains a concept and leaves me the option to realize it on my own. The audience is not able to change a

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Thanks for listening! For the immediate future, I hope to do more local, site-specific projects, and

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imagine a time when weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll use what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve

am considering several MFA programs as a next best course. The most important thing is to never stop creating, thinking and challenging those thoughts.

learned from abstract art and devote ourselves to painting according to our own perceptions.

I hope to create art that reveals, dramatizes and even preaches deep values in human action without being decorative, didactic, sentimental or academic. I am convinced that, in the end, art isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for the artists but for their fellowman. I can

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Idit Makover Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

Focussing on the exploration of inside feelings about relations, about politics in her country and signs of hernation life, Idit Makover's work reflects the humanistic, natural curiosity of the wealth and heritage presented in this world. Her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages are marked out with an ambivalent quality that combine figurative and abstraction, to draw the viewers through a multilayered visual experience. One of the most impressive aspect of Idit Makover's work is the way it forces the viewer into a state of exteroceptive sensitivity exposing the artist's incentive, establishing a direct connection with its ego: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

relate yourself to art making in general?

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

I was born in Israel. My parents immigrated from Europe. My late father survived the holocaust, but all his family perished. He reached Israel by himself and participated in its wars, survived, married and built a family. This background influenced me as a child. My parents did not discuss the unpleasant past at home, but like the rest of my contemporaries, I was aware of their pain and sorrow at their losses, and we understood the cruelty

Hello Idit and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to the connection with the history of the Jewish people as well as your Israelian roots inform the way you SPECIAL ISSUE

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I have painted still life, landscapes and models. I have always tried to express myself and to advance. I was not interested in "photographing" realistic objects and I wanted the observer to feel the works through association of the obvious and through stimulation of his own thoughts and intuitions. I have developed an interesting technique, which absorbs and interests me as I work.

and mercilessness of the world in which we lived. I started drawing at a very young age. I was 9 when my parents sent me to study at the Tel Aviv Museum, a very unconventional move. We are a religious family and my work was always influenced by my Jewish religious values. Life in Israel is very intensive and can be hard. I express this by using images dealing with faith and sometimes use ethical and political symbols. Over the last few years, I have concentrated on the nature of man, his integrity, his reliability, the masks he wears, and the search for the internal essence concealed by the physical body.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries and that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article, has at once captured our attention for the way you provided the visual results of your artistic inquiry into the relationship between rigorous geometry and such vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces with such autonomous aesthetics: do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist?

The results of your artistic inquiry convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.iditmakover.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: would you wlak our readers readers through your usual process and setup? In particular, how do you develop the initial ideas for your artworks?

I feel fortunate that drawing is an artistic and very personal way of expression, enabling me to present all my feelings without worrying about what my family and friends will say. There is a certain sort of discomfort when the observer looks at a painting and says to himself, I don't recognize that landscape, that is not a flower

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arrangement that I would admit to my house…a painting has additional value and food for thought… and to understand a painting, I have to stop in front of it, in order to understand the artist's intention. This is indeed my mission as an artist and sometimes it can make me pay a price. I have a wonderful means of expression to present my political opinions or to react to unpleasant events which divide the Israeli public. In Israel, there are always difficult subjects and dilemmas. As an artist, I allow myself the liberty of expressing my opinions through my art and feel no necessity to apologize.

family background have a deep influence on both my choice of subject and my technique, which is a mixture of draftsmanship and deep color. I feel that my art expresses my character. There is strength and confidence, which is mixed with sentiment, and delicacy which demonstrates some hesitancy. Sometimes, one feels joy, but also sorrow and obstacles. I have learnt how to live with this complexity.

We have really appreciated the way vivacious tones that mark out your works, that are capable of creating both tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture? My works are influenced by my moods and by my mental state and are expressed through rich colors or dark strong monochrome colors and are highly expressive and spontaneous. As an artist, I am sure that my historical and SPECIAL ISSUE

As you have remarked once, most of your works relate to politics in your country and signs of your nation life: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize the viewers in our unstable contemporary age? It should be clear that I bring myself together with my essence. I have clear political opinions, and with regard to Israel even more so. Our politics are complex, and as a religious Jewish woman, my political

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opinions are connected to my Jewish world and to our important history. I don't always have the strength and the SPECIAL ISSUE

will to become involved in politics. Unfortunately, sometimes I exhaust myself and create superfluous 46

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conflicts, but that is the way I am. In modern times, one often uses provocative art, which is on the border

of the tasteless and the bad, in order to draw attention and reach a wider audience. 47

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lot of courage and I would like to reach a situation where I will be judged by a 48

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true assessment of all which I offer from within me.

While the imagery of your artworks refers to reality and figurative, your 49

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artistic production is pervaded with captivating abstract and dreamlike quality. You once stated that painting for me you a tool for expression and through which you try to express difficulties and hidden things of our life: how do you view the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your works? In particularly, how much everyday life's experience does fuel your creativity?I

gossip, etc. and I learned that it is hard to identify the real person. I came to understand that behind the external image of each person, he conceals a complex personality which requires much study. We learn this through life. People wear masks. I created a series of works showing the body from within and from without, a very clear expression of what I felt when I encountered these phenomena.

have a series of works in which I endeavored to express relationships and situations in which I encountered problematic behavior in interpersonal relationships. Hiding facts, betrayals, SPECIAL ISSUE

We like the ambivalent quality of your works, that walks your spectatorship through the liminal area where the concepts of beauty 50

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and perception blurry their elusive borders to urge the viewers to dive into a deeply rooted aesthetic and empirical perception: would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings?

appreciate an unusual concept. Before leaving this interesting conversation we would like to pose a question regarding the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

It is very important that people who look at my work should understand the inherent complexity. I look at things very deeply. It requires education and sacrifice. My work is not "nice" or "would look good on the wall"â&#x20AC;Ś People should understand the complexity of the idea and

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I bring something different, which

I feel myself to be consistent and

cannot be adapted to an audience.

continue in my own way. If I would

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adapt myself to public opinion, I would

myself and would not express myself

become popular, but I would bore

honestly. 53

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I am not willing to do so.

sharing your thoughts, Idit. Finally,

Thanks a lot for your time and for

would you like to tell us readers 55

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something about your future projects?

brought me into court. Life there is

In recent years, my husband's work has

complex and difficult for the people

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involved. It is hard for the clients, who

He has much responsibility, emotional

need this service and also for the judge.

pressure, dilemmas, decisions, many 57

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cases and discussions, which influence

show this world, and to express a

his private and public lives. I am trying to

message, representing public opinion.

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Linnea Martinsson Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

discover the roots of Swedish language. That is one of my most interesting discoveries in Berlin, and that is one of the reasons I feel more germanic now than ever. Another very big influence to me is cats, especially the white cat Michel. My main influencing experience though, is that the 4ďż˝ďż˝ of June 1994 I was born. Since then I can only do what is possible in my situation, my life is a clear causal chain to me.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Linnea and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. Are there any experiences that did influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your the relationship between your cultural substratum dued to your Swedish roots and your current life in Berlin inform the way you relate yourself to art making?

The results of your artistic inquiry convey coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification. We would suggest to our readers that they visit https://www.facebook.com/Linea XXV in order to get a synoptic

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already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When walking our readers through the genesis of Stop standing still: would you shed light your usual process and set up?

view of your work. While walking our readers through your process, can you tell them something about the evolution of your style? In particular, do you think that there's a central idea that connects all your works?

Thank you for watching my video. It was made on the mattress of my studio and was supposed to be part of a project called Inhalationstrauma. I gave my friend Peter Schmalz my camera and started speaking. Then I played with the green effect of my mixer. Stop standing still is a poem from my EnglishSwedish book Framtiden finns inte/The Future is a Present. I have to mention that I developed severe arm-hand tendinitis for nearly a year as a result of writing it, which is something that changed my life and my art into being much more spiritual. Since then the usual setup would be a tendency of thought that notices.

I consider my life to be my art and my works traces or documentations of it. The works acknowledge that the moments of my life are worth experiencing. In my videos I try to show movement in a way that can be understood narratively, even though the images can be abstract. I do not usually make cuts, instead I let the images change over time so that the audience observes together with me. My central idea is awareness and I want to show how beautiful this reality is for me. For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Stop standing still, an extremely interesting video series that our readers have

You are also a poet and the sound of your spoken words 45

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plays a crucial role in Stop standing still: according to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects Western societies favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of modern alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and images? I think that the words play a crucial role because they are presenting a story. Since it came up in the context of my life it is describing something about me and that is why I am open with the fact that my work is autobiographical. I am very interested in the relationship between music and video too. A while ago I curated a season of the audio-visual podcast Ljudbild Podcast, where musicians and video makers from different places were paired into unexpected collaborations. We like the way This is a test addresses the viewers to such SPECIAL ISSUE

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wide number of narratives: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when discussing about the role of improvisation in your process, would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? I would like the spectatorship to understand in they only way that they can. If they want to know more they can talk to me. The question you should ask yourselves when watching is Why is she doing this? A spectator will always be rethinking because they are watching from a unique position. If people receive my work through their senses it means that they are in some kind of relation to me. Their interpretations can give me new meanings too, or we can 49

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develop the concepts further together.

nothing more.' As you have remarked once, one of the key words for your work is subjective documentary: when asking you to elaborate this concept for your readers, we

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would ask you if you are interested to trigger the viewers' perceptual and cultural parameters.

and taste, but our perceptions are subjective. Sharing of our own experience (not only, but also, in words) is important because then we can reflect each other. Everyone makes

Most of us share having the ability to see, hear, feel, smell 51

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their own autobiography on social media nowadays, maybe without thinking and without people noticing. Let us notice each other's styles and self expressions. While referring to reality, your artworks convey a captivating abstract feeling: how do you view the relationship between reality and imagination playing out within your works? There is not that much imagination involved in my works, is not everything reality? If I imagine something and then make it happen, the imagined was a kind of prediction. Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch once remarked "that works of art often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Do you think that the role of artists has SPECIAL ISSUE

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changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? And how is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art? The role of artists has probably changed a lot. I have met several of my influences online, most importantly Joe Coghill and Marc from RunningTimeLabs when it comes to video and music. Everyone should check their stuff out. There are many resources online that are important for artists, both inspiration and actual tools. Watching photos of classical paintings on a screen is not ideal, but now countless videos can be streamed on the same type of screen as they were created, which means they are in their full right. Many works were even created by people for the internet. 55

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One of the hallmarks of your work is its ability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language you use in a particular context?

own language while I provide the context. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Linnea. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you for being interested in my thoughts. Future projects... I am working with painter and harmonica player Pedro Amaro on ways to mix painting with video, but at the moment I am more focused on making books with collage, drawing and writing. Hopefully I will have more performances and exhibitions with them included. I will be participating in an exhibition by Joe Coghill at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh in February this year.

Cuddling with a cat is my favorite kind of work. I would not call myself an actor and I would not call the cat an audience, we are just there together. If I would record the moment, it would turn into a memory that reminds me of my ideals. When it comes to performances on stage, for example when I am working with cameras and microphones, I encourage the participation of others. Then they can use their

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Jasmin Carter Lives and works in Maryland, USA

What is and what is not admirable by many is not more important than creating genuine honesty. I design images base on memories and personal experiences. The subjects in my artwork are consciously derived from frequent observations of people interacting with inanimate objects. There are subtle mundane emotional connections we make with people or things every day in our lives. Connecting the unseen and the obvious is the main component to my artistry. I focus on real life subject matters and events while creating images by combining reality with fantasy. My artworks represent the internal struggle to find a sense of clarity or an intangible certainty about the world we live in. I habitually construct ideas for my paintings for people to generate conversations about the true perception of existence. The truth about reality is the essential purpose for why I became an artist and I create without any limitations by exploring various ways to alter images of any subject. Using acrylics and pen markers, makes the paintings have a flat color and cartoon design. By applying layers of oils, papers, glue, and other materials gives the pieces of art a realistic approach.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator

spectatorship imagination to elaborate personal interpretation: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Car's stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Rich with evokative symbolism and marked out with rigorous sense of geometry, Jas Car's work triggers both the perceptual parameters and the cultural ones of her audience, that she walk through such multilayered visual experience. The central goal of Car's approach is to inspire others to pursue their dreams and in her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages she accomplishes the difficult task of motivating the

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Hello Jas and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art? When I was 19 I started to paint a few times a

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Before For

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week, to just relive the fun of creating something new. As I start to repeatedly try to mix colors together and discover new paint brushing techniques, I realize that painting makes me feel good and I would feel so much better mentally whenever I complete a painting. In a sense that I became so intensely indulge with creating paintings that I began to look at life differently and I started to look at myself in a positive mindset. I got a job at the Air and Space Museum in D.C and that was my first point of reference for choosing to use geometric shapes in my artwork. I would see huge display models of airplanes, space shuttles, trains, and old machine parts. I like the grittiness texture of the aircrafts so much that I would think of ways of using that tough structure and combining it with a soft tone color palette. I would habitually go to the Philips Collection in Dupont Circle and the Hirshhorn Museum by the national mall where I would learn works of Roger Brown, Raoul Dufy, Arthur Dove, and more arists. Washington, D.C has beautiful architectural buildings and statues so I am very fortunate to live near a city with beautiful scenery. The results of your artistic inquiry convey together a coherent sense of unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://jascarart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist. Yes, there is a central idea in all of my artworks and it is to do more with less. Restricting oneself to use only 2 to 4 colors in

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Two Katz Katz

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Two Katz Katz

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a painting generates new ideas and new ways to come up with new forms of painting techniques. The key to thinking without limitations is to experience the pain of having restrictions to your freedom and all that there is to do is to become patient. There are situations that are out of your control, you have no choice but to wait and see what happens next. Like not having a job and waiting to hear back from someone or getting really sick and waiting for your body to heal properly. When all you have is time to wait that is the best time to plan for your future and think of ways of bettering the situation. I use that same real life approach as a denominator for creating new series of paintings. For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Twin Headlights and Two Katz Katz an interesting series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: what has at once captured our attention of the way your works represent the internal struggle to find a sense of clarity is the way you have provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of the Twin Headlights and Two Katz Katz, would you tell us how did you develope the initial ideas? I cannot paint the same thing twice, every time I paint I am always changing the original plan I had in mind and instead I create something different. The ideas always come from what I seen in the past month and how I am feeling at that moment. Being spontaneous makes the creative process more fun and the finish art piece happens naturally. My memories serve as the base

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and I pick the paint colors from my emotional feelings to serve as accessories to the base. I listen to my heart when I start to paint meaning that I know myself so well that my body will send me signals to my mind to let me when to stop or add colors to a canvas. Like for Twin Headlights that idea came from a yellow cab car while waiting for the next train at the subway station. I deconstruct the image of the car and I would visually come up with a new way to paint parts of the cab car. The yellow represents the color of the cab, the red circles are the headlights from the car, and inside the red circles are the white blocks that are broken down into pieces of structure of the cab car. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of Gossip that show how vivacious tones are not strictly indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s texture? I really like flat colors being place in a methodical way as well as the balance of having things in order and letting things become chaotic. Gossip is a representation of coworkers gossiping to one another. I use yellow and red to show the playful humor I found when seeing how people would talk bad about one another. Using my observations, I try to alter the way I would portray a situation and use my imagination to push myself to create new forms. Every color choice is chosen from how I feel in that present moment.

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Gossip

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$0.25 past 1

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You are a versatile artist and you combine several materials, as acrylics and pen markers. Moreover, you apply layers of oils, papers, glue, and further materials to provide your artwork with such a realistic approach: what are the qualities that you are searching for in the materials that you combine in your works? I start with strictly painting because the materials were within my budget and very accessible to get. I like to reuse color mixtures from other paintings and mix them with tube oil paint and I would discover bright shades of red, orange, and pink color tones. As far as using papers on my artwork, I like using present newspapers and current date magazines to show the audience what I was reading or what was going on during that particular time. While referring to reality, your paintings convey a captivating abstract feeling: how do you view the relationship between the real and the imagined in your work? In particular, does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process or do your images come from your imagination? Imagination is very personal and limitless; all you have control of is your thoughts and your emotions. Life is very unpredictable and things do not always go according to the initial plan so thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where imagination comes into action. The relationship between reality and imagination are parallel to one another, both need one another to have balance and harmony. With Notebook Smudge, the white space is similar to a notebook page and the feeling of emptiness. The lines represent intense

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Notebook Smudge

moments, positive or negative, and the smudge grey area is the feeling of confusion. I like to use familiar subjects and change the forms with my imagination because I like to paint in that style. Being authentic is living and expressing your truth without thinking about the consequences or the opinions of others. Edvard Munch was part of an exhibition being shown at

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the National Gallery of Art in D.C. There was two paintings called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Anxietyâ&#x20AC;? and the painting that caught my attention immediately was the one where he uses the white negative space as the background color and there are red lines that are similar to clouds in the sky. His works are very personal and I like that he tells you visually what the time was like when he was alive.

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Notebook Swatch

He is one of the few artists I feel is very honest with their artwork and that is the same approach I want to bring into contemporary art.

intangible certainty about the world we live in. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered

Your works rounds to the question: "what is reality?" and as you have remarked once, your paintings represents the internal struggle to find a sense of clarity or an

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political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? what could be in your opinion the role of Art in the contemporary age? My work is more focus on social issues rather than having a political voice. Politics are not fair and are not truthful; the media does not tell people the exact truth so I do not focus my energy into things I have no control over. With social issues such as mental health, social isolation, and both positive and negative experiences, I want to show the audience of how I view these issues. Having uncomfortable conversations about ourselves is necessary to becoming more in tune with our real selves. The role of art in the contemporary age is to design for the future and this is the best time to be push creativity beyond limits. There are so many resources to connect with people that majority of these artists in my generation are copying one another to stay relevant. The care for the culture is more important than people using art to just sell products and to gain attention. We like the way you create such insightful combination between rigorous geometry and contemporary sensitiveness: rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to address the viewers to elaborate personal associations. Would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship elaborate personal meanings? My goal when any person views my artwork is to have anyone asks questions about my work and let them participate in conversations about new topics. I want

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Over the years your works have been exhibited in several occasions: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your

people to generate their own opinion about my paintings and I do not force any ideas to the audience. Letting things happen organically creates an experience people will remember for a long time. I want people to have that same feeling when a person first views my paintings for the first time.

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DIAL UP CONNECTION

audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

to like to my artwork. Although I want people to talk about my artwork, I will not sacrifice my creative process of being honest to create lukewarm artwork to gain attention by mainstream media. Authenticity is the magic when creating long lasting artworks, the moment a person is more concern with what the majority likes then the artwork begins to lose its

I paint from true emotions and from my own personal experiences. The audience is not my main concern; I cannot force people

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uniqueness. With my decision making process I am my biggest critic and I decide if I think the artwork is complete or not. One of the main things I like about painting is that I have an oversight about what I can create and I have complete freedom to do what I like. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jas. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? For the future, I have very high goals and expectations for myself. The goal is and forever will be is to become one of the greatest painters in my time and to inspire people to achieve their dreams even when it seems impossible. I have to use my gift of being an artist to help others and that is the only way to become a true artist and to push the culture forward. As far as future projects I am consistently working on new series of paintings and I will continue to explore different ways to create innovative projects. Thank you for seeing my vision for the future of the contemporary art and I appreciate the interview! An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Jonathan Schuit Lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands My name is Jonathan Schuit and I was born in 1973. After growing up in Germany and becoming a carpenter I moved to the Netherlands to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. During my studies I occasionally picked up the brushes to paint. In my head there have always been this ongoing stream of images, a phenomenon that’s called ‘Kopfkino’ in German – a cinema in the head. As long as I can remember this projector in my head is running, containing associations, daydreams, stories and also more complex translations of psychological processes. Besides working as a designer in Amsterdam imaginary sceneries, landscapes and objects keep on arising in my mind, wanting a way out. I am a self-taught painter and I am fascinated by the isolated, still moments of life. The view of the passerby who’s watching from a distance feels most familiar to me. Maybe also through my multinational & -lingual family background i learned how to observe and get an insight on different perspectives. Most of my paintings are set in the middle of anonymous silent street and illuminated by isolated street lights and in the magic blue of the twilight hour, my favourite moment of the day. Desolated places and sceneries, cut from time, half lit, never frightened me. Instead, they awaken a strange sort of beauty and happiness. To me they are an invitation for my mind to wander and daydream. That’s exactly what i try to achieve in my paintings: I like to create scenes and imply stories in the observers mind. I would like my paintings to be like silhouettes, you can see the contours but you still have the freedom to make up your own story. Also i am interested in what we experience when we feel the space around us during a short daydream, out of time, in a moment where we are alone and maybe the closest to what we really feel. To capture that is a rare experience, but when it happens, especially in painting, it can evoke a great and tender intimacy with oneself.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

You have studied interior Design Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, however you are basically a selftaught painter: are there any experiences that did particularly influnced your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate

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Hello Jonathan and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. SPECIAL ISSUE

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https://jonathanschuit.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you think that there isa central idea that connects all of your work as an artist.

yourself to art making? I remember the moment when I visited an exhibition of paintings by Edward Hopper - they blew me away. I must have been about 12 years old and I remember how I was immediately fascinated by these silent moments of the paintings. Paintings like Ryders house, Lighthouse Hill got me hooked and kind of showed me how looking at a painting can evoke an imaginary creation. It was, I think, the first time a painting touched me...and opened up a new imaginary window.

Not really. What I paint is nearly always pure introspection that flows out in that moment. Often it’s a little detail of something I saw that just pops up now and then...because of it’s beauty or colour or whatever. It happened quiet often that I went out in the nature to paint a scenery I actually see. But almost always and very quickly I find myself disconnecting from the scenery around me and daydreams appear in my paintings. I often feel like a blotting paper being dipped into my Kopfkino (the cinema in my head) triggering impulses that lead me and my canvas to who knows where.

Having parents coming from two different countries, but living together in a third country, and being born in a fourth country, this, I guess, made me curious and sensitive to different cultural expressions …. away from flat stereotypes, looking instead more closely at silent layers, away from the black and white - different shades… Later in life I was fascinated by films of the Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki and his dark melancholic but sometimes very comic and absurddepiction of Finns - there's beauty in a silent Finn!

For special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected your Afterparties and Rooftop, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: what has at once captured our attention of your successful attempt to demonstrate how paint can be an expression of intimacy and connection is the way you have

The results of your artistic inquiry convey such coherent sense of unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit 101

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provided the visual results of your artistic inquiry with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Afterparties and Rooftop, would you tell us how much importance does play spontaneity in your work? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? Spontaneity is very important to me. I see myself as an outside observer, fascinated by different facets of life, and the little hidden stories told in whateverndetail that catches my eye. Even observing the most meaningless detail can tell me a whole story. Maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also today's overload of information and impulses, which makes me want to paint quiet and anonymous places. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces, that are often marked out with intense tones that, as Too Late For Promenade and I Did It In My View create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make- up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s texture? SPECIAL ISSUE

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Mostly I paint layers by layers on top of each other and occasionally I drip in other colours. Drips and colourful mishaps often lead me to another story and can even change the whole painting to something else. What appears on the canvas tells me something new each time ... and I want to be surprised by which images pop up in my mind when I look at the canvas. Very often it’s a deep wish to be in that painting, in the scenery. Dark colours often dominate my paintings, but its the light and colours which attract me the most ... the one can’t exist without the other. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you are interested in what we experience when we feel the space around us during a short daydream, out of time, in a moment where we are alone and maybe the closest to what we really feel: how much does personal experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience? Interesting question! I think this would be a no.

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While referring to reality, your paintings, as the interestingLeft History and Party convey such captivating abstract feeling: as a representational figure painter, how do you view the relationship between the concepts of the real and SPECIAL ISSUE

of the imagined playing within your works? â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Left Historyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is a nice example for what catches myinterest and what I want to paint. The room actually exists in Vienna, and used to be the working room of the famous Austrian 106

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architect Adolf Loos. The interior itself with a library and a desk didn’t interest me very much, but I was attracted by the seemingly unimportant details next to the ‘monument’.

I felt that I managed to get an imagined scene painted on a canvas... Environment is a crucial aspect of your work and it never plays the role of mere background: most of the works from your artistic production depict of anonymous silent street and illuminated by isolated street lights. We have appreciated the way your paintings create such harmonic synergy between the idea of desolation and the notion of beauty. You works sometimes suggest the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc Augé, communicating a sense of alienation: how would you consider the relationship between Man and environment in relation to your artistic research?

Your artworks accomplish the difficult task of creating scenes and imply stories in the observers mind, allowing an open reading, with a wide variety of associative possibilities. The power of visual arts is enormous: at the same time, the role of the viewer’s disposition is equally crucial. What do you think about the role of the viewer? Are you particularly interested if you try to achieve to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations?

In a lively busy world were we all are constantly overloaded with impulses and impacts I like to put myself as an Outsider from time to time. The Observer enjoying being on his own for a moment, might well experience deeper personal feelings. To me it often comes as a sort of happy loneliness, where the streetlights merely lights up my own path ...

Maybe I hope to trigger that. I would invite the viewer to calm down and let feelings rise, even if they are scary. Why not try to put them into a piece of art. You could create beauty without even knowing. As soon as you dare to be pure and open up magic things can happen. Digging into your own fantasy without restricting it can be very exciting. For me that is the sweetness of a daydream. W hen I started painting I had the most satisfying feeling when

One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition 111

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of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? During my studies I struggled to get a painting started. I gradually noticed that I always calculated how people would interpret and value my paintings which held back my creativity. Thinking back I guess I've been the least creative during the period I went to art school. I guess my own guess of an art school expectation played quite a big role in that. I realized that when I started looking into my own inner world, I was able to loosen up and the paintings just kept coming without any effort. Dare to look deeper.

The momant

natural next experimental stage. Furthermore, I recently got interested in making sculptures and 3d objects. To be able to put the same amt osphere in a sculpture would be quite challenging. I also started experimenting with clay, stone and other mixed materials. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see where my introspection leads me next ...

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jonathan. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

Since lights are such a profound part of my paintings designing lamps is a SPECIAL ISSUE

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Parker Beaudoin Lives and works in Kissimmee FL, USA Ever since I was able to hold a crayon, I was always involved in art. Through the ups and downs and struggles of my life, art has always been there for me and given me hope. In turn, my work is meant to be inspiring and enlightening to everyone who views it. I use a style I call “Neo-Popism.” Created with the application of acrylics, watercolors, and oils, I utilize this style to express my inner feelings and thoughts, and transform them into a visual for everyone to see with the use of bright colors and a sense of familiarity. Included in the works are every day factors that we encounter as well as controversial issues; for example the government, politics, sex, and religion. I want to be able to bring out the emotions in people and stir up the world with subject matters that should not be ignored or suppressed. After being in the tattoo industry since the age of 14 and having a very successful career, I found myself drifting and not as happy as I had once been, so I decided to start working with a different medium. I still love tattooing, but wasn't in love anymore. So one day I dusted off the old brush and paints after many years of not touching them, and put them together with a canvas and started to create. Now falling back in love with an old talent, I spend anywhere between 2 to 8 hours a day in my studio painting and creating. Having a large amount of collectors and a steady flow of commissions, I decided it was time to start focusing more on my artwork and paintings and less time tattooing. Bold and colorful creations from my training as a tattoo artist can at times show in my creations, but the symbolism I have learned and the stories and experiences I have not only heard and lived through myself but have been told and seen from my clients is what I try to capture in my work. I want the viewer to see exactly what I create but also be able to interpret the work in their own way, and have their own relationship with the artwork. This means creating a relationship not only with the art, but also between the viewer and myself. My goal is to be able to share my love and art with everyone through being accessible and affordable. It was at this moment when I created my own company and trademarked brand Spread Love With Art, Inc. This gave a way to offer art in all different prices, sizes, and styles to help my vision come to life, to spread love with art. I have also created a worldwide movement known as “The Red People.” This movement was mainly created to spread love and happiness to the world while bringing people together. It has grown to an international level and continues to grow every single day. For me, art is a way to bring happiness to others. I want to make this world a more beautiful, brighter, and happier place for everybody one person and place at a time through art.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator

immersive visual experience: his body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, successfully attempts to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters to walk them to the realm of imagination. One of the most impressive aspects of Beaudoin's work is the

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Bold and colorful, artist Parker Beaudoin's work provides the viewers with an intense,

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Instagram: @spreadlovewithart

Facebook: www.facebook.com/spreadlovewithart

Twitter: @spreadlovewart

Website: www.spreadlovewithart.com in art and you have been in the tattoo industry since the age of 14, having a very successful career: how did this experience influenced the way you currently conceive your artworks? Moreover, how does the relationship between your cultural substratum dued to your American roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making in general?

way it accomplishes the difficult task of sharing his love and art with everyone through being accessible and affordable: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Parker and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. Since early age you were involved

Being a professional tattoo artist has influenced

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my artwork immensely. By having the opportunity to work directly with people from all walks of life, I have the chance to broaden my horizons, thoughts, views, and ideas. This helps me better connect with a mass variety of people when I'm creating my artwork. Tattooing is a very precise and detailed art form which coincides with my style of painting by being completely opposite. When I'm creating art, it frees me from the precision and detailed work, yet at the same time by simplifying, still carries deep meaning in my creations. I've been able to have the chance to create both meaningful work that is detailed and precise with tattoos, then create the same meaningful thing with paint in a different form

that can be collected and appreciated, either permanently on their body or hanging on their wall. Your works convey such coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.spreadlovewithart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, do you like spontaneity and instinct or do you rather prefer to methodically

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transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas? My process of creation is both spontaneous and thought out. I have an idea, and I create it. I let my mind and hand work together. Sometimes I sketch the piece first, and other times I am just the middle man between the paints and the canvas. I am the creator, but I am also a tool being used to create. I let the process come naturally. In general I do have a basic process, but I find it better to think less when creating than to force it out. Do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist? In particular, would you elaborate something about the notion of Neo-Popism for our readers? Neo-popism is the basis of taking an old concept and style of artwork from the 80's and bringing it to today's generation using an every day object, thought, or idea that we as humans tend to over look. By taking this object, thought, or idea, and making it the main focus of the piece, it makes viewers see things from a different view. My Neopopism designs, symbols, and colors captivate the viewer and bring them into my world. Once there, the viewer now has the opportunity to form their own opinion and emotions on what they're seeing. For example, we see a butterfly flying by during the day and forget it. When I create the butterfly as a painting, the viewer is captured by color and movement where the main focal point is the butterfly. The viewer now has to form their own views on this. I have my own view and emotion when creating it, but I leave it open for everyone to interpret in their own way. That is the whole purpose of Neo-popism, taking things that we overlook to now being the only thing we see, and making the viewer have an

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opportunity to see things differently than what they might have once seen...or not seen. It's a whole contradiction.

once captured our attention of your artistic research is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Whatever and Rose, would you tell us how did you develop the inital ideas?

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Whatever and Rose, a couple of interesting works that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at

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While creating these paintings, to be completely honest, I shut down all thought,

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rhyme, and reason. I have no say in what is being created. I am fully at the mercy of the brush, paints, and canvas. Sometimes while creating, it is interesting to shut the mind off and see what happens. Once finished, the end product is seen differently not only by myself, but for all who view it. “Rose” happened to show itself from within the center and

became a beautiful abstract painting. While “Whatever” became a very interesting and connecting painting by the use of opposing colors. Abstract is just a way to create with no walls, limitations, or duplications. I see abstract as I see life, a chaotic blend of everything that comes together to create something beautiful.

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We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces, that as Emerald Tree Frog and Ruby Ladybug, communicate such a tropical energy, creating tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a texture? I love using color and my palette is endless. When creating, I take what is opposite of the focal point and strategically place colors around it which differentiate the background from the focal point, and also make it come together as one. My psychological make up is simple, that which is different and at most times doesn't work, I try to use to make it work together. I see things differently than the norm, and by the way I think, look, and live, I tend to not fit in with society which affects my artwork greatly. I don't want my work to look like everything you've seen, what I create is a reflection of myself. I tend to place colors in areas around the canvas until I see an equal balance in my mind. The placement of the colors not only have to become one, but also have to grab the viewer, bring them in, and make the focal point stand out. The painting is never really done, but it has to have a sense of unity. You produce both realistic and abstract paintings: despite to references to perceptual reality, all your artistic production is marked out with captivating ambivalent quality. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works? Moreover, how much does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think

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that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience? My work directly relates to life and experiences. That of which I have lived and gone through, as well as what I hear or see others go through. My goal when creating is to take an idea, simplify it in painting form, and make it more relatable. By doing this, it makes it easier to convey the message I'm trying to show, and also gives the work a different view point. I fully believe that everyday life influences my work, and my work influences others' everyday life as well. Included in you artworks are every day factors as well as controversial issues: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". ". Not to mention that almost everything, ranging from Caravaggio's Inspiration of Saint Matthew to Joep van Lieshout's works, could be considered political, do you think that your works is political, in a certain sense? what could be in your opinion the role of Art in order to sensitize the viewers in our unstable contemporary age? With the creation of The Red People, a worldwide movement to spread love and happiness, my works are greatly based on controversial issues and political statements. The Red People represent all of us as human beings, thus the work shows different examples of different situations, struggles, and life events that we experience everyday. I like to touch on subjects that address peoples' emotions. A lot of artists try to avoid this, but I feel as though I have to create these paintings to show the world of these things that are happening. The Red People paintings will

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make people feel happy, sad, and even upset or angry at times, but isn't that the purpose of art? It's to challenge what you feel. When you see a painting of a flower, you may feel happy and connected to that piece. But when you see a painting of a mother and child struggling and going hungry because they cannot afford food, does this not also make you feel and become connected? The world is harsh, and I want my paintings to express that. I want

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people to be connected to my work by emotion, no matter what that emotion may be. Some people may enjoy my work, while others may disagree and hate what I'm doing, but I'm okay with this. That is my job as an artist. Not all work is meant to be pretty and happy. Your artistic practice seems to aim to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than

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its surface: as you have remarked once, you want the viewer to see exactly what you create but also be able to interpret the work in their own way, and have their own relationship with the artwork: would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings?

It is very important that the viewer have an opportunity to interpret my work in their own way and develop their own relationship with each of my pieces. I connect with my work in the beginning and throughout the process as I finish the artwork. My connection ends as it is completed and the viewer's connection begins. For example, if I paint the world â&#x20AC;&#x153;loveâ&#x20AC;? or a heart, in the beginning that was

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my heart and love that I was painting. When the piece is finished, it is now for the viewer to connect to with their own heart and love. It could be a new couple who sees it as a form of their love together, or maybe two parents who just had their first child showing it is now their connection and love as a family, or the married couple of 40+ years who connect to it as a symbol of their undying love for each other for eternity. The connection is passed on in many forms and views to everyone else. The work is designed not just for one connection, not just for my connection, but for an endless amount of connections to be made. You have a large amount of collectors and a steady flow of commissions: one of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? My artwork is a universal language. It does not matter the age, sex, religion, heritage, or social status a person holds, everyone can understand my work. I believe that audience reception is important, but is not a crucial component of my process. When I am creating, I am not thinking of one individual who will connect with my work, but more so if my work conveys the message that I'm trying to say. With over 7 billion people in the world, connections will be made, but more importantly, will my work have an impact on the world? Will my work influence someone's

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thought? Will my work affect someone's day? Will my work address someone's emotions? And will my work challenge your views? I find that to be more crucial, being able to change the world for the better and make people see things they did not see before.

manner. I also look forward to working closely with Plaid Enterprises, Inc. in hopes of achieving my own line of paints and brushes for others to enjoy using and creating with. Additionally I will continue to grow my brand and business, Spread Love With Art, Inc., that I own with my fiance and father, together with having the opportunity to give back to others. My hopes and goals are to be able to obtain the opportunity to change the world with my art, and make the world more beautiful one painting at a time.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Parker. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? For the future, I will advance in my endeavors to become a household name, along with grow The Red People movement until it affects everyone in the world in a positive

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Tian Mangzi Lives and works in China

obtained solid skills of realistic painting. I also comprehensively studied the history of Western fine art. Later in the Xi’an Institute of Fine Arts, I turned to Chinese painting. Actually I have studied the Chinese painting since quite young. But it was only during my master study in XI’an that I began to go into more systematically thinking of Chinese painting. This is also to do with my reading on Chinese philosophy and cultural genealogy. I am deeply influenced by some thoughts like ‘harmony between nature and human’ and ‘unification of the universe’. In particular, the ‘Taoism’ theory has a great impact on me. The so-called ‘Tao’ refers to the truth and genesis of the universe. Because of these philosophical thinking, my art works began to go beyond the visual

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Hello Tian and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your B.F.A. from the Luxun Institute of Fine Arts, you nurtured your education with a MFA that you received from the Xi’an Institute of Fine Arts: how did these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Chinese roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making? During my undergraduate study in the Luxun Institute of Fine Arts, I SPECIAL ISSUE

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

Tian Mangzi effects, but to look for something more essential about the world.

to our readers to visit http://www.mangziart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central

The results of your artistic inquiry convey such coherent sense of unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest 69

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Port au prince, installation , West End Gallery, 2015

idea that connects all of your work as an artist.

second point is to do with the relationship between human and nature. This can be identified in my later works. In some of them, I attempt to explore the ways in which we maintain the sustainability of nature while in others I express my anger and denunciation towards men’s negative interventions to the nature. I think we should make some compromise and not interfere with the nature too much. The last point

I think the central idea of across my works is ‘to love life and to be enthusiastic about life’. There are three major aspects. The first one is about the attitude towards the world. Although there are so many unpleasant things happening, we should still keep passion alive. The SPECIAL ISSUE

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concerns human themselves - how to understand ‘a man in the society’. Is he/she a man/woman of ‘social’, of ‘individual’, or of both attributes? I am also interested in the relationship between people as a group and people as independent entities. For this third point, I have not practiced a lot in my art making. I hope my future works are able to address more. Throughout the three points, you will find the idea ‘to love life and to be enthusiastic about life’ across all my works despite their diverse themes. Actually I have a broadranging of interests. My readings cover philosophy, physics, chemistry, history, arts and humanities, and astronomy. I always keep an eye on the up-to-date knowledge in these fields. All of these also show my love of life and my enthusiasm on learning.

way you have provided the visual results of your artistic inquiry with such autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of these captivating works, would you tell us what did address you to focus on the notion of place? The notion of ‘place’ refers to where people live. It could be where they current live, they lived in the past, or they will live in the future. The Power Landscape is about the future landscapes of Shanghai. I image I am an urban designer who construct an ideal living environment where the built environment is integrated with the nature. This, in my opinion, should be what the future place looks like. The Newly Developed Place is about the future of mankind. I consume that mankind will move to the moon. They transform the moon into a place with air and plants, and is suitable for human habitation. I use the moon as a representation of a possible future place. It can also be other planets.

For special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected your Power Landscape and Newly Developed Place, a couple of artworks that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: what has at once captured our attention of your inquiry into the dialogue between the painted page and the outside world is the

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces, that are often marked out with intense tones that, as Earth intruder and Money Time create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color 71

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palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s texture? I love using bright colors and contrasting colors in my painting. It is just like that I love using metaphors in my speaking. In my mind, every color has its own meaning. You can see this from my paintings. Particularly, I like the red color. For me, it represents a spiritual power, a kind of vitality, and enthusiasm. So I use red for something positive rather than those of sadness and bloody. Other colors also have their own meanings. For example, people may perceive black and other dark colors as unpleasant and depression. For me, they can be used in a positive way such as for contrasting. Using contrasting colors, as I mentioned, is one of my favorite ways of playing with colors. How much does personal experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience? There is no doubt that one's personal experiences will influence the ways in which he/she makes art. It is also SPECIAL ISSUE

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Money Time200-150

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possible that one draws inspiration from reading or through thinking, reflecting, and deduction. I have attempted both approaches. My earlier paintings largely reflected my personal experiences while my later paintings are engaged more with my thinking and artistic reflection on things beyond art. Nowadays I am increasingly relying on my rational thinking rather than my subjective feeling and perception in producing art. While referring to reality, your paintings convey such captivating abstract feeling: as a representational figure painter, how do you view the relationship between the concepts of the real and of the imagined playing within your works? I do not want my paintings to just mirror the reality as cameras do. Instead, the reality is always reshaped through my critically reflection. For example, I painted a stack of RMB in the Money Time. For me, it is a symbol representing the living pressure and the current values. Specifically, the RMB is far beyond money to represent pressure, desire, worshiping money, and materialising. I enjoy this abstraction process, which allows me to have a deeper 75

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understanding of the real world.

reality. Otherwise, my work may just present the reality like a camera. Your artworks are pervaded with

This requires you have extensive reflection and re-imagination on the SPECIAL ISSUE

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images rich with symbolic elements, as the interesting Power landscape, that are capable of triggering the

viewers perceptual and cultural parameters: how would you consider the role of symbols within 77

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your work as an artist?

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;conceptsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in my works. They can be understood as a kind of visual language. For example, in the Earth

The symbolic elements are used as SPECIAL ISSUE

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Newly Developed Place 68-68cm

Intruder, the blur-color-figure represents the ocean, the black one as energy, and the green one as

power of nature. By having these symbols, the painting becomes more accessible to audiences. 79

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Power Landscape 68-68cm

Thus I think it is necessary to use symbolic elements. Another example is the image of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the work. It SPECIAL ISSUE

demonstrates the source of power. Through the symbolizing, I am able to capture the characteristics and 80

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essences of the objects and illustrate them in a vivid way.

anyone in particular you feel inspired by?

How much importance does play spontaneity in your work? In particular, do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? I think ‘playing spontaneity’ has a significant role in my art making. ‘Spontaneity’ is often to do with one’s feeling, sense and perception. It is one of the origins of art making. In my art practice, I always make plans, schedules, and structures of paintings beforehand.

It is inevitable that one’s art making is influenced by things beyond the field of visual arts. The sources of my art making do not only comprise what I see, but also many other things.

Particularly, I make efforts to figure out the layout and the specific characters in a painting. At the same time, ‘spontaneity’ also plays a role in construction the details. By thinking instinctively, I have ideas of how to present the abstract characters in a vivid way. So for me both are important.

artist should foremost be an independent thinker and a truth seeker, like him. The ways in with Damien presents his artistic ideas are different from me. I am mainly engaged with two-dimensional art forms in the way of hand-drawing (like a writer replies only on texts to illustrate his/her ideas).

Your style is very personal and conveys both rigorous geometry and vivacious abstract feature: what influences outside the visual arts inspire and impact your approach to making work? Moreover, do you pay attention to the work of your contemporaries? If so, is there

By contrary, Damien Hirst’s artistic approach is far beyond painting and turns to more straightforward ways to illustrate his thoughts.

One of the contemporaries who has exerted considerable influence on me is Damien Hirst. His works are always embedded with philosophical and anthropological meanings. I think an

You work and live in Shanghai as full time artist since 2002 and over the years your works have been 81

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a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

internationally exhibited in several occasions, including your recent participation to the Emerging Artist Group Exhibition in TAG bxl Gallery, in Belgium. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being

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The mediums that a painter can adopt are quite limited. The most common one is painting on canvas or other materials. Unlike movies, paintings which are two-dimensional art may not able to approach to a large number of audiences. Despite this limitation, I still pay considerable attention to the relationship between my art works

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and viewers. I am deeply concerned with the extent to which my art works can be understood by viewers, and whether or not the works can have some impact on viewers. I expect my art is able to stimulate viewsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; questioning, from which they can have a deep understanding on some subjects.

I may turn to some other forms of

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Tian. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Finally, thanks Peripheral ARTeries!

arts making. I think the central ideas of my arts works will not be changed. But they may be demonstrated through approaches like writing and video rather than painting.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com

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Peripheral ARTeries meets

Alexandre Gondim Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

I am Brazilian and these roots are reflected on my art. Vibrant, colourful, tropical, full of energy. I started painting abstract art, as my defined style, twelve years ago. Every painting I make is a photograph of my unconscious, my thoughts, my feelings, in the moment of its production. The diversity of my work is intentional so as not to become repetitive. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no explanation, no specific meaning about what I do. The purpose of my work is touching people in different and particular ways so each one can experience it by their own vision and emotions, fostering many sensations through the use of colours and shapes. A screaming unconscious to the eyes and heart of anyone who experiences it. My influences include Kandinsky, Pollock, MirĂł, Picasso and Romero Britto.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator

each one can experience it by their own vision and emotions, fostering many sensations through the use of colours and shapes: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

peripheral.arteries@europe.com

Brazillian London based artist Alexandre Gondim's work provides the viewers with an intense, immersive visual experience: his body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, successfully attempts to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters to walk them to the realm of imagination. One of the most impressive aspects of Gondim's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of touching people in different and particular ways so

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Hello Alexandre and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence the way you currently conceive your works? Moreover, how does the relationship between your cultural substratum dued to your Brazillian roots and your 156

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current life in the United Kingdom inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the notion of beauty? Hello, it’s a great pleasure to be here. I have always been connected with art somehow. My father is a photographer, so a singular way to perceive beauty runs in my veins. I used to have art classes when I was 13. It was my first contact with different styles and materials. I used to paint and draw figurative themes, mainly objects, and my teacher had said I was an impressionist. Then, I stopped producing art for around a decade. No apparent reason. During this hiatus, as I’ve always been creative, I decided to study advertising in the university. After that, I started working as an art director. I moved to Sao Paulo, largest city and financial centre of Brazil. I was one of its 12 million inhabitants. At that time, I worked for many advertising agencies and had the opportunity to create for expressive national and international brands. It was an experience of ups and downs and a stage in my life that I remember with affection. By the time Sao Paulo was not a conquest anymore, I decided to come back to my hometown, Salvador, a beautiful and inspiring city in the Northeast of Brazil. It was the moment to “push the reset button”, so

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I started painting again to express my feelings. Spontaneously, the colours, strokes and shapes emerged, and then I painted the first work named “The eye of the phoenix”. After a couple of paintings, I’d realized that abstract art was my thing.

flow of energy. When I start painting, I have no idea how it is going to end. It is a complete spontaneous process, in which I just paint random strokes and decide the next colour to compose the painting naturally. That’s what I call a “photograph of my unconscious”. It is organic and visceral.

Brazil is a unique country. We are a mix of races and cultures. Moreover, it is a huge tropical nation, so both people and art are very vivid and energetic. Therefore, I can say that my Brazilian roots play a big role in my inspiration. On the other hand, living in UK brings me serenity. The grey shades of London contrast with most of my paintings. However, London influences my notion of beauty because this city provides a wide array of styles and artists.

How do you select your subjects? In particular, do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist? My work has a well-defined identity that can hardly go unnoticed. And the diversity of it is intentional so as not to become repetitive. They are all under the concept of abstract art. It is hard to explain something that is made from a subjective source. I want to touch people deeply with my art without telling them what to see or feel. And I do love to get feedback!

Your works convey a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.alegondim.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, do you like spontaneity and instinct or do you rather prefer to methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas?

For this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries we have selected Kindergarten and Medallion, a couple of interesting works that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your artistic research is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the notion of Screaming Unconscious,

I can say all my works are a result of a

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settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a texture?

would you tell us something about the genesis of Kindergarten and Medallion? Screaming Unconscious is a concept associated to my art. It is the way I want to give it personality in the art world. Each painting I make is a result of an inner process and visually “screams” to the audience. It is a register from my unconscious in the format of a “photograph”, as mentioned before.

Usually, when I’m painting, I try to fill the gaps, give balance among the colours I choose to paint and distribute strokes and shapes on the canvas in a way that each part composes together the whole. A “harmonic chaos”, I’d say. It is a natural process, thus, the colour palette, nuances of tones and textures emerge probably according to my mood. I believe I have a gift and also art is in my blood, so that’s how things flow without much effort.

Medallion was born during an art class at The Essential School of Painting, in London. I was not quite sure it was complete. There was something missing. I gave a break and finally was satisfied with the result. The teacher questioned me about the imperfection of the strokes and I said that was my style. He agreed. The name Medallion was the first one that came up to my mind.

In the case of Veloso, I painted it listening to the songs of Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso. Your artworks speak of emotions and seem reveal an attempt to communicate from your subconscious: as you have remarked once, every painting you make is a photograph of your unconscious, your thoughts, your feelings, in the moment of its production. How much does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? In particular, do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Kindergarten was part of a challenge as I had a short deadline to paint a set of works to my largest solo exhibition in UK, “Connections to the Mind”. The palette of colours reminded me my childhood, reason why I gave it this name. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your pieces, that as Cells and Veloso, communicate such a tropical energy. that show that vivacious tones are not striclty indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about

I love art, especially contemporary art, so I visit galleries regularly. That fuels 165

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my creativity because the unconscious is constantly absorbing stimulus from all the senses. For example, both “Blood” and “Icy” were attempts to create something different. Maybe the inspiration had unconsciously come from exhibitions I have been. Emotions emerge from experiences. As an artist, I have the mission to share my perception of the world. That happens during my journey in this planet, so my creative process and life experiences are faces of the same coin. Also, as a son of a photographer, my eyes capture conceptual scenes in everyday life that compose a peculiar sight. That might influence somehow the way I paint. Your artistic practice seems to aim to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface: we like the way Cosmic Clock, rather than attempting to establish any univocal sense seems to urge the viewers to elaborate personal associations: when discussing about the role of randomness in your process, would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? Abstract art is about energy. You have to delve deep into the painting to feel

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it. It is an intimate process, in which the viewer connects with the frequencies the work emanates. My intention with my art is touching people deep inside. No apparent explanations, however, plenitude of meanings. Something that makes me grateful about my art is getting the feedback from the audience. They see things in my work that I could not ever imagine. However, some people don’t see or feel anything, and I respect. Some people like olives in the pizza, some people don’t. The titles of your works often speak of reality: at the same time your artistic production is marked out with such captivating abstract feeling. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how does the reality behind the ideas you explore and your tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work? When I held my first solo exhibition in Brazil, all my paintings were untitled. At that time, I didn’t want to influence the way the viewers appreciated my work. That’s because the title gives clues to figure out what the artwork is about. I was a rookie as it was the beginning of my artistic career. By the second group exhibition I participated, 169

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I had already decided to give names to my “kids”. The reality behind the ideas I explore is as natural and organic as my tendency towards abstraction. When I finish a painting, I stare at it for a little while and then the first name that comes out in my mind becomes the title chosen for it. Some of them have a sort of connection to the painting, like the title “Zombie”. Others, like “Sunday”, are the way my feelings interpret them. Over these years you have had numerous solo and group shows, including your recent show entitled Finest Artists Exhibition at La Galleria Pall Mall. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? that is familiar with contemporary art, especially abstract. New viewers with other backgrounds are always welcome, though. My art shares a universal language and speaks straight

The viewers are everything! A piece of art must be shown and appreciated, whether it’s in a gallery or in a living room. Regarding my works, they are freestyle and directed to the audience

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to the heart. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Alexandre. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future

projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thanks for the insightful questions and for the opportunity to share with you 173

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readers a bit of my world. I keep in movement exhibiting my artwork in solo and group shows and

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art fairs throughout the year. I see my work evolving linked to the concept of “Screaming Unconscious”, 174

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as I want my art to be recognized by this term. If you are interested in buying my paintings, visit:

www.saatchiart.com/alegondimart Follow me on Instagram: @alegondimart 177

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