Issue 23

Edition 23, 2 021

Featured image: Cristian Anutoiu Portal coming out of the wall acrylics, oil, glue & pearls on canvas ~ 100 x 60 cm more on p. 138-139

ArtMaze Magazine is an independent artist-run and ad-free international print and online publication dedicated to showcasing and promoting experimental and progressive contemporary art, which reflects modern society and its environment, provokes conversation and action; and fosters innovation and diversity of mediums which make today’s art scene so intriguing and versatile.

HOW WE WORK

Artists or any art organisations on behalf of artists from all countries are welcome to submit.

ArtMaze Magazine is published five times per year and announces a competition-based curated call for art for each issue every 2-3 months. We invite guest curators from internationally renowned galleries as well as independent art professionals and artists to select works for each issue’s curated section of works.

We accept works to be sent to us for consideration only via our annual competition-based calls for art for print publications. Please visit our website for more details: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art or see p. 11

ArtMaze print editions offer its readers a continuous art experience which includes interviews with our guest curators and featured artists from recently published issues; as well as our carefully curated selections of artworks which offer an insight to the inspiring progress and success of an extraordinary amount of emerging contemporary artists from all over the world who have been applying to our competition-based curated calls.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK Artists are welcome to submit works in any medium: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, digital, film, performance, any mixed media etc.

FIND US ONLINE www.artmazemag.com facebook.com/artmazemag instagram.com/artmazemag

Each individual submitting work to ArtMaze Magazine opportunities is provided with a fair and equal chance.

Incoming submissions are following a very specific and unique process via Submittable platform, therefore each competition-based call for art has a transparent policy.

ISSUES All issues of ArtMaze Magazine are stored in the UK in the British Library (London), Bodleian Library (Oxford University), Cambridge University Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales and Trinity College (Dublin).

Please visit our website to find out where to purchase print and digital copies of ArtMaze Mag: www.artmazemag.com/shop

FRONT COVER:

Business information:

Cherilyn Kurtz Ironing Aid archival pigment print 30 x 40 inches more on p. 58-59

© 2021 print ISSN No. 2399-892X

GENERAL ENQUIRIES:

online ISSN No. 2399-8938

info@artmazemag.com

BACK COVER:

® ArtMaze Magazine is a registered trademark

Please do not subscribe our working email address to your newsletter without our consent. We receive extraordinary amounts of unsolicited emails everyday which makes it diffucult for us to focus on things that are important to us.

Alanna Hernandez Adjust colored pencil on wood 24 x 18 inches more on p. 80-81

ArtMaze Magazine is printed in the United Kingdom

by Park Lane Press Ltd.

13

11

interviewed

call for art

O n t he p e r for m at ivit y of ge nde r and ge nde re d bodie s : In c onve rs at ion w it h Wit ali j Fre s e .................................... ..................14

Anniversar y E d itio n 25 ............................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1

10

14

Contents

30

118

curated selection of works

editorial selection of works

Kr ist í na Bukovč áková ............................................. ................32 C Lucy R Wh itehe ad ................................................................34 M ich ael G ac Lev i n .................................................. ................36 M at t Ph i llip s ........................................................... ................38 Ra fa S ilvare s . .......................................................... ................40 E lle n P i l . . . . . . . . . .......................................................... ................42 L i s a G oet ze . . . ..........................................................................44 Na gh meh S h ari f i .................................................... ................46 E ri n S k i ff ingto n .....................................................................48 S arah L e e . . . . . ........................................................... ................50 D an iel K. S p arke s .....................................................................52 L ari s s a D e Je s ú s Ne g ró n .........................................................54 Julia Adelgre n ........................................................................56 Che ri lyn Ku rt z .......................................................................58 As avi r Nade e m ....................................................... ................60 Parke r Bar f ield ...................................................... ................62 D e ne L e igh . . . ........................................................... ................64 Je n n ife r Car valho ................................................... ................66 Cou rt ney Ch ildre s s ................................................................68 Cay Yoon . . . . . . . . .......................................................... ................70 D an iel Rob e rt s .......................................................................72 L au re nc e O we n ....................................................... ................74 A le n G ra s si . . . .......................................................... ................76 M ich ael H aight ...................................................... ................78 A lan na He r nande z .................................................................8 0 L i z A i n slie . . . . ...........................................................................8 2 L au re n Collings ...................................................... ................8 4 Luke Painte r ...........................................................................8 6 Kat h r y n Ly nch ....................................................... ................8 8 Stephe n W. Evan s ....................................................................90 Iwo Z an iewsk i ......................................................... ................92 Luke Mor ri s on ....................................................... ................94 H an nah Nah a s ........................................................................9 6 Cat he r ine Mulligan ................................................................98 St u art S noddy ......................................................................10 0 Paul- S eb a st ian Jap az ............................................................102 Luis Me j ic anos ........................................................ ..............104 Cait lin M ac Q ue e n .................................................................106 Na st i a Ast ak hova ................................................... ..............108 D an iel Bau m an ...................................................... ...............110 S c ot t Eve r ingh am .................................................................112 M argau x Vale ngi n .................................................. ...............114 E zek iel Wong Kel Wi n ..........................................................116

Cecil ia Fio na ........................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 0 Jesse Cohen ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 2 Minyoung Kim ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 24 O rnella Po cetti ....................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 6 S erpil Mavi Ustun .................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 8 Carrie Co ok ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 0 Ruby Lewis .............................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 2 Areu m Yang ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 4 Gitte Maria Moller .................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 6 Cristian Anuto iu ..................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 8 Napoleón Aguilera ................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 0 Ko suke Kawah ara ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2 Ol ivia S pringberg ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4 Lucy B ell ................................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 6 E mma Gerigscott .................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Mar y B all ................................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 0 Tal Regev ................................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2 S icheng Wang .......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4

68

120

Featured image: Cecilia Fiona At the end of the world rabbit skin glue and pigments on canvas 120 x 100 cm more on p. 120-121

from the editor We are delighted to present one of our biggest editions, the 23rd, with a total of sixtytwo insightful artist features.

It was such a pleasure to have worked with our previously interviewed and published cover artist, Julie Curtiss, on this edition’s curated selection which comprises the forty-three artists on p.30-117, whose artworks were carefully chosen by Julie from the submissions that we received over the course of Spring 2021. We were most fortunate to finally meet Julie Curtiss and her husband, Clinton King, in London whilst at the opening of her solo show ‘Monads and Dyads’ at White Cube gallery at Maison’s Yard this May. Having achieved success in her own career, Julie has always shown remarkable enthusiasm in supporting her fellow contemporary makers and most notably, curating a striking new group show at Anton Kern gallery in New York, called ‘Shoo Sho’. Julie has a very acute and distinct curatorial approach when selecting a line of work, which is why we felt so excited to be able to present you with yet another of Julie’s successful shows, but this time in ArtMaze print, and, of course, giving spotlight to yet more artistic discoveries through our open calls!

Our editorial selection (p. 118-155) presents you with another eighteen artists whose works are also very much worthy of attention, following and recognition. Such comments apply to the work of the only interviewed artist of this edition, Witalij Frese (p.14-29), whose sculptural pieces were part of our Issue 18 editorial selection. We were eager to showcase Witalij’s work and to use our interview to discuss crucial topics of gender, gendered bodies and nudity, as “a way to free yourself from social roles and constraints’’—following Witalij’s descriptions, as well as making important comments on the taboo subjects involving natural appearances.

Our current new 25th anniversary call for art will be running until October 14th, and is to be led by one of the most notable contemporary curators, Danny Lamb, who has founded an exhibition based platform @painterspaintingpaintings (www. painterspaintingpaintings.com) and most recently—ADZ gallery, based in Lisbon, Portugal (www.adz.gallery). Having met Danny in person a few years ago, we were inspired by his extensive knowledge and thought-provoking ideas behind his compelling gallery programming and his passion for exhibiting contemporary artists’ works in a domestic setting with historical character features, offering a personal experience to the viewer away from the original white cube environment. We are most excited to see how our anniversary edition will shape when teaming up with Danny.

If you are interested in submitting your work to be seen and considered by our guest curators and the editorial team of ArtMaze, and would like a chance for your work to be published in our print editions and promoted online, please feel free to check out our website for more information www.artmazemag.com and hopefully we’ll be able to work together in the near future. We would love to have you as part of our community!

Yours truly, Editor and Founder Maria Zemtsova

p.30-117 curated selection of works

32

34

36

38

40

42

44

46

48

50

52

54

56

58

60

62

64

66

68

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

100

102

104

106

108

110

112

114

116

p.118-155 editorial selection of works

120

122

124

126

128

130

132

134

136

138

140

142

144

146

148

150

152

154

Anniversary Edition 25:

call for art DEADLINE: October 14th, 2021 Guest Curator: Danny Lamb founder of exhibition based platform @painterspaintingpaintings www.painterspaintingpaintings.com and ADZ gallery based in Lisbon, Portugal www.adz.gallery

Submit your work for a chance to be published in print and digital issues, as well as online.

ELIGIBILITY: This competition is open to all artists, both national and international, working in all visual mediums: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, digital, performance, film, any mixed media etc.

DISTRIBUTION: ArtMaze Magazine is an independent international publication which is distributed worldwide via select book shops, and via our online store: www.artmazemag.com/shop HOW TO APPLY: Please visit our website for more details and fill in the online form via the following link: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art You are welcome to read more information o our website: www.artmazemag.com or contact us at info@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Luke Morrison Stalker ballpoint pen on paper 19.5 x 19 inches more on p. 94-95

inte

erviewed:

Witalij Frese

www.witalijfrese.com

On the performativity of gender and gendered bodies: In conversation with Witalij Frese Berlin-based artist Witalij Frese is interested in peeling back the skin of cultural norms and conventions to get at the heart of what makes us who we are. Our sense of self is shaped by a myriad of psycho-social factors and our bodies are not neutral; they are moulded and encoded by the histories, customs and beliefs of cultural contexts. Witalij is interested in where biological and social forces meet: in the performativity of gender and gendered bodies, and picking apart binaries like “natural” and “unnatural” in search of an ambiguity that embraces fluidity. The bodies in Witalij’s art are featureless and impersonal. Their only defining features are their biological sex organs. Ironically however, this pared back representation acts to liberate the bodies from the very thing that defines them—binary genders—towards a fluid, blank physical canvas.

The idea of skin and surface is important in Witalij‘s work, representing the boundary between inside and out. In his paintings, the canvas is like a skin onto which he paints his fleshy-toned figures. Like the canvas, they appear hollow beneath their skin, with vacant eyes and bodies that are soft and limp. In some paintings the figures have come apart, their limbs separated from their torso, like flat two-dimensional paper dolls. Broken bodies. In his ceramics, the clay is naked and white, unglazed.

Witalij extends this notion of fragility, likening the brittle medium to “the fragility of our thoughts about our bodies and ourselves, with the hollowness of the vases specifically acting as a metaphor for the feeling of emptiness below the surface of our skin.” Witalij decorates and adorns the surface of his ceramics with sex organ motifs, which through repetition, become almost abstracted and dissociated from any form of sexuality or gender. In his work, we see bodies as vessels, neutral, empty carriers that can be filled with any narrative.

Witalij received his MFA from the University of the Arts Berlin in 2019. He has participated in several group exhibitions and organized shows with other artist friends at off-site spaces. Despite the challenges of the pandemic he has been busy in studio making new work. In this interview Witalij tells us about his background and interests in social myths, and the big questions occupying his thoughts and work. interview by Layla Leiman

Featured image: Witalij Frese Vase 6 glazed ceramic 35 x 30 x 30 cm

AMM: Hi Witalij! Please tell us a little about your background and how you started your journey as an artist?

WF: I was born in Russia and immigrated to Germany with my family when I was 4 years old. Art has always been my favourite subject since kindergarten and throughout school, but that wasn’t really supported in the small town where I come from. So I didn’t think about being an artist or doing anything with art, instead I wanted to do something involving the social sector. After graduating from high school, I did a voluntary social year in a psychiatric ward and got to know the art therapy department which for me represented the perfect mix of art and social issues. And after studying art therapy for a year, I realized that I wanted to immerse myself more into Fine Arts, so I switched to the University of Fine Arts in Berlin where I completed my Master’s degree in Fine Arts in 2019. So that’s where I am now.

AMM: How has your art changed over the years?

What has inspired this?

WF: I studied in different painting classes: beginning with Gina Burdass, then Martin Gerwers and my final years with Valérie Favre. So I definitely see myself as a painter somewhere along the line. During my studies I visited many different workshops and at some point I fell in love with the material clay. For me it is like a second canvas on which I can bring my motifs into the room. I like to exhibit my paintings together with my ceramics, because I think they complement and enrich each other well. Both have different requirements and offer me different options.

So over the years ceramics have become my second fixed medium.

AMM: What have been some of the key lessons you’ve learned that have shaped you as an artist and your work?

WF: I took the pressure off myself of having to make one masterpiece after the other. It’s totally okay to make crap and to be able to experiment with this in the studio. In the best case scenario, new ideas will develop from this failed work and something super good will happen. It is important not to stagnate and to keep moving, to keep working and to be curious. I often think of the sentence my professor once said: “Im Tun kommt die Idee”, which means “The idea comes from doing”. So work, work, work, work, work.

AMM: In what ways are you influenced by popular culture and does this feed into your art?

WF: Yes, I keep picking up sentences or individual words from songs or films that I write in my sketchbook and add new thoughts to them, this is how I sometimes generate new ideas. And sometimes I spend hours scrolling through image sharing websites and apps on the internet, making sketches or screenshots, and creating my own collection of images.

“Nudity is a way to free yourself from social roles and constraints. It is the natural appearance of humans that is taboo in most situations. In this way I work with the categories “instinctual” and “controlled”, “nature” and “culture”.

I ask myself, is the main motive for the creation of clothing a “natural” feeling of shame in humans? Nudity is seen as a contrast to clothing or being dressed. The clothed body appears as the socially “natural” body. So it is only through clothing that people become “cultural beings”? My work is also about questions of morality, shame and ideals. When I repeat genitals as a pattern, it is also a kind of dissolution of nudity.

Through the repetition, it emerges, but at the same time also recedes.

Body parts become a series, a pattern.

Repetitions create a rhythm, which makes it something abstract. So there is a dissolution, a discharge and a charge at the same time. I like to work with ambivalences.”

- Witalij Frese

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23, Interviewed: Witalij Frese

16

We live in a media world full of images. There are faces and bodies everywhere. A very interesting change can currently be observed: People, especially those on the internet, were recently equated with a “masquerade” and seen as inauthentic and artificial. Today, during this pandemic, the masquerade has shifted into society. Now, we come across the masks on the street and the faces are hidden behind those masks. On the internet we find the supposedly real faces in video calls and social media etc. … We now have an even greater focus on the face in the online world.

The mask has shifted from the digital to the analogue world. I miss faces in physical space, so I’ve actually made a number of heads out of clay at the moment.

AMM: The figures in your work are devoid of any individual features or characteristics. Their only defining characteristics are their biological sex.

Please tell us more about the bodies in your work and in what ways they might engage with themes of sex, gender and identity?

WF: I grew up in an environment where there were clear gender roles. Boys do this and girls do that. Girls have to behave this way and boys differently. That has always confused me very much. In our society, the focus is often only on the genitals. What lies inside a person and what they define themselves as is often ignored. I deal with socialization, cultural gender and identity development, which is a lifelong process. I deal with the body in our society, therefore I don’t want to depict individuals, but figures that represent a multitude. So sometimes they are female, male or divers or it doesn’t even matter. It is also about the dissolution of binary categories and the diversity of becoming. One of my themes is also the constant struggle and reconciliation with the body. It’s about breaking out of social roles and trying things out and just being what you want to be.

AMM: Dismembered body parts and sex organs are a recurring motif in your work, and in your ceramic sculpture become almost abstracted as decorative patterns. Please tells us more this sexual visual language and how we might read it.

WF: Nudity is a way to free yourself from social roles and constraints. It is the natural appearance of humans that is taboo in most situations. In this way I work with the categories “instinctual” and “controlled”, “nature” and “culture”. I ask myself, is the main motive for the creation of clothing a “natural” feeling of shame in humans? Nudity is seen as a contrast to clothing or being dressed. The clothed body appears as the socially “natural” body. So it is only through clothing that people become “cultural beings”? My work is also about questions of morality, shame and ideals.

When I repeat genitals as a pattern, it is also a kind of dissolution of nudity. Through the repetition, it emerges, but at the same time also recedes. Body parts become a series, a pattern.

Repetitions create a rhythm, which makes it something abstract. So there is a dissolution, a

photograph courtesy of the artist

17

discharge and a charge at the same time. I like to work with ambivalences.

AMM: How do you work with colour in your art, and in what ways does your colour palette relate to the themes and subject of your work?

WF: I would say I don’t have a specific colour palette in my paintings. But I like bright colours, although I am currently painting a series with rather dark colours… and I like to combine different colours, for example in a pattern. I also like to use drop shadows. The interplay of light and shadow generally creates an atmosphere of the mysterious or the hidden. Everything has its dark and shade ;-) When it comes to my ceramics, I hardly ever work with colour. The colour of the material is retained and is only covered with transparent glaze. There are only the drawings which consist of contours and outlines. I get the best contrast with light clay.

But sometimes I also work with reddish or dark clay and very rarely with coloured glazes.

AMM: What themes and ideas are you currently exploring in your work?

WF: I’m interested in the performativity of gender and gendered bodies. To live in a body means more than ever having to endure ambiguities. I’m also interested in where the masculinity myth comes from and why, and in what ways it is toxic. When is a man, a man and what do these ideals do to us? What has binary thinking to do with all of this? People and things are always classified and evaluated.

Something that appears to be easy or difficult, high or low, normal or abnormal, spiritual or material, free or forced... This principle of perception corresponds to the divisions in society, like age, gender or social class.

Its members use these attributes to classify the social world which can be seen in the difference between “above” and “below”, and between the “elite” of the rulers and the “mass” of the ruled. The same applies for the categories of morality, “heaven” or “hell”, “good” or “bad”.

So how does social control work? What role does shame play in this? Shame is seen in its function as resistance to the forces of the instinct. What are the rules of shame? How are our bodies controlled? How do I deal with my desires and lust? I am looking for answers, for example, in mythology, biblical stories, the newspapers and my own biographical background.

AMM: What is the relationship between painting and ceramics in your practice?

WF: I often present my ceramics with my paintings. The figures from my paintings also appear on the ceramics. I love the interactions of different media and materials. Different media have their specific focus. For me, of course, in painting the focus is on colour and in ceramics on the form. The motifs are similar on both picture carriers. They are connected through this, and in the arrangement they are in an interplay between flat/plastic, hard/soft, smooth/structural... And in my ceramics I try to produce an interplay between 2D and 3D.

“I’m interested in the performativity of gender and gendered bodies. To live in a body means more than ever having to endure ambiguities.

I’m also interested in where the masculinity myth comes from and why, and in what ways it is toxic. When is a man, a man and what do these ideals do to us? What has binary thinking to do with all of this? People and things are always classified and evaluated. Something that appears to be easy or difficult, high or low, normal or abnormal, spiritual or material, free or forced...

This principle of perception corresponds to the divisions in society, like age, gender or social class. Its members use these attributes to classify the social world which can be seen in the difference between “above” and “below”, and between the “elite” of the rulers and the “mass” of the ruled. The same applies for the categories of morality, “heaven” or “hell”, “good” or “bad”. So how does social control work? What role does shame play in this?

Shame is seen in its function as resistance to the forces of the instinct. What are the rules of shame? How are our bodies controlled? How do I deal with my desires and lust?

I am looking for answers, for example, in mythology, biblical stories, the newspapers and my own biographical background.”

The curved and uneven surfaces of the work elevate my drawings, further deforming them.

The ceramics for me are like extended canvases.

AMM: In what ways do material and medium relate to the subject matter and thematic concerns in your work?

WF: Painting is my language and the canvas is its traditional image carrier. It’s a medium I’m used to and I’m feeling comfortable with.

Vessels are also traditional image carriers.

I continue these traditions and combine them with current as well as past references which are relevant today. I am concerned with the myths of humanity. Myths are passed down from generation to generation and are an integral part of culture. They are a timeless pattern that will repeat forever. In many myths, for example, humans are made of clay and life has been breathed into them. So for me, my ceramics, my vessels, are like empty bodies.

They are like a shell or mask or skin, like a boundary between the inside and the outside.

They are not perfect bodies and some are very fragile. The fragility of the ceramic work references the fragility of our thoughts about our bodies and ourselves, with the hollowness of the vases specifically acting as a metaphor for the feeling of emptiness below the surface of our skin.

AMM: What is your process of working? Are you very organised and methodical or do you allow things to evolve organically? Give us a view of your studio rhythms and routines.

WF: When I know what to do, everything is pretty organized and clear. I prepare everything, have all the tools and materials I need ready, turn on the music or a podcast, and get started. Then I tidy everything up so that I have a neat workplace the next time I come into the studio. If I don’t know what to do, I do… something ... it can be a mess. I start a drawing, interrupt it to write down my thoughts, look for old material and look at old paintings, leaf through sketchbooks and artbooks and Instagram, scribble around a bit, make some shapes out of cardboard, wait... until some idea eventually takes hold of me.

Sometimes that takes several attempts.

AMM: Are you influenced by your surroundings?

What does your studio look and feel like? Do you have any daily rituals that feed you creatively?

- Witalij Frese

WF: I like to have sketches, paintings, individual words and prepared and sorted material and tools in the room. I keep looking at them now and then, rearranging them or combining them differently. I also keep rearranging my workplace, depending on what I’m working on and what space it needs. But this has more to do with the size of my studio ... But even if I had a larger room, I can imagine that I would continue to change my workplace within the room from time to time because this creates a new look and a new perspective on things. So yes, I need pictures and different impressions around me.

19

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23, Interviewed: Witalij Frese

AMM: How has the pandemic affected you personally and creatively? Have you found your work or how you work has changed at all?

AMM: Despite the prevailing uncertainty, do you have any exciting projects or exhibitions coming up?

What’s next for you?

WF: The pandemic led to exhibitions being cancelled, postponed or nobody could see them in person because of lockdown. It’s getting better. I continue to work in my studio as usual and hope for better times.

WF: Yes, I was currently invited to take part in the “Direkte Auktion”. It’s an auction, which will run until the end of September. It is a fair auction to help the Berlin art scene during these times. Works by artists who mostly live and work in Berlin, from emerging to established, will be auctioned. And after this, in October, some of my works will be shown at the Munich Highlights art fair. As I know, it will be open for contemporary art for the first time, so I’m excited to see my vases next to ancient vases!

And of course I am involved in our new project space “Raum für Sichtbarkeit”, where many more exhibitions are planned! :)

AMM: What’s the contemporary art scene in Berlin like for emerging artists right now?

WF: Berlin is a super creative city where a lot is going on artistically. There are many offspaces where young art is shown and where not established artists have the opportunity to exhibit their artworks. I was worried that some of the places will no longer exist due to the pandemic … so I decided to form an own off-space/project space! It’s called “Raum für Sichtbarkeit”, which means: “space (or room) for visibility”. We see ourselves as an open space for experiments, exchanges and encounters. Especially beginning artists, Art college students or recent graduates should have the opportunity to get to be noticed— being visible.

AMM: How do you promote your own work and develop professional networks and connections?

WF: Well, I take part in exhibitions, organize some with artist friends or take part in tenders and hope for the best. I have an Instagram account and a homepage. I’m not the loudest person in a room, so I find all this selfpromotion a little difficult, yeah, but I have to…

AMM: When you’re not making art, what are some of the things you enjoy doing with your time?

WF: I love cooking and inviting my friends for dinner. Having a few drinks in company and enjoying life together. I like to go out for a walk.

I like to travel and visit different cities. Oh, and I love tennis. I follow the ATP and WTA Tour for whatever reason… And I started playing 2 years ago, I am still very bad, but I enjoy it so much!

AMM: What are you watching, listening to, reading right now?

WF: I just finished reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids. It’s a very motivating book for artists starting off and really inspiring in how artists friendships can be. And in the studio I’m currently listening to the podcast Lives of the Unconscious. It is a podcast devoted to topics on psychotherapy, and contemporary psychoanalysis, as well as social issues. It’s super interesting. Apart from that I have as much of a tendency to binge-watch ALL the streaming media as anybody else.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23, Interviewed: Witalij Frese

Featured image (p.18): Witalij Frese Brunnenklein glazed ceramic 57 x 32 x 31 cm

Featured image (p.21): Witalij Frese Vase 1 glazed ceramic 47 x 23 x 23 cm

20

21

Witalij Frese Vase 5 glazed ceramic 37 x 33 x 31 cm

22

Witalij Frese Paradiesbrunnen/Fountain of Paradise glazed ceramics 81 x 41 x 41 cm

23

Witalij Frese Was tun?/What to do? glazed ceramics 30 x 19 x 19 cm

24

Witalij Frese Runaway glazed ceramic 30 x 33 x 26 cm

25

Witalij Frese Vase 3 glazed ceramic 40 x 28 x 28 cm

26

Witalij Frese Vase 7 glazed ceramic 41 x 37 x 30 cm

27

Witalij Frese Moskau/Moscow oil and acrylic on canvas 80.5 x 125 cm

28

Witalij Frese Blues oil and acrylic on canvas 60 x 40 cm

29

curated selection of works

by Julie Curtiss Featured image: Jennifer Carvalho Study of hands and architectural structure (Giotto) oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches more on p. 66-67

K r i s t í n a B u k o v č á k o v á

www.kristinabukovcakova.tumblr.com

Image: Catch me acrylic on canvas 130 x 110 cm

32

Kristina’s work represents a moment of reassessment: After going through the search for a romantic relationship between man and nature in the beginning of my work, I naturally found myself in a time of timelessness and helplessness. I am looking for a way out in a painting without human beings. The ensemble represents living and inanimate structures, revitalized flora and biodiversity of our world. I draw inspiration for biotic components from atlases and books of diseases and pests of plants, fruit and vegetables. I am linking the pathogens that attack plants and pests to the current state of country and nature.

Image: Rotting with love acrylic on canvas 110 x 110 cm

33

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

C

L u c y

R

W h i t e h e a d

www.clucyrwhitehead.com

Image: Loggerheads oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm

34

My work explores our increasingly fragile relationship with the physical. Both in the sense of the awareness we have with our own bodies and with the spaces they inhabit. I explore this through varying degrees of abstraction, from fragmented structures of flesh like forms to translucent silhouettes of the human figure, which swell, sink and mould around the boundaries of the canvas. Each work is an exploration into the unpredictability of the human landscape and the restraints and expectations we put on our bodies. Through colour and line I seek to highlight the quirks of us increasingly filtered out in mass imagery; structures of blushing and bruised fleshy forms are dissected by wrinkled creases of charcoal which burst out of the constraints of the canvas edge. I tend to work on one painting at a time, working by a process of both intuition and design. In doing so, each work is indicative (albeit in hindsight) of my own fluctuating relationship to the body and space at the time of making.

Every one of my paintings begins with gestural marks forged in charcoal from memories of the human figure, be it mine or another’s. Drawing is the common thread which runs throughout my entire practice.

Both in the planning of the work and in the resolved image. Its immediacy and honesty provide the bridge I need between my subconscious and physical awareness, my mind and body. Through a continuous process of constructing and deconstructing of layers, this constellation of marks flow through form and space, blurring the line between interior and exterior.

C. Lucy. R. Whitehead was born in 1991 in Liverpool, UK. She has a BA in Drawing from Camberwell College of Arts and is currently in her final year of the MA Painting Programme at Royal College of Art. She is the recipient of the Basil H. Alkazzi Scholarship for excellence in painting 2019-2021 and has exhibited widely across London.

Image: Paradise oil and charcoal on canvas 76 x 102 cm

35

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

M i c h a e l

G a c

L e v i n

www.michaelgaclevin.com

Image: Lost Part acrylic on canvas 28 x 34 inches

36

My work comes out of a playful, iterative drawing practice guided by impulse, humor and accident. I was born in Los Angeles in 1984. The two most important events in my life as an artist were moving to New York (2006) and having children (2017). New York showed me how to be an artist. My children showed me why. The first step was feeling unconditional love. The second step was recognizing that accidents are full of truth. The third was learning that children are a mystery, and that our world reflects the mystery of our childhood. For the last few years, I have found a small group of visual elements to help me grasp these three lessons: pears, candlesticks, a dagger, a kitchen table and chairs. Under the sway of chance variations, unconscious desires, and intentional choices, these elements mature with each successive bit of work. They change internally and also in relation to one another, like members of a family. As they change, I feel them approaching truths that I can’t verbalize. They point backwards and forwards simultaneously. Backwards to the deepest recesses of my memory, forwards to some waiting revelation, full of promise.

Image: Get Up Chair acrylic on paper 16 x 23 inches

37

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

M a t t

P h i l l i p s

www.paintingpaintings.com

Image: Marianas pigment and silica on canvas 84 x 68 inches

38

The other night I was driving home. I was at a stop light when I turned on the radio. A poet was being interviewed on a talk show. He said, “In poetry, form is a way of conserving energy.” At first I thought he was referring to saving the energy of the writer. It was late and I was tired. Then it occurred to me that he might have meant a poem’s form is a scaffolding to hold the power and energy of words without diminishing their strength. I preferred this version.

In my paintings, I search for an essential shape, one that exists within a rectangular canvas. As I work, a visual form slowly emerges. I have given this image a rather strange to-do list—be honest, surprise, measure time, embrace the strange, show touch, pulse like rhythm and unfold like melody. I also ask it to fill the space between where words end and vision begins, to not merely tolerate but celebrate mystery and, of course, to remind us of the light.

Image: Minneapolis pigment and silica on canvas 84 x 68 inches

39

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

R a f a

S i l v a r e s

www.rafasilvares.com

Image: Fired up oil on linen 60 x 40 cm

40

Rafa Silvares’ painting compositions merge juxtaposing shapes, colours, and volumes via set images that include everyday objects and elements that possess a strong mundane appeal.

Household utensils, steel, smoke, tools, meat, steam, and other recognisable elements are combined and contrasted to highlight pictorial relations that emphasise theatricality.

Silvares often incorporates a figurative aspect into his compositions which serves as a springboard to decode the set of images and makes concessions to the use of sfumato effects, gradients, and velatures. Objects are often producing an intense discharge. There is an attempt to create on the canvas a smooth surface, or cosmetic machinery, where objects are personified integrating ideas related to fetishism, objectification, selfimage, waste, consumerism, pollution, make-up, exaggeration, and narcissism. The objects become possessed and produce a colored mass, a volume that is also voluptuous, soft, comfortable, and also filthy. There is sensuality, and sexuality in the relation between these objects and what they produce. They encompass a reality that is blurred, blended, shiny, and full of layers.

Silvares is originally from São Paulo Brazil, and now lives and works in London. He has worked as an illustrator and also as a DJ. He did a BFA in Fine Art at FAAP-SP and a BFA in Letters, Literature and Language at the University of São Paulo. As a professional artist, he has presented works in group exhibitions at Casa Triangulo Gallery (2006); at São Paulo Biennial (2008); at Beoproject Gallery in Belgrade (2012), at Jaqueline Martins Gallery (2017) among other institutional exhibitions. In 2016, he participated in the PIVO Residency in São Paulo and, in 2018, at the La Centrale in Paris.

Image: Binoculars oil on linen 70 x 50 cm

41

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

E l l e n

P i l

www.ellenpil.com

Image: The exotic kid acrylics and spraypaint on coal dyed linen - caseïn glued on wood 60 x 70 cm

42

Ellen Pil is fascinated by the position of man in times of far-reaching digitization, robotization and mass production: Humanity reproduces, manipulates and perfects in its quest for an ideal. Astonished by the possibilities we have created for ourselves to bend reality to our will, I wonder what the story of man still is in it and what place the individual has.

In my artistic process I use partly the same tools and strategies as professional image builders. From a digital archive and using graphic programs, I explore different scenarios by continuously sketching, adjusting, cutting and polishing shapes and images, as if in a digital setting that can be endlessly reconfigured. From that digital studio, some images make the leap to a much slower and more thoughtful analog process, where they are applied to canvas in layers of acrylic and airbrush paint. For me, the digital and analog processes merge seamlessly, no matter how different they are. My painted works clearly show their digital roots. The chosen materials and colors, the interaction between 2D and 3D, the gradients and shadows give a mechanical impression, as if a machine was involved.

What they tell, however, are highly personal observations—bizarre stories, unusual anecdotes, or fascinating objects that I have found. Growing up in a small village where “people do things as they have always been done”, I am fascinated by what happens when things just don’t turn as they should, when the machine stops, because of errors, disturbed patterns or rhythms. Like a child pushing buttons in the factory to see what’s happening, I am constantly exploring possibilities—eternally curious. I’m also inspired by the richness of the language. I literally make things turn square, wonder how the Band Zonder Naam differs from the Bond Zonder Naam, or what happens when we just look the received horse in the mouth. I try to break through what has rusted and leave the viewers with wonder at what they thought they knew. Nothing is what it seems. The possibilities are endless.

Image: The take away show acrylic and spray paint on wood 50 x 55 cm

43

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L i s a G o e t z e

www.lisagoetze.de

Image: Manta Manta 1 oil on paper 101 x 134 cm

44

Lisa Goetze grew up in Ludwigsburg, in the South of Germany: During my studies in Fine Arts at the State Academy of Stuttgart, I explored and acquired different media and crafts. Although my work has never been reduced to one media, it always circled around the motive of organic forms and the landscape structures in various bodies. I always found it interesting how a cut-out of a hyperrealistic image opens up a border through estrangement and how it enables fluid transitions between social and organic attributions. During my studies at the master program of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Tel Aviv, my work gained a more installative character by combining the different media of my work pieces with everyday objects, and getting into a stronger dialogue with the exhibition space.

Since I completed my degree in 2017 I have lived and worked in Berlin. In 2018 I gained the scholarship of the Maerkische Cultural Conference. In this context I worked on drawings of male body structures which I confronted with the paintings of Ida Gerhardi, a female painter of the classical modern period, who for a long time was not recognized in the male-dominated art world. As the art world becomes more digital, I understand the presentation of my work in social media as an extension of exhibition-space. The combination of everyday pictures as a new component of the dialogue which supports my search for a more fluid transit between living and inanimate objects, animals, humans, gender and general social concepts.

Image: Manta Manta 4 oil on paper 101 x 134 cm

45

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

www.naghmehsharifi.com

N a g h m e h S h a r i f i

Image (left): Souvenirs to Nowhere 2 oil and solvents on panel 20 x 25 cm

46

Image (right): Souvenirs to Nowhere 3 oil and solvents on panel 20 x 25 cm

Naghmeh Sharifi is a Montreal-based Iranian/Canadian multidisciplinary artist specializing in drawing, painting, and sculptural installations. She holds a BA in Visual Arts and one in Psychology from the University of British Columbia and an MFA degree from Concordia University.

Presented around the world and in many major Montreal institutions, Sharifi’s work is based on a profound interest in the psychology of the body, as a place of memory and a shell for our presence in the world – in all its fragility. Using a variety of mediums, the artist investigates the body as lived space; its agency in acting as critical cartography and its complex relationships with the spaces it inhabits.

Through a diluting of the pigment and blurring of the borders, Sharifi explores the diluted and uncertain place her subjects hold; asking questions about how we are read and how we make space for ourselves in the world when stripped of all context?

“Between figure/ground, there is imperfection, there is air, not the overdetermined structure of perspectival space, or the rigid dichotomy of positive and negative space, not the vacuumed vacant space of painting’s end, but the “self-forgetful” “boredom” of the area that glimmers around paint […]. Paintings are vague terrains on which paint, filtered through the human eye, mind, and hand, flickers in and out of representation, as figure skims ground, transmitting thought.”—Mira Schor, for M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Theory, and Criticism.

Image (left):

Image (right):

Souvenirs to Nowhere 4 oil and solvents on panel 20 x 25 cm

Souvenirs to Nowhere 11 oil and solvents on panel 20 x 25 cm

47

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

E r i n S k i f f i n g t o n

www.erinskiffington.com

Image: Loops oil on canvas 27 x 24 inches

48

Canadian artist Erin Skiffington makes paintings that are traceless.

They are without reference, brushstroke, or any pigment one can easily name—unless aided by a suffix like -grey. Hazy or nearly out of focus, the pictures recede into a sunless plane.

Trails accumulate to form shapes and patterns that appear and disappear according to an internal logic. Because they are super thin, Erin’s paintings have a working time limit. Each one is made in the whirlwind of a single sitting, a lunch and an afternoon.

Erin Skiffington (b. 1997) received a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2019. She currently lives, paints, and works as a picture framer in Vancouver, Canada.

Image: Quiver oil on canvas 22 x 20 inches

49

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

S a r a h

L e e

www.sulhwalee.com

Image: Hidden Moon II oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches

50

Sarah Lee, born in Seoul, Korea and lives and works in New York City. Lee received her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include The Weight of Night, Mh PROJECT, NY (2021) and Unoriginal Sublime, The Mission, Chicago (2017). She has participated in many group exhibitions, among them Home Coming, AHL foundation (2020); Silent Night, Artnutri, Taiwan, (2019); Falling Through ‘n’ Going After, One Eyed, New York, (2019); Control & Contrast, The Mission, Chicago, (2017); Presence Interrupted, Julius Caesar, Chicago, (2017). Lee is featured in New American Painting, Knack magazine and ChiaoxArt. My work explores my fantasy of surreal landscapes in a notion of a secret hideaway. On the heels of a tumultuous and unprecedented cycle of global events, I have been thinking about the “other world” where there are no others, no noise, just a solitary sensation of being.

My semi-fictional subject matter responds to the real in an antithetical way. She believes that night and winter are the “other world” that magically pauses the rhythm of time. My works glorify the paused moment and romantically volatilizes the real.

Image: A man who sold his shadow oil on canvas 14 x 11 inches

51

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

D a n i e l

K .

S p a r k e s

www.danielsparkes.com

Image: Pill Pot Solar oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm

52

Through his depictions of what he calls ‘Spoof Monuments’ the artist Daniel Sparkes creates a thematic oddball merger in oil paint and graphite. By traversing a stylistic void between 16th century Dutch still life painting and early Disney cartoon cel backgrounds, he composes visions of historically unhinged shrines to paradoxical cultures. His comic character subjects, with facial features misplaced, are abstracted and fused into warped statuesque forms adorned in esoteric symbolism.

Sparkes cut his teeth as Müdwig in the Bristol street art scene during the 00’s, gaining recognition for his playful spraypaint-subverted advertising billboards (his ‘Müdverts’) and his graffiti work as part of the Wet Shame Krew. His early gallery work saw him continue this idea of editing existing imagery by painting directly onto found photographs, often from such mundane sources as cookery books, pet grooming magazines and old copies of National Geographic. His surreal post-apocalyptic Dr ‘Seussian’ additions saw him welcomed into the folds of the Comic Abstraction movement.

In his distinctive visual world, modern trademarks become primitive hieroglyphs and forest dwellers become two-dimensional mossy facades as the line between object and character is blurred, amalgamated to form dilapidated totems. Viewing Sparkes’ painterly oils creates within the viewer a strange dichotomy, the feeling of not wanting to inspect too closely (for fear of what one might find) while simultaneously being drawn to the recognisable. Both comical and disturbing in an unsettling yet comforting world, one in which both Seuss and Guston might feel right at home. Sparkes is currently based in Cornwall, England.

Image: Mass Saint Porddr oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm

53

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L a r i s s a D e

J e s ú s

N e g r ó n

www.larissadejesus.com

Image: Homesick oil paint on canvas 30 x 40 inches

54

Larissa De Jesús Negrón is a multidisciplinary artist based in Queens, New York who is focused on the expression and interpretation of nostalgia through the narrative of isolation in the confines of interior spaces. She yearns for introspection, self evaluation and amelioration through her intimate and often otherworldly indoor/outdoor mirages. The topic of introspection and self discovery inside of the home has been a recurring theme in Larissa’s work since 2017, when she began her “Home” series. Drawings of still lives of her unaltered day-to-day life at her first house by herself away from her family in Puerto Rico. Today she invites the viewer to get lost in reflection and existentialism through her richly textured, stylistically varied, at times disorienting spaces and portraits. For Larissa, the topic of the home has now, after five years, evolved into the topic of nostalgia due to the simple fact that “home” is where your loved ones are, where your culture is and where your most cherished or dreaded memories will always be.

Larissa was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Throughout twenty years, she lived in several municipalities such as Guaynabo, Trujillo Alto and Caguas. Her commitment to art making began as early as nine years old, where she excelled in the drawing classes her mother signed her up for. Larissa went on to study middle school and high school at Central High, the most well regarded specialized art school in Puerto Rico. Graduating with the highest honor the school has to offer, Larissa continued her education at The School of Plastic Arts in Old San Juan where she began majoring in Drawing and Painting. After two years, she transferred to Hunter College in NYC where she got her BFA degree with high honors in 2017. A year after graduating, Larissa started working at The Museum of Modern Art as a means to an end, where she still works today.

Image: Keep me alive airbrushed acrylic and oil paint on canvas 36 x 36 inches

55

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

J u l i a A d e l g r e n

www.juliaadelgren.carbonmade.com

Image: Underworld oil on canvas 110 x 170 cm

56

Julia Adelgren (b.1990 Stockholm, Sweden) lives and works in Copenhagen. She studied at the Bergen National Academy of Art 2014-2016, and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, in the class of Prof. Tomma Abts 2016-2020. Her previous exhibitions include: ‘The Watery Realm’, MAMOTH, London (2021); ‘Coming to Voice. Graduates of the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts 2020’, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K21, Düsseldorf (2021); ‘Rundang Kunstakademie’, Düsseldorf (2020); ‘Rundang Kunstakademie’, Düsseldorf (2019); ;I’ll be Your Mirror’, Kunsthaus Essen (2018); ‘Rundang Kunstakadamie Dusseldorf’ (2018); ‘30 Contemporary Artists by Enter Art Foundation’, Multiposter, Berlin (2017); ‘Vertauen.

Bilder der Klasse Tomma Abts’, KIT, Dusseldorf, (2017); ‘Rundang Kunstakadamie Dusseldorf’, (2017); ’Veins Blue’ Galleri Bokboden, Bergen (2016), ‘Fieldwork: In Hockney’s Footsteps’, Gallerie Rom8, Bergen (2015).

Image: Thee Who Seeks, Thee Who Shouts, Thee Who Seeks oil on canvas 105 x 135 cm

57

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

C h e r i l y n

K u r t z

www.cherilynkurtz.com

Image: Hotdog Hug archival pigment print 30 x 40 inches

58

Cherilyn Kurtz is a photographer and interdisciplinary artist from Painesville, Ohio currently in Highland Park, New Jersey. She completed her MFA fellowship from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 2020 and a BS from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2009. Her work has been shown at the Indianapolis Art Center, Brooklyn Army Terminal and most recently at EFA Project Space—an exhibition curated by Adriana Blidaru of Living Content.

I grew up attending a Southern Baptist church in Mentor, Ohio and as an adult, lived in Indiana for nine years.

In 2018, my family and I relocated to New Jersey. It was the first time I was not surrounded by predominant whiteness and like-minded Christian communities. This departure initiated a deep reflection of my formative child and young adult years. My work is equal parts proximate knowledge and research—interested in environmentbuilt identity, performance and consumption. The framework of staging photo and video works, allows memory— found or my own—to materialize. I suggest staged actions and post-actions as happened, playing into a lensbased history of fragmented, evidential representation.

Fundamentally, it is a desire to create something again. It is an urgent curiosity in what changes after I impose resurrection. This expression, what I refer to as autofiction, is met with the photograph as document—a means to understand my role as a mother, as the author of my child’s surroundings. The 2D works join a growing awareness of the viewer. Installation interventions and sculptural elements support the study of how a person is subtly encouraged to gratify an invitation for the suggestion of a reward.

Image: Tender archival pigment print 40 x 30 inches

59

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

A s a v i r N a d e e m

www.instagram.com/asavirnadeem

Image: Portals above my bed ink, graphite, needle (scratching), gesso 8.3 x 11.7 inches

60

Asavir Nadeem is a Lahore based art practitioner. She graduated with Bachelor’s with Honors in her major in Miniature Painting from the National College of Arts, Lahore. She won a scholarship to the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program and won the Award for Best Contemporary Drawing and the Union Purchase Award at the Annual Jury Exhibition. Her work was exhibited in the Annual Jury Exhibition, Lawton Gallery, Wisconsin, America (2019) and the Thesis Exhibit, National College of Arts, Lahore (2021).

My work explores states of disassociation and navigates the in-between spaces one’s body and mind can travel through while daydreaming. I have never felt any personal sense of belonging anywhere. When you are a woman in an androcentric landscape, you often-times do not feel like you have a right to the space you occupy. Technically, I have lived and been a witness to the world, I have travelled through it, however a more accurate representation of my experience would be, I have allowed the world to travel through me while I disappeared and dissolved into it. As I did not feel I had a right over the present, I escaped it through time travel; wandering through landscapes of my own daydreams.

My current practice is rooted in Surrealist Automatism, where I either practice pure psychic automatism through mark-making or splash ink on my surface and engage with the “found images” I see within, in a Rorschach fashion. I then “erase” my surface with a layer of thin gesso and repeat the process. The process allows me to hide inside the alternate space I’m creating. I noticed I was constructing places using elements like bridges and towers, morphed faces, elemental forces, fluid bodies, abandoned spaces, or portals and voids; these all morph into other existences, change identities. Daydreams are vague, shape-shifting memories or portals to an unconscious state. They exist in fragmentation against the background of reality. I, as a vessel, am interwoven between these states, caught between these two worlds. I would like the viewer to take a journey through these spaces with me; and find hidden, familiar objects, references with their own volition, extract and find their own space within these drawings.

Image: Mimicry ink and graphite 8.3 x 11.7 inches

61

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

P a r k e r

B a r f i e l d

www.parkerbarfield.com

Image: A Rock that Touches the Heavens charcoal on paper 85 x 42 inches

62

Parker Barfield is an artist working in painting, drawing, and printmaking from Tempe, Arizona and is a recent MFA graduate from Arizona State University. Barfield’s work is influenced by time spent outdoors in frequent recreational pursuits, and various educational experiences in science, anthropology, philosophy, spirituality, and environmental humanities. Over the course of his practice, the artist has explored his spiritual and psychological connections to various landscapes, natural entities, and wildlife in several regions of the United States.

The artist’s current work is heavily influenced by the evocative and magical landscapes of the Sonoran Desert. The land abounds with an evocative spirit; it is a locale of adventure and calm primordial strangeness. Rocks and trees emanate mysterious auras while whispering profound messages to my deepest nature. The journey of painting, drawing, and printmaking mirrors my physical and mental journeys through landscapes. Each folds into and shapes the other in works of art that intertwine my sentiments and voices from the land. The result is a world that is naturalistic and fantastical, representational and symbolic, interior and exterior, human and nonhuman. Yearning for unity and relishing in the unknown, my art merges my existential contemplations with the spiritual voices of natural entities.

Image: Carnegiea gigantea charcoal on paper 85 x 42 inches

63

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

D e n e

L e i g h

www.deneleigh.com

Image: Untitled oil on linen 160 x 130 cm

64

Dene Leigh’s practice investigates neurological impairment and the fragility of the human memory. The artist’s work endeavours to make sense of his grandfather’s difficulty with memory following a stroke. The artist’s grandfather experienced life with the consequences of the stroke for several years before passing away. Leigh’s mother unexpectedly passed away soon after. The deaths along with the reminiscence of nostalgic moments drove Leigh to grasp the memories associated with those most important to him and those unknown to him. The artist uses recurrent imagery, such as illegible lettering, ambiguous objects, and faces that have been obscured or blurred, to explore the three barriers to his grandfather’s everyday life that shook Leigh the most. These included the inability to grasp language in its written and spoken form and the inability to recognise once familiar faces and objects. Each overlapped and obscured image within the paintings adds another piece to the visibly decayed fragmented puzzle: some of those pieces are blurred and lost in time, while others are concrete.

The artist’s work embodies the desire to acknowledge memories. Leigh records interpretations of aged photographs of family members, as well as interpretations of found photographs, while juxtaposing them with fictitious imagery to delve into his memory. In doing so, the work tries to glimpse through the eyes of the artist’s grandfather, whilst solidifying the short-lived moments associated with human memory and the ultimate decay of everything and everyone around us.

Dene Leigh is a British artist who studied at Wimbledon College of Arts, London. The artist is one of the winners of the 2021 SPACE Artist Awards. His work was shortlisted for the 2021 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize and selected for the 2020 Derwent Art Prize held in London and Paris. The artist’s work has been written about in international contemporary art publications Hi-Fructose and Daily Serving. Solo exhibitions include ‘Ephemeral’ (2018) and ‘Agnosia’ (2016) at Baert Gallery in Los Angeles. In recent years, the artist was selected to exhibit at the 2014 Young Masters Art Prize and the 2017 and 2018 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. The artist lives and works in London and is represented by Baert Gallery Los Angeles.

Image: Untitled mixed media dimensions variable

65

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

J e n n i f e r

C a r v a l h o

www.jennifercarvalho.com

Image: Don’t move or breathe or speak oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches

66

Jennifer Carvalho lives and works in Toronto. Recent solo and two person exhibitions have taken place at Franz Kaka and Georgia Scherman Projects both Toronto, CA; with group exhibitions at the Embassy of Canada, Washington, DC; the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, CA; the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, CA; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA. She is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, and was shortlisted for the RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2013 and 2014. Carvalho holds an MFA from the University of Guelph.

In her recent paintings, Carvalho has been using ruins to help trace or think about past empires and the art produced in those conditions. She is interested in thinking through the slow meandering movement of time through the slow act of painting, connecting this to the idea of information that is either lost or inherited. As an idea, the ruin presents a moment between endurance and decay, amnesia and memory, advancement and nostalgia, and with this, the anxiety present in a moment of indistinction. The ruin provides an opportunity to critically examine the past and imagine a new future.

Carvalho’s work envisions the ruin as a site of potential. Working with images from a variety of sources, her paintings draw historical works and artifacts into the present moment, engaging with contemporary ideas and images, while simultaneously estranging them through mood and atmosphere.

Image: Ordinary touch oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches

67

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

C o u r t n e y C h i l d r e s s

www.courtneychildress.com

Image: Floor drawing in progress

68

My mom and aunt went on a road trip with my grandmother from Texas to Colorado in the summer of 1960. They left crayons in the car when they stopped for lunch. The crayons melted into puddles in the back of the rental convertible. My mom always laughs when she tells the part about throwing fistfuls of crayon out the window as they drove down the highway. Their story came to me again as I marinated on what to do with a large inherited collection of crayons from my days as an elementary school teacher. I peeled, sorted and melted them down, layering colors into painted-desert inspired rock crayons. For the ‘Boulders’ I used roughly 6,000 crayons and they are so large that I have to push them across the floor to ‘draw.’

Limiting dexterity and tapping into the viewer’s olfactory nostalgia, rock crayons teleport a person to a time when using a pair of scissors wasn’t so intuitive. Whether in my studio or out in the world, I provide space to make marks with these crayons, encourage physical movement sometimes laying out large swaths of paper, canvas, or high pile white carpets on the walls or floor.

Image: Floor drawing crayons on canvas 78 x 43 inches

69

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

C a y Y o o n

www.cayyoon.com

Image (left): Standoff clay, glaze 28 x 20.5 x 18 inches

70

Image (right): Tightass clay, glaze 27.5 x 18 x 14.5 inches

Cay Yoon explores themes of isolation, anxiety, and ambition as well as the absurdity and humor that often parallel these states of existence. Her sculptures are initially born out of intuitive and impulsive drawings about certain thoughts and/or emotions, both explicit and abstract. Then she guides the pieces to their final self-actualized selves through the process of translation from two dimensions to three dimensions, sculptural explorations, and formal play. As for her material choice, she is drawn to the corporeal qualities of clay. She uses the intimate physicality of working with clay to push and pull and give shape to her inner narratives. She finds that what drives her studio practice is not unlike the way some comedians and humorists turn their own idiosyncratic experiences into art- using them as material, applying artistic license, and ending up with something that maybe resonates with other people.

Cay Yoon was born in Seoul, South Korea and currently lives and works in Long Island City, NY. She received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Her works have been exhibited at Sculpture Space NYC, Chashama Presentation Space, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, 440 Gallery, Governors Island Art Fair, and Trestle Gallery. Cay has been an artist in residence at Shell House Arts in Roxbury, NY, the Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program, Chashama’s ChaNorth in Pine Plains, NY, and the Vermont Studio Center. In fall 2021, she will be participating in the Bronx Museum’s Fifth AIM Biennial.

Image: Autoimmune clay, glaze 4.5 x 14 x 14 inches

71

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

D a n i e l R o b e r t s

www.instagram.com/danvondan

Image: Descending, Descending aluminum 9 x 5 x 3 inches

72

Daniel Roberts (b. 1984 Oregon) is a sculptor working with themes of loss, nostalgia and the body.

He has shown recently at Slag Gallery, New York NY, Brittany Gallery, Vallejo CA, and Bethany Arts Colony, Ossining NY. He received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2011, and his BFA from Oregon State University in 2008. He is based in Long Island City, Queens NY. Tender and cruel, these pieces address loss, vulnerability and the body. Their small scale draws intimate approach where the soft curves and cut shadows of the raw aluminum sit near the viewer, almost whispering. A stamped poem, able to be hidden or revealed, recounts a story of a lost love, and shadows passing. Impressions of touch, pressed both deep and shallow, mark the surface of the aluminum, hammer blows and fingerprints, welded beads feel almost as soft as wax, and toes are as hard as stone. The sculpture uses a formal armature of architectural aluminum as a language to separate the emotive aspects, distilling these moments into a pause of reflection and nostalgia.

Image (left): Forever Frown aluminum 5 x 5 x 3 inches

Image (right): Tender and Cruel aluminum 10 x 5 x 3 inches

73

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L a u r e n c e

O w e n

www.laurenceowenart.com

Image: 18.11.20 (The Loop) mixed media 167 x 132 x 63 cm

74

Laurence Owen’s work is symptomatic of a culture where everything and nothing is being absorbed on a daily basis: It is a response to our analogue and digital spaces becoming amalgamated in the flow of out/ inpouring data until the differentiation between the two gets confused. These pieces are mimetic objects that mirror my experience of being subjugated to receiving the amalgam of biochemical and synthetic data all at once. They can be as nonsensical as the surging mass of info that formed them; they become their own things born out of other things. The work assumes “world-building”, where the blending of material and semiotic removes boundaries between subject and environment, persona or topos. It provokes collapse between usually distant fields like biography and technology, fact and fiction, private and public in a continuous flux of exchange.

Solo Shows: 2020: GERUND Exhibition across two galleries: Lychee One and Zabludowicz Collection Invites, London. 2019: LOOT, Galerie PCP. Paris. 2016: Channel Synthesis Evelyn Yard Gallery, London. 2011: Wish You Were Here, 20 Hoxton Square Projects, London. Selected Group Shows: 2021: John Moores Painting Prize, The Walker Museum, Liverpool; Assembly Points: Bridget Mullen, Laurence Owen, Vanessa da Silva, Public Gallery, London. 2020: Mushrooms: The art, design and future of fungi, Somerset House, London.

2019: Hermes SS19 Womenswear Collection Button Designs, Paris; Drawing Biennial, The Drawing Rooms.

London. 2018: Moly Sabata, Art O Rama, Marseille; Something Else, Triumph Gallery, Moscow; FORM, Cob Gallery. London. 2017: Lost and Found, Rod Barton, London; Imagination and its Contents, Frestonian Gallery, London; Fickle Food Upon a Shifting Plate, curated by Studio_Leigh and Laurence Owen, Tramshed, London; Absent Bodies curated by Francesca Gavin, OSL Contemporary, Oslo. 2016: The Talking Lamp curated by Laurence Owen, The Kennington Residency, London; John Moores Painting Prize, The Walker Museum, Liverpool. 2015: Royal Academy Schools Degree Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London. 2014: Laurence Owen & Vivien Zhang, Rook and Raven, London.

Image (left): Nudge jesmonite, oil acrylic, spray paint, wood 160 x 110 x 33 cm

Image (center): Palp glazed ceramic, jesmonite, acrylic and oil paint 108.5 x 78 x 29 cm

75

Image (right): Subterrane glazed ceramic, oil, cardboard, sand, wood, oil on canvas 75 x 83 x 30 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

A l e n G r a s s i

www.instagram.com/alengrassi

Image: Adornment mixed media 50 x 60 cm

76

Alen Grassi, born 1963, is from Ferrara, Italy.

I started with theatrical choreography from the early 90s, the painting on canvas has accompanied me until now. Trying to mix images of everyday life and immediate sensations. Instant composition, a correlation with the improvised music that I practise with the electric guitar.

Image: Trastevere mixed media 50 x 70 cm

77

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

M i c h a e l

H a i g h t

Image: Paper-Thin Friends watercolor, gouache, tempera and ink 78.75 x 67 inches

78

www.haight.space

Michael Haight was born in Fontana, California and lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His visual practice mixes the figurative and abstract while exploring the notions of karma, addiction, suffering, and the failures and pathways towards enlightenment.

Haight will be included in a group exhibition at Lyles & King, NY this summer, and a second solo show in Los Angeles slated for later this year. The artist has exhibited at galleries including UTA Artist Space, LA; Soze Gallery, LA; Cirrus Gallery, LA; Iang Gallery, Seoul; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Hollywood; Louis V E.S.P., NY; and St. J, East Hollywood.

Image (left): Destruction Daddy watercolor, gouache, tempera and ink 78.75 x 67 inches

Image (right): Languishing Teeth watercolor, gouache, tempera and ink 78.75 x 67 inches

79

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

A l a n n a

H e r n a n d e z

www.alannakh.com

Image: Our Separate Ways colored pencil on paper 14 x 11 inches

80

I am an artist and teacher living in the mid-coast area of Maine, USA. At the beginning of 2020, I became enamored with ribbon forms. I have always found ribbons satisfying to draw since I was young, and they show up in my work early on. But recently I have been pushing these forms to convey emotions in relation to our bodies. Much of my work is about trauma and human relationships, and how the effects of these are felt in our bodies. I use form to evoke feeling, and color to evoke temperature. I use gradients and soft textures for a soothing effect.

Image: Seashell colored pencil on paper 11 x 14 inches

81

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L i z A i n s l i e

www.lizainslie.com

Image: Offers You II oil on linen 14 x 11 inches

82

Liz Ainslie lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received an MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2004 and a BFA from Alfred University in 2001. Ainslie has had solo exhibitions at Transmitter Gallery and Airplane in Bushwick, Brooklyn; Creon Gallery in Manhattan, and The Cohen Gallery at Alfred University. Her work has been included in shows at Station Independent Projects, SARDINE, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Orgy Park, Ground Floor Gallery, Outlet Fine Art, Centotto, Parallel Art Space, Small Black Door, A.I.R. Gallery, Vox Populi, BCB Fine Art, and Gallerie Kritiku, Prague, Czech Republic. Her work has been reviewed or featured in ArtMaze Mag, Maake Magazine, Giornale dell’Arte, ArtCal Zine, and The GC Advocate. Interviews with the artist can be found online at Maake Magazine, And Freedom For, Pencil in the Studio, and #fffffff Walls. Ainslie is a co-Director of Underdonk gallery in Brooklyn, was a visiting artist at Trestle Projects in 2018, a faculty resident at School of the Alternative, 2017, a resident artist at Millay Colony for the Arts, 2011 and at Atlantic Center for the Arts, 2006.

My painting titles are extracted from ambiguous snippets of found speech. I listen to the radio or conversations I hear in public, extracting phrases and separating the words from their original context. This process mimics my painting practice where abstractions are formed from abbreviations, clipped motion, and interrupted horizons. Every summer I make small observational drawings while immersed in the upstate New York landscape. A hiccup in the translation from eye to hand to paper captures my attention. The act is a flawed means for recording the moment. This curious imperfection is the seed of my work. My visual vocabulary is derived from the memory of momentary perceptions.

The greys, mauves, and browns I mix are the nuanced colors of fleeting natural light. Loops and lines borrow from my handwriting and automatic drawing. Orbs and oval forms are akin to moons, eggs, and faces. Empty spaces between these forms open out to fields, oceans, and skies.

Image (left): Came to pass oil on linen 14 x 11 inches

Image (right): More Immediately oil on linen 12 x 9 inches

83

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L a u r e n

C o l l i n g s

www.laurencollings.com

Image: Brush Fire oil on canvas 20 x 20 inches

84

While making paintings I think about colors and shapes, how to arrive at light that interacts with shape and color in a way that conveys depth in my imagined worlds. I make images that I invent in my mind and finesse by drawing from memories of observations. I look at details in the setting around me that seem to have a particular personality or feistiness; maybe something that seems a little mystical and magical. I follow an instinct to anthropomorphize or develop narratives in my mind about things, real or imagined, spirits and slime, aliens, the ocean. I think the way biology works (I’m not a scientist but I kinda wish I was) is a crazy, hilarious, unbelievable improvisation. So many accidents occur and organisms just go with it, and make themselves into a new thing, or drop a thing, or eat their extra tiny babies. I wish my painting practice would go like this, and I wish for a mind sharp, surgical, and nimble while painting.

Lauren Collings was born in 1981 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and her MFA from the New York Studio School in 2009. In the summer of 2013 she was an artist-in-residence at the BAU Institute, Otranto, Italy and in the fall of 2013 she was an artist-in-residence at the Wassaic Project, Wassaic, New York. She has had solo exhibitions at The Gallery@1GAP, Richard Meier on Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York and at the Lynchburg College Daura Gallery, Lynchburg, Virginia. Her work has been exhibited in New York City at Brian Morris Gallery, Valentine Gallery, Parallel Art Space, and Orgy Park; in Upstate New York at the Wassaic Project; in Philadelphia at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Blyth Gallery at the Imperial College London, England. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

Image: Pressure oil on canvas 22 x 27 inches

85

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L u k e P a i n t e r

www.lukepainter.ca

Image: All Sorts and Marbles ink on paper 11 x 14 inches

86

Luke Painter is an artist living and working in Toronto: Recent exhibitions of my work include: Personal Space at Patel Brown and The Teasers and the Tormentors at Harbourfront Centre. My work has been included in the 2016 Dreamlands exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the Lorna Mills ‘Ways of Something’ project. I have received grants from Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council and was nominated for the K.M. Hunter Award in the Visual Arts through the Ontario Arts Council.

Drawing has been at the center of my practice and is a space for me to explore image making through narrative, pattern, architecture and personal reflection. Recently I have been interested in making images that exist somewhere between a representational space and a pattern. Examples can be found in the works titled, All Sorts and Marbles and Fabricland Fabricland 01. I have also been working with themes that can often seem contrasted, but to me, have distinct relationships. In the work titled Solitary Summer/Winter Sunshine, I am looking to explore an atmosphere of both comfort and threat. Depicted are two books that represent the passing of seasons with a snake emerging from a box. These are types of romance books that I grew up with in my family and my mother would regularly reread them and find comfort in them. For me, they represent a feeling of the current climate we are in. Time is passing without the full knowledge of how this period will impact us in the future.

Image: Maniac Mansion ink on paper 11 x 14 inches

87

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

K a t h r y n L y n c h

Image: City in Fog oil on canvas 53 x 48 inches

88

www.kathrynlynch.com

Taking long walks gives me all the subject matter I need for my paintings. They are a combination of remembering, forgetting, seeing and inventing. Growing up we were the only family without a car, walking is how we got around and since then I have always preferred walking to all other means of transportation. The speed of walk is conducive to thinking and dreaming. I catch glimpses of all my next paintings on each walk I take. One always gets somewhere when they put one foot in front of the other with determination.

Image: East River oil on canvas 48 x 60 inches

89

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

S t e p h e n

W .

E v a n s

www.stephen-w-evans.com

Image: Three Lights oil on canvas 12 x 12 inches

90

Stephen W. Evans was born and raised in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania, where he received a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of the Arts in 2010. In 2017, Stephen received his MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. He has shown work at Steve Turner in Los Angeles; Theodore: Art in Brooklyn, New York, and was accepted into issue 148 of New American Paintings last year. He currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, Lauren Frances Evans, and their two daughters, Agnes and Edie. Stephen is a full-time preparator and art handler for the Birmingham Museum of Art. Themes that run throughout the work are fear, faith, doubt, and death. Most of the works come from my own personal experiences as they are intertwined with bits and pieces of culture (e.g. film, literature, paintings, etc.), and take a somewhat subliminal approach in their picturing. Things I ask myself are who am I, where have I come from, what am I doing with this brush in my hand, what am I afraid of, what was that feeling, what was that place and is it more real to me now that I have painted it? These questions tend to permeate throughout my work in general, and stand to resemble ways in which I feel I have experienced both life and death as a unified and encapsulated thing.

Image: The Road oil on canvas 12 x 12 inches

91

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

I w o Z a n i e w s k i

www.iwozaniewski.com

Image: Evening #1 oil on canvas 110 x 140 cm

92

Iwo Zaniewski works with traditional oil painting, predominantly focusing on matters of composition. He consistently explores formal relations and draws on the history of figurative painting, portraying subjects from contemporary, everyday life. In order to reach the state of perfect visual harmony—Iwo’s ultimate goal—he has been constructing his works in a way that each element of the composition becomes irreplaceable support for the arrangement of others.

Iwo’s paintings do not reference specific geographic locations—particular regions are implicitly encoded in the symbolism of the colours and the character of the light. Despite contemporary painting conventions that prioritise the portrayal of reality, the characteristic feature of Iwo’s paintings has remained that of composition.

Although Iwo Zaniewski graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland in 1981, he has split his professional career between painting and art direction. While he has become an acclaimed art director, his paintings, which are the heart and soul of his life, remain relatively unknown to the wider audience.

Iwo Zaniewski’s exhibitions include Pinta Miami, USA (2020), Polswiss Art, Poland (2014), Today Art Museum, China (2008), Sunshine International Art Museum, China (2008), and National Museum in Cracow (2005). Iwo Zaniewski’s works are included in private and public collections in Europe, USA, Mexico, China, and Japan.

Image: Snow oil on canvas 110 x 140 cm

93

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L u k e M o r r i s o n

www.lukermorrison.com

Image: In My Room ballpoint pen on paper 14 x 14 inches

94

The submitted works are based on observation of my own daily life, feelings, and surroundings. The drawings are, in many ways, aspirational: they allow me to excessively indulge in daily existential feelings through surrogate characters and worlds that resemble myself and my surroundings. The melodramatic scenes unfold around an individual’s search for purpose and connection, whether to oneself, another individual or society at large. This search is external and internal, as the characters roam both the city and their bedrooms, their surroundings and their minds. It is slow, and requires steady movement and reflection.

The ballpoint pen’s slow process recounts and records my own wanderings both physically and emotionally throughout the making of the drawing. It provides time to pass through various phases of excitement, doubt and ambivalence as the drawing gradually comes into being. It is ultimately a constructive process of building marks and feelings into an image. The cumulative nature of the medium directly visualizes this time and labor.

In its accumulation, the layered ink takes on its own logic of texture and form. The repetitive markmaking is both gratifying and hopeless, while the blue of the ink feels simultaneously sad and optimistic.

Luke Morrison is an artist living in Providence, RI working with painting and drawing media. Luke grew up in Connecticut before attending Vassar College and graduating in 2018 with a degree in Drama. It was through studying costume design that Luke first became interested in drawing. Luke has shown work at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, AS220 and Skye Gallery. In June 2021, Luke had a solo show at Dryden Gallery in North Providence.

Image: Lonely City ballpoint pen on paper 14 x 17 inches

95

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

H a n n a h

N a h a s

www.hannahnahas.com

Image: Follies (IV) graphite on paper 23 x 16 inches

96

Hannah Nahas is an emerging artist based out of Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of Rhode Island College, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Printmaking.

Her work revolves around themes of liminality and mental and physical spaces of transition. A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next’. It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Hannah is fascinated with the space where ideas about identity intercept with ambiguity and change. Working primarily in graphite, her work represents liminality with an homage to early storytelling. In her drawing series Follies, there are strong visual and narrative ties to stories such as Babes in the Wood and The Fool’s Journey.

Hannah’s drawings illustrate spaces of transition and the pilgrimage of characters through liminal dreamlike spaces. This is a signifier to a rite of passage that has been started, and the place of existing between thresholds. The starry night sky and fully illuminated figures being engulfed by a tropical landscape within the drawings work in tandem to create a sense of fantasy. The soft qualities of the graphite give the drawings a hazy and dreamlike atmosphere. The spaces are real yet imagined. The physical aspects of the drawing combined with the archetypes of the characters and setting create a visceral representation of a liminal space. Hannah’s work is redefining liminal narratives and passages through the unknown.

Image: Follies (I) graphite on paper 23 x 16 inches

97

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

www.catherinemulligan.com

C a t h e r i n e M u l l i g a n

Image: Upskirt oil on board 18.25 x 20.5 inches

98

Catherine Mulligan is a painter based in Brooklyn NY. She has recently shown at Geary (NY), A.D. Gallery (NY), Gern en Regalia (NY), Kunst im Tunnel (Dusseldorf), and more. She is the recipient of two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants and holds an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington (2019). Upcoming solo shows include Hans Gallery (Chicago) and M+B (Los Angeles).

Image: Identity Theft oil on board 14 x 21 inches

99

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

S t u a r t

S n o d d y

www.stuartsnoddy.com

Image: A Barf of Clothes oil on panel 10 x 8 inches

100

Born in Honduras. Lives and works in Indianapolis Indiana. My analogy for my practice currently is that of a hobbyist model train builder. I’m a tinkerer of paint. Sometimes I get lost in nostalgia. Occasionally while painting I’m reminded of people that I’ve met and catch myself imagining the ones I have yet to meet. My paintings are from imagination and are illuminated by the refulgence of past encounters as if illuminated by the dimming filament of a freshly turned-off light bulb.

Image: A Parting Glance gouache on paper 30 x 22 inches

101

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

www.paulsebastianjapaz.com

P a u l - S e b a s t i a n J a p a z

Image: Late Visit oil on canvas 91.44 x 60.96 cm

102

Paul-Sebastian Japaz is a painter who currently resides in NY. In 2017, he graduated with a BFA in Fine Art from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Paul uses space to explore the idea that it can influence behaviours in people. Positive Space is a resource, and in many cases a privilege afforded to those in power. The work considers Queer identity and places it in the context of everyday life through the power of space and environment to define a place of our own.

Image: Outside in oil on canvas 91.44 x 60.96 cm

103

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

L u i s M e j i c a n o s

www.instagram.com/luisedgarmejicanos

Image: On High Alert oil on canvas 19 x 16 inches

104

Within the forty days of my grandmother’s passing, my mother traveled between Teculutan, Guatemala City and Miami in mourning. It is believed that in these forty days, a person’s soul remains on Earth wandering and revisiting the people and places they once inhabited. Traditionally, a newborn waits forty days to be introduced to the public. These rituals create a buffer of anticipation for someone’s life or death. I am interested in states of displacement, either physical or psychological, and what we keep, inherit, or pass down during this transformation.

My work is informed by a cultural and physical sense of oscillation - a coalescence of traditions and rituals of contrasting origins. This oscillation creates the foundation for the world in which my paintings exist, where my visual vocabulary remains anecdotal yet metaphorical. Mirroring personal histories of intergenerational trauma, collective anxiety, and superstition, my paintings are concerned with these fears, and question the psyche of the people depicted. I imbue satirical melodrama that aims to conflate vulnerability with humor.

Latin American novelists, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Miguel Angel Asturias, and Julio Cortazar provide the allegorical framework for my paintings. I translate literary devices and tropes into a visual language that blurs the line between the real and the fantastic by creating narratives that are influenced by Magical Realist literature.

I’m focused on depicting specific psychological states that tap into a deeper subconscious. Through expression and gesture, I am committed to creating narratives that convey intimacy and moments of tension. Formally, my work conflates flatness and voluminousness by creating a space that is both deep and shallow. My paintings are marked by hot and saturated colors that reflect the vibrancy of Miami and Latin America.

Image: Confesional oil on canvas 30 x 27 inches

105

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

www.caitlinmacqueen.com

C a i t l i n

M a c Q u e e n

Image: Technician oil on canvas 26 x 24 inches

106

Caitlin MacQueen (b. 1982 New Jersey) makes paintings, drawings, and sculptures. MacQueen’s work starts with hazy screen grabs, but while painting she makes crucial changes, recasting or removing figures, painting herself in, and generally shifting the mood from wistful to emotionally intense. She builds textural, careworn surfaces, eschewing “fresh paint” for congealed, embedding the figures, spaces and colors.

MacQueen was granted an MFA from Rutgers, Mason Gross in 2015 and a BFA from Cooper Union in 2008. From 2009-2010 she facilitated the critique class What Is A Metaphor? at the Bruce High Quality University. She has been in many group shows, notably the 2015 “Nuff Said” show, curated by Essye Klempner at Underdonk Gallery in Brooklyn. In 2016 she was listed as one of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation nominees for New York City. In 2018 MacQueen created a solo presentation for artist-run DAAB Space in Brooklyn, NY entitled I’m an Agent in which she triangulated drawing, painting and sculpture to portray the Agent infiltrating a plush apartment.

Shortly after leaving Brooklyn for the Hudson Valley, MacQueen took part in the 2019 group-show Tools, Totems, Traps at Mother Gallery in Beacon, and was later selected for the 2020 Mother Gallery Winter Residency. “The Hunch”, a three person show with Marcy Hermansader and Daniel Giordano opened at Mother Gallery in October 2020. She has taught drawing and collage at Rutgers University, Mason Gross. She lives and works in Beacon, New York and mourns the death of David Bowie.

Image: Signal oil on canvas 72 x 96 inches

107

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

N a s t i a A s t a k h o v a

www.fanichenal.com/portfolio

Image: Bright minds 2 oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm

108

Nastia Astakhova is an emergent artist from Moscow. She used to draw and attend art schools since she was a child but never aspired to her career as an artist.

After a degree in Human Resources Management (“I just want to be in touch with people”) and a couple of years of working in that field, she switched to the History of Art. After a degree in History of Art, she got a holistic view of the different ways of becoming an artist and artistic tradition; and therefore overviewed her art. In 2019 she returned to her artistic practice and in 2020, partly because of the pandemic, quarantine, and opportunity to stay focused on painting, she reflected on the new series of works.

Primarily working with oil on medium-sized and large canvases, her practice represents the human’s vulnerability in society, human (mainly women’s) relationships, a power of the friendship between women, and, amongst others, motherhood. Working with colors and volumes, Astakhova portrays human figures as if they stiffened at the moment, and the viewer has an unlimited time to look at them to see them: “I’d like to give people this opportunity not to run, to stay, and to see who are around you. To share my vision of the people and to capture it on canvas—this is my way to freeze time”.

Image: August oil on canvas 45 x 60 cm

109

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

D a n i e l

B a u m a n

www.debauman.com

Image: Lab oil on canvas 30 x 22 inches

110

Daniel Bauman paints buildings and spaces that have hypothetical life cycles: Like riverbeds and the human experience, the built environment is subject to transformation through time. I explore this evolution of condition using phantasmagoric and human components. A conceptual and allegorical framework for systems of existence informs my practice as I energetically build up, add, and remove paint. My paintings are generated in a reactive manner that pairs chance with transition. Working with washes of color and embodied abstract mark making, priority is initially placed on the configuration of composition and color over subject matter. The perception and form of these intuitive compositions then illuminate their meaning and function.

Image: Rooftop Mausoleum oil on canvas 30 x 24 inches

111

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

S c o t t E v e r i n g h a m

www.scotteveringham.com

Image: Tangled Nets oil on canvas 59 x 49 inches

112

Everingham holds a BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, and an MFA from the University of Waterloo, also in Canada. He is a 3-time RBC Canadian Painting Competition Finalist with exhibitions at The Power Plant, the National Gallery of Canada, and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Jon Imber Painting Award from the Vermont Studio Centre, and from Canada, Ontario, and Toronto Arts Councils. He has work in the collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, BMO, CIBC, and RBC Collections, and was recently exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Everingham lives and works in Toronto.

My work examines situations and experiences that occur in the conscious realm, while attempting to describe volume, space, and logic with abstract paint language. Architecture is built up with coherence and plausibility, while remaining ephemeral, atmospheric, and intangible while at the same time with no secure footing. This insecure ground, or lack of permanence, is a metaphor for the challenges of self-discovery, concepts of the infallible monument (or its destruction), and certainly about the function of the literal and figurative social structures around us.

The paintings are explorations and discoveries in oil paint: thin washes wiped down to the stained gesso layer, and areas of built up, chunky swathes that describe an environment, often sub-marine or sky high. There are identifiers, like broken sticks or beams that set up sitting areas or supports: these help a viewer become more involved in how abstract painting language can somehow carry a narrative through a body of work and to the build-up of the architecture.

Image: Fairview oil on canvas 40 x 48 inches

113

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

M a r g a u x

V a l e n g i n

www.margauxvalengin.com

Image: Quand on sera grand et sage acrylic and oil on canvas 60 x 42 inches

114

I am painting images, or fragments of images, with moments of abstraction. Composition is a very important feature of painting that I love to play with. Ropes, whether in a bind or extended, whether in a hook or within another knot, take on various shapes with which I can pleasurably compose. Cars and highways, conveying movements, also serve me as a composition tool. The roads are lines and curves to compose with and the motions suggested by the cars, reflect the rapid gestural brushwork. I see movement in flowers too—in their opening and expanding from the center outwards. Aside from their visual qualities, the symbolisms of these objects stimulate my creativity. For example, the rope as a symbol, both binds and limits yet provides the possibility for infinite extension and freedom.

I was born and raised in the north of France; I studied painting at ENSAV la Cambre (Brussels, Belgium) and graduated from the Royal College (London, UK) in 2016. I currently live in New York, USA. This year I am showing my work in a duo show with Dorian Gaudin at Galerie PACT (Paris, France) and in a group show at Y2K (New York, USA). In 2020, I had solo exhibitions at SPRING BREAK ART SHOW curated by Julie Curtiss (New York, USA) and at Galerie PACT and in 2017 at Union Gallery (London, UK). Group exhibitions of my work include FUTURE Gallery (in 2020 in Berlin, Germany), SIGNAL and Greenpoint Gallery Terminal (both in 2018 in New York, USA).

Image: 0t0r0ute acrylic and oil on canvas 60 x 40 inches

115

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

E z e k i e l

W o n g

K e l

www.wongkelwin.com

Image: Cul-De-Sac archival pigment print 29.7 x 42.0 cm

116

W i n

Ezekiel Wong Kel Win (B. 1989, Singapore) holds a Master’s Degree in Art Education from Nanyang Technological University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts (Honours) from Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore-Goldsmiths, University of London.

Known for his sardonic wit and humour, Wong’s artworks contain elements of satire that highlight societal conflicts, geopolitical issues and his own personal confrontations. Challenging the world through his imaginations, he frequently employs a comical approach to articulate his paradigms of current issues.

Wong has exhibited locally with recent shows at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay (2017); The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore (2017); iPreciation Gallery (2016) and Mizuma Gallery (2016); and internationally, with exhibitions at Bienal do Douro, Portugal (2018), Sabanci University, Turkey (2010), the Singapore Printmaking Society 29th Annual Exhibition (2009), and the Pocket Films Festival, Japan (2007).

Image: The Great Trepidation archival pigment print 29.7 x 42.0 cm

117

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: curated selection

editorial selection of works Featured image: Gitte Maria Moller Red Poem pencil crayon on paper, glass, wood, metal 43 x 50 cm wireframe produced in collaboration with Zimbabwean wire artist Farai Kanyemba more on p. 136-137

C e c i l i a

F i o n a

www.instagram.com/cecilia_fiona

Image: The earth in its arm rabbit skin glue and pigments on canvas 120 x 100 cm

120

Cecilia Fiona, born in 1997 and based in Copenhagen, is a so far self-taught artist who will finish her bachelor’s degree in art history this summer. Recent shows: From 29/4 until 23/5 the submitted works including some other new works at @ Gallery Kant; in July a solo show curated by J. B. Fals founder of @ Original Paperworks at @ Grand’s Art Club in Copenhagen. In August, Emil Krog, Sofie Burgaard and I will be having a big exhibition at ‘Reventlows Museet’ on Lolland, Denmark. We will be exhibiting in their 400 m2 antique riding hall.

I am interested in how motives and myths of the past move across history, reappear and are transformed. What happens in the meeting between material reality and the world of fiction? In the submitted paintings I have been inspired by the cosmological tale of the origin of the world as described in Plato’s ‘Timaios’. In this narrative the creation of cosmos is told as a process from chaos to order. In other words, cosmos equals order and symmetry.

Order and cosmos become the good, while chaos represents evil and a world we do not want. I think it is a shame how chaos often only has a negative vibe, because with chaos comes the possibility of eternal change and new world views.

In my submitted works, I have explored the space before the world is created, before it is in order. The works are tales of chaos, lack of boundaries and eternal change. They are investigating the space that exists before the world is transformed into cosmos and before humans, animals and nature become separated creatures.

Image: Under a new sun rabbit skin glue and pigments on canvas 100 x 120 cm

121

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

J e s s e

C o h e n

www.instagram.com/jay_coh

Image: Snakes Build the Forest with Their Bodies at Night colored pencil on paper 20.50 x 26.25 cm

122

Jesse Cohen’s artistic path began with large oil paintings of dreams and visions that coincided with the diagnosis of a serious illness that she received around 15 years old: Painting kept me great company during that time and in the years to come, and the images that emerged guided me and taught me a tremendous amount. While there have been many twists and turns on my artistic path, I’ve continued to hold the space of dreaming and imagination very close to my heart—sometimes privately, and sometimes more publicly.

I use mostly paper and colored pencils now; simple, small and portable materials. My focus has been to draw as much as possible, every day experimenting with my pencils as a kind of light to illuminate my curiosities, questions, and unexplored internal terrains that I find to be incredibly vast and full of life. I look for ways to share different types of drawing practices as well as my own drawings as games, stories, medicine—always something that can be touched and that doesn’t only live in a notebook or on a wall—more like openings and invitations to continue imagining and feeling the many worlds that we contain and the many worlds that we are capable of dreaming up, building, and remembering.

The drawings I’ve shared here are a few from a series done over the course of five months while taking drops of essences of medicinal plants and flowers each morning and then drawing whatever came up. I lost count of how many drawings I made, but I noticed when I finished and looked over what I’d drawn, there was a very clear story and evolution, like seeing the process of a seed sprouting, growing tall, and bearing fruit—a story I never would have been able to tell if I’d set out to tell it. The kind of story that arises the same way we recall dreams, remembering them backwards after we’ve dreamt them as if we are seeing them for the first time.

Image: Bull Crab Feeds on the Phoenix Out at Sea colored pencil 20.50 x 26.25 cm

123

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

M i n y o u n g

K i m

www.minyoungkimwork.com

Image: The night gallery acrylic on unstretched canvas 180 x 221 cm

124

Minyoung Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. She has been attending the MFA course in the Painting Department at Slade School of Fine Art since 2019 and is going to graduate in August this year. She works with a variety of materials such as drawing, painting, ceramic and animation works. In terms of her work, it is no exaggeration to say that the most important element of her painting is the combination of the uncanny and humor. Most of her work is covered with many contradictions. The combination of situations suggesting dangerous and negative behavior, while satirical and humorous elements are depicted in fresh colors, illustrates the direction of her work. Among her paintings, there are several images that are always repeated. For example, the motif of the crescent moon, which often appears in her paintings, contains many things. Deep nights are mysterious and imply various things, but they do not appear clearly. The faint crescent reflected in it is surrounded by numerous obstacles that must be crossed to have that light. Such precarious situations are frightening but beautiful at the same time. Also, the presence of a cat that has always appeared since some time ago makes her paintings even funnier and more satirical. They always look grumpy and watch every moment that happens in the canvas as if they are God-like beings. They may sometimes symbolize herself, or be cynical images of modern people who pay little attention to others in need of help or at risk.

Image: The moonlight acrylic on unstretched canvas 157 x 140 cm

125

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

O r n e l l a

P o c e t t i

www.ornella-pocetti.com

Image: The force of a spear oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm

126

Ornella Pocetti was born in Buenos Aires in 1991. She studied at the University of National Arts in Argentina (UNA) and continued studying at different workshops and programs. In 2015, she had her first solo show, “Defying time“ at Acéfala Gallery (Bs As, Argentina). In 2019 she was selected to participate in “Artistas x Artistas”, at Munar Art Center. Her work can be found in museums and galleries, and also in other mediums such as book covers, movie posters, and children’s books. She was part of various group shows in South America and the United States. Also, her paintings have been selected in numerous contests. Currently, she works in Argentina, managing Paz Soldán Art Studio, and as a part of the artist collective “Viento dorado”.

A juxtaposition between absence and presence. My goal is to achieve coexistence of both in the image. To unveil the existence of a being without showing their identity. To border the idea of mystery and the uncanny; let the viewer be the one that completes what cannot be seen. A concrete expression of aesthetic components that add something to our world’s perception. The body of work emerges as exploration and research, trying to form a unique language. There is a relationship between the painting and nature’s cycle, the vegetation subjected to the laws of change. An intention to materialize change, movement and disintegration. I try to unfold an unusual imagery where violence and erotism are intertwined. Fictional landscapes emerge, starred by beings with feminine and non-binary corporalities. Filled with mythological and atavistic, but also, futuristic features.

Image: The pink suit oil on canvas 24 x 30 cm

127

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

S e r p i l

M a v i

U s t u n

www.maviustun.com

Image: Birthday Cake oil on linen 76 x 61 cm

128

Born in Turkey in 1979, Serpil graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2008. Her work has been exhibited and sold in Istanbul and across Europe since 2006. Since April 2016, she has been living and working in London.

Serpil’s latest works are structured around internal conflicts, defense mechanisms, the need for attention, and the daily struggles that border on the neurotic as the individual goes about their daily life; trying to shape it to suit the standards of the society in which they operate. Through her main character, Serpil underlines and draws attention to these little tensions despite life appearing to be on track for her subject. She places her characters in the centre of the scene, putting them in simulated environments with symbolic objects. This helps to reference the character’s story whilst strengthening their expressions and evoking empathy in the audience.

Image: Screen Time oil on linen 76 x 61 cm

129

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

www.cecook.com

C a r r i e C o o k

Image: Crying and Driving oil on canvas 48 x 64 inches

130

Carrie Cook was born in Nashville, TN and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a BFA from the University of Texas, Austin. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Tyler Park Presents, Los Angeles; Insect Gallery, Los Angeles; Visitor Welcome Center, Los Angeles; Lyeberry HQ, Brooklyn; Lawndale Art Center, Houston, and Blaffer Museum of Art, Houston.

Through a rigorous process of mining and review, Carrie’s painting practice explores the psychological territory of memory and grief creating a symbolic visual language. Using water as a motif for emotional life and night as a symbol for an inner world, works feature crashing waterfalls, murky ponds, tears falling down cheeks, and pouring rain. The boundaries between the routine of the everyday and the disorienting presence of memory are blurred, layering moments in time and disparate places, resulting in paintings that walk a line between abstraction and representation and form a surrealist narrative.

Image: Bad Weather oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches

131

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

R u b y L e w i s

www.instagram.com/rubymlewisart

Image: Waking Dreams oil on linen 75 x 80 cm

132

Ruby Lewis is currently studying a BA in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins, having started studying multimedia with a bias towards sculpture that was focused on the human memory at Ravensbourne at the age of sixteen. She then progressed to Camberwell, specialising in painting and collage on the foundation course before being accepted to her current line of study. Now at the end of her second year and seeking to find experiences within the industry by taking time to complete another diploma, specialising in professional skills, before completing her final year.

Her practice is focused on depicting a personal mythology that explores the changing and surreal landscapes found in dreams, working primarily in painting and drawing. Influenced by folklore surrounding plants and literature, she constructs her own narrative inspired by these fables which evolve into visual portals suggesting access to another realm that can be sighted through seeing stones, the hollow in the bole of a tree and the veiled reality of a dream. Referencing passed experiences of places she had visited as a child and significant encounters recalled from memory. Reinterpreting these to create a bridge between lost meetings and a hidden nature in the mind whilst navigating the changing relationship between the physical and emotional space she inhabits, melding reality with a conjured vision.

Image: Ghosts In The Forest oil on linen 70 x 110 cm

133

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

A r e u m

Y a n g

www.areumyang.com

Image: Tea Time with Saturn charcoal, pencil, oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches

134

Areum Yang, b. 1994 in Seoul, South Korea, has lived and worked in New York since 2019. She is a painter who has been visualizing various emotions and feelings through her gestural and expressionistic paintings. Areum visualizes impressions felt in her daily experiences into paintings. She personifies emotions and feelings in her paintings to see how they fill and change the space to another world. The image created in this way becomes a way for her to interpret and understand the world.

One of the distinctive visual characteristics in her paintings is the contrast between dry and wet materials. The monochrome drawing created by using pencils and charcoals separates the figure from the space, contrasting the background with a vivid and colorful palette.

In order not to overload too much information and to convey the feelings more vividly, she makes gestural, improvisational, and painterly marks. Instead of drawing outlines and filling them with paints, she visualizes the world in a painting by drawing with paints. The outlines of the objects in her paintings are very rough and the boundaries are not clear, so they invade each other. Such mark makings may distract the shape, but they give a sense of vividness and rawness of the emotions and feelings.

Areum has been interested in the boundary between abstract and figurative paintings. She wants the freedom given by ambiguous shapes that can be either this or that. With her paintings, she is trying to structure experience without pinpointing. Multiple trees can be a forest, a wallpaper for any room, or a stage for a play. With these evocative, arbitrary hints, viewers extrapolate and participate with their own imagination while looking at her work.

Image: Forest Series 2 acrylic, oil pastel, pencil on paper 40 x 32 inches

135

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

G i t t e

M a r i a

M o l l e r

www.gittemariamoller.com

Image: Purple Poem pencil crayon on paper, glass, wood, metal 29 x 50 cm wireframe produced in collaboration with Zimbabwean wire artist Farai Kanyemba

136

Gitte Maria Moller (b. 1991) received her BA in Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2015 and was awarded the Judy Steinberg painting prize for her graduate show. She lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

Gitte uses a range of different mediums and painterly devices to explore the symbolic and numinous possibilities of picture-making. Drawing from ancient mythology, religious manuscripts, and prayer paintings, to early video games and online fan art, Gitte’s work holds a complex array of signs, symbols, and archetypes in suspension. Through a solitary game of exquisite corpses, fragments of discarded and disregarded aesthetics are rehabilitated by way of exaggerated symbolism to give expression to issues concerning the soul, femininity, and fear.

In her efforts to form a union between her inner and outer reality, Gitte creates a personalized arena for devotion in her pictures. In this intricate visual space, she offers a distracted meditation on a world interpolated by empathy and apathy, freedom and vulnerability, and the struggle between g00d and 3vil.

Image: Dust Bunny 6 colour riso print 27 x 27 cm print production by @dream_press_sa

137

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

C r i s t i a n

138

A n u t o i u

www.instagram.com/nichtfalsch

Cristian is currently studying Painting & Animation Film at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, under Prof. Judith Eisler. He is a Vienna based multidisciplinary artist, primarily working with painting, experimental sculpture, 3D software and virtual environments.

In his practice, digital space is used as a starting point for developing scenes and worlds injected with the notion of magical realism. He uses both the virtual and physical space as a melting pot for transporting ideas into graspable reality, merging these two mediums through the visualisation of installative narratives. He uses artificiality and the organic as a tool to emphasize the fragility of human subjectivity, through juxtaposing them.

Images (p. 138-139): Examining my pixel threaded skin as part of the exhibition Somewhere between there and here, at r00m69, Vienna curated by Brooklyn J. Pakathi mixed media installation filament, plastic, candles, candleholders, soil, chains, foam, tablet, video sizes variable

139

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

www.instagram.com/napoleon_ag

N a p o l e ó n A g u i l e r a

Image: Crocs clay 30 x 11 x 50 cm (each)

140

Napoleon Aguilera’s artistic practice is characterized by a strong influence on materials, regional idiosyncrasy and active collaboration with different crafts. His interest in artisan disciplines leads him to constantly experiment with production methodologies and the way in which he connects with new agents and its codes. The work frequently draws upon strategies such as humor and double meanings to address and introduce speculations on topics as disparate as cockfighting, criminal slang and rumors that spread on the web. He emphasizes the formal results in forceful and very detailed objects, drawings and actions.

In 2015 he took part in Fiesta-Familia-Estado, a learning and experimental exhibition initiative. Currently, has joined FAENA a work group created by curator Paulina Ascencio where research, self-criticism and production methodologies are developed and shared. His most recent projects include: Sound Devices for Cockfighting, Proyecto CAIMÁN, Guadalajara, MX (2020); Broken dreams; for a contemporary archeology, Studio Block M74, Mexico City, MX (2020); Salon ACME 8, General Prim 30, Mexico City, MX (2020); The beginning is half of the whole, Armen Daguer, Guadalajara, MX (2020); A broken stone is not two stones, Estudio Hospital, Guadalajara, MX (2019); Oficio y Materia, MAZ-Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Guadalajara, MX (2018); DIY Fiction, Careyes Art Foundation, Careyes, MX (2016); The circular ruins, Artere-A, Guadalajara, MX (2016), among many others.

Napoleón Aguilera (1986) is a graduate of the ITESO School of Architecture, lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Image (left): “Heavy” alligator boots basalt 11 kg (each)

Image: “Heavy” cowboy boots (ammonites) basalt 13 kg (each)

141

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

K o s u k e K a w a h a r a

www.kosukekawahara.org

Image: Drifting into the Void oil color, spray paint, paper, plywood 29 x 24 x 1 inches

142

Kosuke Kawahara is a Brooklyn-based artist who was born in Kyoto and raised in Shiga, Japan. His intuitive/impromptu gesture generates site-relevant imagery through its multi-layered structure. Kawahara’s work is painterly, but it also embraces the specificity of drawing and time-based sequencing.

Kawahara completed an MFA in Painting/Drawing at Pratt Institute in May 2020. He received multiple scholarships from Pratt, including Pratt Merit-based Scholarship, Weiss Endowed Scholarship, Carlow Memorial Scholarship, and Pratt in Venice 2019 Assistantship Award. Kawahara was selected as a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council residency artist at The Arts Center at Governors Island (2021, NY). He won the prize with his painting in the competition entitled “Forward Together!,” which was held by The Nippon Club (2020, NY). His works are exhibited in both the United States and Japan.

My latest art project, entitled “Into Ultrablack,” began in 2012 in New York City. I was inspired by the word UV (ultraviolet) and coined the term “ultrablack,” which indicates an imaginative crevice of absolute darkness as if we cannot see ultraviolet radiation. Entering into profound dark means, you grope your way to the mystery of the unknown. Imagining unseeable presences that may exist within the dark, similarly, I observe ambiguity still presents in various binaries, such as eastern/western, nature/art, death/life, human/animal, male/female, organic/inorganic, reality/dream. The twilight surrounding these concepts overlaps with the dark history of New York City, leading me to generate cryptic imageries beyond such various hedges.

Produced images in my works are the fruits of the session with the site. I incorporate the landscape from my daily life and various dark narratives into my works, which refers to the sense of mystery and Buddhism/Animism. Improvisation is vital to my artistic process. In my work, impromptu gestures accumulate to form deep textures and compounded images. Multiple structures involuntarily overlap, leading to unforeseen outcomes. Experiencing the volatile nature in Japan, I have cultivated my understanding of coexistence with nature. This consequently allows me to accept impermanence and insufficiency in my work process. Namely, I address the wild factors of material aging, deterioration, and discoloration in my work.

Image: Nobody Knows oil color, acrylic, beeswax, paper, plywood 10 x 13 x 1 inches

143

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

O l i v i a S p r i n g b e r g

www.oliviaspringberg.com

Image: Dinner Scene oil and paper pulp on canvas 32 x 36 inches

144

Olivia Springberg is a multi-media artist from Washington, DC. She is currently studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Charged by tactility and material exploration, her work employs various media, including sound, sculpture, and printmaking. Her pieces play off remembrances, visions, and feelings, presenting carefully manipulated narratives. Her work serves as a meditation, a way of dissecting and evaluating relationships, both inter and intrapersonal.

Within my art, I recall and examine ambiguous memories and interactions that affected me in an emotionally profound way. These instances are often brief, some even having occurred in dreams. I rework the perspective of the moments to exhibit the weight they carry for me. The process serves as a meditation that brings the act of remembrance into my artistic practice. By investigating the duality between the realm of memory and my range of experience, I can better understand memories and projections that are difficult for me to articulate. By visually representing my perception of these situations, I transferred their weight off my mind to the compositions.

Image: Free Fall oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

145

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

www.instagram.com/lucybelll

L u c y B e l l

Image: Time to Go Home / First Flower of Spring oil, oil pastel, ash on canvas 30 x 40 inches

146

Lucy Bell (b.1998) is an artist based in Northern California working in painting and illustration. Bell received her BFA in Studio Arts from the University of California, San Diego in June, 2020.

Continued isolation has led to a release of logic and an embracing of the imaginary within my art practice. My paintings are abstracted expressions of internal relationships I have with the environment around me. I am consistently impressed by the ceaseless lessons nature teaches us and how those lessons can be translated into forms on a canvas. During this year of isolation, I began imaging conversations with the birds outside my window as if they were old friends. My work is in this departure from reality where my mind can drift into invented worlds while still in the context of nature’s familiarities. By integrating traditional symbols of divinity, birds, eggs, and flowers, with my own memory and internal conversations, I compose half-invented and half-remembered folktales onto the canvas.

Image: Nest oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches

147

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

E m m a G e r i g s c o t t

www.emmagerigscott.com

Image: Woman Loves Dog Way Too Much liquid acrylic, oil paint, house paint on canvas 68 x 55 inches

148

Raised in an insular Mennonite culture of church and family in the Midwest of America, the sources of my early creative inspiration blossomed from the folk paintings, rugs, and icons collected throughout my family’s multi-generational service work in India, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cambodia, and Bulgaria. My studio practice is an ongoing negotiation between the polite, self-effacing humility of my upbringing and my innate desire to self-express. Through projecting myself to the world through painting I am reinventing the process every time to skirt around timidity. The paintings are finished open-ended, touching on the wildness that exists along that continuum of tentative and confidence. I’d say it’s mostly about manifesting childhood dreams and memories but it feels more untamed than what those words connote. I’d pray for kittens in the barn, I’d beg for pet mice. I’d hatch baby ducks and I’d cry for the eggs that never released a duckling. What is that I longed for? What was the source of that longing?

We had a swimming pool and I would swim with my pet ducks. It is these wild spaces I am yearning for in the visual work.

Image: Parable of the Sower/Mom Lost Her Wedding Ring house paint, liquid acrylic on wood panel and aluminum panel 48 x 72 inches

149

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

M a r y

B a l l

www.maryballart.com

Image: Low Hanging Fruit ink and acrylic on canvas 60 x 48 inches

150

Raised in Mobile, Alabama, my Art is influenced by the coastal environment in which I was raised and the complex culture of the South. The patterns, shapes, and colors that appear in my work are reflective of my environment and keen attention to the patterns, shapes, and colors I find in nature. My process is unplanned and almost entirely subconscious. I make intuitive, unruly marks with ink and then use negative space to uncover figures and a narrative. These imaginary scenes portray what I’m feeling on a deeper, subconscious level. I’m always one of the characters. Like in a dream, when sometimes you’re watching a scene unravel and other times you’re participating, but regardless, you’re still there somewhere. Bringing these scenes to the surface, helps me grasp my emotions and process reality.

Painting makes me feel in touch with an innate wildness and empowerment in my femininity.

Mary received her BFA from the University of Georgia in 2016 and her MFA from New York Academy of Art in 2018. She currently resides in New Orleans, LA.

Image: Primal Instincts ink on canvas 30 x 40 inches

151

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

Ta l

R e g e v

www.talregev.co.uk

Image: They can pull you deep under the water oil on canvas 120 x 160 cm

152

Tal Regev (b. London 1985) lives and works in London. She completed an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 2017 and prior to this she studied BA (Hons) Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2019 Regev was awarded the Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship, British School at Rome. She has exhibited internationally, with a solo presentation at Alice Folker Gallery, Copenhagen (2019) and numerous group exhibitions. These include: December Mostra, British School at Rome, Italy (2019); Futures of Love, Magasins généraux, Paris-Pantin, France (2019); All in green went my love riding, Calle Zucchero, Venice, Italy (2019); All Our Friends, Unit 601f, New York, USA (2018); Artagon III, Petites Serres, Paris, France (2017); Birth Rites Bi-annual award, Media City, Salford, UK. Forthcoming exhibition; Zabludowicz Invites, Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK (solo).

I work primarily with painting. My practice is concerned with the embodied experience of trauma.

Through the materiality of painting itself, I explore memory, loss, separation and the effect of pain.

My works suggest a psychic map of what is “held” within the body.

Image: Untitled oil on canvas 140 x 130 cm

153

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

S i c h e n g

W a n g

www.wangsicheng.space

Image: Title Gaze Project 06 oil on canvas 12 x 9 inches

154

Sicheng, born Wuhan 1992, is an artist living and working in New York and Wuhan, whose works range from painting, installation, performance to video and new media like 3D animation and VR interactive. In Sicheng’s practice, he expresses his experience and understanding of the mysterious life flow through a poetic expression of different media. The artist uses his works to explore the personal, cultural, and historical connections between his homeland and other places. Meanwhile, he also wants to show how the impact of different ideologies and rapidly developing science and technology in his society have shaped him.

Material, color, brushstroke, body, form, in which space-time does our gaze rest? Withdraw, approach, spin, linger, suspend, our actions transcend cognition, connecting the past and the present. We are tourists who travel across different time and space, watching the world based on their own experiences and preferences. Some people use the eye of observation to construct the perfection of seeing themselves outside of themselves once more. Some others use the eyes of observation to witness the creation of our past selves, time and time again. Marcel Proust wrote: …for my eyes color was sufficient, without warmth; my chest, on the other hand, was anxious for warmth and not for color. From the perfection image of ourselves that we created before, we see our thoughts, desires, and beauty.

Image: Title Gaze Project 01 oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

155

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23: editorial selection

We are looking to discover more emerging artists and to publish and help further promote their work If you would like your work to be featured in our upcoming issues, please find out more details on how to apply to be considered.

See p. 11 or visit our website: www.artmazemag.com We have an open call for art for the next print issue which provides publishing opportunities.

For any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us at info@artmazemag.com