Issue 26

tion 26, 2022 E di

Featured image: Ayla Dmyterko Can’t catch lost time or the thinning earth oil on linen with found wooden frame 90 x 54.5 x 7.5 cm more on p. 114-115

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.

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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.

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FRONT COVER:

Business information:

Emeli Theander The Trophy oil on canvas 162 x 130 cm more on p. 110-111

© 2022 print ISSN No. 2399-892X

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online ISSN No. 2399-8938

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RF. Alvarez Return to Ithaca acrylic on canvas 48 x 60 inches more on p. 106-107

ArtMaze Magazine is printed in London, United Kingdom

by Park Communications Ltd.

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interviewed

call for art

Abs u rd hu mou r and dange rou s dre am s i n Mi nyou ng Ki m’s p aradoxical i m agi nar y re alit ie s ............. ..................14

Edition 28 ...............................................................................................11

Unde r t he sk in : Con front i ng t he fe m ale gaze i n L ar i s s a D e Je s ú s Ne gró n’s wor k ...........................................................28 In c onve rs at ion w it h g ue st cu rators from T he Fore s P roje ct . . . . ........................................................... ..................42

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Contents

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curated selection of works

editorial selection of works

A my Ste el . . . . . . ...........................................................................48 Ky veli Z oi . . . . . . ..........................................................................50 M ax Ru mb ol . ........................................................... ................52 S igne Ralkov ...........................................................................54 Bar b ara Kueb el ...................................................... ................56 S h avel Płó c ie nn i k ...................................................................58 Jame s D e ar love ......................................................................60 M J Tor re c amp o .......................................................................62 Yam S h alev . . . .......................................................... ................64 Eva D i xon . . . . . . .......................................................... ................66 L i nda S oh Tre nge re id ............................................................68 Kat ya L ab owe - Stoll ................................................ ............... 70 E m ily Roye r . . ...........................................................................72 N i na Baxte r . . . ..........................................................................74 Tyle r Lu rk s . . .......................................................... ................76 E ke ne St anley Eme chet a ........................................ ................78 E ri n M i le z . . . . ........................................................... ................8 0 A lvi n O ng . . . . . . ..........................................................................8 2 A lek s andar To dorov ic ............................................ ................8 4 M ing Ying Hong ......................................................................8 6 A n na Pe rach ........................................................... ................8 8 A melia Br iggs .........................................................................90 M a ja Beh rm ann .......................................................................92 Lu x M iranda . .......................................................... ................94 M at hew Tom . ..........................................................................9 6 A nt H amlyn . ........................................................... ................98 D eb orah D r uick ....................................................................10 0 L aila Tara H . . .......................................................... ...............102

RF. Alvarez ............................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 O rnella Po cetti ...................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 E mel i Theander ..................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 10 Dmitr y Makush in ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 Ayla Dmy terko ....................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 14 Casto m Liri ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 16 Will iam S ch aeuble ................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 8 B en Zawal ich ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 0 Davina Jackso n ...................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 2 Jul ius Sto rgaard ..................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 24 Nao mi Wo rkman ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 6 Karish ma D’ S ouza ................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 8 Anders Ch ristian E riksen ...................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 0 Eve Ackroyd ........................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 2 Heather Dray zen ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 4

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Featured image: Davina Jackson Dreaming of Somewhere Else oil on hardback book cover 26 x 22 cm more on p. 122-123

from the founder Dear Reader, welcome to our 26th Edition!

We are proud to bring to your attention a new line of artists in this edition whose works we discover from our annual submission opportunities. We feel great honour to be receiving such enthusiasm for our guest-curators’ collaborations and editorial support for emerging talent. We thank this edition’s guest curator duo from The Fores Project, Sophie and Brooke, for stepping on our jurors’ board this time around and bringing their distinct outlook to define engaging and outstanding works alongside our editorial choices. As many of you will know, Sophie and Brooke are avid supporters and nurturers of emerging talent through their London-based residency which has promoted and elevated so many voices over the years.

We were delighted to team up with these two inspiring women and bring to your attention their meaningful project in the London art scene. We hope you will enjoy the new works featured in this edition as much as we do! (see Curated and Editorial selections on p. 46-135) This issue’s Interviewed section offers an in-depth insight into the developing practice of two of our previously featured artists—Minyoung Kim and Larissa De Jesús Negrón. We have been following the progress of their work over the past couple of years which has developed significantly ever since with their careers offering a promising success.

Korean artist Minyoung Kim paints mundane yet unfamiliar scenes, personifying non-living things and offering us a humorous and ironic outlook on life around us depicting bizarre, mysterious and often paradoxical situations. She paints primarily on raw unstretched canvas, seeking for the sense of drawing, which makes her work stand out and captivate the viewer.

Puerto Rican artist Larissa De Jesús Negrón’s painting is focused on the female body, in particular on its humanising and authentic contemporary depiction which often intersects the concepts of beauty and ugliness, breaking boundaries set by men depicting women in art history. Her work offers a refreshing look at an intimate and truthful portrayal of womanhood that feels relatable and universally close to the viewer. Working in a variety of mediums Larissa explains how experimentation and exploration of new painting and art making techniques keeps and stimulates her ever-present desire of discovery in her practice.

For our future 28th edition we are excited to collaborate with the founder and director of Mother Gallery in New York—Paola Oxoa. Mother Gallery is currently operating two gallery spaces in Manhattan and Beacon and growing. We feel we share a similar perspective with Paola on the way up-and-coming artists should be actively supported and their works shown and promoted. Paola has built an impressive gallery avenue which works exactly in this way and we enormously respect her tireless work and dedication in the contemporary art world.

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, Founder, curator and publisher Masha Zemtsova

p.46-103 curated selection of works

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Edition 28

call for art DEADLINE: May 19th, 2022 Guest Curator: Paola Oxoa Founder and director of Mother Gallery, New York

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 on our website: www.artmazemag.com or contact us at info@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Signe Ralkov When you seep Colored pencil on paper 54 x 42 cm more on p. 54-55

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erviewed:

Minyoung Kim Larissa De Jesús Negrón The Fores Project

www.minyoungkimwork.com

Absurd humour and dangerous dreams in Minyoung Kim’s paradoxical imaginary realities Korean artist Minyoung Kim creates painted narratives which traverse the boundary between the playful humour of everyday scenarios and a surreality that threatens to tip her subjects into perilous dream-worlds. These are visions populated by intelligent and curious black cats, naked female explorers, sentient food items, snakes, fish and fauna, set in moonlit landscapes and vast oceans, or conversely in domestic spaces and on tablecloths. There is real danger present in Minyoung’s paintings, yet the peril is constantly offset by Minyoung’s touches of absurdity—a winkle-picker shoe hovers over a grinning banana skin; a family of boiled eggs watch in horror as their siblings are sliced open by a knife held in a cat’s paw; a teacup screams when it is scalded by boiling liquid; a cat watches the smoke rising from a burning bedroom; a blissful figure floats on its back towards the sheer drop of a waterfall; a girl embraces a giant snake at the centre of a fire; another cat observes a figure engulfed in the lava spilling from an erupting volcano.

The absurd humour of Minyoung’s images is underpinned by her blending of fine realistic details—the shading of a leaf, the texture of a cat’s fur, an intricately patterned china plate— with a naive, illustrative style. This meeting of realism and unreal visual formations echoes the simultaneously vivid and off-kilter, half-remembered nature of dreams, which, among poetry and animated films, hold particular importance for Minyoung when it comes to sourcing inspiration.

In viewing Minyoung’s paintings, we are invited to participate in this dream-world, and yet the elements which go into its presentation continually hold us at a distance. Minyoung’s unstretched, unmounted canvases announce their two-dimensionality in their folds and creases, their raw, frayed edges. While the illusion of the painted scene is sustained in the image, the material details interrupt it, as if the viewer is encountering the vision through a veil. Minyoung often takes this optical playfulness further by including ornate painted frames and even painted wallpaper backdrops in her compositions, sometimes presenting multiple ‘framed’ paintings on a single sheet of canvas. The trompe l’oeil effect produced again blurs the demarcating line between painted image and three-dimensional reality. In this way, Minyoung incorporates the fallibility of human cognition and the unreliability of vision to reflect the interchangeable nature of the real and the imagined.

interview by Rebecca Irvin

Featured image: Minyoung Kim The Pot acrylic on unstretched canvas 153 x 131.6 cm

AMM: Hi Minyoung! To start us off—what was the first thing you can ever remember painting?

MK: I still vividly remember the experience of going to the department store with my family when I was four years old. While my family was eating, I couldn’t wait to go to the gallery in the department store next to the restaurant to see the artworks. After getting my mum’s permission to go there, I remember I really enjoyed the time spent looking at the works. A few days later, I drew my friend’s face in kindergarten. I painted it quite well—imagining the works I had seen at the gallery—and got a lot of praise from my teacher at that time. The teacher told me that I was full of artistic talent and that I was really good at colour mixing. Even though I was young enough to not realistically recognise what a dream is, I always thought in my subconscious that I wanted to make art when I grew up.

AMM: Was there a particular moment when you decided definitively that you would pursue art as a career?

MK: Because my love of art began when I was young, I always held the idea of becoming an artist. There were many significant moments that encouraged my pursuit of art as a career; the most intense of these was when I had my first solo show in Korea. I was shortlisted for a printmaking competition called BELT in Korea and was able to put on a solo exhibition in a fairly good gallery when I was graduating from my MFA course in 2014.

At that time, I had a good opportunity to show my work officially and receive public feedback. That milestone motivated me to really begin my life as an artist and I’ve had the opportunity to work on my practice steadily since then.

AMM: What are the main ways in which you think your work has evolved over the past few years?

MK: I think deciding to study abroad in the UK provided opportunities and ways to develop my work more widely. The preparation process for studying abroad in London was not easy, and three months after coming to the UK, the unexpected Covid-19 pandemic broke out, making it impossible to go to school. The city enforced the lockdown and my close friends around me went back to their countries one by one, but I chose to stay in England. In the meantime, there have been countless days when I’ve shed a lot of tears with serious loneliness. But during this time, I’ve also created art works every day, and tried to overcome that sadness. With various media such as stop-motion animation, ceramics, painting and drawing, I was able to use the time as an opportunity to re-establish the story of my work more profoundly and understand the direction of the work I could pursue through different methods. Ironically, thanks to the pandemic, I have had the chance to concentrate more on my work— now I appreciate those days.

AMM: How would you describe the world visualised in your paintings? Where do the narratives you paint come from?

MK: The sources for my inspiration are obtained from various places. Poetry, movies, dreams, etc. Among those, my dreams leave particularly strong impressions. The situations in my dreams that I experience directly or indirectly are scary and vivid at the time, but when I wake up and return to

“In my opinion, ordinary life and surreal visions are divided only by very subtle differences.

I’m very interested in capturing familiar and unfamiliar scenes, because I think if we change our perspectives by thinking even a little differently in our daily lives, the scenes of the everyday become very unrealistic. For example, when I personify non-living things by drawing eyes, nose and mouth, that’s not what we can see in reality, but what ‘they’ in another world might see. The world created by such an interesting visual synthesis method leaves us with room to think about another life.”

- Minyoung Kim

reality, they only leave a calm afterimage.

Sometimes my body and mind suffer because I cannot sleep well, but when the dream becomes an artwork, I feel the joy and value of it.

AMM: Your images hang in the balance between ordinary scenes and objects we might encounter in everyday life and surreal visions we might discover in a dream, or a storybook. What implications does this interplay of reality and

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26, Interviewed: Minyoung Kim

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surreal unreality have for thinking about the way we perceive the world?

MK: In my opinion, ordinary life and surreal visions are divided only by very subtle differences. I’m very interested in capturing familiar and unfamiliar scenes, because I think if we change our perspectives by thinking even a little differently in our daily lives, the scenes of the everyday become very unrealistic. For example, when I personify non-living things by drawing eyes, nose and mouth, that’s not what we can see in reality, but what ‘they’ in another world might see.

The world created by such an interesting visual synthesis method leaves us with room to think about another life.

AMM: Can you tell us about some of the concepts and themes behind the title of your solo show, ‘Night Fever’, with Taymour Grahne Projects last year? Was the show a significant one for you in terms of your artistic development?

MK: With my graduation from Slade School of Fine Art last year, my solo show was a very meaningful exhibition that allowed me to continue my career as an artist without giving up. The show was an opportunity to inform more people of my work, and thankfully, many of them liked the works. In fact, I didn’t decide on the concept or title of the solo show at the beginning, and after the paintings were all completed, each of the thirteen works on display was not intended in my original plan, but interestingly, there was a way in which the stories contained in the paintings were all connected to each other!

In particular, each story had a directing effect as if the entire scene was captured in chronological order, each work informing the next. For example: a butterfly sleeping on the grass at dawn—a cat hiding in the forest and observing total eclipses by the river—a cat swimming at night by the moon.

The setting for most of the works was night time. I liked how the title and concept of this exhibition developed, just as I captured many mysterious scenes from sleepless nights.

AMM: What do you like about working with unstretched canvas? Does it have a specific representative function as well as a practical one?

MK: Of course, practically, and especially in storage or transportation, these types of work certainly have advantages over those with conventional canvas over frames. However, my insistence on working in this form of ‘unstressed canvas’ has a greater significance.

While working, I focused on drawing rather than painting for a few years. This is because I was fascinated by its accessibility as a medium—the strength of drawing is that it can be easily handled at anytime, anywhere, not particularly restricted by location or setup. But at some point, I felt some limitations in drawing and wanted to find the interface between drawing and painting as I continued to try new things. The works I created by brushing on the framed canvas using Gesso were not really the feeling of

photo courtesy of the artist

the work I was pursuing. There were many trials and errors until the painterly effect I wanted was achieved. The way I work now was discovered after extensive research and exploration—using acrylic on raw canvas without priming creates a blurring and smudging effect as if using oil pastel or conte, which fully reflects the sense of a drawing I seek on the canvas.

responsibility. (I also have rhinitis!) However, I am seriously considering it, and I dream that the day will come when I can sleep with my cat in the same bed!

AMM: Framing and pictorial presentation have an important role in your compositions. Ornate frames are painted onto the canvas; sometimes multiple images are even framed within the same composition, against elaborate ornamental backdrops which imitate wallpaper or textiles.

What can you tell us about this attention to framing? And why is it important that the frames are painted into the composition, rather than actually present?

MK: Snakes have a dual interpretation in Korea, so they often appear vaguely in my

MK: As we can easily see in many artworks, painting creates a visual effect that makes two-dimensional planar work appear threedimensional. This is a kind of interesting optical illusion that deceives people’s eyes.

My work never includes an actual frame, yet it looks like the frame. The feeling is completely different when the audience sees my work from a distance and when the image is viewed closely. This acts as a kind of trick, and leaves a different impression depending on the distance or position from which the painting is observed.

Also, we generally think that paintings displayed in frames are works by famous artists, or they contain beautiful and wonderful subjects. In my work, however, frames act humorously as tools to break apart those old-fashioned notions. The frame offers a monumental format for recording scenes or subjects of importance—in my work this means capturing strange and mysterious moments.

AMM: Tell us about the cats! Do they hold a symbolic significance for you? And why black cats in particular?

MK: I draw cats as a cat lover, but more because the habits of the cat are interesting to me. For example, they are very curious, always observe and pay attention, and sometimes act more like humans than humans. In my work, cats always capture and observe mysterious moments, whether inside or outside the painting, like omnipotent beings—like God. And black cats, more than other types of cats, appear as symbols in most of my paintings; they imply various prejudices in that they have long been considered symbols of witchcraft and bad luck. But now, black cats are loved and considered cute by many people—and they are leading the story of my paintings, making my work more humorous and satirical.

AMM: Do you have a cat of your own?

MK: Unfortunately, I do not currently have a cat. This is because I really like cats and desperately want to raise them, but observing them and the actuality of owning them are really different—they require great

AMM: What are some other important symbols in your images? Crescent moons, for example, as well as fish and snakes, have a strong presence in your paintings.

“Although humans often appear in my work, most often it’s a naked girl or a figure veiled in grey dresses and wearing black boots, mainly without a visible face. The image of a girl exploring the world—climbing over rough obstacles, chasing the moonlight through the deep night—plays a ‘wanderer’ role in my paintings. It resembles me or many people undertaking a rough journey without giving up on their dreams and goals. In addition, the mysterious shape of the grey dress, which never reveals the face, appears in the picture like the witch of an era defined by misunderstanding and prejudice. They always stick together with black cats and help create interesting perspectives and stories.”

- Minyoung Kim works. In Korean folk tales, snakes can symbolise fertility because they lay a lot of eggs, but there are also some moments when they come out as sneaky—deceiving people and getting them into trouble. I find this dual aspect of snakes very interesting.

Most of the fish in my work represent the

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anonymous public. They have a habit of being almost separated from each other in my work and seem to be prejudiced against things that are not similar to them. They look at others with great interest but tend to keep their distance.

The deep night is mysterious and contains multitudes, but things in it do not always appear clearly. The faint crescent is surrounded by numerous obstacles that must be overcome to reach the light. The moon symbolises hope in my work. You see it in distance, but you can’t ever hold it completely.

AMM: What place do human figures have in these worlds you create?

MK: Although humans often appear in my work, most often it’s a naked girl or a figure veiled in grey dresses and wearing black boots, mainly without a visible face. The image of a girl exploring the world—climbing over rough obstacles, chasing the moonlight through the deep night—plays a ‘wanderer’ role in my paintings. It resembles me or many people undertaking a rough journey without giving up on their dreams and goals. In addition, the mysterious shape of the grey dress, which never reveals the face, appears in the picture like the witch of an era defined by misunderstanding and prejudice. They always stick together with black cats and help create interesting perspectives and stories.

AMM: There is a definite sense of humour present in the scenes you depict, which is often offset by suggestions of a threat—snakes in teacups and vases, hands holding knives, blood-spatters, drowning limbs, or bursts of fire. What is it about playful absurdity and danger that compels you to capture these moments of imminent peril—that moment when the tone of a dream flips to become a nightmare?

MK: The mixture of these moments of danger and humour in my paintings can be seen as a blend of heterogeneity, a dissonance of grotesque characteristics. The ironic scenes that evoke laughter with bizarre, eerie, and mysterious scenes reflect an internality— they capture paradoxical situations of psychological anxiety and conflict, and distill them in the picture. Surrounded by pastel-toned, fairy-tale, bright colours, the atmosphere of the painting makes the precarious situations depicted seem even more paradoxical. I hope the audience who appreciates my work will have the pleasure of finding these ironic two-sided elements.

AMM: How much of yourself do you put into your images? Does personal experience provide an important perspective when you’re planning or creating an artwork?

MK: I can say that I project myself one hundred percent, completely into the painting. My painting is an inner aggregation that includes not only the things and memories I have experienced, but also my emotional states of anxiety, regret, joy, sadness, loneliness, and

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26, Interviewed: Minyoung Kim

so on. Therefore, the work I make is like my diary. Experiences and thoughts that occur in real life—including secrets that cannot be confessed to anyone, feelings that I want to hide, and anxious inner conditions—may change or appear maximised in the paintings.

In a way, it plays a role in re-casting the situation, and makes me look back at myself once again and face things in a more honest way.

AMM: What are you reading, watching or listening to currently? Does the media and popular culture you absorb tend to seep into your art?

MK: I am often attracted by numerous images shown on Instagram, the Internet, movies, and animations, and I refer to those, but sometimes I feel inspired by written language (such as poems) rather than images. Among them, poems by an author named Seo-young Park, one of my favourite Korean poets—these always seem new to me whenever I read them. I think her way of expressing what she sees, and the phrases she creates, help me to imagine things more deeply and look at them from a different perspective. When reading her familiar, unfamiliar, still and dynamic writings, imagination makes the described scene richer. Also, I have to say that I’m a big fan of Studio Ghibli. Among the various animated films, Kiki’s Delivery Service and The Princess Mononoke are my favourites. When I’m bored, I tend to watch them repeatedly— then I can feel that my brain is refreshed.

AMM: What does a day spent in your studio look like?

MK: My studio life is very simple. Buy coffee at around 11:30am-12pm, go to the studio, drink the coffee before starting work, and paint.

Then I’m listening to music or podcasts and drawing pictures—I feel the time is very short.

When I lose concentration or want to rest while working, I watch interesting short video clips on YouTube, or meet friends in the studio who use the same building. I spend an average of 7-8 hours a day in the studio, and the distance between my house and the studio is very short, so I can go there whenever I want to draw—even in the middle of the night!

AMM: What are the main challenges you’re facing in your practice at the moment? Do you have any strategies for overcoming creative setbacks?

MK: There are times when it’s difficult for me to get fresh inspiration. Once I start painting, the speed of making the work is quite fast, but a lot of the time I’m already thinking about creating a new image. My painting avoids repetitive images because for me the ideas part is very important. The development of compositions or stories that I’ve drawn in the past, by applying them to other paintings or making repetitive works, is not interesting for me—I always want new images and materials. When I have difficulty in this process, I stop painting and try to refresh my brain by watching movies, media,

reading books and attending exhibitions.

AMM: How do you find the creative community in London? Do you find much opportunity for creative exchange and collaboration with fellow artists?

MK: I’ve seen many different artists in London attempt collaborative work (design, video, performance, etc.), and thereby enriching their own work, and I’m interested in the works of artists in such communities. However, I haven’t had a clear collaboration opportunity yet, and if I have a chance in the future, I want to collaborate with my other material works, rather than paintings. I am also interested in making animation, ceramics and installation work, so I think I can actively implement this if I have the chance, or if I meet an artist who is on the same page as me. For example, one of the collaboration ideas I thought of with my friend in the past was that of making a storyboard together, since she was a movie scene-writer; I would be in charge of the art in the animation and another friend could edit it and put some sound effects into the video.

AMM: You’ve experimented with using clay to harness your images in a different medium; do you plan to work further with ceramics?

MK: Definitely! In the past, while making ceramics, I felt that my work improved and had a more expanded direction. Whenever the painting works are in progress, I have a huge desire to make the elements of the painting into ceramics, and I want to develop my work in various ways by attempting to convert twodimensional forms into three-dimensional ones.

However, the problem facing me now is that I need access to a kiln to be able to do ceramic work, and such conditions cannot be met in the current studio, so there is no choice but to register with a professional ceramic studio.

AMM: What visions do you have for the development of your work in the future?

Are there any projects in the pipeline that you can share with us?

MK: I will continue to make various creative attempts not only through painting but also through other media, and I want to approach the public more familiarly by exhibiting my work in more shows. In fact, a lot of painting exhibitions are scheduled to take place this year, so I am now immersed in painting.

As for the first half of the year’s exhibition schedule, there are group shows confirmed in three galleries—Août Gallery in February, Ojiri Gallery in March, and Taymour Grahne Projects in May. And it hasn’t been confirmed yet, so it’s hard to say in advance, but I think I can have a solo show in America in the second half of this year, which is so exciting to me!

I’m really looking forward to my future steps with my art—I want to be an artist who makes artworks that can delight people.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26, Interviewed: Minyoung Kim

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Featured image (p.18): Minyoung Kim The Banana acrylic on unstretched canvas 87.5 x 72.5 cm

Featured image (p.21): Minyoung Kim Who is your mum? acrylic on unstretched canvas 60 x 53 cm

Minyoung Kim Daybreak acrylic on unstretched canvas 46 x 46 cm

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Minyoung Kim The Moth acrylic on unstretched canvas

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Minyoung Kim Dandelions acrylic on unstretched canvas 80.1 x 78 cm

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Minyoung Kim Night Flight acrylic on unstretched canvas 57 x 67.5 cm

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Minyoung Kim The Ocean Tree acrylic on unstretched canvas 47.8 x 48.5 cm

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Minyoung Kim The Longest Total Eclipse acrylic on unstretched canvas 45.4 x 46.2 cm

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www.larissadejesus.com

Under the skin: Confronting the female gaze in Larissa De Jesús Negrón’s work The neo-surrealist work of Puerto Rican artist Larissa De Jesús Negrón reflects the artist’s subconscious fears, insecurities and yearnings. At once deeply personal, Larissa’s work is also easily relatable. In her self-portraits and compositions we find ourselves reflected back at us. The discomfort of being confronted with our insecurities becomes a form of healing as we’re reminded that we are not alone and that these are shared feelings and experiences.

The female body is a primary motif in Larissa’s work. Coupled with this is the theme of perception and reflection, suggested by the many mirrors, windows and reflective surfaces that recur in her compositions.

Unlike the female figure in art history which is framed by and for the male gaze, the female bodies in Larissa’s work depict imperfections and failings and reflect the often overly-critical and dysmorphic female gaze turned in on itself. The dichotomy between ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ is ever present in Larissa’s work, which makes it both challenging and relatable. The vulnerability to reveal her own deep-seated bodily anxieties in public, makes it okay for the viewer to acknowledge their own. She says that “a cathartic moment of acceptance happens every time I paint my body on a surface. It gives me joy to see women relate to my work and understand a lot of my experience because it’s similar to theirs”.

Larissa works in a range of media including acrylic and oil paint, soft and oil pastels, spray paint and colour pencils. Her visual language is both hyper-stylised and realistic resulting in other-worldly, dreamlike portraits and scenes where “the familiar lives with the uncanny to tell a story about mundane life.” In a recent work for her solo booth Tiempo al Tiempo at Salón ACME, water gushes into a bloodred bath. Bank notes, lotions and potions are contained in little droplets of water, while in a larger puddle, a gasping face is reflected. The tiles surrounding the bath are hazy and transparent through which an idyllic tropical beach can be seen. In this scene, the banality of a toilette becomes loaded with the subtexts of contemporary beauty ideals. In another work, Consumed by my own reflection, the relationship between medium and subject matter is more closely linked. A baroque gilded mirror reflects the despondent face of the reclining female subject. The modelling paste that Larissa has used on the body seems to etch the figure’s expression deep into her skin like wounds. In both works, and Larissa’s art in general, the female body is both an intimately personal site and a symbolic canvas that embody a range of contemporary female experiences.

Larissa was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She began her studies at The School of Plastic Arts in Old San Juan majoring in drawing and painting. After two years, she transferred to Hunter College in NYC from which she received her BFA in 2017. She has participated in numerous curated group exhibitions and is beginning to build her solo show repertoire with upcoming presentations in the USA, UK and Europe.

interview by Layla Leiman

Featured image: Larissa De Jesús Negrón I care because she cared acrylic and oil paint on linen 24 x 30 inches

AMM: Hi Larissa! To start us off, can you share a significant early memory that has in some way influenced your journey as an artist?

LDJN: I remember being a little girl, around 11 years old, sitting on the floor of my room painting with my father. While we were painting, he was using different found objects like coins, sticks and cartons to make forms on his canvas. Thinking back, that was the first example of thinking outside the box when it comes to creating. Here I was thinking all you could use to make art was paint, a brush and canvas and all of a sudden a whole new set of options opened up just by seeing my dad experiment and have fun doing so. This explains why I’m so driven to change my materials on a regular basis in the studio and love to explore combinations that I haven’t done before.

AMM: As you’ve learned and grown creatively, what experience or piece of advice that you’ve received has profoundly influenced you and your work?

LDJN: I think that as an artist it is essential to have a sense of play when it’s time to create. Meaning that you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously in the studio. Your work can be serious, it can be political and it can be impactful but it can also be dynamic, exploratory and spontaneous. When an artist is having fun and enjoying the creative process, the finished result will always be better, in my opinion.

AMM: What was your experience moving to New York from Puerto Rico? Do you feel like you’ve found an artistic community in the city?

LDJN: Leaving my island on my own, at 19 years old, was incredibly difficult for me and for my family. Coming from a very religious family, it felt like a very risky decision to send off a rebellious young girl to the Big Apple.

I was privileged enough to get accepted into Hunter college in New York City, where I had my first encounters with emerging and renowned artists in the community. Those artists helped me understand the basics of how the artworld operates and how to develop my own discipline.

AMM: In what ways does your art reflect your personal experiences and psychology?

LDJN: My work is a reflection of my fears, my insecurities, my regrets and what I yearn for. I want my work to tell me something about my present moment but yet capture the essence of my emotional state in the process. A lot of the time it helps me get over traumas and irrational fears that are ultimately holding me back.

AMM: The surrealist nature of your compositions opens up the world of the psyche and unconscious. How and when did you become interested in the subconscious and what you describe as your ‘neuroticism’?

LDJN: I am a very self-critical person. I constantly evaluate my performance and ask myself what I need to be better at or fix within myself. This has been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember and it’s quite hard for me to shut off. Self-analysis can become a neurotic behaviour that leads to anxiety. I’m able to express and process conflicting emotions through surreal and neo-surreal imagery with the use of symbolisms.

AMM: You’ve mentioned the significance of healing past and current traumas through your work. In what ways does painting and making art provide a space for introspection and catharsis for you?

“Something that I focus on when painting women is making sure that I’m humanizing her in my depiction. Starting off by painting her face with an authentic expression that evokes thought and/ or curiosity. I’ve made it a point to paint the nipples, armpits, groin area and other parts of the body as natural as possible, with hair and sometimes acne. A lot of the women that I’ve painted are either deep in thought and introspection or in a frantic emotional state, which is not at all how men have depicted women in art history.”

- Larissa De Jesús Negrón

LDJN: I am a spontaneous creator. If I have a blank canvas in front of me, there’s a high chance I will make the first thing that comes to mind. I have a tendency of trusting the first idea I get because why not? This unplanned process taps into the unconscious and reveals images that surprise me and tell me something about myself. It’s therapeutic.

AMM: Your recent work seems to engage with gender stereotypes and the objectification of the female body. Do you think of your art through a

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26, Interviewed: Larissa De Jesús Negrón

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feminist lens? Please tell us more about the ideas and themes shaping your current practice.

LDJN: Throughout my life, I’ve felt immense pressure from society to have the perfect, toned, hourglass body. Dealing with body dysmorphia is part of my experience as a woman. Painting images of the female body, oftentimes using my own body as reference, opens an opportunity for me to actually take in the beauty that I am. A cathartic moment of acceptance happens every time I paint my body on a surface. It gives me joy to see women relate to my work and understand a lot of my experience because it’s similar to theirs.

AMM: In art history, the female figure has been largely framed by the male gaze. In what ways are you playing with and subverting this tradition in your painting?

LDJN: Something that I focus on when painting women is making sure that I’m humanizing her in my depiction. Starting off by painting her face with an authentic expression that evokes thought and/or curiosity. I’ve made it a point to paint the nipples, armpits, groin area and other parts of the body as natural as possible, with hair and sometimes acne. A lot of the women that I’ve painted are either deep in thought and introspection or in a frantic emotional state, which is not at all how men have depicted women in art history.

AMM: There’s an interesting connection between your use of airbrush in your work, and the prevalence of this digital tool to manipulate the appearance of people (mostly female) in popular media. Is this intentional? Please tell us more about the ways in which you engage with ideas of ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ in your work.

LDJN: I actually hadn’t made that connection before but it’s very interesting. Airbrush does have connection to the beauty and make-up industry so that makes perfect sense. I am looking to make faces that are genuine and authentic, faces that communicate a deeper narrative outside of aesthetic beauty. My work is less about gender and more about being in touch with my authentic self. What am I going through?

What do I feel right now? These are the questions that I ask myself before painting a face.

AMM: One gets the sense that vulnerability is an important part of your art practice. Please tell us about the confidence required to put so much of yourself into your work and share this with the world.

LDJN: I would say the tough part of being this vulnerable is constantly being hyper aware of your own flaws and shortcomings.

Developing a visual language that is easy for others to relate to and understand comes through experience and experimentation.

Now, being constantly in touch with the

photo courtesy of the artist

things that you fear, crave or are excited about takes a lot of openness to change.

AMM: Your compositions often play with perspective and distorted levels of depth. How has your visual language evolved over time and how might this relate to the themes and ideas in your work?

LDJN: By playing with perspectives and distortions in many of my compositions, I invite the spectator into a world outside of reality. A world where the familiar lives with the uncanny to tell a story about mundane life.

AMM: Water is a recurring motif in your paintings. What does this symbolise for you?

Please tell us about some of the other motifs you return to in your work.

LDJN: Water, whether it’s in droplet form, ice cubes, puddles, steam or the ocean, they all symbolize the idea of fluidity of thought and introspection. By letting the subconscious come to float and allowing my imagination to run free, I’m able to process bottled up emotions and therefore grow as a human being.

AMM: In what ways is your art a form of therapy towards a deeper understanding of yourself, and can it offer something similar to the viewer?

LDJN: Making art can be therapeutic for me in two ways. During the process of creation and then during the process of analyzing.

Both are very different processes yet both are essential to understanding myself. Spending my time with a work, going back and forth with it, is Art as therapy and it works. I hope that in me being as specific as I can be, more people can relate to my personal experience.

AMM: What does a typical day in studio look like for you? Do you have any creative rituals that feed your creativity? What is your ideal headspace to be in?

LDJN: A typical day for me would be waking up at 9 AM, having my morning coffee and then stepping into the studio to see what comes up or what you can continue working on. In a week, I have three studio days and two office days. Part of managing my own studio is taking care of sales, updating my website and price list, really, everything that involves being a working artist. Since I already have a routine in place, I don’t necessarily need to be in a certain headspace to make art, as long as I’m healthy and my body feels capable, I’ll be at the studio.

AMM: Do you work on several pieces at the same time or focus on one thing at a time? What’s your process of working?

LDJN: I find it necessary to work on various paintings at the same time. I get bored very quickly, if I am working on something for more than five hours or so, I need to switch.

That’s why I like to take breaks whenever I’m doing really detailed work to make something more loose and risky. This results in me making a lot more work but it’s a way for me to de-stress. I’m usually working on four or five pieces at a time.

AMM: Please tell us about the mediums you work in. What appeals to you about working in a mixed-medium approach?

LDJN: I’m currently working with acrylic, oil paint, soft pastels, oil pastels, spray paint, just so, loose pigments and color pencils.

Combining materials and finding new

“...when I was in college, the idea of having an art career and being an independent artist was incomprehensible to me.

I learned what having discipline looked like when I was in school but everything that has to do with managing my career, I’ve learned with experience in the real world, by making mistakes and listening to the people I trust. I remember being 17 years old and putting all these expectations on myself to have one distinct style as an artist without understanding that none of us are one thing and that exploration is the only way to discovery.”

independent artist was incomprehensible to me. I learned what having discipline looked like when I was in school but everything that has to do with managing my career, I’ve learned with experience in the real world, by making mistakes and listening to the people I trust. I remember being 17 years old and putting all these expectations on myself to have one distinct style as an artist without understanding that none of us are one thing and that exploration is the only way to discovery.

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

LDJN: For the last month I’ve been binge watching Betty, la fea on Netflix. Because I’ve been doing a residency in Mexico City, I’ve made it a point to only watch Latin American TV and cinema to take in the culture as much as possible. During my stay, I’ve also been really into house music and techno, which is a change from all the pop music that I listen to in the US. AMM: Do you have any projects or exhibitions coming up? What’s next for you?

LDJN: Just this week I had my first international solo booth with Regular Normal Gallery at Salón Acme art fair here in Mexico City. I’m excited to have two solo booths coming up, one in Berlin and one potentially in Korea! I’m also in the midst of planning my first solo show in LA with Harkawik Gallery and I have a residency scheduled for November 2022 with L21 Gallery. A couple of other things are already lined up for 2023, like my first solo show in London with Guts gallery, which I’m over the moon about. I am excited and humbled by the opportunities that are coming my way.

- Larissa De Jesús Negrón materials to work with keeps me with a sense of curiosity and really pushes me to go back to the studio and try new things. Every time I get back from Blick or Michael’s I’m like a little kid on Christmas, eager to have fun with a new, shiny toy.

AMM: How has your approach to your work and career developed and changed over the years?

What have been some of the things that have influenced you?

LDJN: I will say that when I was in college, the idea of having an art career and being an

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Featured image (p.32): Larissa De Jesús Negrón Pensando en ellas acrylic and color pencil on paper 11 x 14 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26, Interviewed: Larissa De Jesús Negrón

Larissa De Jesús Negrón What comes after abundance? acrylic, soft pastels, collage and oil paint on canvas 24 x 30 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Grown enough to play acrylic, soft pastels and collage on canvas 18 x 24 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Strength and Women acrylic, oil pastels and markers on canvas 20 x 24 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Time is of the essence acrylic, color pencil and oil paint on wood panel 24 x 30 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón What’s the good in goodbye? acrylic, oil paint and soft pastels on canvas 20 x 30 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Consumed by my reflection acrylic and colored pencil on canvas 24 x 30 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Night Sweats acrylic and soft pastels on streched cotton fabric 16 x 22 inches

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Larissa De Jesús Negrón Tension Relief acrylic on cotton fabric 30 x 40 inches

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www.foresproject.org

In conversation with guest curators from The Fores Project AMM: Hi Brooke and Sophie! To start us off, can you tell us how The Fores Project came into being? Was this something that had been planned for a long time or did it grow out of something else? Please fill us in on the backstory that led to The Fores Project of today.

FP: The Fores Project was born out of a passion for supporting emerging artists.

Whilst it is extremely important to support artists through collecting their works, we also wanted to help support their practice with a more traditional patronage approach.

By inviting artists to the project we are able to offer them time and space within the studio to work on their practice and also an opportunity to explore and be inspired by London. There is also a networking element to the project and through studio visits with curators, collectors and gallerists alike, the artists are introduced to a wide network of art world professionals based across the UK. AMM: The Fores Project was previously in Notting Hill. What caused you to relocate it

to Kentish Town, and what are your thoughts about the significance of location for an artist residency programme?

FP: The shift in location and formatting of the project stemmed from the effects of the pandemic. We not only realised there was a huge demand for studio space amongst our London based artists but also hosting international artists with travel restrictions was at the time very complicated. The property in Kentish Town provides artists with both accommodation and studio space in a really vibrant part of London.

Lots of artists have taken inspiration from the location and we find this sometimes translates directly into the work they produce whilst with us. From the butterfly roofs in Justin Liam O’Brien’s ‘One For Sorrow, Two For Joy’ to Matt Phillips’ entire series of paintings being dedicated to the area of Kentish Town. It reinforces the power space has on artistic practice and leaves the house with a very special energy from each of the artists that have joined us.

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photo courtesy of The Fores Project

AMM: Your website describes the residency as providing “time and space”. Can you tell us more about what you consider the benefits for artists of spending a period of time living and working outside of their normal context?

FP: We aim to give the artists joining us time and space in London, “space” may be a break from their usual studio or working environment, or the excitement of being in a new country and how that inspires them.

“Time” is not only the 24hr access to the studio but also the time to focus without the distractions of their usual routine and the time to explore the city for influences to bring back to their work. With any creative practice, time and space are necessary components for development. The benefits of each of these are hugely personal and specific to the artists who join us. We have had a range of residents, some of whom use the time to work almost non-stop in the studio and really relish the opportunity to focus, others who really enjoy walking around London, admiring the architecture, visiting museums and galleries, allowing their imagination to wander and coming back to the space buzzing with ideas.

AMM: In addition to a space to live and work, you facilitate networking and connection opportunities for visiting artists with Europeanbased curators, collectors and gallerists. What role do you see yourselves and The Fores Project playing for resident artists’ professional pathways, as well as in the emerging art scene in London?

FP: A large part of what we do on the project is introduce artists to a wider network of people during their time with us.

Through an open dialogue with the artists in residence, we curate and carefully consider studio visits that are in line with their practice. We believe that these connections will provide residents with the opportunity to have their work highlighted to a new audience. These networking opportunities have resulted in various inclusions in group shows as well as solo presentations with well-respected galleries. In addition, we also present the works made on the project in our gallery space.

FP: We found this framework creates a good social and working environment, it is a large amount of time to get settled into the project and also make long-lasting connections.

Having said that, the time frame of four weeks, does have the flexibility to become six, should that benefit the artist’s practice.

AMM: Please take us on an imaginary tour through the residency house—what goes on there day-to-day? What is the general atmosphere like? And what do you hope artists take away from their residency experience?

FP: What is central to the programme is open-mindedness and flexibility. We always take experience from previous residents forward but we are open to new ways of working with each artist as needed and as a result, we are constantly changing and challenging ourselves. As the residency period is relatively short and the schedule is busy the challenge is to be able to switch off a bit when we can.

FP: There is no typical day in the residency house! We have a rough idea of how the weeks will pan out. We normally focus the first week on allowing the artists to get settled in, ensuring they have the materials they need and are confident getting around the city, whether to visit galleries or different pockets of London for inspiration. The next stretch of time allows the artists time to focus in the studio, followed by often quite a busy stretch of introductions and studio visits. That said, each month we like to follow the pace of the artist, there is no rule book!

AMM: What do each of you enjoy most about running the residency programme?

AMM: What kind of working relationship do you have with resident artists? Does this extend beyond the four-week duration of the residency?

AMM: Success can take various forms and mean different things to different people. How do you measure success for the residency programme?

FP: We have a very close working relationship with the artists who join us.

As much as we are supporting them we also acknowledge that by joining us they are supporting and trusting us with their work so we endeavour to really make it a meaningful and productive experience for them all. Once the artists have completed the residency, we continue to keep in touch and support them on all their future projects.

FP: Success is hard to measure. Ultimately we work with artists we really believe in before they even arrive with us. So we are confident the work they make will be great. The success is if they feel they have positively benefitted from the experience, be it that they have been offered a solo show with a London based gallery, their work has been added to a great collection or if they have had time to stop and slow down and without the distractions of their daily life have really enjoyed focusing on their practice.

AMM: What is the current state of the emerging art scene in London, and are there any changes or adaptations that you’re optimistic about?

FP: The project is carefully curated and as a result, is invitation only. Thematic focus shifts from month to month and is very dependent on the artists we programme. It is important to us that the artists use the time on the residency to work freely so we avoid influencing the direction of the work.

FP: The art scene in London feels buoyant post-pandemic. There is a real buzz in the air, people are excited to be able to do studio visits and get to galleries and see work IRL! There is also a committed community in London right now, be that collectors who visit galleries regularly or artists supporting one another via reposting work made or programming group shows. There are also an amazing number of small and midsize galleries promoting both the UK and International artists from both conventional gallery spaces and imaginative pop-up shows. We host a ‘leaving drinks’ event at the end of each residency and there is a real sense of community which is really special.

AMM: Residencies last for four weeks with two artists paired in the space over each period.

Please tell us more about how and why you settled on this framework.

AMM: Has running The Fores Project allowed you to develop new skills, or put existing skills to different uses? From a personal perspective, how has the residency programme grown

AMM: Does the programme have thematic focuses? What are you looking for from artist applicants? Can any artist apply?

and challenged each of you creatively and professionally?

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FP: I think we both really enjoy the personal relationships we have made alongside the work we have seen develop. The aim of the project was always to support artists in a holistic capacity and there is a huge joy from the lasting friendships we have both made.

As many of the artists travel to London to join us we are also fortunate to benefit from the buzz they experience from being in a new city and the excitement of the month to come and that in turn inspires us too.

Matt Phillips in the studio, September 2021

Olivia Sterling in the studio, September 2021

Rafa Silvares in the studio, June 2021

curated selection of works by guest curators Sophie Sofer, director of The Fores Project and, Brooke Wilson, residency curator and coordinator at The Fores Project, London, UK Featured image: Alvin Ong Binge Watch oil on canvas 250 x 200 cm more on p. 82-83

A m y

S t e e l

www.amysteel.info

Image: Foetal Fantasy oil, watercolour and charcoal on canvas 130 x 90 cm

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Amy Steel completed her MFA in 2019 from the Slade School of Fine Art and her BA from Goldsmiths University London in 2015. Amy was awarded the ACME Post Graduate Studio Award in 2019, selected by Marianna Simnett. Selected shows include: (solo) Soho Revue, London (2022); Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing (2022); (solo) How It Happened, Niru Ratnam Gallery, London (2021); (two person show) PEER Gallery, London (2021); FBA Futures, Mall Galleries, London (2019); Ripe Beings, White Crypt, London (2019); Bite, Barbican Arts Trust Group, London (2018); Drip Dry, Chalton Gallery, London (2018) Amy combines painting and performance to create expansive sensual environments that explore the body as a sensual vessel yearning for a polymorphous sexuality. Fascinated by the complex relationships humans have with nature, Steel’s dream-like paintings often feature animals and female body parts, which meld in to the mysterious and luminous landscapes. The luminosity is translated through Steel’s specific use of colour, through which she creates an atmosphere that is charged with emotion. The paintings are pointedly ambiguous, enabling the viewer to sense the work and react emotionally rather than by responding to an overly prescriptive narrative.

Image: Rumours oil and charcoal on canvas 90 x 70 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

www.kyvelizoi.com

K y v e l i Z o i Image: Trying to Communicate oil on linen 9 x 12 inches

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Kyvèli Zoi (b.1993 in Athens, Greece) is a painter and multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Athens, Greece. She completed her BFA at the School of Visual Arts New York City (USA, 2016), after attending classes at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 2014) and Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design (London, 2011-12). Her work features in many private collections across the globe, and her collaborations include projects for the National Theatre of Greece, the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, SVA Theatre in New York and the film director George Panousopoulos. She has held four solo shows and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in New York, London, Brussels, Naples and Athens, the most recent being: ‘Cc’, a group show curated by Olympia Tzortzi, at Callirrhoë Space, Athens; ‘Rien Ne Va Plus’ at Waldburger Wouters Gallery Online (Brussels) and ‘Animal Show’, a group exhibition at Acappella Gallery (Naples). Kyvèli is also the director of KYAN Projects, a new project space she founded in June 2021. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).

In her practice, Kyvèli questions and revisits the notions of chance, individuality, identity, personality, communication, tradition and evolution. All the different characters, cultures and details of people’s relationships, are points of inspiration which are represented by a variety of patterns, textures or zoomins, on gestures and symbols. In her painting she is interested in creating situations, and forming mysteries of visual language, emphasizing on the importance of crisis, time and fate, and the ‘out of focus’ characteristics of the stories she aims to tell.

Image: Different Memories oil on linen (X2) 8 x 10 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

M a x

R u m b o l

www.maxrumbol.co.uk

Image: Tempest acrylic, buttons, pencil, pigment, quartz sand, varnish and wood stain on wood and linen 125 x 94 cm

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Max Rumbol is an artist based in London, UK. He studied at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Rumbol works across digital drawing, painting and sculpture to create wood carved works that reflect on his relationship with creativity and his pastoral upbringing. His process relies on a mix of clinical computer machinery, assemblage and playful experimentation across various media; resulting in a unique blend of painting and sculpture that establishes a dialogue between automation and human error. Recent shows include Ojiri Gallery (formerly Ramp Gallery), London; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles and Union Gallery, London.

I’m interested in exploring the tension between the slick, seductiveness of the machine and the sincerity of the human touch. We often inherently value artwork as a direct trace of the artist’s hand, and in a primitive way there’s something quite magical about being able to ‘see behind the curtain’ and appreciate an artwork as a physical trace of the human hand. My process begins with physical sketches or digital drawings which are then laser cut; each manufactured sculptural surface worked in different ways to reveal or hide the trace of the hand. In doing so a dialogue is created between the fidelity of the shaky computer aided marks, and the tightness or looseness of the physical mark making. My recent works have focussed on my relationship with creativity and artistic epiphany; the apple a direct reference to Newton’s own ‘Eureka’ moment sat under the tree. The work often examines what it means for an artwork to be ‘in progress’, or that moment where things come together and the artist finally steps away from a work. In particular I enjoy the liminality of the physical works combined with the liminality of the images they often depict – a snapshot in time which captures a certain moment in the creative process.

With my work I aim to create something that is both hyper contemporary yet rooted in the primitive; taking inspiration from artists such as Victor Pasmore, Joe Tilson and Jeff Elrod.

Image (left): Portrait in Progress (Suited) acrylic, buttons, pigment, varnish and wood stain on wood and cotton 97 x 59 cm

Image (right): Portrait in Progress (Sweat/Tears) acrylic, buttons, pigment, varnish, watercolour and wood stain on wood, cotton and linen 123 x 83 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

S i g n e

R a l k o v

www.instagram.com/signeralkov

Image: Nymph claw IV colored pencil on paper 21 x 28 cm

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Signe Ralkov (b. 1997, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen and is currently studying at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Working mainly with colored pencil on paper, she imagines herself and friends in various states of metamorphosis, portraying objects and entities as they transform. Exploring narratives of anthropomorphism in her surroundings, she engages with questions of non-human agency.

She uses snapshots from her daily life combined with found imagery, morphing the mundane with the stream of images she consumes. The primarily blue color palette in her work alludes to the early photographic printing process called cyanotype. In Ralkov’s practice the reference relates to the way she experiences drawing as a play of light, shadow and time. Through a personal mythology, she weaves together fantasy and reality to investigate transformation and a sense of belonging.

Image: Evil Again colored pencil on paper 21 x 28.5 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

B a r b a r a

K u e b e l

www.barbarakuebelart.studio

Image: The Age acrylic on cotton canvas 40 x 30 inches

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Born and raised in Austria, Barbara Kuebel earned two art degrees from the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, in Painting and Art Education. She also obtained a BSc degree in Social Psychology from the Open University UK and an MS degree in Social Psychology from Walden University Minnesota/ Program Planning and Program Evaluation in Forensic Settings.

Central to my work is the figure in social situations. The most important carrier of information in painting and printmaking is the line may it be seen as a boundary of a shape or applied in density and texture in painting. I normally use bold colours and try to avoid that colours mix which each other within the painting process. I use more thin pencils even for large works to keep the idea of drawing. My themes are around people in an imaginary social context who feel the need to decide.

Therefore sometimes figures are not perceived as nice rather than under tension and looking old.

Anger and fear make persons look old but interesting. I use this tension to express also a kind of nervousness—a feature that also applies to myself when it comes to do art. This series of paintings is concerned with the subject matter of family and it is specifically important to me that after two years I painted my kids and parents for the first time. I used these paintings to memorise what has changed and how we look like in our imaginations. I specifically painted in colour fields to control myself and to be able to develop a construct where reality and fluid memory is merged.

Image: Die Beratung acrylic on canvas 47 x 44 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

S h a v e l P ł ó c i e n n i k

www.instagram.com/shavel.plociennik

Image: Hetera 1NRI oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm

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Shavel Płóciennik (born 1987 in Warsaw, Poland) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2019) and is a painter, author of graphic novels and performer.

My paintings tell about the inner self. About someone who sits deep within us. This someone is often unable to appear to us in such a way that he is noticed. This is my role.

I like to paint a man, but my man. Then I have the feeling that I am creating someone.

My man is a mystery. Behind him there are small matters and great feelings that we can feel together as an artist and a spectator. The most important thing for me is to establish a non-verbal dialogue with someone who meets my paintings. Painting is a living life for me and revealing the mystery together.

Image: Persona ESC oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

J a m e s D e a r l o v e

Image: Figures on a Bed oil on de-acidified newspaper on linen 150 x 150 cm

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www.jamesdearlove.co.uk

James Dearlove lives and works in his studio on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, UK. He is a graduate of the Slade School of Art (MA Fine Art) and UCL (BA English Literature) in London and also of the mentorship programme at Turps Banana Art School where he was mentored by Benjamin Senior and Anne Sassoon. He exhibited two paintings in 2019 in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London and three paintings in the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2020. In May 2021 he presented four paintings in the group show ‘Queer As Folklore’ curated by DuoVision at Gallery 46 in Whitechapel, London. In August 2021 he showed another four paintings in the group exhibition ‘Burra and Friends’ curated by David Lock at Rye Art Gallery, Rye. In October 2021 Dearlove had his first solo show called ‘The Garden Room’ at Nine Elms Gallery in London. In 2020 he was long-listed for the Jackson Painting Prize and shortlisted for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. In November 2021 he was awarded the prestigious Ingram Prize, specifically the Founders Choice Award for his painting ‘Figures on a Bed’ which has now been acquired by the Ingram Collection.

My work presents a twilit, chimerical realm haunted by figures, animals and hybrids. I am preoccupied with how humans leave a trace of their presence both as individuals and collectively on the world; the way a figure can electrify a room, the trajectory of a cyclist across a park or a firework across the sky. My paintings depict the intimate reality of the human presence; light falling on flesh or bodies coalescing with their surroundings. However they are also concerned with more metaphysical and sometimes more violent collisions between humanity and the natural world; figures transforming into birds or fighting with crocodiles, a vortex of shipwrecked bodies and jellyfish.

Ultimately I seek in my paintings to explore both the desire and disquietude in the human experience through my own experience as a queer artist living and working both in the heart of the city or more recently in rural isolation.

Image: Soda Lake Landscape with Figures and Birds oil and acrylic on linen 200 x 200 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

M J To r r e c a m p o

www.mjtorrecampo.com

Image: Riding with Training Wheels oil on canvas 36 x 28 inches

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Mary Joy Torrecampo, born in 1992 in the Philippines; lives and works in Orlando, FL, US. My work involves themes of the family, childhood and cultural upbringing. It’s an exploration and questioning into the close social relationships we maintain and their complications—the simultaneous aspects of unity and division. The images are memories I’ve initially filtered as customary, reconstructed with details that suggest an underlying tension and uncertainty—a sense of belonging and not belonging. The psychological space around the figures is probably more important than the figures themselves. We’re at times on autopilot during the mundane aspects of our day—whether it’s while eating breakfast or in a subway. I’m interested in those moments that are viewed as dull and trying to pull out what it can tell us about our relationships to others and the space. As I spend more years in the States than the Philippines, my birth country, I’m thinking about how I relate to my family and the push and pull of being raised in one culture and growing into another.

Image: To His Doctor’s Appointment oil on canvas 36 x 28 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

Y a m S h a l e v

www.yamshalev.com

Image: It’s less about the food and more about the company acrylic on canvas 140 x 110 cm

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Yam Shalev (b. 1996, Israel) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He recently had his debut solo exhibition at Cuturi Gallery Singapore. He has also exhibited in Germany, London and Tel-Aviv.

Regarding myself to be more of an observer rather than a participator, my works finds comfort in documenting my surroundings and transferring emotional situations onto the canvas. I want my canvases to evoke a youthful glow of contemporary life. Although devoid of human presence, the juxtaposing tones and layers in the scene try to imply some sort of life. Visually vibrant in nature, my paintings also aim to elicit a sense of mysteriousness about the narrations that run beyond the borders of the paintings. Besides painting in a way that only gives fragments of a version of the bigger picture, I want to tease with our imagination to leave us with room for inserting our own stories. As much as my paintings are reflections of the surrounding life, I’m also interested in the emotional responses one is transported to feel when looking at my body of works.

Image: Nudist beach, seafood and sangria and I will love you forever acrylic on canvas 115 x 105 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

E v a D i x o n

www.evadixon.com

Image: Grid fabric, thread, recycled timber on stretcher 102 x 92cm

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Eva Dixon b. 2000 Waratah, Australia lives and works in London, UK. Dixon takes the persona of a ‘mad-scientist’, investigating materials and subverting their purpose to fit a need within the work. Most recently this has taken the form of sheer polyester assemblage stretched over re-constructed stretcher bars. The geometric forms in Dixon’s work are pulled from construction, mirroring the appropriated materials the artist uses such as electrical shrink tubing, paracord and recycled wooden pallets. In doing this Dixon blurs the lines between painting, sculpture and craft whilst investigating how the relationship between opacity and transparency can expose the structure and surface as one. Dixon’s use of stable and unstable materials leaves the work in a constant tension, offering a site to question making processes and the binaries between labours.

Dixon is the recipient of the Richard and Siobhan Coward Grant for Analogue Photography (2021) and the Kew Gardens Grow Wild Art Grant (2020). She has spoken at the Rand Club Johannesburg about collodion photography (2021) and for Experimental Photo Festival regarding the artists’ cyanotype work (2021). She has had work shown at The Carousel in Nottingham (2021) (where she was also interviewed for their podcast); Through the Lens Collective in Johannesburg South Africa (2021-2022); a group show and several publications in Poland (2021). Dixon was also selected for Reconnect, a group show in June of 2021 in London; Lux (2019, London) and Lethaby Gallery (2019, London). She has also been printed in several independent magazines. At present, Dixon is studying fine art at Central Saint Martins, where she also completed her foundation in 2019 after moving to the UK from South Africa.

Image: Scaffolding acrylic, fabric, thread, fly screen, electrical tubing and wood on stretcher 152 x 121 cm

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L i n d a S o h

Tr e n g e r e i d

www.lindasohtrengereid.com

Image: The Garden Edge #6 charcoal and acrylics on canvas 175 x 140 cm

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Linda Soh Trengereid lives and works in Bergen, Norway; she graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts, from Bergen National Academy of the Arts, in 2011.

In many ways my work-process resembles that of developing a photograph in the dark-room. I start with a drawing in charcoal, solidifying my chosen motif, picked from one of my many folders of pictures taken during travels, hikes, walks and vacations.

It doesn’t matter in what context the photograph was taken; it being a cheap-drinks-and-sunbathing trip to the Canary Islands, or a more cred-worthy hiking trip in rural parts of Japan, a road-trip through the deep south in the States or a stroll in my neighborhood. I want to create a new story-line for my works, letting them talk amongst themselves, leaving it up to the viewer to pick up on whatever conversation is going on. After I’ve worked on the canvas with charcoal, I start painting. Thin layers of acrylic paint. Gradually bringing forth areas I want to highlight, making some almost disappear. Sometimes I bring out the charcoal again, darkening or re-drawing parts of the work. My paintings can be seen as hybrids, where drawing and painting melts together.

Image: The Garden Edge #4 charcoal and acrylics on canvas 185 x 135 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

K a t y a L a b o w e - S t o l l

www.katyalabowestoll.com

Image: Flood Bather wash and color pencil on paper 12 x 16 inches

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Katya Labowe-Stoll (b. 1999, CT, US) is a lover of myths and fine lines. She received her BFA in Illustration, with a Concentration in Drawing from the Rhode Island School of Design (2021). She is a multidisciplinary artist who works in both painting and drawing mediums to interpret, and give different perspectives on stories deriving from religious mythologies and Jewish mysticism. She is interested in how stories are interpreted and what this means for the story’s fate and effect. Through whimsical colors and mark making, she looks into the choices made in creating these stories to decipher what burdens are ours to bear, and what are not.

Image: I cry too, I cry too wash and color pencil on paper 12 x 16 inches

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E m i l y

R o y e r

www.emilyroyer.net

Image: Don’t you want a boyfriend? oil and acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

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Emily Royer is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She received her BFA from the University of the Arts (USA) and continued studies with Turps Banana, UK and NYC Crit Club. Her paintings explore notions of self-identity and the complex nature of intimate relationships. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Canada. In galleries including Maake Projects, Rad Hourani, Pageant:Soloveev, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and others.

The images you see here are derived from recollections of the real and tangible world, but filtered through emotional memory.

Moments, locations, and small details are re-arranged with a disregard for linear time. Special attention is paid to feelings held in a body, in a gesture, or a touch. Strong light sources, both natural and electric have become an important element in the work, an eerie yet beautiful illumination of form and feeling.

Moving through a quiet and comforting solitude towards deeper introspection, the upheaval of ‘normal’ life that began during 2020 caused a waking of dormant questions about my sense of self, both internally and as a social being in the world. Fixing the gaze upon my past iterations, I say hello and try to welcome their presences without judgment or fear. I see that much of what was frightening also contains humor. I see that much of what appeared ugly was a mirage created by external pressures.

This work is about moving through the past, in order to come closer to being a whole and integrated self. To be able to return to the world with heart and hand more open.

Image: We love the ocean, although it stings our eyes. oil and acrylic on canvas 30 x 38 inches

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N i n a B a x t e r

www.ninabaxterart.com

Image: Be Careful With Me oil on canvas 60 x 80 x 1.5 cm

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Having spent seven years previously absorbed in a world of abstract forms and geometric shapes, this new work marks a defiant return to figurative painting and intimate subjects. The reason for this change is as personal as the artwork suggests: learning to fall in love with life, with somebody else, with painting (again) but, most importantly, learning to love yourself. The paintings are representative of the range of subjects covered by Nina Baxter’s new work: intimate moments between lovers, contrasted with closely cropped, personal portraits and delicate still-life. Illustrating moments of quiet euphoria: the pleasure derived from nature, in the act of painting itself and, of course, in a lover’s embrace. Baxter’s work intends to be evocative of both deeply personal feelings and our shared experiences as people.

Born in London (1992), Nina Baxter received a BA in Art History from The Courtauld Institute of Art and currently lives and works between London and Florence. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally, including Beijing (The Field Art Centre, 2019 & 2018); Bologna (Galleria De’ Marchi, 2019 & 2017); Madrid (Espacio Prado, Ateneo de Madrid, 2018); Texas (Steidel Fine Art, Wimberley, 2018) and Miami (Red Dot Miami with Steidel Fine Art, 2018). Selected exhibitions in London include the Society of Women Artists 157th & 160th Annual Exhibitions (Mall Galleries, 2018 & 2021); Affordable Art Fair (Hampstead Heath with Steidel Fine Art, 2018); Sunny Arts Prize (The Sunny Art Centre, 2017); The Royal Arts Prize 2017 IV Edition (La Galleria Pall Mall, 2017). Online exhibitions last year (2021) included Symphonia (The Holy Art, London); Serendipia (Capital Culture House, Madrid & La Paz); Euphoric (Procrastinarting, London) and Nostalgia (The Artistellar, London). Nina Baxter’s poems have been published in The Cannon’s Mouth, Acumen and Reach Poetry.

Image: Can We Bridge This Chasm? (Part I) oil on canvas 50 x 60 x 1.5 cm

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T y l e r

L u r k s

www.instagram.com/tyler.lurks

Image: Untitled 2 oil on reclaimed wood 83 x 125 cm

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Tyler Lurks (b. 1998) is a recent graduate from Central Saint Martins. Their work is guided by a nonWestern conception of repair in which accepted historical narratives are reopened through painting and archiving. This latest body of work has stemmed from the gathering of original photographs taken by young American soldiers whilst in Vietnam that have been sourced through eBay and then transmuted through painting onto salvaged offcuts of wood from an Amish barn. It is an exploration into the surreal intersections of people, place and time and the intimately connected relationship between joy and tragedy. The great amount of time and care that goes into the research, the creation of the archive and the paintings themselves nurture an understanding of the connectedness of all people. Ideas around our sense of self and identity are challenged and begin to disintegrate as we commune with strangers and the lives of others beyond our conceptions of individualism.

Image: Untitled 5 oil on reclaimed wood from an Amish barn 25 x 25 cm

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E k e n e

S t a n l e y

E m e c h e t a

www.db-gallery.com/ekene-stanley-emecheta

Image: Good Labour oil on canvas 76 x 61 cm

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Born in 1994, Ekene Stanley Emecheta is a self-taught artist, living and working in Lagos.

The artist’s oeuvre is characterised by a distinctive use of color and compositional technique and his iconography of figures drawn from both fantasy, history and his private world. Each canvas starts with the intentional elimination of the protagonist’s skin color, over which Emecheta frames the subject’s posture and characteristics. Diverting the attention away from the skin color, he draws our focus to the figure itself and its surroundings broadening the interpretation and inviting the viewer to become physically and emotionally invested in the subject’s story, almost revealing the aura of the person portrayed.

Image: Memories of You oil on canvas 122 x 152 cm

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E r i n

M i l e z

www.erinmilez.com

Image: Procession oil and acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 inches

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From the claustrophobic discord of quarantine to overwhelming joy of creating new life, the couples in Milez’s work are living through experiences from her own life and filtered through a language of dance. Inspired by the duet partners in George Balanchine’s 1957 ballet Agon, Milez saw dancers who worked through conflict and learned from the other’s body. They were partners dedicated to each other and their task of creating together and supporting each other – much like a couple who has moved in together and is dedicated to their task of making a home together and loving one another, operating with conflict and love. The couples in Milez’s paintings are workers, wrapping around each other with thick limbs and rubberized joints, contorting into and away from each other. Their work argues for the significance of everyday life and that the menial tasks required by it are not mundane but a tether to creation.

Erin Milez (b. 1994) grew up in Chicago and has split her adult years between Seattle and New York City. She earned her BA in Studio Art from Seattle Pacific University and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2021. She currently lives and works in Bayonne, NJ with her husband and daughter.

Image: New Coat oil and acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

www.alvin-ong.com

A l v i n O n g

Image: Studio oil on canvas 175 x 200 cm

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Alvin Ong (b. 1988, Singapore) is a graduate of the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, UK (2016) and the Royal College of Art, London, UK (2018). His paintings playfully combine diverse visual vocabularies alongside his own lived experience of hybridity and distance across a variety of spaces.

At the age of 16, he became the youngest winner of the UOB Painting of the Year Award, Singapore (2005). He was awarded a residency in 2017 with the Royal Drawing School, as well as the 2018 Chadwell Award. His works have been exhibited at the Singapore Art Museum (2007, 2012, 2013); Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore (2010); Peranakan Museum, Singapore (2015); Northampton Contemporary, UK (2017); National Portrait Gallery, UK (2018), and Royal Academy of Arts, UK (2019). His works are collected by Ilham Gallery, Ingram Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum (Print Collection), and X Museum. He lives and works in Singapore and London.

Image: Desktop oil on canvas 150 x 200 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

www.artsy.net/artist/aleksandar-todorovic

A l e k s a n d a r To d o r o v i c

Image: Echo chamber of delusions egg tempera, gold and palladium leaves on wood board 70 x 81 cm

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Aleksandar Todorović (b.1982, Belgrade) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts (MA, painting) in Belgrade. Growing up during the Balkan civil wars of the 1990s, he became sensitive about political systems and their effects on the world. At the very core of his artistic investigations lie the exploration of the concept of evil, its origins and ramifications. In his artworks he often deploys gold leaf and egg tempera on carved wood boards—a traditional Byzantine painting technique—to sarcastically depict present-day politicians and influential figures as being ‘holy’ or saint-like. His Byzantine-inspired Icons are intentionally made to look old, appearing like relics from the past—like prophecies or warnings about the state of the world we live in. In his most complex pieces, Todorović follows the same layered format for his presentation as the Orthodox Iconostasis in an attempt to describe and understand complicated power structures and relations which lay beyond our immediate grasp.

His most recent body of works—currently exhibited at his solo show ‘Brave New Normal World’ at Dio Horia Gallery (Athens, GR) delves into the systemic societal, economic and political issues which became prominent during the Coronavirus pandemic. Todorović has exhibited his works internationally and at various institutions, including the Contemporary Art Gallery at Smederevo Museum. He has been featured in magazines, such as HEY!, Banzai, Superpaper etc., and on international art websites such as Artforum International, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, Widewalls etc. He lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia.

Image: The golden throne egg tempera, gold and palladium leaves on wood board 90 x 120 cm

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26: curated selection

M i n g

Y i n g

Image: The One with the Fishes color pencil and wood on panel 9.5 x 2.25 x 2.25 inches

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H o n g

Ming Ying Hong (b. 1990) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Starkville, Mississippi. Since 2012, she has had solo exhibitions at Western Illinois University in Macomb; the University of Alabama Huntsville; Florida’s Broward College South Campus in Pembroke; the University of South Carolina in Columbia; Doane University in Crete, NE; popblossom in Norfolk, VA; and the Green Building Gallery in Louisville, KY. Her work has been in some 30 group shows in about 20 states and South Korea. Among them are those at the CICA Museum in Gimpo, South Korea; the University of North Carolina Charlotte; the Masur Museum in Monroe, LA; the Attleboro Arts Museum in Massachusetts; the Appleton Museum of Art in Florida; Hillyer Art Space, Washington, DC; and the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum at Washington University in St. Louis and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, both in Missouri; Ice Box Gallery in Philadelphia, PA; Bradley University in Peoria, IL; Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti; Mississippi State University in Starkville; and Alabama’s Jacksonville State University. She was named the South Arts Mississippi State Fellow in 2021. Ming received her BFA from the University of Kentucky and was a Danforth Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, where she received her MFA in visual art. Currently, she teaches at Mississippi State University. She is represented by B. Deemer Gallery I WheelHouse Art in Louisville, Kentucky.

My work explores hybridized bodies, examining the way we define, categorize, and assign power to them. Recognizable forms are fragmented, defamiliarized, and remixed to create an uncanny hodgepodge of forms that were previously magnetically opposed to one another. By combining seemingly contradictory elements together, opposites which once defined each other overlap—ultimately dismantling the system in which one definition is privileged over another. Instead, the work encourages us to examine the in-between spaces of these binaries—the spaces that fall outside of our clear-cut definitions and hierarchies.

www.mingyinghong.com

Image: The One with the Peaches color pencil, foam, acrylic paint, and artist’s hair on panel 13 x 11 x 3 inches

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A n n a

P e r a c h

www.annaperach.com

Image: Dog Mother work created in collaboration with Anousha Payne wood frame, rattan, glazed ceramic, metal fixings, salvaged leather, tufting left frame 180 x 123 x 3 cm right frame 181 x 123 x 3 cm

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My practice explores the dynamic between personal and cultural myths. Specifically I’m interested in how our private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and storytelling. In my work I interweave female archetypes into sculptural hybrids in order to examine ideas of identity, gender, and craft.

My main medium of work is wearable sculpture and performance. I work in a technique called tufting, making handmade carpet textile, which I then transform into wearable sculptures. I begin by creating a pattern of a three-dimensional form, followed by manually tufting each piece of the pattern, and finally assembling it into a wearable, tufted sculpture.

The wearable sculpture functions as both a garment that is performed in as well as a free-standing sculpture. Through this medium, I examine how elements associated with the domestic sphere such as textiles and carpet operate as an extension of the self and reflect one’s heritage and gender role. In my performances the tufted, domestic carpet serves as an external added layer of skin, which hides the physical body but exposes fragments of the self.

Anna Perach (1985, USSR) is a Ukrainian born Israeli artist living and working in London, UK. She holds an MFA in Fine Art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). She has exhibited internationally at galleries including: White Cube gallery (London, UK); Saatchi Gallery (London, UK); ADA gallery (Rome, Italy) and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (Herzliya, Israel). In 2021 Anna took part in Arco Madrid 2021 with The Ryder gallery and received the Ingram Prize award.

In 2020 she received a studio award with Sarabande The Lee Alexander McQueen foundation as well as the Gilbert Bayes Award. In the same year, Anna was awarded a grant for the production of new work from Procreate Project via the Arts Council England. Recent publications include Calvert Journal and Artforum.

The following works are created in collaboration with artist Anousha Payne. Images courtesy of Cooklatham, London, Ben Deakin Photography.

Image: Tree Woman work created in collaboration with Anousha Payne wooden frame, rattan, tufting, ceramic frame 101 x 153 x 3 cm

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A m e l i a

B r i g g s

www.ameliaabriggs.com

Image: Cheap Seat (stengel series) panel, fiber, reclaimed fabric, faux fur, hand-tufted rug, latex, enamel 51 x 22 x 5 inches

90

Amelia Briggs’ plush aesthetic embodies the playful innocence of youth, generating an abstract sense of familiarity. Her brightly colored inflated shapes take on the presence of opaque characters, maintaining a fine balance between odious and cozy. Comprised of recycled fiber, latex, enamel, panel, hand-tufted rugs, faux fur, oil and mirrors Briggs pushes the boundaries of texture and color to evoke childhood sensations, building a bridge between our adult selves and the foundational experiences that shaped us. Like a keepsake or relic from the invented world of our past Briggs’ shapes also speak to vulnerability and the potential comfort that can be found in objects that feel connected to the identities we create and re-create for ourselves over time.

Currently based in Nashville, TN, Briggs’ work has been exhibited in contemporary galleries internationally and throughout the US including exhibitions in Paris, France; Florence, Italy; Brooklyn, NY; London, UK; New Orleans, LA; and Denver, CO among others. Over the past year her work has been widely collected and is included in private collections in Seoul, South Korea; Paris, France; Melbourne, Australia; London, UK; Toronto, Canada; Stockholm, Sweden and throughout the US. Her work was selected for the recent South issue of New American Paintings by Emily Stamey, the curator of exhibitions at Weatherspoon Art Museum. In early 2022 Briggs will be participating in residencies at Wassaic Project and Monson Arts.

Image: Dream House panel, fiber, reclaimed fabric, latex, enamel, hand-tufted rug 47 x 31 x 8 inches

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M a j a B e h r m a n n

www.majabehrmann.com

Image: Untitled (Arr-ccchalf) wood, pigmented lacquer, metal, knit measurements vary

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By utilizing processes of collecting and collocating, pondering between institutional concretion and theoretical abstraction, Maja Behrmann develops an endless vocabulary of shapes. They act autonomously or in an ensemble, respond to one another and seem to lead a life of their own, unknown to us, in ever new constellations.

Behrmann tests the links and distinctions of different materials in two- and three-dimensional arrangements of objects and knitted works. By documenting these arrangements and extracting new silhouettes, the fund of shapes is constantly expanding.

Maja Behrmann (*1994 Frankfurt/Main, Germany) studied Book-Art and Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, where she later studied Painting and Print-Making in Prof. Christoph Ruckhäberle’s class.

Behrmann received various prizes and stipends for her installations and publications, including the BirknerPrize, Max- Pechstein stipend by Kunstsammlungen Zwickau and stipend by Heinrich-Böll-Foundation among others. Her works were shown in numerous solo and group shows at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Eigen+Art Lab and gallery in Berlin and Leipzig, Kunstsammlungen Zwickau and many more.

Image: Untitled (Trän) wood, pigmented lacquer, metal 23.5 x 22.8 x 9.5 cm

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L u x M i r a n d a

www.lux-miranda.com

Image: EQUINOX X tufted wool on canvas 260 x 1000 cm

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Born in 1990 in Bourges, France, Lux Miranda is a Franco-Portuguese visual artist, mainly focused on tapestry-making / installations. She deeply hated studying at the Beaux Arts, and after two years at the Villa Arson, she left school, preferring to study art by working and traveling.

The artist is now represented by the gallery the Pill in Istanbul, and she’s currently living and working in Paris.

“Lux Miranda’s compositions are the first encounter with the postrational dragon. Her rugs, in so far as they call for losing oneself in the physical world’s folds, for plunging further into its depth and for roaming among its intricate folds and creases, reconnect us with a forgotten part of ourselves numbed by social life and predefined thought-patterns. Only by responding to this call and through it becoming one with the chimeric assemblages that populate the world’s interstitial spaces will we be guided towards a new sensory ecology and its intrinsic promise of more intensely vibrant worlds.” Ingrid Luquet-Gad, writer and art critic.

Image: Sleeping with ghosts tufted wool on canvas 220 x 600 cm

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M a t h e w

To m

www.mathewtom.com

Image: Duck Is Back on the Menu oil on linen 101.6 × 121.9 cm

96

Mathew Tom received his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London, and also studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was a fellow at the Royal Academy in London where he was awarded the Starr Fellowship.

He has shown internationally in the United States, England, Wales, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, South Korea, Taiwan, and India. He currently lives and works in Queens, New York. Since 2011, he has been developing a world in which he combines elements from Asian traditional painting and European classical painting to create his own utopia called ‘Society of Friends’. Figures and animals are part of a larger mythology within his works that is in pursuit of the idyllic community he desires. In a world where everyone is in such perpetual bliss, even tigers have transcended their animal instincts and have joined the society as well.

Growing up in Florida, he began questioning pop images and how they function as modern-day religious images. By juxtaposing them with art historical icons, Tom hopes to examine notions of cultural appropriation and its broader meaning in our current globalized society. Tom’s training in Korean minhwa painting in Gwangju, Korea greatly influenced his current style. With paintings that feature imagery from Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, Disney cartoons, Tibetan thangkas, European botanical illustrations, and Korean still life paintings, Tom seeks to incorporate images that hold symbolic significance for both Eastern and Western cultures.

Image: Secrets of the Garden oil on linen 152.4 × 152.4 cm

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A n t

H a m l y n

www.anthamlyn.co.uk

Image: VENUS | FLOWERPESS hand stitched and machined pu coated fabric, laser cut recycled perspex, cnc routed birch plywood, wing nuts, carriage bolts, recycled bubblewrap and fibre stuffing 130 x 100 x 10 cm

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Ant Hamlyn (B. 1993 Northampton, UK) lives and works in London. He studied for a BA in Fine Art at Liverpool Hope University (2012-15) and an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art (2016-17) after receiving the Cecil Lewis Sculpture Scholarship.

Working across a pollination of hand made and digital fabrication processes, Ant Hamlyn’s works delve into our relationship and fluctuating enthusiasm towards contemporary life. His sculptures regularly have anthropomorphic elements and work with metaphor, technology and the interplay between hard and soft to create moments of tactility and surprise through material and visual obscurity. Often creating relics from a recognisable yet parallel space. Hamlyn’s conceptual framework is recently taken from plants, nostalgia, preservation and magic. With the exception of a number of larger kinetic installations, the majority of Hamlyn’s works are meticulously sewn by hand. This delicate interplay between materiality, scale and context are intrinsic to the simultaneous creation of mystery, familiarity and deception.

Image: SUNFLOWERS | FLOWERPRESS hand stitched and machined pu coated fabric, laser cut recycled perspex, cnc routed birch plywood, wing nuts, carriage bolts, recycled bubblewrap stuffing.

65 x 55 x 10 cm

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D e b o r a h

D r u i c k

www.deborahdruick.com

Image: Parlor Games acrylic on linen 36 x 30 inches

100

Deborah Druick is a contemporary artist living in New York City.

Druick has exhibited her work in Asia, Canada and the United States. Her work appears in collections in Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Canada as well as in the United States.

Her paintings can best be described as belonging to the New Surrealist Movement, using a stylization of form, pattern and color. She emphasizes and exaggerates stereotypical concepts of precision, perfection and beauty in femininity.

Image: Dog Run acrylic on linen 24 x 30 inches

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L a i l a

Ta r a

H

www.lailatarah.com

Image: I’m Telling You! natural pigment (incl. lapis lazuli), watercolour and pencil on handmade natural hemp paper 68.2 x 53.7 cm

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Laila Tara H (b.1995, London) is an Iranian-British artist whose work stems from Indo-Persian miniature painting.

Symbolic forms and multiple, concurrent narratives punctuate the space. Laila’s practice is infused with a visual language borrowed from Indo-Persian miniature painting. A complex history of migration and an amalgam of painting traditions, gave birth to these hybrid styles in the 17th century, which saw painters traveling from Persia to the Mughal Court and the Deccan in India, through established shipping or overland routes. Laila’s Iranian heritage, and years spent moving through continents not only exposed her to these forms, but have also inspired the language through which she articulates her own history of living in different cultural settings. Utilising these historical techniques, her works explore and experiment in scale and negative space. Detailed figures suspended amidst contemporary urban scenes, disjointed limbs amidst delicate foliage, are all arranged in stark, startling compositions that defy stylistic canons and stretch boundaries. She often cuts and folds paper, puncturing and destabilising space to introduce new three-dimensional depth and shadow play.

Her works, most often painted on hand-made natural hemp paper sourced from Sanganer, India, explore a range of emotions, and create a charged surface where the tension between form and formlessness; the object and its surrounding emptiness, plays out. The figures explore our sense of perspective and time, and are interlaced with deeply personal narratives. Laila mostly uses pigments that are either naturally derived, or prepared using traditional methods from found materials—these range from crushed red London bricks; walnut ink; madder red pigment; deep blue lapis lazuli from Badakhshan province of Afghanistan and India, sourced from Florence; ochres from Iran, collected from the island of Hormoz.

Image: Soft Body, Hard Excuse II natural pigment (incl. lapis lazuli), watercolour, pencil and 24K gold on handmade natural hemp paper 51.6 x 40.6 cm

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editorial selection of works Featured image: Mattia Sinigaglia Tokamak oil, gold leaf, pigments on canvas, ceramic, wood 64 x 48 cm more on p. 116-117

R F . A l v a r e z

www.rfalvarez.com

Image: Tender Is the Heart acrylic on canvas 60 x 84 inches

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RF. Alvarez creates paintings, drawings, and art objects that serve as vehicles for a utopian vision in which environments are lush and lively and bodies are confident and safe. The world-building inherent in his work is queer in nature, with references to antiquity as a sort of idealized past, and subject matter that often includes totems of masculinity and femininity. His visual language meanders through references to Pre-Columbian sculpture, modernism, and Greek pottery, and arrives at a concise narrative about the body’s relationship to its environment, its society, and its heritage.

Born in 1988 in San Antonio, Texas, RF. Alvarez received his BA from Wesleyan University and has exhibited works in solo shows produced by his own studio in Austin, Uprise Art in New York City, and Martin & Brockett in Los Angeles. He has been included in group shows like Plurality of Isolations at Ruiz-Healy Art in San Antonio, The Art on Paper Fair in New York, and The Annual Report with Big Medium in Austin. He currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.

I see my work as a sort of excavation: a sifting of emotions and ideas, a discovery of deeper longings. I’m preoccupied with the notion that the truth of our feelings and our sense of self are hidden and in need of sifting. In my work I hope to depict something against which we can juxtapose ourselves and our experiences. I present emotions such as desire, confidence, elation, and belonging, often with a queer context that arises naturally from my own experience with these feelings. I enjoy portraying the depth of these ethereal emotions in lush exteriors and safe interior environments. I hope, through a transportive depiction of these feelings, to evoke moments of escapism and beauty that can then call attention to what is and isn’t present when reality sinks back in.

Image: The Dreamer acrylic on canvas 60 x 72 inches

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O r n e l l a

P o c e t t i

www.ornella-pocetti.com

Image: shining shield with you mirror oil on canvas 100 x 140 cm

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Ornella Pocetti was born in Buenos Aires in 1991. She studied at the National University of the Arts in Argentina (UNA) and continued studying at different workshops and programmes. 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, such as UADE Arts (2020); Salón Nacional (2021); Salón Félix Amador (2018, 2019); Fondo Nacional de las Artes (2018); Premio Itaú (2019); Salón Nacional de Rosario Castagnino-Macro (2018) and X Premio Nacional de Pintura Banco Central (2017). In these last three she also received an award. Currently, she works in Argentina, managing Paz Soldán Art Studio, and as a part of the artist collective “Viento dorado”.

Image: Red waters oil on canvas 100 x 140 cm

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www.emelitheander.com

E m e l i

T h e a n d e r Image: Feed your demons oil on canvas 140 x 110 cm

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Emeli Theander was born in Sweden in 1984. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2003. Between 2006-2012 she studied Fine Arts at the UdK Berlin under Prof Valérie Favre. She was funded by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) from 2009 to 2011 and, as part of this funding, also did a six-month artist-in-residency in Seoul, South Korea at the Platoon Kunsthalle. In 2014 she received the Dorothea Konwiarz scholarship and in 2013 the ‘Merkel collection and foundation prize for painting, Rhine Neckar Delta’.

She has had many solo and group exhibitions in several countries, including ‘Nous, qui errons dans la nuit’, Gallery C (Neuchâtel 2020); ‘Doing Identity - The Reydan Weiss Collection’ (Kunstmuseum Bochum 2017); ‘Vivid Vacation’ (solo), Hoorn & Reniers, (The Hague 2019); ‘Objects of Attention’, Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design (Tallinn 2018); ‘Les sables mouvants’, Espace à Vendre (Nice 2018); ‘A pit full of Ghosts’ (solo), Galerie DYS, (Brussels 2018); ‘Not guided to get here’, Kommunale Galerie Berlin (solo), 2018; ‘Intime (s)’, Galerie C, (Neuchâtel 2018); ‘Mauvaises Graines II’, Topographie de l’Art (Paris 2016); ‘Drawing Now’, Carreau du Temple, (Paris 2014 and 2015); ‘Irrgäster’ (solo), Parrotta Contemporary Art, (Stuttgart 2013); ‘Gastkramad’, Galerie Adler (Frankfurt am Main, 2011); ‘From eternity to here’, LARMgalleri, (Copenhagen, 2011); ‘Projekt für die Gegenwart’, Haus am Lützowplatz (Berlin 2010). 2020 she curated her first group exhibition at the Kunstverein Montabaur b-05 as part of the Rhineland-Pfalz cultural summer.

Image: Beasts oil on canvas 160 x 120 cm

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D m i t r y M a k u s h i n

www.makushinart.com

Image: Chasing in the Mist oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

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Dmitry was born in 1996 in a small industrial town (Zheleznogorsk, Kursk region) in central Russia: I studied academic painting and drawing from my childhood and after high school entered the Saint Petersburg Academy of Art and Design at the Department of Monumental and Decorative Art. It was a conservative education with many hours of studies on antique sculptures and life drawing with live models. But at some point, I realized that I wanted to move further than the imitation of reality. From that moment I started the journey into the depth of my consciousness to explore imagination and search for ideas.

I am focused on the spiritual aspect of art. I try to create a world in which the boundaries of objects are blurred and the connections between things dominate the things themselves. I find inspiration in wild nature as an example of bright harmonious existence, where life and death merge into one whole. The other side of my interest is the human as a part of that world. I use traditional mediums like oil paint, acrylic paint or watercolor, experimenting with techniques and exploring the materials.

My works have been exhibited at various spaces in Saint Petersburg and my hometown. I also took part in Cosmoscow Art Fair 2020 in Moscow. I worked as an art director in the film industry and took part in the organization and decoration of art events in Saint Petersburg during my student life. But the last two years I have spent in seclusion, delving into philosophy and developing my painting technique.

Image: Hidden Life of the Night Forest oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm

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A y l a

D m y t e r k o

www.ayladmyterko.com

Image: Anthropichka oil on linen 260 x 170 cm

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Ayla Dmyterko (b. 1988, Saskatchewan) is a Carpatho-Canadian artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. She holds an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art, UK (2020), a BA in Painting from Concordia University, Montréal, CA (2015) and a BEd in Visual Art and Dance Education from the University of Regina, CA (2011).

She has exhibited at galleries and institutes internationally including: CCA Glasgow, UK; Lunchtime Gallery, Glasgow, UK; Art Gallery of Regina, CA; Projet Pangée, Montréal, CA; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, CA; Hague Gallery, Regina, CA; aCinema, Milwaukee, USA; Regina Performing Arts Centre, CA; Gallery Aux Vues: Montréal, CA; Glue Factory, Glasgow and Tontine Space, Glasgow, UK. She has participated in residencies through The Work Room, Tramway and Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, UK and is the recipient of the 2022 Glasgow Sculpture Studios Graduate Fellowship. Her work has been published internationally through KAJET Journal, Bucharest, RO; Chains, CCA Glasgow and Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE; Penrose Helix, London, UK; MAP Magazine, Glasgow, UK; and Young Artists in Conversation, UK. Upcoming residencies include Aqtushetii, Omalo GE, and a mentorship alongside Ms. Hanna Kopylchuk, Yavoriv, UA. Forthcoming exhibitions will be held at VITRINE Gallery, Basel, Switzerland and Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto, Canada (all 2022).

Solastalgic, an eco-feminist lens informs my approach as I seek remedy to environmental anxiety in slower paces and intra-cultural congregation. Oscillating between reverence and regeneration, I examine spectres of eternal recurrence to understand ways that images and artists become mediums. Reactivating and re-embodying cultural memory, I respond to epistemological injustices to locate sites of transformation in counter-apocalyptic narratives. Taking form as a fragmented allegory across painting, moving image, sculpture, textiles and text, poetics of precarity and dissonance expose how diasporic traditions exist amidst generational slippage, globalisation and capitalism’s siloing of the individual. Drawing upon the vernacular, pre-patriarchal, theoretical, fictional, tacit, folkloric and ecclesiastical, my works disintegrate canonical interpretations of art history, hierarchies of knowledge and forms of artistic labour. I am interested in how the past is continuously modified and re-iterated to shape our current psyche and conceptions of the future.

Image: Circles Around the Onion Dome oil on linen with poured beeswax frame 70 x 54 x 7 cm

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M a t t i a

S i n i g a g l i a

www.instagram.com/castom.liri

Image: God’s tattoo in Do minore oil, modeling paste on linen, ceramic, wood 70 x 56.5 cm

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Mattia Sinigaglia was born in 1989 in Italy, from a Spanish mother and an Italian father. He graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, he is part of the collective Fondazione Malutta.

He lives in Venice.

In my recent research painting, sculpture, installation dialogue together. I try to create connections between each language I use: the illusion of pictorial two-dimensionality and the tangibility of sculptural objects, or more simply of matter. Each part of the work supports the other in a continuous flow in which no particular subject prevails, if not a typically metaphysical atmosphere that I seek.

The relationship that is created between elements defines my work. In my paintings you can find symbolic elements deriving from the history of art, from ancient drawings, from alchemical figures, or on the contrary abstract forms that live in the work in a more direct way, in their being matter, such as wood, leaf gold or silver, ceramic, wax, modeling paste. Although my works may seem somehow well defined, I perceive them in motion, sometimes ‘musical’, I look within them for the next step, the next transformation of form, matter and narration.

Image: Butterfly with Goya skull oil and pigments on canvas, wood 74 x 60 cm

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W i l l i a m S c h a e u b l e

www.williamschaeuble.com

Images p.114-115: Inside Games, Outside Games (diptych) oil on canvas 50 x 60 inches each

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William Schaeuble: My paintings are based on personal narratives, moments in my life that stand out to me as special enough to spend some more time with.

So, when I feel inclined I take a nice moment and paint it as a way to relive that moment with various levels of exaggeration or humor, although sometimes these moments haven’t happened yet, sometime they never will. Often I’ll distort the narrative to where the original idea is hard even to recognize, I’ll elongate figures for the sake of utility, I’ll use interactions between plants, animals and people to get to the punchline. I have a lot of fun with them. I look at paintings like a puzzle, a set of problems between composition, story, humor, color, form and figure. My favorite thing to do is solve those puzzles.

My oil paintings are heavily influenced by my upbringing as a Midwesterner, with the landscape of Iowa shaping a lot of what shows up in my work. When I do a lot of fishing in my real life, I paint a lot of fish, when I swim a lot I paint myself swimming, there is really not much to it. Several years from now I won’t be living in this apartment, my cats will not be alive and I won’t swim in Lake Michigan every day, so it’s important to me to document this time in my life before I move on to document another part of my life.

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B e n Z a w a l i c h

www.benzawalich.com

Image: Singapore Sling’s Rooftop oil on canvas 100 x 80 cm

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Ben Zawalich is a painter and printmaker from Boston, Massachusetts, who has been living and working in Santiago, Chile since 2015, and Cali Colombia since 2020. He received his BFA in Printmaking at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and his MFA in Painting from Boston University. In 2014 he completed an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in London. He has exhibited internationally at the Inside Out Art Museum in Beijing; The Intuitive Machine Gallery in Santiago, Chile, and with the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA London and World Museum in Liverpool. From 2017 to 2020 Ben was the creator and director of the Molten Capital Artist in Residence Program that operated out of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in Santiago, Chile.

In 2019 I left Chile after five years, with Santiago in a state of upheaval. I returned to Boston for the first time in a decade and spent nine months watching a different form of upheaval on TV. I arrived in Colombia the following September and moved into the 14th floor of an apartment building that overlooked an intersection in Cali that is called the Portada Al Mar, which translates to ‘The Doorway to the Sea’. This intersection is situated beneath the mountains and along a river, with a statue of a giant black seabird at its center.

Between May and June of 2021 The Portada was one of several blockades that exploded into violence. From the 14th floor I observed discourses that I once considered universal in each of these countries that I consider home, become an unrecognizable blur that was being pushed in all directions toward an unsettling outcome. These images are from the first body of work that I’ve made since then, and the first attempts to see what I could pull out of that blur.

Image: Doorway To The Sea oil on canvas 140 x 120 cm

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D a v i n a J a c k s o n

www.davinajacksonart.com

Image: Organic Matter gouache and ink on paper 21 cm x 15 cm

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Davina Jackson is a figurative artist based in London where she currently works from a studio at Kingsgate Workshops. She studied at Central St Martin’s, the Byam Shaw and graduated with a Masters from the Royal Academy Schools where she won the Gold Medal for painting. Her interests have remained in the theatrical and psychological use of space and a search for poetic simplicity. She continues to develop themes of human relationships and emotional states, focusing on finding and articulating the essence of an intimate moment or experience through the simplification of forms, mark making and painterly gestures. The figures, real bodies or abstracted, sometimes translucent and ephemeral, shift between spacial planes and yet at the same time, remain sculptural and monumental, portraying fragments of memory that lead one into a world that, in Gaston Bachelard’s words, create the “intensity of a being evolving in a vast perspective of intimate immensity”. She has always been inspired by poetry, mythological and theatrical subjects, storytelling and exploring the inner world of the child. She also paints images from her own everyday personal diary, figures watching the day fade in Hampstead Heath or sisters sharing a moment of contemplation looking out to sea. Her recent solo show at the Pontone Gallery in London was an exhibition of works exploring the fate of humanity through different interpretations of allegorical Greek Myths. She has had several solo shows in London in the last few years and one in Trieste, Italy curated by Edward Lucie-Smith. She is a regular exhibitor in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and will be included in a group exhibition, at Hastings Contemporary, on till April 2022.

Image: Before Lockdown gouache , conte , pencil and watercolour on paper 22.5 x 20.5 cm

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J u l i u s

S t o r g a a r d

www.instagram.com/juliuscstorgaard

Image: Unfamiliar Flowers methylcellulose glue with pigments and charcoal on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Julius Storgaard is currently a BFA student at Funen Art Academy in Denmark.

I work with painting and have been for the last four years. I mainly work with charcoal and methylcellulose glue with pigments. The core theme of my paintings is nature and the role that humans play in relation to it. I’ve experienced while working figurative paintings that we tend to try and ‘read’ or understand the painting by going straight to the human form, perhaps more specifically the face, it becomes the center of our attention and the key to placing ourselves in the landscape of the painting. I think this is why you will rarely see the whole human body and face.

In my paintings I think I try to understand or learn my own relation to nature and therefore you will often see traces of or hidden human bodies/faces. In this way the human form or body doesn’t overpower the surrounding landscape of the painting which lets the nature become the center of attention. The hidden bodies or traces of humans therefore play a catalytic role in order for me and I hope others to engage with the narrative and the nature in a more personal and bodily way. The source for the figuration often comes from photographs I take or see and things I see in my life. These are cut out from their original environment and put together in the paintings to create new narratives.

Image: Where Are You Going Now? coal, glue and pigments on canvas 125 x 125 cm

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N a o m i W o r k m a n

www.naomiworkman.com

Image: Daria Saluki oil on canvas 45 x 35 cm

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Naomi Workman (b.1990, Somerset, UK) graduated from the Royal Drawing School in 2018. Central to her work is a focus on female labour in domestic settings. Her pencil and ink drawings of resolute women reclaim ownership of the female form, repeating compositions and motifs play out across paper and canvas as a device for evolution.

Bodies entwine, warp and elongate in rhythmical distortions with the constant companionship of domestic animals and birds.

Image: The Parakeets oil on linen 100 x 100 cm

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K a r i s h m a

D ’ S o u z a

www.karishmadsouza.com

Image: Ocean Words oil on canvas 153 x 123 cm

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Karishma D’Souza (b. in 1983, Mumbai, India) makes detailed and meticulous artworks, which are carefully composed, trying to reflect the whole in a part and to fit the universe on a sheet of paper or a canvas. The paintings are inhabited with personal memories that she transforms into symbols, ‘layering objects with meaning’.

Understanding the artworks like narratives is a key here: the act of storytelling is essential for Karishma. Behind signs and symbols, as if behind curtains, hide stories. They are meant to be carefully unfolded, shape by shape, meaning by meaning. A Goan artist, Karishma D’Souza’s paintings often refer to the political situation in India and to social injustice. They speak of those who were chased from their homes so that another factory could be built; of forests eradicated by ‘hungry ghosts’ of capitalism in view of further industrialization; of killings and persecutions and the numerous lies of official propaganda—“drops of blood stand for people slain (dots of red stand for a count of the murdered)”. Other narratives seem to be full of hope, harmony and inner light—a portrait of a friend, reminiscence of a conversation, a poetic or mythological image.

Karishma’s recent works are nourished by the artist’s close interest in Dalit literature, which is silenced by official propaganda and kept out of schools. Learning about Dalit literature, reading its touching stories, leads to question erasure and manipulated forgetfulness. It inspires the artist to bring memories back, to make, for herself, the invisible visible again, as if she were following the guidelines of the Dalit movement for which literature or any other form of art should be engaged politically and encourage action.

In 2012, Karishma D’Souza was granted a two-year residency in Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In 2017, she was on residency in Skowhegan, Maine, USA, and in 2018 in collective studio Concorde, Lisbon, Portugal. Exhibitions (selection): Fundação Oriente (Goa); Atelier Concorde (Lisbon); Dapiran Art Project Space (Amsterdam); India Foundation of the Arts (Bangalore); Xippas Galleries (Paris); Huxley-Parlour Gallery (London); Kaje artist run space (New York).

Image: Shopkeeper oil on canvas 46 x 61 cm

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A n d e r s C h r i s t i a n

E r i k s e n

www.anderschristianeriksen.dk

Image: Untitled (2) acrylic paint, colour pencil, ballpen and correction fluid on MDF frame 100 x 100 cm

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Anders Christian Eriksen, born 1983 in Copenhagen Denmark, was educated from Funen Art Academy (DK) 2011-2016 and Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (SE) 2014-2015.

Anders primarily works with painting and drawing on paper and wooden boards. The materials are a combination of acrylic paint, pencils, crayons, and correction-fluid. His pictures are inspired by domestic spaces, often from the artist’s own life, and landscapes from his inner world. In Eriksen’s work, nothing is determined from the start. The motifs develop intuitively through transparent layers, where sketches, coincidences, and crossed out errors remain visible in the final result. They often unfold through meticulous and systematized drawings and write-downs before they take the form of recognizable spaces and landscape abstractions. They are all inspired by the idea of moving into my dishwasher and living a worry-free life as a teaspoon in an endless dishwashing program. The dishwasher closes. The light goes out. I imagine a place where everything starts all over again. A rebirth of the world experienced in slow-motion.

When making the paintings, they change character from irrigated, uncontrolled surfaces to small meticulous details repeated over and over again. It is crucial to me that all choices and coincidences remain in the final artwork. The process is as important a visual element in the paintings as the subject itself. The images have an inherent hope for change and transformation. The desire for a tangible breathing-space in life is expressed through all my artwork. They are all places or states where everything has stopped and everything, therefore, can happen. There is a clear contrast between seeing the works from the outside and up close. Up close, in the confusion of all the transparent layers, lie the traces of a groping and almost blind search for direction and meaning. Like hectic delusions. Looking from a distance, the final motifs, the empty spaces, and barren landscapes seem to contain a certain calmness and tranquility. As if they were frozen in all infinity.

Image: Untitled (1) acrylic paint, colour pencil, ballpen and correction fluid on MDF frame 100 x 100 cm

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E v e A c k r o y d

www.eveackroyd.com

Image: Book Club oil on canvas 56 x 66 cm

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My work focuses on the woman in domestic situations, exploring the contradictions and ambiguities of female desire. Bodies are incarnated within undefined plains of colour, so subjects become inseparable from the rooms in which they exist. These characters go about their tasks, such as bathing, walking the dog, drinking and reading, typically in solitude, through which I capture a sense of their suppressed longing and the compulsive routines constructed to distract from desire itself.

Eve Ackroyd (born in 1984 UK) lives and works in London and studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and Weissensee School of Art in Berlin. Recent group shows include La Banda, TV Projects, New York; Within Without, Project: ARTspace, New York; Interior Landscapes, Assembly Room, New York; Living and Real, Kapp Kapp, Philadelphia; Sweet Cheeks, Big Pictures, LA and Subject III, Cob Gallery, London. Her work has been written about for FT Times, Brooklyn Rail, I-D, AnOther, Dazed & Confused, Artsy and Hyperallergic.

Image: Cloud oil on linen

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H e a t h e r

D r a y z e n

www.heatherdrayzen.com

Image: Zenny oil on canvas 16 x 12 inches

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Heather Drayzen is an artist and educator living in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and her MAT from Rhode Island School of Design. She is continuing her education through the New York City Crit Club.

I primarily paint portraits and interior scenes featuring myself, family and friends in moments from everyday life. These small oil paintings on canvas are rendered with gestural brushwork to capture intimacy through iridescent light and color. My approach evolves out of years of academic portrait painting and drawing classes, however I allow the work to fall apart and come back together to serve the narrative.

At an early age, I lost my father to cancer. Growing up with a nurturing mother, I frequently pored over family photos—analyzing the nuances of relationships, love and loss in the images. These nuances make up the psychological undertone of my paintings. In 2019, I experienced a health scare—this, combined with the pandemic in 2020, cultivated an urgency in my work where documenting my life and memories became intrinsic to my practice. All my paintings are vignettes within the larger narrative of my life and I hope they suggest a tender complexity and emotional depth to the human experience.

Image: Hazel in your arms oil on linen 9 x 12 inches

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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