Peripheral ARTeries Art Review Special Issue 2014 by Artpress

Special Issue

2014

Luiza Zimerman

(photo by Sabina Chodorowska)

Peripheral Peripheral ARTeries A

Special Issue 2014 Adel Gorgy

When Magrittepainted “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” (This not a pipe)he realized only half a truth. The full truth is thatonce the painting has been exhibited and seen, itcan be anything the viewer chooses, regardless ofwhat Magritte intended.

Margaret Noble

My main drive to make art is a pursuit of truth around how images functionand exsist through a long line of experimentation. Collective notions of beauty and taste are shared and represented through awide range of mediums over long periods of history.

Tanya Stadnichenko The main direction Tanya`s works is to transfer graphic and compositional laws inthe space of streets, parks, abandonedfactories. For her works are important historical, architectural and landscape contexts. She widely uses colors, spatial content, the violation of the optical illusions.

Simon Raab

Scott D'Arcy

Yotam Zohar

My work is mostly representational, which meansthat it contains depictions of real-world Yotham objects andorganisms as they appear on a human scale. I employ a philosophy of “by any means necessary” in order to arrive at a finished composition.

JD Doria

106

The man who comes into the world has a completely unconscious mentalapparatus and consisting solely of primary instincts. This device is exclusivelygoverned by instinctual values of instant gratification, pleasure or avoidance of pain, consumption.

116

Gema Herrero

112

Nico Amortegui My work is full of color and is a product of expressed energy -meaning there are no sketches or previous drawings. I worksolely from in-the-moment-energy and I transfer what I seeand feel on to the canvas. The rawness of my work exemplifies how my realities were never perfect as the images I renderare not either.

Gema Herrero's work is linked to the photo, the video, the installations and the use of thetechnology. The sonorous portraits, the texts,the “emotional cartographies”and the photomontage. The temporary things, the state of change and the transformations, are a constant in all her projects.

Astrid Jahns

Elah

140

124 I like to feel free in choosing materials andtechniques or even to combine them thus I geta manifold spectrum in which I can realize myideas. But in main I focus on the collage techni-que because I can combine several realisticfragments with each other.

Xavier Blondeau In photography, to my mind animage can be called a work of Art when it breaksfree of the time frame to which it belongs. It mustbe able to transcend techniques typical of a certaintime period, the conventional composition with perfect centering, or still, the intellectual conceptwhich underlies its creation.

Feel free to submit your artworks to our art review: just write to peripheral_arteries@dr.com http://peripheralarteries.yolasite.com/submit-your-artworks.php

III

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Adel Gorgy (USA) an artist’s statement

Our senses and minds abstract what we call reality. Art further abstracts this abstraction. In art, abstraction does not end with the artist; the final touches are those of the viewer. When Magritte painted “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” (This not a pipe) he realized only half a truth. The full truth is that once the painting has been exhibited and seen, it can be anything the viewer chooses, regardless of what Magritte intended. It is “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” only to Magritte himself. The contemporary artist, Sherry Levine pushed the concept further in her photographs after Walker Evans or Monet where the medium of photography was her way of abstracting the perceived realism of Evans and the Impressionism of Monet. In my recent work “Seeing Art Anew,” I have added my own layer of abstraction to the works of Matisse, Cezanne, Monet and Van Gogh, and further abstracted works of Picasso. In this series, Abstracting Abstraction - Traces of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol, I chose three artists, not only because I love their work, or because we have shared the same environment—the beautiful coast of Long Island—but also for what their work means to me in context of my own. Can an abstract work be further abstracted? Can a conceptual work be abstracted? Can a vision encompass art, nature and self? The answer to these questions is a resounding yes. For me, Pollock’s work is an abstraction of an imaginary landscape that exists only in his mind. It is a vision executed through “action painting” that encompasses time and chance, a mixture of accident and intent. Where he aims his paint is one thing; where it actually falls is another. De Kooning’s morphing of lines and adding texture and color to remove the boundaries between representation and abstraction is a visual

Traces of Pollock #3, Pigment Print, 2013, 40 x 72 in. (100 x 180 cm.)

suspension of disbelief. Warhol’s superb ability to make art from the ordinary, to challenge what is customary and expected and present it regardless of the medium is fascinating and inspiring. As I think about the work of all three, I know that what I think may have nothing to do with what they thought. What I see in their work may have little to do with what they saw or intended to say. Looking at their work, for me, is a journey I take. And what I see and perceive is very personal and is only and

Roeland Kneepkens

totally my own. This work is a journal of these journeys into the work of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol, using my own medium, which is photography. It is a journey into my own world, where I like to believe that all is abstraction and realism is a fiction. I hope the viewer will look at my work freely, and alter it in their minds as Pollock did, morph it as de Kooning did, and discover that nothing is ordinary, as Warhol did. I invite them to abstract it further,

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and discover the infinite and the limitless. What they will see is an image and meaning that will have something or nothing to do with what I meant it to be. The final reality of an artwork rests with the viewer, and yet for the artist, his vision and his concept are unscathed. They are different journeys, whose path may or may not cross, but neither is more Ernest or less true than the other. In this work are traces of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol. 2013, 60x70cm from the The gentlemenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cabinet series

Adel Gorgy

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an interview with

Adel Gorgy Hello Adel and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

Thank you. It's a real pleasure to talk with you about my work. Art is an integral part of life, and its definition is as complex and variable as life, itself. But, as for what it means to me--my medium is photography, and it has been part of me all my life. Art is my way to sharpen observation, bring vision to a focus, provoke thought and evoke emotion. It is my way of heightening awareness and overcoming the apathy resulting from the comfort of the usual and ordinary. And yes, there is a difference between traditional or conventional and contemporary art. Traditional art exists within boundaries defined by historical and conventional standards. Contemporary art is defined by the artist. It is a dynamic process that changes, adapts and evolves with social and technical realties. Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that impacted on the way you produce your art these days? By the way, I would like to ask to an experienced artist as you are if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle an artist's creativity...

My art is all photographic work. I started in the classical black and white tradition of photography, perfecting the techniques of the greats, like Ansel Adams. I mastered and utilized the Zone System, as well as many difficult techniques like selenium toning and archival printing. Perfecting the print is, I believe, the most important part of the process. I am one of very few large format photography artists who print my own work in my own studio, because I insist on the highest level of perfection in each print.

Adel Gorgy

As for formal training, in my case, mastering traditional techniques has been essential. It is the basis and backbone of my understanding of photography as a medium and a process. But, it all depends on the artist. If you allow formal training to limit your creativity and you stay in the confines of what you have learned, it could limit you creatively. But, if you build on what you have learned and grow beyond these limits, then it is an asset. It depends on the artist, rather than training. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your works? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus

Cassandra Hanks

Adel Gorgy

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graphs." In another group, “Rhythms… Winter to Fall” the purpose was to present to the viewer a vision that transcended the conventional way of looking at nature. Throughout art, Realism has described nature, Impressionism has colored it, Expressionism interpreted it and Abstraction reduced it. In "Rhythms... Winter to Fall," these boundaries are blurred, imaginary or non-existent. These compositions transcend the traditional pictorial photographic conventions. There is no perspective, no foreground or background. The customary designation of top and bottom, or right and left is immaterial, giving the viewer alternate ways of seeing. For many years, the subject of my work has been art, itself. I thought of a new concept which is interesting to me. We have abstracted everything--portraits, figure, still life, landscape and even concepts, but, oddly enough, we never abstracted art, itself. In my portfolio “Again…Seeing Art Anew,” I used new techniques to abstract the works of Matisse, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso among others. Then the question arose, can I abstract abstraction? That was the genesis of my new body of abstract photographic work “Traces of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol” which was the subject of a solo exhibition at Able Fine Art NY Gallery, in Chelsea in Manhattan.

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

The only medium I work in is photography. The three integral components of the work are a concept, a vision and a technique. It all starts as a thought in search of an image or an image provoking a thought. Then I find or develop the technique needed for the image. Most of the techniques I use are my own and developing them is a complex process. This is evident in my portfolio a "Woman and a Sumi Brush," whose concept is rooted in Zen Painting. In these pieces I selectively painted developer onto exposed photographic paper, using a Sumi brush, creating one-of-a-kind "painted photo-

Though the thought behind the image is always what drives the creative process, the execution of the final image is paramount, and for me, it must be of exceptional quality. It is an intensive, time-consuming process that requires multiple techniques. I usually work on different images at the same time, allowing each image to evolve to its comple-tion, which could take weeks or months. But I believe that in the end, the medium, the technique and the style fall behind or disappear, and only the image remains. Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from the recent and interesting photographic work entitled Traces Of Pollock #3, that our readers have already admired in the starting pages of this article. Would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting piece? What was your initial inspiration?

"Traces of Pollock # 3" is one of several images inspired by a visit to the Pollock-Krasner House studio on

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Adel Gorgy

Meeting de Kooning Again, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

Long Island, NY. On the floor of Pollock's studio are remains of splattered paint. I thought that recomposing the paint into new abstract compositions would be interesting conceptually and visually. It took literally hundreds of photographs to complete the series, and it proved to be a wonderfully successful group of works. I showed the work to Michelle Yu, the director of Able Fine Art NY Gallery in Chelsea, in Manhattan, and she invited me to have a solo exhibition at the gallery, "Traces of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol." It just ran from December 4-31 2013, and the show generated a great deal of interest from both the public and the press. Able Fine Art NY put together a beautiful exhibition that was selected

as one of the ten highlights of the week of the opening by the Village Voice, one of New York's most important newspapers. Another work of yours on which I would like to spend some words is entitled "Marilyn... Persona", with a clear reference to Wharol's work. It is based on a deep involvement of the viewer and his personal perception of a lot of concepts that are part of our History... how much do you draw inspiration from our reality?

"Marilyn â&#x20AC;Ś Persona" is interesting because Warhol presented her as an iconic figure that we all know. I think Marilyn was a brilliant personality, in that she presented to spectators what they wanted to see, and I believe we were never exposed to the

Adel Gorgy

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Marilyn...Persona, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

real Marilyn. In my image, there are two faces of Marilyn with the eyes, which are the window to her soul, masked in red. In these, we only see the sensuous lips and beauty mark that are so characteristic of Marilyn. There are another two representations of Marilyn with the eyes uncovered, and watching us, the viewers. It is a kind of role reversal here, with the viewer being the one being watched. As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statment, abstraction does not end with the artist; the final touches are those of the viewer... I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative

process: both for creating an artwork and for enjoying it: all in all, the final reality of an artwork rests with the viewer... Do you think that such creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

This is a very important question. It speaks to the body of work I did titled, "Portraits of Art." In it, I raised the question in whose presence are we when we are looking at a work of art? For example, if we are looking at the Mona Lisa, are we in the presence of da Vinci, of the painting, of La Giaconda as a person, or are we, finally, in the Ernest presence of ourselves? The ultimate reality of the artwork2013, rests 60x70cm with the viewer, yet for the artist, his vision and his concept from the The gentlemenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cabinet series

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Adel Gorgy

My Meeting with Warhol, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

are unscathed. They are different journeys, whose paths may or may not cross, but neither is more or less true than the other. Creating or viewing art should always be free. Of course, it can echo direct experience, but it can also be imaginary. Art belongs to the artist and the viewer independently. My journey in producing the pieces in "Traces of Pollock, de Kooning and Warhol" or in abstracting Matisse, Cezanne or Monet, is distinct and unique. I am both the viewer and the artist, and my journey and experience is independent of theirs. While admiring "My Meeting With Warhol" I realized that there's a way to go beyond the subtle dichotomy between tradition and modernity... by the way, I'm sort of convinced

that some information & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Many of the most important messages and ideas are, of course, hidden. Art is the ability of the artist to make his visions and ideas visible to others. In "My Meeting with Warhol" I've taken the intentionally flattened surface and re-introduced depth. In many of my works, I've elimiated persepctive, but here, I've created a very inten-tional vanishing point. It feels almost as if one is entering a gallery Cassandra Hanks

Adel Gorgy

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Red Whispers, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

and that's the idea. What might be considered ordinary is really not. Creating soup is an art. Marketing it is an art. Warhol's painting is, of course, art. So I am creating an image that reflects the multiple layers of art that I saw embodied in his iconic paintings of the soup cans.

ting aggressivity or pulsion... even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I would dare to define it a thoughtful red: it suggests me an intellectual action... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

And I couldn't do without mentioning Red Whispers and especially Deception, that I have to admit is one of my favourite pieces of yours... among the others, a feature that has mostly impacted on me is the effective mix of dark tones, which are capable of creating such a prelude to light as in Cosmic Dance... I also noticed that red is a very recurrent tone in your works, with nuances that far from sugges-

"Red Whispers" is one of my favorite pieces. It is also composed from the splattered paint from Pollockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio floor. I created it to echo a favorite Zen story about a court musician who studied Zen music for ten years, at the end of which, his long awaited performance was just a single note from his flute. The idea is that one note can encompass all music. For me, this single stroke of red whispers all colors and all abstractions.

Sonnet for Love Traces of Pollock and de Kooning, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 72 in. (100 x 180 cm.)

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Adel Gorgy

Deception, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

"Deception" is a complex work. It speaks of my belief that our senses and understanding are quite relative. It is an abstraction of a small work by Pollock, but yet, it is not a painting. It is a photographic work that is completely different. There are no brushstrokes, no paint and no painter standing behind the work. My pieces are often mistaken for paintings, though the medium is photography. I am often asked how I paint them. I like to say that deception of our senses is the rule rather than the exception, that in art "all is abstraction and realism is a fiction."

dio. The abstraction is far removed from the original but maintains that cosmic connection between light and dark. Of course no art work is meaningful without considering the palette carefully. I feel free to change the colors at will to serve the image and the idea. But, of course, the color has to work compositionally and conceptually. There is an unexplained feeling artists experience. It's like a whisper telling me, "now it is complete." That's when I stop. Avoiding overworking an piece is learned only through experience.

"Cosmic Dance" is a taken from one of my pieces titled "Veiled Moon." Here, I decided to add two white strokes taken from the floor of Pollockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stu-

During these years your works have been exhibited and presented in several occasions: how important is for you the feedback of your audi-

Adel Gorgy

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Cosmic Dance, Pigment Print, 2013 40 x 55 in. (100 x 138 cm.)

ence? Do you ever think whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I believe that the journey of the artist and the viewer are different and independent. When I finish a work, my journey with this piece is completed and the journey of the viewer begins. The viewer becomes the artist, to see, interpret, abstract, or just pass by indifferently. I hope they will delight in my work as much as I already did, and invite them to look at it freely, interpret it or even abstract it. Let me thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us, Adel. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that

you would like readers to be aware of?

I am working on abstracting Italian Renaissance and Dutch masters, which I have already begun in compositions for El Greco and Rembrandt. And I am also currently working on abstracting Noguchi's sculptures. For me, art as the subject of my work is a journey I delight in. I am very thankful for all the great artists whose work is inspirational for me and for my art. Also, I thank you for this very detailed interview which really reflects keen understanding of my work. Your questions really go to the heart and Ernest essence of my work and, in fact, of all art. 2013, 60x70cm An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

from the The gentlemenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cabinet series

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Scott D'Arcy (United Kingdom) An artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s statement

My main drive to make art is a pursuit of truth around how images function and exsist through a long line of experimentation. I am drawn to beauty and very interested in its construction and purpose from a cultural stand point. Collective notions of beauty and taste are shared and represented through a wide range of mediums over long periods of history. Even though beauty can sometimes be guilty of buying in to narcissism, what it has in common with the functionality of images is a high level of illusion, that depicts a world more seductive and appealing than our own. The tension between the sentiment the viewer experiences through their gaze and the reality of images is for the most part what my practise investigates. Images are very ephemeral things, put quite simply they are very sophisticated systems and signs that add to our culture. The intangibility of the digital images in a frame-less, free-flowing world has been a key aspect that I believe best represents their paradoxical state. Such ideas are well recognized and explored in Hans Belting's "An Anthropology of Images" and Vilem Flusser's "Into the Universe of Technical Images". I welcome intangibility and surrealism because they best mimics how we really think about images. When we loose contact with a physical copy or walk away from the screen, we hold what we have seen psychologically. Our body becomes a medium that stores what we are exposed to.

Baroque No.7 - photogra

I reference and borrow a lot of content; this could be anything from aesthetics of certain styles to elements from famous historical paintings. For me appropriation is vital when trying to understand an images collective reading, and being able to set a certain appeal against itself in a very different way but still in a very visually way. The viewer then has an opportunity to really think about the new image with a new context. The creative process is not so separate from these ideas. I have a tendency to view the world as an infinite universe of visual references, that merge over one another. A great deal of time is spent scouting locations and building up an achieve or collection through a range of sources; locations, online images from facebook, books, old master paintings. In order to decide which visual engines will work together.

Scott D'Arcy

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phy and digital media - 2011

Although digital media allows a platform for manipulation and surrealism, physical distortions can be equally as interesting due to their 'no tricks' approach. Reflections, photographs through water and the doubling up of images in glass are good physical examples of an images temporal existence. Since my art relies heavily on an audience recognising something familiar in order to be

sometimes problematic to assume a final drawninto a state of speculation. It isreading even when the work is finished, but this is what images must do to continue if they want to maintain out attention. So I embrace and play with their shifting and fluid nature, as oppose to making representations or illustrations of more solid events or concepts.

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Scott D'Arcy

an interview with

Scott D'Arcy Hello Scott and welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

It's a deceptively complex question, ever since we came to the conclusion that art can no longer exist outside of itself. Therefore there are not many boundaries left to push. Anything can be art, although in saying that, not everything is. For me a work of art is defined by its ability to convey a set of ideas in a way that captivates a viewer through sensory experience. Sometimes an emotional connection is seen as a very important aspect, but personally i think this is a by product and down to qualities within the individual and not the work in question. I think pieces that are set out to be contemporary from the start tend to be guilty of being too 'slick' or polished. This doesn't go for the majority of contemporary art, but id say it's sometimes a good indicator of an artist appealing to a built up contemporary fashion in a way. Would you like to tell us something about your background? You have studied at the Leeds Metropolitain University: how has this experience of formal training impacted on the way you currently produce your works? By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

I did study at Leeds Met yes. Institutions are useful in terms of sharing ideas and co-operation. I found having people to hand very useful with my practise in particular because it relies heavily on collective and shared readings. However the downside of making work that is being formally assessed in that way means you are forced to focus on one area. There is freedom within the scope you choose. However wanting to pick something totally diffe-

Scott D'Arcy

rent up the following week is more often than not frowned upon, even though i have found that if you are serious about your art, no two things are completely unrelated. However at the time i was very much aware that this was what universities had to do in order to grade work. I made art for myself as well as my education and it did make me to value the variety, which is something best recognised early on in an artists progression between what they like to do and what they have to do. An art students creativity can be 'stifled' mostly by self consciousness, specifically when they compare themselves to their fellow pupils. The most Cassandra Hanks

Scott D'Arcy

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After Vermeer - digital collage - 2012

most common aspect of this i found is when two people arrived at similar areas. I learned the trick is not to compare yourself to your class mates, just relax and understand your practise better. The natural feeling you get is to take a different route, but this is more often than not a false sense of security.

during the process of creating a piece?

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

The preparation onto what engines to use in conjunction with each other requires a great deal of preparation and research, mainly around the formal elements of images but also the philosophical concerns around out perception. I also spend a lot of time scouting out locations and collecting images in order to have a more practical connection to my

It varies depending on the piece. There are a whole host of different techniques i use within the computer (mainly photoshop) and for the most part my practise has been a cycle of pushing images back and forth between the tangible world and digital manipulation until it is resolved.

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Scott D'Arcy

Birth - digital collage - 2013

creative process. Lighting techniques and compositional decisions like in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Birthâ&#x20AC;? is very tough and requires patience. Its an endless game of trail and error, constant observation and experimentation. Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with Baroque No.7, a recent and interesting piece that our readers have already admired in the introductory pages of this article: would you tell us something about the genesis of this work? What was your initial inspiration?

My initial inspiration was the investigation of the multiverse of layers and realities images exist on and the high drama achieved in baroque paintings. I found this aesthetic style to crop up everywhere, from films to fashion from a time where we couldn't have lived. It's as a kind of diachronic nostalgia, which i obviously found very interesting and decided to explore. Baroque No.7 was made at the beginning of my real use of the photography studio. Its intention was to made a new work out of powerful elements of much older ones in the hopes of creating a piece that intoxicated the viewer through visual familiarities. Leading them

After Rembrantd - photography and digital me

into a labyrinth of fake tattoos, doubled up figures and digital manipulation. Which i felt reflected our recycling of these tastes and has the possibility to build on its social conjunction. Another pieces of yours in which I would like to spend some words are After Rembrandt and After Vermeer... Although it's crystal clear that this series is pervaded by irony, I have to admit that I'm some puzzled about this aspect: in fact the irony springs from the super imposition of materials of different eras... all in all, if we admire the first version of Cara-vaggio's The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, we can recognize the angel's hand driving Sain Mattew's pen... so why an angel shouldn't help an old man to write with an iPad? I really hope that you will forgive me for this naif observation...

I think that if that where the case, we would just

Scott D'Arcy

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confusion is the same as the right amount of creative speculation. It goes without saying that modern technology -and in particular the recent development of infographics- has dramatically revolutionized the idea of painting itself: this forces us to rethink to the materiality of the artwork itself, since just few years ago an artwork was first of all -if you forgive me this unpleasent classification- a manufactured article: it was the concrete materialization of an idea... As a digital based artist with high levels of experience both in Painting and in Photography, you would like to know you opinion about this...

Id have to agree with you. Artwork did used to be a concrete manifestation of ideas, it still very much is. However I am reluctant to show any work as print or hard copies, as i believe the digital best represents my concept of the fluid existence of images. I think there are some interesting traits that appear when looking at a painting that non-tangible displays play with.

dia - 2013

be changing materials within the reality of the painting. Consequently the characters might then be drawn into areas of convincing fancy dress, which would be very final. In a way I am glad you're left at least a little bit at a loose end, but to clarify the irony is important in my re-contextualization of these images. By super imposing two different states in the same setting; using either surrealism of the same figure multiple times. Or alternatively by making a work that appears to be one very resolved image but is in fact two from different periods in time. It prompts the viewer to really participate in their own speculation around the work. So to finalise, the irony wouldn't have this effect if the work was a more linear one. Neither would it be as effective if everyone arrived at the exact same conclusion, it would make the images very bland and dead in my opinion. To me a small amount of

That core desire to touch a realistic paintings originates from some primal urge to test the illusion of the world the painting depicts. Touching the surface disrupts that false perception; one which the artist tried to achieve in its creation. (if we are talking about high realism painting) Otherwise we wouldn't constantly remind visitors of a gallery not to touch the paintings.

Upon reflection No.23 - photography - 2013

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Scott D'Arcy

After John Martin - digital collage and manipulation - 2012 It's that desire that is completely denied when using digital screens or projections, it makes the work not only appear more fake. But destroys the artists 'hand' and distancing a viewer from the creation process. Ironically i find this very useful when getting to the core focus of my work. Digital displays free the image from this distraction of touch and the tangible fixation of a material. If you want ideas to orbit around a particular subject as i do, a temporal medium is best. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you have a tendency to view the world as an infinite universe of visual references, that merge over one another... I would go as far as to state that your Art help us to notice a lot of details around us, allowing us to discover the poetry inside them... I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need to decipher them. Maybe that

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

I suppose it depends what you mean by inner nature. If you mean it physiologically, i suppose you could see some overlap between that which we project onto the world from personal experience, and an images ability to deflect these experiences back to us in a more mysterious way. Thus peaking our attachment and making us want to explore it, which is exactly how it works for me. I have this huge collection of images, and when i discover something i always have this need or habit to try and attach it to some other picture. This discovery could be anything from a found image, to a location, or something i have been around for years and only just realised its potential. That's when the practical investigation really begins, even though i wouldn't go as far as to say my work is very personal. Hanks But there is defiantly Cassandra

Scott D'Arcy

Peripheral ARTeries

something very human about this activity of exploring, deciphering and understanding the world through the memory of images we can relate to. During these years, your artworks have been exhibited in many occasions and moreover you have been recently shortlisted for Vantage art prize... it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

Absolutely not. Awards gained, or short listed for don't do it for me (although they are quite nice for a young artists status) I think most artists

Upon reflection No.52 - photography - 2013 would just enjoy the self gratification in the initial moments that we all constantly crave. Beyond that awards and prizes are mostly tools for academics to try and differentiate between good and bad art I guess. They wouldn't influence many dedicated artists I don't think. I do often wonder about who my art is for, if that is the same thing. The references are the most problematic aspect to wrestle with in a pieces reading. But I don't believe the work should stride to be educational through what it appropriates. A small clue in the title is enough for anyone interested in how it originated. Id say my work is for anyone who isn't to fixed on convention and likes to apply their own ideas a lot. Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Scott. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Id like to mention that I am currently collaborating with a hand full of artist in Yorkshire and the Midlands. Some interesting projects are mushrooming out, including some surrounding gaming culture and reconstructing films stills. It's a bit of a left turn for me as my practise has up until this point been solitary, but there will some exciting exhibitions and events for 2014 but I wouldn't like to say any more than that on their behalf. Upon reflection No.17 - photography - 2013

An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

Peripheral ARTeries

Margaret Noble (USA) An artist’s statement

I create objects, installations and performances that investigate the echoes of time in contemporary identity and environment. I focus on narratives and legacies left behind by families, media and technology. I use found objects, construct new objects and design sound to activate spaces, reference history and pose questions about perception. I draw on a wide variety of materials and symbols to juxtapose ideas. I play with time travel as I move between generational influences, historical myths and the future. Margaret Noble

Born in Texas and raised in San Diego, Margaret Noble’s artwork has been exhibited across the United States, Canada and abroad in Europe. Noble’s art has been featured on PBS and positively reviewed in Art Ltd Magazine, the San Diego Union Tribune, and San Francisco Weekly. She holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego and an MFA in Sound Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Noble has been awarded the International Governor’s Grant, the Hayward Prize, the Microsoft Global Educator Award for Arts and Mathematics and the Creative Catalyst Fellowship. Noble’s artistic residencies include the MAK Museum in Vienna and at the Salzburg Academy of Fine Art. Her solo exhibition, 44th and Landis was featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego from 2012-2013. In 2014, she won first place in the Musicworks Magazine electronic music composition competition. Margaret Noble’s work is influenced by the beat-driven dance culture of southern California during the 1980s. This inspiration led her to perform as an electronic music DJ in the underground club community of Chicago for several years during the late nineties. In 2004, Noble branched out from the dance floor into more experimental interests and created a monthly arts showcase called Spectacle in Chicago; during this period, she performed and produced experimental works with a variety of cutting edge new-media artists. Her interdisciplinary work resides at the intersection of sound, installation and performance. 4

#196 Winter

Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis 2

Peripheral ARTeries

Margaret Noble

An interview with

Margaret Noble Hello Margaret, first I would give you welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You hold a BA in Philosophy, from the University of California, San Diego and an MFA in Sound Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago: how have these experiences influenced you in the way you currently produce your artworks?

Both of these educational experiences have deeply influenced my research and artistic motivations. In the instance of philosophy, I was trained to question and analyze all manners of ideas with a critical eye. I find this practice resonate with what many contemporary artists do today.

an interview with They investigate ideas, put forth arguments and problem solve through form. Later, when I began my studies in sound art, I was at first pushing to learn the technical and formal aspects of creating exclusively. But, I learned immediately that a workâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to communicate may lack in depth if it relies on technical and formal skills alone. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Margaret Noble

will express the concept in its most effective way. My forms are fluid and I often outsource pieces of the project to secure the best possible outcome. I fear having my art limited by my technical ability.

My work starts exclusively with an idea of interest; some seed of context that is neglected, in tension or resonates as a problem. I then spend a good deal of time researching my selected topic of interest until I feel that I have something that is more refined and meaningful to express. With this specific concept in mind, I draft out ideas for forms that

Now let's focus on your art production: I would like to start with your interesting project Righteous Exploits that you have created in collaboration with Justin Hudnall and that our readers are starting to get to know in the intro6

Margaret Noble

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Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis

and concept. I am often looking to the past to inform the present and in particular I hunt for primary documents such as letters or photos that may shed light on our experiences of today. For Righteous Exploits, I was inspired by the Ann Fabianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book, The Unvarnished Truth which is a powerful cultural history of how ordinary Americans crafted and sold their stories of hardship in the nineteenth century. Justin and I decided to exploit our own stories (as often artists do) to see what themes of the past would resonate today based on letters and documents we could dig up from our family. The work then took shape on its own and morphed into ideas around eternal recurrence. Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis ductory pages of this article and I would suggest to visit your website directly at http://www.margaretnoble.net/righteous-exploits/ in order to get a wider idea of this interesting work: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of the project behind these pieces? What was your initial inspiration?

As you have remarked, Righteous Exploits is a chronicle of the life of your grandmother, Helen Hosmer, a 1940â&#x20AC;˛s-era labor activist... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

My work is obsessively time-based in both form

Yes, I do feel that the most honest and interesting 7

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Margaret Noble

an interview with 44 th and Landis installation, photo by Nathaniel Elegino

44 th and Landis installation, photo by Nathaniel Elegino

work is that which is personal. However, my concern as of late is that my work is sometimes too personal and this directness has made me uncomfortable in familiar audiences. But, the conceptual problems that interest me are those that relate to my direct experiences. Working with experience gives me authority to explore freely and take risks because of insider knowledge.

Multidisciplinarity is a recurrent feature of your art practice: your production ranges from sound to installation to performance as the interesting 44th and Landis and I think it's important to remark that you were a dancer later, during the late nineties, you were a DJ in the underground club community of Chicago for several years during the late nineties... while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

But, the aim is to explore the personal in such a way that it relates to the audiences that experience the work. The antithesis of this is making personal works without thinking of your audience. For me, if the work is only serving the self then it may not belong in the public sphere. I am not saying to pander or cater to audiences in a way that is compromising. What I am saying is that work is more interesting and carries more weight when it is relevant to others outside of the self.

Absolutely, and herein lies the tension. I cannot be an expert at all mediums but I do not want to limit my ideas to the mediums I am skilled at. #196 Winter 8

Margaret Noble

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A still from 44 th and Landis

daresay- on a physical one, as in as Tides ... Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? Do you ever happen to draw inspiration from who will enjoy your artworks?

I deeply care about my audience's experience and this informs my work. I resent projects that alienate audiences and although I am interested in the contemporary art dialectic, I am more interested in work that reaches beyond this specific camp. That is not to say that I think work should be dumb downed, on the contrary, the ideas should remain gripping, challenging and provoking. But, what I would advocate for is that artists use form to communicate ideas beyond the contemporary art community. I was once told that I am a “plain speak conceptualist,” I liked that comment.

an interview with

So, I can execute poorly at mediums I am new to. But, that doesn’t succeed because the work is unsuccessful. I could try to master multiple forms. But, by the time I get to any type of proficiency I may loose interest in my original concepts. So for me, the answer is often collaboration or (as I mentioned earlier) outsourcing parts of a project. Artistic vision is so exciting and clear in one’s mind but so challenging to manifest as a real thing. It does often require a synergy between different disciplines. Your works are strictly connected to the chance of establishing a deep involvement with your audience, both on an intellectual side and - I

#196 Winter A still from 44 th and Landis

Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Margaret Noble

Shelter

Spill

installation Photo by Stacey Keck

Another interesting pieces of your on which I would spend some words are Shelter and Spills, which part of an installation series that explores the fragility and futility of human interference with natural processes: one of the features of these interesting pieces that has mostly impacted on me is the way you have been capable of re-contextualizing the idea of environment, especially challenging the "function" of it... I'm sort of convinced that some information & ideas are hidden, or even "encryp-

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

I think the subconscious runs wildly in creators and that the artistic works they make are often cryptic even to the artists themselves. I often think that I am so clear about my intentions behind a work and then once the work is finished #196 Winter I figure out that 12

Margaret Noble

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an interview with 44 th and Landis performance, photo by Nathaniel Elegino

there is much more to uncover. It is kind of exciting and unnerving because I want to be very articulate about what I am planning to make. But then I find out that the work is saying more or something different. Of course, I wonder was this intention always there and I ignored it? Or, did something really new emerge?

culture and history when trekking about Europe that makes an American feel like a child. Sometimes, I have this impulse to feverishly study European art and history textbooks before connecting with artists in Europe. But, that solution is ridiculous and makes one an imposter. So I embrace my American-ness and soak in what the old world offers, recognizing that these two worlds are different and that is interesting!

During these years you received many positive feedbacks, and you have recently won first place in the Musicworks Magazine electronic music composition competition... Moreover your artworks have been exhibited in several occasions, both in the USA and abroad, as in Europe, and you won a residency at the prestigious MAK Museum in Vienna and at the Salzburg Academy of Fine Art: what impressions have you received from the expe-riences in Europe? Did you find any great difference with the American scenario?

I will be creating an installation for the Mediations Biennale this fall at the American satellite venue in San Diego, California. http://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennials/media tions-biennale/

It is a funny thing being an American artist in Europe. There are just some things about the wealth of

an interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

Thank you for this interview, Margaret. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you that you would like readers to be aware of?

Peripheral ARTeries

Tanya Stadnichenko (Russia) an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s statement

The main direction Tatiana`s works is to transfer graphic and compositional laws in the space of streets, parks, abandoned factories. For her works are important historical, architectural and landscape contexts. In the installations she widely uses colors, graphic quality, the refraction of light, spatial content, the violation of the optical illusions. The feeling of the dominant natural culture is the axis of most projects. She compare asocial environment areas, the urban places and human work directly with them, the author explores all known laws, exposing them. The natural background is becoming legislator and inspirer, and organic natural forms combined with the industrial world and the increasing globalization of nomadism - tools for translating ideas.

Tanya Stadnichenko Strikes, 2012 Installation, Summer Đ?cademy in Salzburg

Tanya Stadnichenko

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STRIKES, installation Summer Academy in Salzburg-2012 The clearness of blow depends from the shooter, from experience, which has been saved up on years. Today artist is a densely connected to itself with all society. The young artist has no time for mistakes, relying on intuition and analyzing a situation, it strikes new blow. The blow should be the accurate, uncompromising, exact, with clear statement . vimeo.com/48279411

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Tanya Stadnichenko

an interview with

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

Artist for me now it's not just a creator – it's a person, who can make a difference in the environmental situation, change the areal of his habitat through the dialogue with people. I like to measure the depth of human perception; I immerse myself and people in unusual environment, for to expose factors that are absolutely impossible to see in everyday life. For example, I had a series of public-art projects in which I examined the laws of attraction and gravitation. The plane has outlived its usefulness for me. For me now the drawing, painting and photography can't show all the energy and speed of the modern world. It's a problem, that in Russia we have a huge gap between classic art and contemporary. For example, in the common art- university (like my first one) the history of art ended on the Malevich. And our education system too old, that’s why people didn't get used to think when they see the art, they just say: «Is it really art? I can do the same». Would you like to tell us something about your background? You have received a formal training, during your studies of Fine Arts, at the prestigious Institute of the Contemporary Art of Moscow. How has this experience impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks? By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

In Moscow we have some new private art- institutions where artist could have some fresh knowledge and information about what's going on in the art-world now. That’s why I have 2 art- educations. After ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow) the borders of my art-perceptions opened and I start-

Tanya Stadnichenko

ed to work another way, try new materials, technology; strive for clarity of expression and multilayered work. About background I think that my motherland played an important role in my art. I was born in a little city in Siberia and I used to live in a huge vast, I walked a lot in endless fields, forests and abandoned buildings. That's the one of reason why I prefer to work with a big spaces or on the streets and public spaces with a nature, use the wind and air. Before starting to elaborate about your would you like to tell to our production, Cassandra Hanks

Tanya Stadnichenko

Peripheral ARTeries

output the laws of graphic and compositional to the streets, parks, abandoned factories. The historical, architectural and landscape contexts, colors, graphic quality, the refraction of light, space filling, in violation of optical laws are rather important for me. Now let's focus on your art production: I would like to start with Strikes that our readers can admire in these pages and that I would suggest them to view it directly at vimeo.com/48279411: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration?

I did this installation in the Summer Art Academy in Salzburg, Austria. I came to study there for one mounth. And there was an atmosfere like in artfactory, where is an everybody have to do powerfull «strike» with his project. The young artist has no time for mistakes, relying on intuition and analyzing a si-

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

Basically all of my recent projects deal with temporality. It's going from the my life and social -situation when is nothing for a long time. I'm interested in the theme of the short duration of art. During last year I did nothing for «white cube» space, because I want to my projects works with people on streets and parks and the viewer can participate in the installation. I try to

Strikes, detail

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Tanya Stadnichenko

The Labyrinth, Land-art project Life of every person - a labyrinth. We always search for easy road, we wander in search of happiness, we lose faith, we find, we rejoice grass. It breaths, moves, changes a direction, cooperates with the nature.

tuation, it strikes new blow. The blow should be the accurate, uncompromising and exact, with clear statement. In the installation I tried to visualize some of these strikes of the young artist as they could be in a formal vision. And it was interesting to worked with salt-space (That factory was a salt factory before the O. Kokoschka did it place for art-study). Another piece of yours on which I would like to spend some words is Labyrinth, an interesting land art work that I like very much: as you have remarked, it breaths, moves, changes a direction, cooperates with the nature... A feature of

this piece that has mostly impacted on me is the effective synergy that you have been capable of establishing an effective dialog between Nature and our inner nature... Could you lead us through the development of this project?

It was project about the human being with idea that ÂŤWe alwayse looking for easy road, wander in search of happiness, we lose faith, we find, we rejoice or we long, we come back to old roads and we search for new waysÂť. I cut the grass for to do kind of labyrinth, where people can sit and think about his life. But also I felt this like a big

Tanya Stadnichenko

Peripheral ARTeries

reality and start to live it's s own life, especial when I work with public-art. For example, when I did work «Adrift», I didn't expect that reflections in the water will play a significant role in the composition, and I didn't think that 40 kg of apples from the project «Juice» will exude an incredible smell, supplementing installation. And we couldn't do without mentioning Temporary Waterfall that is one of my favourite pieces of yours: I would daresay that this work sums in an image the well-known Bauman's concept of «liquid modernity». I can recognize in it a subtle social criticism... And I'm sort of convinced that Art in these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion about socio political issues: I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can even steer people's behavior... I would take this chance to ask your point about this.

or we long, we come back to old roads and we search for new

animal which breathe, move and participate in all that process. Being strictly connected to the chance to create a deep interaction, your artworks are capable of communicating a wide variety of states of mind: have you ever happened to discover something that you didn't previously plan and that you didn't even think about before? I'm sort of convinced that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal hidden sides of life and nature... what's your opinion about this?

For sure, everey project from sketches come to

Temporary Waterfall, detail

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Tanya Stadnichenko

Temporary waterfall, Anapa, 2013 installation from series of temporary sculptures I`ve the only here and now. There is nothing permanent it`s a «liquid modernity» time. Here is only sky and sand. I don`t know what will happen tomorrow because of speed information. The first work from a series of break down objects.

Do you think that it's an exaggeration? And what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in our society?

As I told in the beginning of the interview, I think that now the artist can't just sit in the studio and create an esthetic objects or pictures like 100 years ago. Now is everybody artist, everybody has a photo camera and internet. And the true artist has to be more than just artist. He must be a mirror of society, reflection of reality and «changer of time». What about «Temporary waterfall», I was inspired by book of Bauman because he indicated very clearly all social problems of our days. In my life (as in the histories of all my friends also) there is nothing stable, everything too much unreliable, and nobody knows what will be tomorrow. It's kind of the capitalism's consequence and unwillingness of people to change something in the situation. That’s why I want to do exhibition with temporary objects which will crushed during exposition. Your art practice ranges from Installations, public art as Gravitation to performance, as Limits: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to

Limits, video, 2’42’’, 2013 Hanks Cassandra

Tanya Stadnichenko

Peripheral ARTeries

THE GRAVITATION Public-art- installation, Moscow-2012 I feel the power of gravitation, it surrounds me. It works anywhere, anytime. I want to dip you in the sense with destruction borders of things and distorted forms. I want to levitate and break any area of perception. I measure the gravity at different locations. vimeo.com/52576741

realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

I don't have a single medium for work. I try to express idea by all possible means of expression, and sometimes all this mediums works only together.

The Marked Place, public installation

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Tanya Stadnichenko

During these years you have exhibited your artworks in several occasions: you recently had your solo "Tissue" and moreover you received a grant from the Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg. It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I'm inspired by dialogs and discussions with the audience. And every new exhibition like new competition – you never know reaction of people, but I can't work without society attantion. And every new project like explore of my own borders and opportunities and it's hard but also enjoy. Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts, Tanya. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I just received an invitation for spring from the residence «La Napoule Art Foundation» (France). I've some ideas for explore French style- garden there. And also may be I've to travel more for totally contemporary art!

An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

TISSUES, 2011-Moscow 2012 There is a Own law for all elements of the Universe. We are the total model of the our planet, including all its parts: the earth, water, fire, air (wind), heavenly space (ether). The face of person in an old ages looks such as the mirror, is similar to an earth crust surface. It is possible to judge his life on mimic wrinkles of folds of the person. All stresses, pleasures, physiological and spiritual processes leave an accurate trace on us. The Earth have the similar processes, but in galactic scales - explosions of volcanoes, earth crust shifts, a tsunami, climatic fluctuations, changes of degree of an inclination of a terrestrial axis. I consider history of a universe on an example of my own family tree. Portraits of great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers, uncles, are compared with maps of those territories on which their life proceeded.

Serene Greene

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Global Warming

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Simon Raab (France / USA) an artist’s statement

I work in a medium I call “Parleau” whose etymology is French for 'through the water.' Just for fun and to make a satirical point about artist branding I trademarked the name and patented the method. Multiple layers of colored polymers are applied to stainless steel and aluminum and then "crushed" or sculpted to give the appearance of an image just under the surface of water. The art is created as either a wall-mounted painting with embedded frames, or as a freestanding volumetric sculpture. I love to work with brilliant colors, figurative abstractions, and most often I am motivated by some underlying philosophical question or belief. I identify with the symbolism of the grenade, as a symbol of disruptive ideas and the change agents from which they come. They have the ability to destroy and disrupt and expose suppressed ideas, yet they are egglike, bearing offspring, activated and inspired by the hand of man, defensive, aggressive, working in the name of good and evil, dangerous and inviting. New and innovative ideas leave shrapnel of suspicion in your mind. The grenade is the perfect symbolism for creative destruction and aligns well with the Parleau medium. Parleau enhances the images on metal by a sculpting and crushing step, partially destroying after creating and generating a refreshing and dynamic visual perspective. Life is added to images, activated by life’s essence and the cycle of creation and destruction. I began as an artist and then turned to being a scientist and engineer and now back to being an artist. This background provided me a deep insight into materials and surface properties, which I brought to bear on my art. The secret processes I developed in Parleau were only possible because of my scientific background. It is a myth that the creative impulses and process in the sciences are different than those in the arts. They have many similarities, in that they are emotional, inspired, magical, technical, and are often born of frustration.

Simon Raab

Serene Greene

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Global Warming

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Simon Raab

an interview with

Simon Raab Hello Simon, first of all a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what are in your opinion the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

Thank you for your interest in my art and my thoughts on art. Clearly, art and its purpose is a personal matter. I would never presume to be making a universal definition. So, let me tell you what art is to me. I am generally motivated by philosophical concepts around people, their emotions and behavior, society, freedom of expression and technology. I realize this is very broad array of subjects but these are my hot buttons. I do understand the decorative arts but I differentiate them from “works of art”. I believe a “work of art” should evoke a complex set of intellectual responses from an observer. A work of art should also be beautiful in its aesthetic. The visual cues for beauty are that the image moves one into an altered emotional state. This altered state can be any of the broad spectrums of human emotions from fear to pleasure and anger to love. Hence, a work of art should visually alter your emotional state and demand thought on an important human level. On the issue of contemporariness, let me say that there is a clear repetition over time immemorial of the human dilemma. The emotions and struggles we endure are in many ways the same as those we have experienced for thousands of years. My life in art and science has clearly revealed to me common themes between these two worlds. Science seeks to systematically and linearly expand our understan-ding of the world we live in. Visual Art seeks to systematically expand the methods by which we examine our emotional response to the world we live in. The latest visual formats and media used to produce these images are the only elements of contemporariness because all the content is old as the human race.

Simon Raab Born in 1952 in Toulouse, France. Lives and works in Santa Barbara, USA. Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Website: www.parleau.com Can you tell our readers a little about your background? I have read that you didn't receive any formal training in Art, but you hold a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, that you have received from the McGill University: how has this experience -I should say, a wonderful experience- impacted on your art practice? Moreover, could you tell us what's your point

Cassandra Hanks

Simon Raab

Peripheral ARTeries

They all demand elegance, creativity and technical skill. My experience in science and engineering has provided me a unique set of skills that allowed me to develop Parleau. Further, I have always made art since my young adult days. As I progressed in technical and scientific skill so did the art. When I learned to do wood working, I made art of wood, when I learned to machine metals, I made metal art, when I learned to do glass blowing, I made art of glass and metal etc. I would say I had formal training in many arts. Art and science are similar because they both rely on accidental discovery. Like art, science is often the search for knowledge with no practical purpose. Pure science like art is about the aesthetics of knowing our world and expressing our feelings about this world to no particularly practical end except knowing. I believe artists with a formal education are blessed and cursed. On the one hand they have a detailed appreciation for techniques historical and currently used in the art curricula. On the other hand they can be trapped by the status quo and even worse think that what they learned in school is the only real art and the rest of us without so-called art schooling are dilettantes. It is the very rarest of student from an art school that can shake that indoctrination and let all their artistic and expressive instincts free to roam and explore.

about formal training? Do you think that artists with a formal education have an advantage over self-taught artists?

I always chafe at the idea of formal training as a distinguishing feature of legitimacy in any field, science or art. Most of the original work has come from those that break the status quo of formal training. Art and science is full of such examples. Actually I trained as a physicist to the masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s level and then switched to Engineering for my PhD. I was always surrounded by art and science. In my family I have artists, writers, filmmakers, scientists and engineers. I can no longer differentiate between the creative and technical challenges in any of these fields.

Simon Raab in his studio

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Simon Raab

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

I work in a new medium called Parleau, which derived from the French term ‘par l’eau’ for “through water”. I have always been mesmerized by light and water and sought out a medium that provided the same abstraction and intensity of color along with a sense of the always- changing and living nature of moving water. I developed a variety of painting techniques and materials, which I apply to stainless steel and aluminum. I was in search for a technique, which allowed me to deform the coated metals without cracking or flaking off the painted image. I paint the images with numerous layers of different polymers such as epoxy, polyurethane and acrylic, all adhered to the metal. The polymers are designed to be translucent allowing the metal to create a stained glass feel through the reflected light. My experience in surface physics and artificial joint implants provided the technical know-how necessary. Once the image is complete I deform the metal by hand and then by various metal forming tools as either a closed volume for a sculpture or on a wood frame as a wall piece. I try to get the look of “through water” by using specially formulated translucent paints which have to be adherent to the metal. I use aluminum when I want smoother softer surface profile. The deformation of the metal has now become an additional palette. Rough water and smooth water create different aesthetic responses. I can produce this effect by the frequency and sharpness of the surface deformations. This is like affecting the brush stroke and is critical to the mood of the Parleau piece. Stainless steel has a colder color and bends with sharper angles and hence is better at communicating certain moods. The Parleau method is unique and was recently granted a US patent, one of very few patents in an art medium. I applied for the patent and trademark more as a stunt to criticize the industrialization of art and branding. And now let's focus on your pieces that our readers can admire in these pages. I would start from your sculptures Petrified and Complexification: one of the features that has mostly impressed me is the sense of motion, not only of plasticity of the images... could you tell us something about your process for conceiving and in particular for making the pieces of this project?

Your comment on the plasticity is very appropriate, I was looking for a sculptural medium, which could be easily and inspirationally deformed but then locked in like a snap shot of a motion or process. Parleau in volumetric form provides this adaptability. Just like a dressmaker, I form a volumetric shape from the flat material by “stitching” together a pattern. I build the empty volume with the metallic skin and then I sculpt it into a shape. Once I am happy I lock the shape in by filling the skin with a structural filler and

Complexifornication, 2011 Polymers and aluminum on granite

Simon Raab

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Petrified - Petrified over time or scared about tomorrow, 2010, Polymers and stainless steel on granite, 210 x 66 x 66 cm

support members. Petrified is very much about this process. I am contemplating the fear to act. Petrified wood is a living organism caught suddenly in time and transformed into stone. A human suddenly frozen into inaction through fear is a common human response to adversity.

103 x 17 x 17 cm

Complexification is about my discontent with the common bust. Whether of Roman emperors or goddesses I have always felt that the smooth glorious external visage belies the anguished and complex turmoil Warming within. The Complex series is about what goes on inGlobal the head rather

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than the simplified pretense of the exterior. As our readers have already read in your artist's statement, you use to work in a medium that you have defined Parleau and that you have explained in the starting pages of this article. Would you like to tell us how do you decide what materials to incorporate in a piece? By the way, do you think that one day you will add more kind of materials to your "pallette"?

Parleau as it is currently exists comprises the selection of a metal, the surface texture and the image. As previously discussed the technique requires many different polymers to achieve the non-cracking translu-cence. I do like the purity of the current materials while in a way it is mixed media I find that the gratuitous addition of other materials tends to complicate and distract. There is a reason that painting has been so successful over the centuries. It is pure and simple leaving the imagery and color to create a simple and powerful effect. Parleau is a structural departure from painting but can retain that necessary elegance without throwing in detritus for effect. Another pieces of yours on which I would like to spend some words are your walls: some of them as Orchidansky and Anarchy Crushed have a clear abstract feeling, while other pieces as From behind these Bars and especially Andy Boom and Albert shows clear references to what we could define our so-called reality... I would like to ask you if in your opinion experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process...

This question is probably akin to the question of whether our characters are from nature or nurture. What part is from our upbringing and what part is from our genetic pool? I believe emotion and conceptual thinking are actually indispensable to the creative process. To the extent that experience can inform these, it is essential. Experience on its own does not result in creation but rather our reaction to experience. Individually we all respond differently and thereby the astonishing abundance of human creations. I can recognize a subtle irony in your Art, and as you have remarked, a grenade is the perfect symbolism for creative destruction... I would like to ask you something about the role that an artist could play in our society... by the way, even

Cassandra Hanks

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Andy Boom - This explodes in 15 minutes, 2012 Polymers and aluminum on wood, 152 x 100 cm

though it might sound a bit naif, I would go as far as to state that Art nowadays can steer people's behaviour more than ever: what's your point about this?

Artists in the visual arts should be social philosophers and critics, no less so than writers or political bloggers. Artists have a role to re-examine convention, challenge status quo and dig into the emotions dominating our world. Orchidansky, 2011, Polymers and aluminum on wood frame, 112 x 81 cm

believing that artists play an essential role in social evolution is an essential motivation of mine.

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A feature that has mostly impacted on me of the interesting Lillies is the stimulating nuance of red, which all in all gives the name to the piece... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Lilies, particularly white ones have been used to symbolize the purity of the Virgin Mary. I conceived Lilies in the midst of the revelations of child abuse in the Catholic Church. Red and other sexually explicit colors seemed a good fit for the now complex and impure dilemma which the Church finds itself. My palette includes the colors and surface textures, these evolve almost like a temperature gage of my emotions, somber, angry, calm, joyful. So the palette and the imagery follow my state of mind. And I could'n do without mentioning Love's Grasp, that I admit is one of my favorite pieces of yours... You have produced it using polymers and stainless steel on granite: so it goes without saying that technology or I should better say, the manipulation of the concept of technology, plays

Lillies - Feel no shame, Eve, 2010,

Love's Grasp, 2012

Polymers and stainless steel on wood frame, 116 x 142 cm

Polymers and stainless

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Misdirection, 2013, Polymers and aluminum on wood, 91 x 195 cm a crucial role in producing the creative synergy that marks your art practice. So I would ask you: do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and technology? By the way, I would go as far as to say that in a way Science is assimilating Art and vicev ersa... what's your point about this?

As I have often mentioned my experience in both realms has made clear to me the deep parallels between science and art. They have always informed each other and liberated each other. Perhaps today we are examining these parallels in this modern society but science and art are have always been the same to me. ask to the artists that we interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction? Well, actually ain't that

enjoy the accidental discoveries most of all. I am blessed with a medium that constantly surprises in its potential for nuance and form. I enjoy these discoveries most of all. Thanks for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Simon. My last question deals with your future plans: what direction are you moving in creatively? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Working with metal and complex processes makes attaining scale in Parleau very challenging. I want scale. I want to make a very, very big Parleau that overwhelmed in its dimensions. I want viewers to feel the labor and love required in the size and complexity. Perhaps, I want to force them to look up to me. steel on granite, 110 x 23 x 29 cm

Global Warming An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

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Leleen and Gnim Talle #196 Winter

21 x 27 inches oil on board 2007 1

Yotam Zohar

Yotam was born in Jerusalem, Israel. He studied drawing and painting at the Ohio State University (BFA) and Eastern Illinois University (MA). Yotam lives in New York City with his wife, son, and three cats. He paints, illustrates, writes, and teaches on the subject of art.

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Yotam Zohar

An interview with

Yotam Zohar Hello Yotam and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. To start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You hold a BFA as well as a MA that you have received from Ohio State University and from and the Eastern Illinois University, where you studied drawing and painting: how have these experiences of formal training impacted on the way you currently produce your works?

Thanks very much! I’m grateful for the opportunity. I come from an artistic family. My father is a figurative painter, my mother is a violinist, and all my siblings are involved in some way in a creative field—two of them are well-known musicians. In retrospect it seems inevitable that I became an artistinterview as well, but when I started painting I was an with much more inspired by literature and film than I was by other painters. The more I paint, the more I realize I have to learn from my contemporaries.

Artist in the Studio, 14x13 inches oil on panel 2007 (triple-self-portrait)

newfound understanding of grisaille I felt a little bit like Moses on his first descent from Mount Sinai.

In recent years the Ohio State University’s art department has gained national recognition for its MFA program. Eastern Illinois University is more of a diamond-in-the-rough. I would describe both institutions as having brilliant faculty and programming, and although I was a terrible student I like to think that I benefitted immensely from my exposure to them. I try my best to remain in contact with any of my teachers who didn’t grow too fed up with me.

I’m very lucky, actually, because I was able to get both the classical training and the cutting-edge conceptual stuff. If I’d stayed in Ohio the whole time, or gone to some stuffy Parisian atelier, this wouldn’t be the case. Inevitably, I think, I shall always strive for Rembrandt using the tools of Richter, or maybe the other way around. I’ve also worked for nearly a decade in art galleries. Many young artists do this as a way to earn a living before their work starts to sell, and I think that although most gallery workers are severely underpaid it’s an extremely valuable experience because they learn from very close range what their work needs to be able to do once it leaves their hands. They also learn how to be more professional in dealing with the art world, which, to the chagrin of many gallerists, is not something they usually teach in art school.

Both institutions—OSU and EIU—are at their best in preparing students to think about their work and to craft a viable practice. To learn the Old Master techniques I traveled to Europe to study privately with my father, who is on closer personal terms with Vermeer and Rembrandt than anyone else I have ever known. So, when I came back to the American Midwest as an undergraduate with this 36

Yotam Zohar

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The Double 18x24 inches oil on panel, 2007

By the way, being a classically-trained figurative painter who explore Contemporary Art, I would ask you if you recognize still a dichotomy between Contemporary and Tradition... Moreover, what could be in your opinion the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

logue with history. I also wonder whether romantic ideas about art being different in the past contribute to the inflation of secondary market prices and the difficulty many young artists face in finding open-minded collectors. Artists today are asking questions and saying things for the same reasons as they did in centuries past, except now we have more materials and technology to help us realize our visions. The earliest visual art was made as a means of ultraimportant communication and storytelling, and now a lot of that communication is probably as frivolous as most of Facebook. In terms of art’s actual content I don’t think much has changed, so

I think the only meaningful difference between contemporary art and “traditional” art is the completion date. There is nothing about Vermeer’s paintings, for example, that isn’t conceptually focused or still relevant, just like there’s nothing about Lisa Yuskavage’s workthat doesn’t have to do with her ability to handle paint or carry on a dia37

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I’m not sure there’s any need to make a wide distinction. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I use a hybrid of Baroque and contemporary techniques, starting with grisaille: first the basic highlights and shadows are put down over a neutral background, and then color is added in translucent layers after each previous layer has been allowed to dry. This means that when the painting is viewed, the eye is seeing light that has been filtered through these layers of color and reflected off the highlights underneath. It gives the work a luminous, jewel-like quality that opaque paint cannot achieve. The amount of time each phase takes can vary widely. I’m not sure with I’ve ever spent fewer than an interview three hours on a painting, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than three months. But that’s not a rule either.

Scrutiny, from the Underground series, 20x16 inches oil on panel, 2014

I am trained to approach painting from the point of view of someone who works with the figure. This means that I permit myself the indulgence of rendering imperative the significance of the human being. This fundamental tuning-out—of everything except a human subject and myself—is the starting point for any figurative work.

anything controversial about artists using them. And they have, for as long as we have a record of artwork being made. Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with your Underground series, that our readers can admire in these pages and I would suggest to visit directly to your website at www.yotamzohar.com in order to get a wider idea: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

My work is mostly representational, which means that it contains depictions of real-world objects and organisms as they appear on a human scale. I employ a philosophy of “by any means necessary” in order to arrive at a finished composition. Most notably, perhaps, I use optical tools and imaging technology—namely a digital camera and Photoshop—in order to create source compositions. The source image becomes the basis of the painting. Since optical tools technically predate the planet Earth—remember that a camera is only light passing through an aperture—I don’t think there is

I imagine that most people who come to major cities with widely used public transit systems experience the same thing that I did: such variety of life, and a much greater likelihood that a face will seem interesting, or that a gesture of body #196 Winter 38

Yotam Zohar

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an interview with

The Boys, from the Underground series,

Aura, from the Underground series,

20x16 inches oil on panel, 2014

language will communicate something compelling. And people fascinate me anyway, even when they’re not especially striking.

twin component of the project, but she’s an architect and already gives all her time to her career and our family. Maybe one day she’ll come out with an even better set of paintings!

A year after I moved to New York, on my first date with the person who would later become my wife, this phenomenon came up in conversation and we agreed about the way this fascination would lend itself so readily to a body of paintings. Around that time I’d gotten my first mobile phone with an onboard camera, so it was simply a matter of pretending to use the device for something else while covertly snapping pictures.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you are a person without a "tribe", constantly between cultures; because of this the Underground paintings carry an additional powerful metaphor for permanent transition... I can recognize such a socio-political feature in this aspect of your Art... I think that Art could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this?

I think the idea is obvious, but to my surprise there are very few people doing what I’m doing, if there are any others at all. My wife was supposed to start painting from her train snapshots too, as a sort of

First, I must say that I have no expectation what39

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Yotam Zohar

St.Petersburg, from the Underground series,

Steve 2, from the Underground series,

20x16 inches oil on panel, 2014

soever that art should or can play a role in shaping public behavior or opinion. To the contrary, I believe that artists are very much products of the societies from which they emerge, and at their best they manage to hold mirrors and prisms up to humanity. It’s up to other people to identify this and respond. Of course there are exceptions, but as a rule I don’t think artists deserve credit for “steering people’s behavior.” Parents, teachers, advertisers, and lawyers do that.

I avoid connections on purpose: whenever I feel myself gravitating toward a group there always seems to be something that makes complete immersion impossible. If I need to label myself I’ll use biology as a metric and beyond that I start to feel very uncomfortable indeed. Maybe I’m projecting: what I see on the subway are just humans in perpetual transition. Down there, when the train is moving, we can only be divided according to who is sitting or standing, who is reading and who is listening to headphones, who has luggage and who has none, who is alone and who is traveling with a companion. These are characterizations that have nothing to do with inventions like nationality and race; they are much more universal and at the same time individualized, but they are at least concrete! And I like that.

As for me, my personal story is a convoluted one but the point is that after a great deal of searching and moving around I realized I don’t really, fully, identify with any abstract groups: religious, ethnic, national, cultural, whatever. There’s no single geographical place I think of as home or feel an exclusive connection with. And it’s not that 40

Innovation, from the Underground series,

To Church Ave, from the Underground series,

20x16 inches oil on panel, 2014

Your work often shows the immediate nature of Photography mixed with the "contemplative attitude" - if you forgive me this word- of Pictorialism and it effectively establishes such a direct narrative of the stories that your works tell: so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

The inside of a train car is, in this sense, a very egalitarian place, especially in the middle of a long tunnel when everyone becomes quiet for a moment, when the rhythm of local stops gets broken apart by an extended pause and everyone seems to simultaneously draw a breath and reflect there, beneath the riverbed. That’s the narrative moment I envision for these paintings’ settings. There is no season or day or night, just a relative closeness to the center of the planet and a ‘journeying collective of permeable solitudes.’

A creative process is by definition a direct experience. Direct experience is a tool, not unlike research. I could have done the Underground paintings based on anecdotes my friends tell me, or from photos that get sent to me from anonymous email addresses or something. I could have just done it all from

At the same time, however, I’m not trying to make a personal statement with these works. I don’t have a message about diversity or anything like that. It’s really more of a question I’m asking: how are we all connected now? 41

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might end up looking similar. I decided to go out and mine the source images myself, with a smartphone—the same tool that has started revolutions in recent years. There’s a reason for that: it is ultimately vital that I take the pictures myself, in order to link the subject (the person or people being depicted) to the viewer. I want the viewer to be aware of the single degree of separation between them and the person they are looking at, the way it is with Mona Lisa, of the artist-as-conduit. If I were to come up with the source images some other way, the work would lose this meaning; the connection would break down. I might as well sit at home and collect images from Google, which would make me a very sophisticated kind of inkjet printer, not an artist. When computer programs generate advertisements we don’t call them Mad Men, we call them spam bots. If I generated these images without being present the viewer would lose that personal interaction. It would be like looking at an algorithmic vector printout. Visually compelling, perhaps, but meaningless. “You can throw it in the an interview with garbage,” as one of my teachers used to say.

The Artist Zohar, 2014 18x15 inches oil on board

A recurrent feature of your pieces that has mostly impacted on me is the effective mix of few dark tones which are capable of creating such a prelude to light... I also noticed that several nuances of red are very recurrent tone in your works. By the way, any comments on your choice of your pallette and how it has changed over time?

The color red has historically served the purpose of pulling the viewer into a painting. Who am I to deny its power? I hope it works. Besides producing your stimulating artworks, you also teach: have you ever happened to drw inspiration from your students... By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point? I can remember that you once stated that our culture trains people to be visually illiterate...

When I first picked up Classical technique I was shown how to work with six or seven colors, maybe more. Within a year or two I was using only five. What I’ve come to learn is that this is an important deviation from the way many other traditional painters work. In fact I’m not using a traditional palette, but some kind of minimalist iteration. Some painters will mix what is called a dead palette, which includes as a starting point many different tones and shades of each of more than seven or eight colors. I don’t. I’m not a revivalist. I want to do things differently.

I can consistently count on my students’ enthusiasm and ambition to inspire me to bring energy into the studio. Most teachers will tell you that they learn far more from their students than their students do from them, and I think it’s true. Having students creates that many more sets of eyes to #196 Winter 42

Yotam Zohar

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an interview with

language will communicate something compelling. And people fascinate me anyway, even when they’re not especially striking.

twin component of the project, but she’s an architect and already gives all her time to her career and our family. Maybe one day she’ll come out with an even better set of paintings!

2006 6

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Yotam Zohar

see through, to study the problem-solving processes they use. It’s better than reading chess manuals. Formal training, especially if it’s gained in a heavily dogmatic setting like an atelier, can be absolutely stifling. But creativity is not what’s being stifled. If anything, creativity flourishes most under constraint. If formal training stifles anything it is perhaps the off chance that the alternative might have been better, or that the breadth of understanding might have been wider. Some of the artists who became mediocre realist painters might have been more gifted at abstract expressionism, for example. Or they might have been amazing machinists (with a union behind them to ensure they never starve)! So, why do so many people claim they’re not artistic, why do so many artists seem to be so bad at their jobs, and why do we keep hearing about people who have no interest in art at all? I have a theory: Our culture teaches us to be visually illiterate. We just haven’t taught our children to learn how to see in an active way. By “seeing actively” I mean that when you look at something you consciously notice relationships in forms and light, and you gain an understanding of why it looks the way it does. Representational drawing or realism is really as simple as recording this observation, but it’s an immense first step. A friend of mine was studying to work with autistic children. She told me a story about a teacher who asked a class of autistic kids to draw their houses. The idea was to teach them how to behave like “normal” children in order to blend more easily into society. They were supposed to replicate the archetype of a child’s drawing of a house: a square with a triangle on top, the rectangular chimney with the helical squiggle coming out to represent smoke, a smiling sun with rays, and so on. Sure enough, one of the autistic children started rendering his home with the precision of an architect, in all its real detail. The teacher came and corrected him, told him to do the square with the triangle on top. Because that’s what normal kids do.

When I first heard this story I was incredulous. How dare she stop this child from drawing what his eyes have seen? This is an extreme example, though, because the children were autistic; maybe it is important for them to be taught to engender the flaws that the rest of us take for granted so that they don’t get negative attention. I don’t know very much about what’s best for autistic children so I reserve judgment. What is more interesting— or disturbing—is that in the meantime, the rest of us draw the house as a square and a triangle without a teacher telling us to. In Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments of the 1950s, he and his colleagues used a fake visual test to determine the effects of peer pressure on the way participants answered questions about the relative proportions of lines. If the rest of the group answered incorrectly—saying that two lines were of equal length when in fact they clearly were not—the test subject was more likely to conform and also answer incorrectly. The conclusion was that it is more important for us to comply with the behavior of a group than to react honestly to our own observations. This makes sense when we’re talking about life and death: if you’re in a crowd and everyone starts screaming and running frantically in one direction you’d most likely be stupid or suicidal not to run the same way. The square with a triangle on top works as an efficient symbol for a house, as a way of quickly and easily communicating an idea that a house exists as a concept, but it is not a drawing of a house. The problem is that in our society it is rare for someone to say, wait a minute, show me what a house actually looks like. People only see the activity on the surface—drawing a picture— and for most of them this is all art needs to be. That is, until it’s time to criticize the art world. In the meantime, we’re routinely failing to equip our children and ourselves with the tools to describe, and without that ability there can be no meaningful inference, no analysis, no reflection, no metaphor It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or bet-

suited to the issue of when to make it.. Art and business do have a genuine relationship, and they have had one for a very long time. Art has probably been bought and sold almost as far back in history as sex. And art comprises the largest unregulated luxury goods market in the history of the world. This is the very definition of a business relationship: supply and demand. Depending on whom you talk to, the lack of regulation is either a very good thing or a very bad thing. Rochelle, 2007, 24x41 inches, oil on panel

ter, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a good relationship between business and Art...

In a way, when an artist sells a work, it is like winning an award: some person chose that work over all the others because they liked it the best, just like a juror or curator, and there is a cash prize. I think most artists just hope their work is being enjoyed with as much energy as it was made with, but we rarely get a glimpse into what happens to our work once it leaves our hands forever. For me, it’s a little bit like ex-lovers who go to live out their lives on another continent, but as though it’s in the old days before Skype. And although the breakup was amicable—to extend the metaphor— they are bitter about all those incorrect brush strokes that only you know about, so they never write or call. Every once in a while, you miss them, but for the most part you’re just happy to know they’re out there being themselves. During the conception phase of a piece or a body of work its origin has absolutely nothing to do with the intended audience. That would be like getting pregnant, seeing the fetus in the ultrasound, and deciding whom it should marry when it’s 30. It’s beyond irrelevant, although I can understand why we entertain such thoughts. A better question is: “Is this artwork relevant, and to whom?” But it doesn’t necessarily accompany the question of why or how to make a body of work. It’s better

We [artists] do what we do because we’re supposedly good at it and it gives us pleasure, yes, but more importantly we do it to earn a living. Anyone who says otherwise is hurting our chances of being compensated fairly for our time and skills. To the amateur it seems cathartic or fun to work with paint and abstract ideas, but we do it for countless hours a day, every day, under pressure to convince someone to pay us for it or we’ll die. We have to keep coming up with reasons why people need our art. That’s the only standard, actually: if you’re an artist, your work has to be so good, or so something, that people who see it will feel the need to possess it, or to ensure its continued existence. Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Yotam. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

As far as exhibitions go, at the moment I know the following: I’ll have a trio of Underground paintings in NordArt 2014 at Kunstwerk Carlshütte in Büdelsdorf, Germany, from 14 June to 12 October. Israel House in San Diego, California, USA, will be displaying some of my work starting 8 June. In May 2015 I’m planning to show six paintings in an exhibition called “Attribute” at Buckham Gallery in Flint, Michigan, USA. In the meantime I’m hoping to exhibit at the Governor’s Island Art Fair in New York City this coming September, but we’ll see what happens. The next body of work is already in the planning phase and I don’t want to divulge too much about it in case things change, but I’m really excited about the future. An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

From the Organic Creatures series 1

JD Doria An artist’s statement

My art is generative, at the junction between creativity and technology, where imagination†is stretched beyond constitutional constraints. Rather than composing, I ‘grow’ my images from the materials, surfaces and mediums I am using. Technology is my organ of apprehension through which I curate the generative capacity of the work. In this plasticity of production I find myself to be a multitude and art to be singular, yet, in a never ending becoming. My interest lies in the creative process, in undressing painting from its structural forms, and remaining in contact with its verb. To edit the creative process while exploring and accommodating a collaboration of different practices and different mediums is what I find aesthetically interesting. J.D. Doria

Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis 2

J.D. Doria

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An interview with

J.D. Doria Hello and a welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art?

The very power of art, in my eyes, lies in its capacity to reflect on one hand a fresh texture of being and on the other a corresponding new landscape of matter. Art brings both to the examination of the viewer, creating a junction between seemingly parallel domains, and when the meeting ‘happens’ and a new landscape conjoins with a new texture of being, that is when art affirms itself. Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

The contemporary, ‘locates’ this emerging junction an interview between a previously with unarticulated texture of being and a new landscape of matter. So in terms of new landscapes of matter, today much of the contemporary is being built within the intersection of the digital and the analogue, in the seams where the physical meets the net, web and clouds, where low-tech technologies meet high-tech technologies, and where the penetration into ‘matter’ yields new action-spaces (like, for example in synthetic biology and genetic engineering). Now, in terms of texture of being, the contemporary suggests the radical act of sublimation of current technology while voicing the extreme necessity in the human for an internal TAZ – temporal autonomous zone – from which to reconfigure future identities. Artists, I believe, have their share of responsibility in the enterprise that we call the contemporary. Art is a fast enough medium to expose a genuine correlation between the advancing state of matter (mostly as technology) and relevant textures of being. In relation to the transitional times we are

J.D. Doria (photo by Andrea De Liddo)

J. D. Doria, An interdisciplinary artist, works and lives in Tel Aviv and has exhibited his works internationally in Tel Aviv, Rome, Milan, Paris and Munich among others. His work explores through ‘matter’ the questions he deems fundamental in a human becoming, and matures at the intersections between art and technology, and between art and science. His background in cinema allows him to capture unexpected dynamic qualities in his works, which stem out from painting, and evolve through technology and photography into generative art. Among his exhibited projects, Painting as a multitude, Organic Memory and the Petri Dish Project.

J.D. Doria

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This ‘dichotomy’ is the mark of evolution after all. Both traditions, as well as new technologies are edited and sublimated within a newer coherency. This is the ‘sound’ of the world these days. The wisdom of selection, pointing at which aspects of tradition to keep , which new technologies to empower, to use, is a very scarce substance and it will always be, because it is a real time selection event. So, for a serious answer to your big question, the contem-porary is the event in which tradition and radical new technologies are selected and edited into a new coherency. Art that succeeds to reflect, expose and take a stance in this event is the art that is relevant for the now. Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that have particularly influenced you and that impacted on the way you currently produce your Art? By the way, what's your point on formal training? I often ask to myself if a certain kind of training could even stifle a young artist's creativity...

in now, the contemporariness of art lies in the path finding it offers to the current human and its urgent existential riddles. Do you think that there's still an inner dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

Given the above I believe that a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness is inevitable. Take for example the ‘New Aesthetic’ kind of manifesto, in which the attention is redirected to the perception of the ‘machine’. Current forms of beauty do not exhibit an extreme fidelity to canonical traditions of beauty, but rather they reflect an Aesthetic expansion into ambiguous forms and structures.

Cinema is my background and initial corridor into art, and it definitely influences the way I understand art, aesthetics and the scope of being an artist. It is technology that enables the emergence of Cinema and its product is always an outcome of an ensemble of masters working together. The interesting element of cinema is that the product, the movie, is done through stations that blur the times of the process: script, shooting and then editing. Cinema is a malleable substance that can profoundly mutate via the coordination of multiple stations of making. I believe that it is possible to see this pattern in my current work - the Petri Dish Project, where the use of technology together with painting, and collaborative work create multiple stations of making, along which the images are formed almost independently from the ‘natural sequence of time’. Concerning your question about formal training, I believe there really are no rules here. It depends, for some the non-formal and self-taught procedures are the best and for some the formal education serves as a corridor into mining potentialities and style. I believe that the difference lies in whether it serves as priming or as conditioning.

Peripheral ARTeries

J.D. Doria

an interview with

The Petri – Dish Project "In this work I use a glass container as Medium – very similar to a laboratory Petri - Dish. It comes to replace the canvas and the paper. It is placed on a light-table and above it there is a digital camera, positioned on a moving crane, for high resolution close ups. Within the Petri dish I am “growing” images using different mélanges of liquid colors and materials. By agency of the materials (colors and Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much pre-

mediums) the composition in the Petri dish becomes active and generates chaotic processes, out of which a ‘colony’ of images emerges. This is where the camera and a photographer enter the scene and capture the dynamics in time. Images are then digitally enlarged and enter a process of selection till a set is chosen. Each ‘work’ is composed by a circular image that captures the initial stages of the reaction and by the ‘multitude’ of images extracted from the process. " (J.D. Doria) paration and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

The most important aspect of my work is the experimentation phase in the studio. This is where I meet new materials and pair them into interac#196 Winter

J.D. Doria

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an interview with From the The Petri – Dish Project

From the The Petri – Dish Project

tions, searching for emergent properties that can lead my imagination into new realms. During this period I enjoy the freedom from specific intent and immerse my self in the doing of things that carry no useful end in the immediacy. It is very similar to a meditation method and it operates through soft intention, which enables a space of mind and intensity that I describe as ‘far from equilibrium’.

The art I love usually embodies a living bridge between realms, which are separated by categories. My experimentation phases range between one to three months, after which the actual creation of a project is done in an intense and short period of time.

The experimentation phase is about two parallel processes both presenting the feature of being far from equilibrium, the interaction of the materials and my states of mind, the moments of alignment of both realms are basically what I am after. I find out along my practice that art is a bridging phenomenon, and differently from philosophy, which brings a reflective event into articulation, art bridges between the reflective and the world of actions.

Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with your Petri Dish serie that our readers have started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest them to visit http://jd-doria.com/the_petri_dish_series.html in order to get a wider idea of this stimulating project... in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration?

I would say that metaphorically my cultivation of the images relates to something similar to how bacteria are grown in the laboratory, viewed as the relocation Vanishing Point, Mixed media trid.piece, 2012

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J.D. Doria

From the The Petri – Dish Project, detail

of the growing organism into an artificially designed environment that emulates life. This is paralleled by the relocation of the cultivation of the image from the historical medium of paint, paper and canvas, into the Petri-dish, where the medium is the very interaction between the colors and the shape of the the container with which the artist ‘cultivates the image’. But the analogy extends further, in the sense that the capturing of the images parallels in a way the act of measurement that scientists perform in the laboratory. It gauges the particulars of the image as it reacts in the Petri dish. The experimental growth of bacteria in a Petri dish is done to allow a measurement that might carry rele-

vant consequences. Similarly the capturing of the image is a discrete ‘measurement’ of the generative environment as it emerges in the intricate life-like reaction.If, to be bold, the Petri Dish project is a symbol, it reflects ‘us’ in the Petri Dish. All the growing technologies of the 21st-century suggest that radical modifications are taking place. Soon we will be able to play with our ‘inner codes’; we might have a programming power extending to the deeper folds of our selves. This is dramatic and it is happening extremely fast. The Petri Dish project has led me to contemplate and reflect upon the importance that aesthetics may assume in the transition, when aesthetics is read as curation of

J.D. Doria

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From the The Petri – Dish Project, detail becoming. The Petri Dish looks to the process in which the human becomes a significant partner in the process of designing himself, raising the question of ‘what is it that we want to become?’ And, on the same breath, focusing upon the sterile notions of observation, pertaining to our science and technology and currently invading our methods of inquiry, it makes me ask, are they the relevant medium for us to inquire into such questions? A different and important aspect for me of this project is the move of disconnecting the Gordian knot between painting and its ‘natural’ or traditio-

nal medium (Canvas and paper). In my expe-rience this allows painting to become an open set of verbs and actions that can thus incorporate ‘other’ mediums and means. For me this experience has pointed to a new zone of artistic emergence: the soft. In it new forms of relation between mediums and genres of artistic expressions are constantly in articulation. Another interesting series of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled "Impossible Creature"s: in particular, I highly appreciated the way the works from this stimu-lating project -although marked with a clear abstract feelingare capable of establishing a presence and such

Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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J.D. Doria

an interview with

Talos, from the Impossible Creatures series

Lunar Hare, from the Impossible Creatures series

an atmosphere of memories, using just little reminders of human existence... I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespen-sable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

This allows to guide perception from the meanings attached to a correctly detailed shape and contour, to the inner atmosphere and ambience of a system, exposing the very ‘flesh’ of 'a creature'. This I believe suggests a different reading to life and a sense of intimacy that awakes in interaction with the unfamiliar.

That is a really interesting question! First, I like very much your description of impossible creatures. For me they represent a kind of ‘upturning the table’ event. What makes an impossible creature impossible is that it transforms ‘content’ to a ‘form’ while the ‘shape’ loses its defining contour.

Now to your question. The relation between creative process and personal experience, I see as ambiguous. By which I mean that the personal experience does not frame creativity, but it provides a network of moments, objects, memories, sensations, states and much more, all of which can beco#196 Winter

J.D. Doria

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By the way, I would like to stop for a moment to consider the way you have been effectively capable of re-contextualizing the idea of the perception of the images suggested by your work: most of the times it doesn't seem to be just a passive background... and I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Lunar Hare, from the Impossible Creatures series

me a ground for the operation of creativity. It is similar to dreaming, in the sense that it uses all sorts of materials and composes itself in unexpected and amazing ways. So on one hand personal experience is a critical milieu of ‘perceptions’ that enables creative procedures to bring into presence unexpected patterns, forms and images, and by that to fertilize the mind, the experience and the field of knowledge. Creativity I think is about the personal, but also about new ways, corridors, relations and connections through which the ‘personal’ re-emerges.

The emergent patterns of the Petri Dish are neither pure abstract nor pure figurative, as it is not about tapping into the ultimate pattern nor upon the exact view of the world, but it brings the event, the non-dualistic event between matter and pattern, medium and form, being and becoming, as if captured within the Petri Dish. Working with generative environments declares origination to be an immanent part of matter and not residing in the ultimate hand of god or of any other exclusive point of beginning (big-bang). This is for me the “unexpected side of Nature, especially of our inner Nature” as you put it, the non-dualistic event that is nature and us. The role of the artist I see as exposing that non-duality, to bring us closer not to the truth, but rather to the sense of tangibility with all of its impossible sides and turns. Works of art bring the two sides of duality closer, opening the moments where the terms mind and body, stuff and immateriality touch each other and become an ambiguous form. It is not an easy time for the arts, not that there ever was such a time, but in a manner of speaking art is moving to the peripheries, while the central stage is being occupied by science and technology. Once we accept this change of ‘status’ a new action space opens in front of the arts. It is a time of transition and we need an out-post station to experiment with the ‘stuff’, which is our selves and the new landscape of ‘matter’ which is emerging. Art might be a good candidate for this job… As you have remarked and as it is clearly revealed by your pieces, as the ones from your interesting Organic Memory series, Technology or I should Vanishing Point, Mixed media trid.piece, 2012 better say, the manipulation of the concept of

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J.D. Doria

The Qualia of my Tongue, from the Organic Memory Project, detail

technology, plays a crucial role in producing the creative synergy that marks your art practice. So I would ask you: do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and technology? By the way, I would go as far as to say that in a way Technology is assimilating Art and viceversa... what's your point about this?

From the point of view of the creative process, I do not see a difference between the ‘hand’ and technology. Both are instruments. The difference between the artist’s hand and technology lies in how they change the phase-space of possibilities, and the way the development of the images is influenced via the coalitions between the instruments.

It is critical to discover that the ability to affect (of the instruments) is different from the effect they produce. By ‘ability to affect’, I mean that each instrument adds dimensionality to the phase-space of possibilities to be explored by the creative procedure, while the effect is measured in terms of ‘style’ of the Form (image) that emerges. In different terms I would say that from within the creative process my Body changes. It now includes technological organs together with biological ones. Thus, there is no difference between the hands and the camera in terms of accessibility and operation. At least for that instance, I am a Cyborg. The interaction and inclusion of technology into the

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J.D. Doria

Is this bio art?, detail rent disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Allow me to say that I am really enjoying your line of questions; I find them extremely and accurately penetrative. In short I do agree with the insight you articulate here, there are no pure mediums, no pure objects, no pure states, there are however emerging complex organisms in which distinctions are nesting together to form stable interactions. A form is a unique composition of interconnectedness, so that the synergy between disciplines, as you put it, is that which enables something to exist and to re-express it self.

The Qualia of my Tongue, detail

bowels of the creative process provides me with the ability to capture the dimensionality hidden at different scales and in the folds of time. Through this, the nature of the designed con-straints changes and, with it, perception and vision follow. With technology the liquid nature of the medium becomes abundant. This I believe to be a critical function of technology at large, and the reason we are so keen in symbiotically embedding it in our life, is that it stretches constraints turning them into possibilities. By the way, while crossing the borders of different and not only "artistic" fields, have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between diffe-

I suggest the dimension of the ‘Soft’, understood as the ‘middle’ between all and everything, to serve as an open-ended medium through which ‘sexuality’ in the sense of the inter-subjective event of swapping DNA is explored. Letting oneself into the “middle”, the solid concre-teness of restrictions is re-examined anew and projected into possible tensions that generate change. In a soft and active matter there is no privileged identity, neither an a-priori privileged moment, nor a single-privileged image. There is a famous painting of Gauguin - Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? It is possible to use those questions as a blueprint for being or in order to break with the constructed architecture and to walk the infinitesimal distance to the zone of liminality and ambiguity. The ‘machine’ is going to know all of this and we need to migrate into where language cannot catch us. Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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J.D. Doria

an interview with

Lunar Hare, from the Impossible Creatures series

And since I'm absolutely fascinated with the cooperation that artists establish together, I couldn't do without mentioning Painting as Multitude, an artistic collaboration with Shaw (Gadi Raz) as a Photographer... I do believe that such collaborations today are an ever growing force in Art and that that most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project... could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, Peter Tabor once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work de-

monstrates communication between two artists?

The (creative) line that I walk upon tries to cast away the fixed boundaries of authorship. Whether it is confined to the organic quality of the liquid that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;dictatesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; what forms emerge, or to the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s manipulation that leads towards a specific image, it is essential for me to present a creative process, which is simultaneously local and distributed (across multiple agencies and mediums). And not because I believe in the equal importance of all that partake in the creative process, not at all, but because the notion of Authorship is too simplistic to my understanding. It is a notion that excludes, for the purpose of control, instead of including for the purpose of evolution. #196 Winter

J.D. Doria

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Unwelt

I think it might be wise to introduce to the notion of authorship a contextual fluidity, which points to the complex interactions that can redefine the grounds of authorship without it loosing its geometry of importance. After all, without, at least, the intention of the artist the whole creative process would not happen at all. So in this sense I do believe that two are better than one, but not in all cases. 99 instances of collaboration will not yield “that which one alone could not”. Collaboration, good and interesting collaboration, is something that demands in-direct understanding, because I believe that collaboration creates a mediation between individuals so

that a new ‘organism’ can emerge. That ‘organism’ made of the collaborative medium is an extension of imagination, capabilities and intelligence and when it works there is an inflation of creativity and possibilities to mind. I have been working with Shaw (Gadi Raz) for almost a decade, and it took many years of practice and contact till we reached a situation in which the collaboration yields an augmentation of the work. And the mastery of each of us grows with it. For me, the moment his camera begins to capture images, i acquire an amplified sight of my work. Throughout this collaboration, it is the mediation between the mediums painting and photography trid.piece, 2012 Vanishing Point, Mixedofmedia

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J.D. Doria

that is being cultivated. There is a deep similarity between sight, perception and thinking to photography. A snap shot acts as if it is tearing a piece from an organic whole, separating it from its habitual context and enveloping it with a new context. Painting in contrast is about including the beholder in the world: painting, as if, opens a corridor into the participation of the world in us and of us in the world. Combining these two mediums into a new medium and continuum allows us to conceive a mode of mind in which the separation between the kinds of verbs is bridged. While language suggests perceiving through categories, this move allows to expose a potential synaptic world. During these years your artworks have been exhibited in several important occasions both in your country and abroad and you recently had four solos in Italy... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, encoura-ging him: I was just wondering if an award -or even the expectation of positive feedbacks- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

In the mythology of art there is and should be a hard distinction between the creative process and feedback of any sort and kind. This does not mean that acknowled-gement is not important, it is so, by all means. It can become a critical gear for passing thresholds in the process and work, and it can become a disruptive element in oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life as well. But the creative process, in whatever medium, is also after that which is not been acknowledged. When I began this path I discovered the importance and the meaning of future acknowledgments and positive feedback loops, and on the same token I realized that I must change my mind in order to empty my motives from these elements. First because those are short terms motives and in most cases they lead to dead end zones, and secondly I understood intuitively that the locality of motives is a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wrongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; direction and the more my motives can shift into non-local kind of structures, the more the creative process can be without an end.Your questions for example carry the acknowled-gement that I crave for, yet they are composed in a fashion that allows me to use them as a vehicle of further penetration and under-

From the Petri Dish series

J.D. Doria

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Organ of Humanness

standing. In this sense there is no art without an audience exactly as there is no art purely for one self, art is a bridging inter-active and active process. Similarly we do not exist without each other and this is not a metaphor. Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your thoughts. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I am planning in these days my next exhibition in Rome. It unfolds a new design for an exhibition and it will involve a real time multiple interpretation (in collaboration with a few photographers) of the Petri-Dish process, so that the products of those collabo-rations will be curated, while the whole event is occurring, and mounted on the walls of the gallery in real time. I am planning a few more surprises for the event and it might give the creators, the audience and us all a new and exciting medium of interaction and conversation. Thank you again for the very interesting interview.

an interview by Dario Rutigliano peripheral_arteries@dr.com

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ELaH (Belgium)

The lines and curves, very present in her creations represent the complex networks of desires; the construction of "me". Her main theme is the consciousness and the illusions : "We are not really what we are conscious of being." The man who comes into the world has a completely unconscious mental apparatus and consisting solely of primary instincts. This device is exclusively governed by instinctual values of instant gratification, pleasure or avoidance of pain, consumption. The pleasure principle quickly collide with the natural and social environments, which make it impossible for an immediate and full satisfaction of the instincts. This shock then causes the development of a new principle of mental functioning: the reality principle. By integrating the reality principle, the individual acquires a psychological consciousness and reason, he learns to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the bad, the useful with the dangerous. It's this reason and this awareness that will make us tend to become transparent, identical to the "others" to want to hide the excesses of our emotions or our dark sides. These rejections, sometimes consciously or unconsciously form our outward appearance to the world, our "shell" both prison and protection. Elah: a short bio Born in Brussels in the 80s, Elah lived an unusual childhood that gave her a vision and behavior apart from other children. Difference she has long been covering for better fit. Otherness that ultimately gives her a clean look at what surrounds us and is reflected in her works. Sensitive and strong at times, cartesian but utopian, one of these mottoes is: "Do not go where the path may lead. Go where there is no path and leave a trail "(Emerson). From a young age, she has always been very manual whatever areas with a preference for drawing and painting. Aesthete in the soul, does not mean she's forgetting the intellect and she's currently completing her final year of law school at the University. Although, her most fertile inspiration always follows more cerebral periods. Her technical is based on colors and effervescences what emerge. As so aptly said Pablo Picasso: "I do not paint what I see, I paint what I think," and here, everything is abstract interpretations of emotions and sensations which, depending the spectator in front of the canvas, vary and trigger feelings as diverse as subtle.

Cerulean, 1m x 1m (Photo by Connie B.)

Elah

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ELaH

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an interview with

ELaH Hello Elah and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with our usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

This is a very good question which may have as many answers as there are thinking minds on this earth ! In my opinion, a work of art is a means of communication. It must identify emotions. This is the only « conditio sine qua non » for me ! The work may refer to existential questions as it may have as purpose to freeze forever a memory, a landscape, a historic step , belief , etc... With contemporary art, technology evolves, it diverse and not necessarily require training. Art not only narrates but acts and asks questions ! Beauty itself asserts as subjective and a work need not necessarily be beautiful but should touch... Do not confuse both ! I can look at a work and doesn’t appreciate the level of technic or what it stands for but at the same time feel emotions ! A quote from John Galliano, « I prefer the bad taste to the complete absence of taste » , sums up the back of my mind !

ELaH (Photo by Damien J.)

What I like in contemporary art, which is less possible in other movements, it is the mysterious appearance it exudes. It opens more possibilities of interpretation and appropriation, however this does not mean that there is only an arbitrary imagination working; imagination is important and allows everyone to see the work based on his experience, his character and his present emotional state but the thread that guides this is the imagination of the artist. This thread that connects the artist and the viewer which results in a connection between the two, that's the magic of art ! It is not necessary to know exactly what is actually the connection between the artist and the viewer to feel sensations, emotions and twirl in our imagination. We can escape us from one thought

to the other only by the contemplation of a single image that calls others in our subconscious ! Contemporary art is more difficult to define so it can be difficult to understand a contemporary work. For my part, a contemporary work raises questions and should heckle but doesn’t have to be necessarily abstract. Artist creates with his work, a universe or a part of his own world... Sometimes, he will do it consciously knowing full well where he wants to go and what he wants to express and sometimes it can itself have no idea what he will create by simply leaving guided by his own intuitions, emotions and subconscious. At the end, the finished work is not an end but Cassandra Hanks 60

ELaH

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drawing and painting , I would like to ask what's your point about formal training in Art an especially if in your opinion a formal training -or better, a certain kind of formal training- could even stifle an artist's creativity… ?

I did not really know my father and i have lived with my mother only at the age of 9 years and prior to that I lived with my grandparents with which i had a princess life despite some imbalance by the absence of a father and a mother every day. They taught me a lot and they were my « normality ». From an early age, I make music, classical dance and drawing. Then I went back to live with my mother who had create a new family with the arrival of a stepfather and birth of a half-brother. This is from where I grew up and realized the reality... We were far from perfect family and my father was a vicious and tormented man. Years of ordeal began and it lasted until my majority. This sad and hard facet of life took me away from kids of my age with whom I had nothing in common. However, a child is very strong, much more than adults ! We have at this age, ability to think positively and ignore the horrors that no adult couldn't endure... I continued drawing, music, but I walk away from classical dance to benefit dance contemporary. To this, was added diction and horseback riding. The riding was healthy, it really saved me from these difficult years. Contact with a horse and complicity that one can experience with this animal have kept me good and gave me a complementary sensitivity essential to my vision of life. With age, education and obligations more impressive, i did not have enough time... I dedicated my free time entirely to horse riding and little by little, I have not done anything artistic... However, i remained esthete at heart, remained frozen up hours before a canvas or even a landscape ! I enrolled at the university where i began studying law. And despite back problems that make me suffer daily, I am currently completing my Master.

the beginning of a questioning of what we feel and introspection which sometimes leads to adjustments in the way of seeing the world or the human condition. Contemporary art has no limits and this sometimes leads to rephrase the question « what is a work of art ? » to « Why am I a work of art ?» Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that have particularly impacted on the way you currently produce your art? Moreover, since you have been very manual even at a very young age, in the areas with a preference for

There are only 4 years things have evolved artistically and in a very casual manner... I moved, with my boyfriend, in a loft in Brussels and the immaculate loft needed color, i wanted put a large 61

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ELaH

Conscience et Illusions 1.0, 1m80 x 1m25 (Photo by Connie B.)

canvas with lots of color and movements. I wanted to buy a work of an artist to have a single piece and not a poor reproduction. I had a limited budget but I was ready to put about 2 000 euros. I started looking but when i liked and fit my criteria , prices soared ! I began to lose hope and it is my mother, artist at these times, who said me : « Why don’t you try to do it yourself ? » She gave me an old wood board very heavy and very large ( 1m80 on 1m25 ) and I started ! The result ? It’s " Conscience et illusions 1.0 " ! I found forgotten sensations and i took so much pleasure to discharge my world on this wooden plate ...

Just playing with my dreams... 1m80 x 1m20 (Photo by Isabelle D.)

From there, i started to paint from time to time for my own pleasure without ever imagine making a career ! They are friends but also visitors as entrepreneurs coming to work at home who started talking to me about the canvas and ask me if I could make them a canvas... This is the « by word of mouth » who has made this possible and my site is the logical continuation of this story. I love when things come to an unexpected and surprising way. I absolutely believe in fate even if I think that nothing is insurmountable and it does not take suffer his life but build what we aspire. Training is always good to take even if i think especially to a global training. I had the chance to touch everything, whether sports, music, art, travel, and this is what is most important. What good formal training if your mind is empty? This 62

ELaH

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learning from each other, of what surrounds us and indirectly of ourselves never ceases, it is a source of inexhaustible knowledge ! It must, I think, be able to challenge for change. From my side, i ask myself too many questions, it is sometimes difficult to live with it but it helps my worldview and my artistic personality ! Then, next to that, a technical training is a very good thing but it should not lose its personality on the way ! For my part , I intend to take drawing classes next year because I want it and that's the most important ! If there is one good activity in which to have fun, love what we do and what we learn is important, it's in the arts because if not, it feels and emotions do not go ...

, 80cm x 1m20 (Photo by Connie B.)

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ELaH

, 1m x 1m

Why is the sky blue? 1m16 x 86cm

There is no absolute rule, or a unique recipe that would apply to each work ! My techniques are different, i like using various types and do not limit myself to a particular style for a show. Instead, i love to give the spectators who come to see my work emotions, textures and different techniques. What is the benefit, if, on twenty works, i use the same techniques, the same size, and i only changes the color ? For me neither ! After seeing two or three paintings, the viewer is bored !

exactly what i want and realize it, sometimes i go on an idea that evolves being created and then sometimes I go into a trance and I no longer really aware of the time and what I do ! Then I can sometimes remain frozen in front of my canvas for hours doing nothing except escape me in dreams or paint for hours to have no more energies. I am very temperamental; I am recovering much in question and I quickly change opinion or direction ! I can restart a canvas two or three times because something displeases me comprehensively in my work. Some canvas are produced in a whole day or a whole night and other in several weeks... But I never work on several paintings at the same timeHanks ! I paint every day for Cassandra

The only thing that comes up in all my works, are the lines and curves: sometimes they are not visible to the naked eye but be sure they are there ! This is my signature, the absolute theme of my work : human nature and complexity. As regards the preparation, sometimes i visualize 64

ELaH

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Each of my works is a part of me, a single party that will never be reproduced and could not even be duplicated! It takes me time, energy but gives me so much pleasure ! Moreover, when I paint a canvas for a client and I have to keep it several weeks after the conception while I know it is sold and it will go, it is very hard because longer I keep it with me, harder itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s difficult to disconnect with it! Some of my paintings I thought sale, are no longer available because as it is sometimes impossible to put a price on something you love so much ... Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from your series Cumulonimbus Polychromatique, that our readers have already admired in the starting pages of this article and I would suggest them to visit directly http://www.elah-contemporaryart.com/ en/album/cumulonimbus-polychromatique/ in order to get a wider idea of it... In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting pieces? What was your initial inspiration?

"Cumulonimbus polychromatique" represents a cloud, the cumulonimbus, which is the type of cloud that gives thunderstorms, lightning, rain,

weeks and then not touch a brush for months... Some say I 'm not an artist because an artist can not live without painting and lives only for that, he needed every day... I do not agree with this narrow view of the artist's concept : we can be an artist in the soul without ever display his creativity on canvas... I 'm sure many people could do great things if only they dared to express their feelings at the end of themselves. The inspiration and creativity that comes and goes... I can have dozens of ideas and painted several months in a row and then have no longer cravings or specific emotions to share for a moment. If I have to paint only to paint and go to my studio from 8am to 6pm every day as if it were an ordinary job, where would the brightness and the magic touch so beloved by my audience?

Cumulonimbus Polychromatique, 1m15 x 88cm

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ELaH

Obviously Fizz, 1m x 1m (Photo by Connie B.)

and even in extreme cases tornadoes. This gray cloud carrying many worries and difficult times represent our difficulty in our life and in my work, lightning and rain arising are these splashes of color from one to another degraded in magical colors of a rainbow sky. These colors represent the joys and happiness that can arise even when we are desperate and we do expect more hard moments. It is an incentive to hope and courage because life is beautiful, can be beautiful. A beautiful quote from Dennis S. Brown sums it up: « The only Difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude »

(Photo by Connie B.)

in with I changed of direction in the middle of its conception. White and black are dominant and in the foreground, they represent the two opposites, good and evil, the addition or absence of color (in additive synthesis for scientific readers), but in the background and by a succession of layers of paint, there are those pearly color which shows that between black and white, there is an infinite range of colors. This canvas follows from the phrase « nothing is all black or all white », which expresses the fact that individuals are not made in one piece but a set of balanced tone...

Another stimulating series of yours on which I would like to spend some words is entitled mainly produce abstract art, how much do you draw inspiration from our reality? I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

This canvas has a lot of reliefs and black streaks give a 3D appearance and enticing us in the colors 66

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than another. It has a vital role in our character even if it does not make all. It has a vital role in our character even if it does not make all. So the person who will happen to create a work of art that interpellates and attracts the public while being disconnected from his own experience and therefore of his personality doesn't exist for me. Is it even possible ? I can not conceive... Contrariwise, I'm sure we do not always really understand what drives us to take such a decision rather than another. There are 3 « me » : how i perceive me, how others perceive me and what i really am ! I was impressed with the lines of your artist's statement where you explain the concept of the reality principle, through whom the individual acquires a psychological consciousness and reason, he learns to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the bad, the useful with the dangerous... Even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially

and what represent our « me deep ». But what I love above all is the interpretation by the audience : a particular person , Jason Zavers who has authorized me to quote , wrote « he depth is .. you've Developed . incredible . i feel as though I'm flying ( as a bird ) through the downtown section of a major city . Then , with a blink , and a glance Towards the upper left area , I'm apart of a peaceful aspen and poplar forrest . beautiful work ... what an experience to view! brava! ». This is not my basic inspiration but this inspiration is fresh and exquisite. I love having the feeling of public! Regarding personal experience as what we are, that we forge and leads us to be a person rather

Buvardage, 1m x 1m (Photo by Connie B.) 67

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ELaH

of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

I totally agree with you, this is one of the roles of an artist and more of a contemporary artist to examine and raise points of reflection in order to reflect the public about itself but also on whats its surroundings and its place in this world. It is the job of a lifetime and beyond, we would not have gone around the issue as there is to say, to debate and philosophize ! However, we must find a balance between reflection and dictat because the work must not be seen as a universal truth imposed on all, but more like an interrogation, a moderate question. After all, there must also be an aesthetic and pleasant side and if the work is too full of innuendo and inflicted concepts, it can emit an unpleasant waves and do the opposite effect by blocking from the outset the individuals.

Love Hurts, 1m x 1m (Photo by Connie B.)

And I couldn't do without mentioning Why is the Sky Blue? and especially your recent series entitled "Cerulean" which I have to admit is one of my favourite work of yours: I love the mix of dark tones upon the nuances of what I would define "a thoughtful blue" which pervade the canvas: by the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

" Why is the sky blue? " Is one of the few canvas that absolutely no hidden meaning (at least so conscious) ! These are my emotions speaking in the music I listen while painting ( Enya in the occurrence !) . Subconscious and the desire to associate colorsâ&#x20AC;Ś Sometimes it does not take major themes to paint but only the feeling :-). Cassandra Hanks

, 1m x 1m (Photo by Connie B.) 68

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Why is the sky blue? 1m16 x 86cm (Photo by Connie B.)

softens the square of 1 meter by 1 meter form . I have not yet decided if I was going to sell it, I think so but I would first like to enjoy a moment because it resource me tremendously ! It goes without saying that positive feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if the expectation of positive feedback could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

Cerulean is also one of my favorites ! I love the blue even though I love all the colors in general... I 'm very rarely works with only few colors . «

I am very touched by the reviews and comments from the public and I am listening to what they say in relation to my work. Not to do something that they will enjoy more but to improve myself in what I do if I find justified their remarks. Someone told me : « This is great, I love what you do », of course I 'm happy but it does not feed my thirst for knowledge or for learning .

depth is here required! It was designed in the same spirit as my main theme « We are not really what we are conscious of being » with the white and black lines and curves that represent the will to hide us from the eyes of each others and the different shades of blue that fight this « normality » in trying to drown them in the depths of azure , cyan, indigo and the other present colors.... not a battle between good and evil but between conformity and individualism. It is a photo which reveals only a few of his secrets and has a lot of details and different shades , yet it is very light in a room, almost aerial ! The rippling lines soft-

But someone who tells me what he felt when he saw my work and what he imagined or what he interpreted in my work is even more rewarding because it allows me to have a new look on my work and sometimes i come to the conclusion that this person is closer to the unconscious perspective that is mine and that I had not been able to decipher ! Amazing isn’t it ? 69

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I am fortunate to have studied that will allow me to properly gain my life and not depend on public or artistic « tendencies » of the moment. This allows me to be honest with myself and what I want to do. However I have nothing against the idea of a collaboration with my audience. Besides, I often performs works « on command ». I do not like this term because it is derogatory... In fact, I go to the prospective client and discuss the size, colors regarding its home and where the canvas would be. If and only if I am inspired and I am sure the client understands my world and that we are on the same wavelength, then only at that moment, I decided to make the canvas « on order ». But it stresses me a lot because I'm afraid to disappoint the client when I am in this situation. This has never happened but I 'm like that; because I wish in these cases, reach a specific result and for an artist, it is not always easy or even possible. There are so many factors that play into the success of a painting ! Against it by a vote of confidence that warms my heart ! And when you receive a mms the day after the delivery of the canvas with a photo and a comment that says, « My first breakfast with your work, I love it », the reward is there ! :-) Aside from these works « on order », I do not think to to whom will enjoy my Art... It is not part of my considerations ! However, I try to adapt myself to my clients. I do not make volunteering but it happens to me to be affected by the attitude of a person who does not have the budget and to make a move because I prefer that my work be with this person than with a another. Because at the end... It's you that choose the canvas or the opposite ? I could not answer this question so some paintings seem to have a clean soul! Let me thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us, Elah. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Currently I am finishing my memory as part of my university studies so I have no exposure expected. I will do it, without a doubt, in summer when I will graduate. I had several proposals for exhibitions abroad but now, with my studies, I do not have the opportunity to travel abroad. I also created a collection of covers for mobile with parts of works and they will soon be available on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ELaH.Contemp.Art. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself in your magazine and I wish all who read it a wonderful day because as it was said above, it's all in the attitude ! :-)

An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

Cassandra Hanks 70

Elah

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ELaH

(photo by Damien J.)

Peripheral ARTeries

Gema Herrero (Spain)

"Luz, more light" An artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s statement

Gema Herrero's work is linked to the photo, the video, the installations and the use of the technology. The sonorous portraits, the texts, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;emotional cartographiesâ&#x20AC;? and the photomontage (Intervened Images in with multiple layers of reading). The temporary things, the state of change and the transformations, are a constant in all projects, which feed with the records gathered in the covered trajectories and which are the proper traces and the tracks left by others from the experience of the state of transit and provisional state. Artistic education -school of fine arts- and Master's degree in Audio- visual Production Applied to Multimedia (Univ . Carlos III of Madrid). Professional activity: developed in parallel form to artistic activity during 18 years in the scope of the art direction and transmedia creativity of independent groups of multimedia communication. She is part of the founding team of Nooxfera (professional independent from different areas: audiovisual, design, theater, TV, media and global communication). Professor of monographic courses of design and creativity.

Gema Herrero #196 Winter 30

Project: Children's Game (HeterotopĂas)

Final compositions. Register of practices, which takes place in spaces modified by citizens as a result of the economic crisis. Its point of departure is a conflict around which a collective creative and transforming activity has taken place.

Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis 31

Peripheral ARTeries

Ulvi Haagensen

An interview with

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

«If one cannot understand the usefulness of the useless and uselessness of the useful, one cannot understand art». Eugène Ionesco.

an interview with

Hi Peripheral ARTeries, it is nice talking to you. Artistic sensitivity can be expressed in many ways. Any type of technique can be used with interesting results. Some nice pieces can be the result of an isolated fact. They are experimental pieces resulting from fortunate coincidences without a solid work behind them to back them up. Many of these artworks are our drafts and they show an artistic sensitivity, but constitute only the prelude of what could eventually turn into a masterpiece. These experiments are ‘possible’ things. Some of those possible things could become ‘necessary’ things when an artwork is complete. Many times, mixtures of these practices are exposed in exhibition spaces and very often, when the eyes of the observers are unfamiliar with art, they are shocked and don’t understand why that piece in front of them is considered to be art and can’t see the proposal behind it.

Gema Herrero 32

Ulvi Haagensen

Peripheral ARTeries

Those artworks, which provoke a reflection, or an emotion, that remains inside of me long after I have experienced them. Then, I ‘examine them minutely’ from several perspectives. In those cases, I do a personal search as I want to know what those artworks have moved inside of me to give rise to such an interest, and I also do a documentary search about the artwork creation.

At times, some of those possibilities show a repertoire with a coherent shape…”a round shape”. I don’t think it is necessary to provide the observer with an overload of information to guide him. However, giving him some clues will help him identify the context. At best, and regardless when they were created, the artworks arising my interest are those which somehow make me take part in them, even if they don’t ask for any intervention; they challenge me and make me wish to go deep inside them, a feeling which goes far beyond passive contemplation.

I would like to share with you some inspiring paragraphs for those who want to read in Spanish; some unpublished, non translated texts written by Jordi Claramonte from his on online publication ‘Estética y Teoría del arte. Tríptico modal’

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Gema Herrero

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any particular experiences that have impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks?

Each biography and each route are a whole world in itself. In my case, I haven’t followed predictable paths. My waybill has changed as my interests and need for knowledge have evolved. I think learning is a never-ending task and there is humbleness in accepting the fact that there is still a long way to go. In spite of my artistic background and my Master Degree focused on audiovisual production and multimedia, the most interesting things have come to me through other types of contacts; contacts through which I have met other people who have given me something, as they have shared with me visions different from mine. The search starts when one feels the need to materialize something and there are aspects one cannot complete on his/her own. If, on top of this, we are open to let things happen, then a sort of serendipity can take place. By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

I think meeting other people within an open, non-official context is essential because it goes far beyond the practical interest of getting a certificate, thus focusing instead in the exchange and enhancement of knowledge. These searches are elective. They might not offer an immediate ‘practical’ profit, but could lead us towards people we would never have the chance to meet otherwise. So the task is to keep alert and to look for those who can help us grow. Even if not all of them will comply with this goal, some of them will indeed deserve the effort and time invested.

Project: IN|VISIBLES. Installation images

to get automatically what can only be obtained as the result of an individual effort and tireless passion». NUCCIO ORDINE, ‘The usefulness of the uselessness’, translated by Jordi Bayod, Barcelona 2013 Acantilado. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do

«Everything can be bought, that is true. From members of Parliament to trials, from power to success: everything has a price except knowledge: the price to pay for knowing is of a quite different nature. Not even a blank cheque would allow us

#196 Winter 34

Gema Herrero

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Project: IN|VISIBLES. Installation images

In some other cases, the creation process is much slower and is the answer to something that worries me and inevitably draws my attention, giving rise to a long process, which takes time before it can be materialized (Children´s game).

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

Some pieces emerge as a result of “exercises”, practices I set up within the context of experimentation. In those cases, I try to start something that, for some particular reason, is interesting for me. Sometimes these pieces evolve and go further than initially foreseen (IN|VISIBLES).

Each case requires a concrete process. The first results could be those I keep for myself, or maybe not.

Peripheral ARTeries

Gema Herrero

I destroy many of the things I create, even if I regret it later. That is part of the game. I need to make myself several proposals. I have recently found out that, surprisingly, one or two of my friends who are composers also share this trend towards creative destruction. As to technical aspects, each case is different. The moment for choosing the final resources comes when the project is finally defined and it has to do with how it will be exposed. One project could have several possibilities. I love installations because of their ephemeral and unique nature. They might need several types of technical resources that should be simplified. In other cases, I use materials. In general, sound and image are always present. The sound understood as the main character, not just as an accompaniment to the image. Technical aspects should not be the most important factor. I think it is interesting to work with a repertoire of known elements with which you can play. In this way, I can always consider changes according to what I want to say or what I want the observer to capture. Regardless the final format for exhibition, the projects can be tracked through the Internet. Some of them are available and linked to a domain, others are in unreachable sites and only temporary, changing summaries witness their existence (“I´m listening to you” hereinafter). Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from En Transito, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article, and at your website at http://www.entransito.com/ in order to get a more concrete idea of it. In the meanwhile,would you tell us something about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration?

En tránsito is a “quiet” project, which is little by little consolidating its presence in the Internet. It is always in a beta phase.

Project: “En Tránsito”. 12 different locations

There are many ways of approaching it and sailing through its content. It should not be seen as a traditional web page, which immediately reveals i

ts purpose. It is not a model of conventional ’usability’, but it is neither complex nor unpredictable as other proposals we find in net art. 36

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gies and different connections. The project is shown in the Internet as it is built up. All registers involved in it depend on my movements. At present, the project shows in the upper part a month selector, which allows a type of navigation; but there are also connectors in other elements distributed through the pages as little symbols. This will change in short because the project doesn’t intend to show a chronologically fixed evolution even if a chronology is suggested. The following quotation can be reached through a link from many parts of the repertoire or registers: «The project's work method: I have nothing to say but only something to show. I will not hide anything valuable nor will I steal any deep formulation, But the rags, the scraps, I won’t make an inventory of them. I will only let them conquer their right in the only way possible: by using them. ». (¹) The repertoire of registers before ‘En tránsito’ is EN|TRANSITO 01 , a dynamic cartography of the memory, where events are badly structured and are shown as a group of situations which have taken place according to an order which goes out of control. If we analyse the way the experience is generated, we can often say it is not linear, it simply builds up itself by connecting sometimes events that took place at very distant moments and places. When we want to tell a story in a formal way, we organize the events in order to make it understandable. This is possible when we look at the past, but when we simply observe and internalize the generating sources of the experiences we go through, that order is in fact chaotic.

(¹) Among many of his works, Walter Benjamin compiled quotations. Words said by others that he decided to organize, classify and bind, occasionally adding his own words as a prologue. His presence is reflected in texts written by others....texts that he compiled thus generating a new work.

It is a repertoire of registers. Its navigation and the relationship between pieces change through time, thus establishing new temporal chronolo37

Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Gema Herrero

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your trajectory is double, professional and artistic. The professional activity has brought you a lot of experience in technical and some methodologies applicable to other fields... If I have been asked to choose an adjective that could sum up in a single word your art, I would say that your it's "kaleido-scopic": it ranges from sound performances to the projects as El cuerpo sutil... while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy bet-ween different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Synergy between different disciplines makes me grow. The reason why I pick up synergy among other disciplines is because it is a permanent and curious search. El cuerpo sutil is a project I created years ago. It is based upon a collaborative approach, that is to say, several artists participate and exchange something between each other, while each one of them remains the author of his/her part in the attempt.

Project: IN|VISIBLES. Contents

Several pieces of the project have already been completed and the project is still open, although only a few pieces are available in the Internet. In this game I make the proposal: there are no restrictions and I will accept anything that those collaborating with me want to give me (and whatever they give me, will always belong to them) even if he/she modifies the initial orientation proposed. I’m not looking for the expert opinion of somebody about a particular subject. My proposal is: let’s play a game. During the ‘three first times’ of this project, collaborations are based upon the word. I’m inte-rested in images that can be created through the word. In this particular case, words inspired in images pro#196 Winter posed.

Project: IN|VISIBLES. Contents

Gema Herrero

Peripheral ARTeries

others would implement it. Working in the creation of this type of projects is fascinating because they can be approached in their most creative and experimental stage, the most ‘naïve’ moment of their creation, which imposes an advanced vision of the project at the same time. Afterwards, when the final version is completed, creativity sets its bounds, it changes…. and other factors which restrict the proposal become important.

There will be more skins in this exchange, I might change the story line, music might also play a role, but that will come in the future. Even if they belong to different fields, the professional and artistic activities I carry out definitely have something in common. I have always worked in creativity and art direction. Several years of my professional experience have been devoted to the creation of prototypes. We used to have a sort of a multidisciplinary laboratory, which was somehow free to propose things (at present, this is not possible due to financial restrictions). For us, a prototype meant creating a model in its very initial stage, a model with all its possibilities, including the definition of processes, which would take place later, in order to make the prototype possible when

Just few times ago an artist that I happened to interview told me that "to create an we need physical involvement, great immediacy. Forms mature upon their long being created in imagination" I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think 39

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Gema Herrero

that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It might depend on the discipline, the purpose one has in mind when creation starts and on the effect one wants to produce in the observer. It all depends on the goals we have in mind. Sometimes there is a big distance between what is shown and the author (the author doesn’t want to be noticed in his work), however, the observer ends up capturing his way of looking at things. When I can’t find that perspective clearly then I wonder why the author observes what he observes. If I apply this to my particular case, the things I produce are linked to my existence, to a certain way of looking at things, to a personal way of living and to my natural tendency to observe the specific things that calls my attention. This way of looking at things can change eventually. Another interesting piece of yours on which I would like to spend some words is entitled I'm Listening to You... Technology or I should better say, the manipulation of the concept of technology, plays a crucial role in producing the creative synergy that marks your art practice. So I would ask you: do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and technology? By the way, I would

Project: “I´m listening to you”. Visual registers

go as far as to say that in a way Science is assimilating Art and viceversa...

I think the use of technologies offers a wide range of creative possibilities as it fades away the figu-

Project: “I´m listening to you”. Visual registers

Gema Herrero

Peripheral ARTeries

communication protocols and data that could be found in the Internet and are used to feed the content of the artwork. If we analyse this case in detail, we will come to the conclusion that some elements in that artwork make it difficult to see it as a simple piece of art (painting, sculpture), and there might be elements in that piece that can only be owned partially as they use intangible resources which can be used if you pay for them. There is no need to own these resources; anybody can pay to use them. The digital world shakes and alters somehow traditional classifications. Complexity grows when efforts are made to display and keep these artworks through the years, as the ephemeral nature of technologies, software and devices will demand constant updating and resources adaptation, keeping at the same time the author’s and the artwork’s intention. I also think that the use of technology implies more collaborators. This again breaks with the idea of the author-artist secluded in his studio, mixing up colours in his palette to become an activity in connection with others, which implies learning on a permanent basis. As far as “I´m listening to you” is concerned, it is a project I started long time ago. It’s always alive and it demands collecting a huge amount of content for each sound piece. It builds up slowly in time because its result depends on the trace of my movements. The crucial thing here is not the trace of my movements in itself, but the connections to be established later between the resulting materials.

res of both the artist and the exclusive owner of the artwork. I’ll give you an example: Let’s imagine an artwork, which requires several resources for its execution: software, servers, 41

In this project I work in the acoustic environment by recording sound elements: voices, tonic sounds, sound signals, sound brands… Registers are made in several places; always public places. The original recordings (the non-edited material) are “landscapes” formed by events that can be listened to. I find these landscapes particularly interesting due to their temporary nature. They don’t remain unchanged; they could actually disappear little by little without being noticed. When thinking about work stages, we could identify, in the first place, as in the case of any audiovisual production, the stage devoted to capturing the non- edited material. All these recordings are edited later, in order to extract Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Gema Herrero

from them the elements required for each sound piece, focusing on the individuals in the different spaces; individuals who tell short chapters of their lives protected by the anonymous crowd. Once again, the best final result is an installation. You work often reveal a socio-political criticism, and moreover - as in IN|VISIBLES, which I have to admit is one of my favourite work of yours- in my opinion it also seek to challenge art in its conventions of exclusivity and question the audience’s role as passive consumer: and I'm sort of convinced that Art these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this?

Sometimes, the artist shows up things that others don’t show up any more, and he does so from a different perspective, which is way far from conventional criteria. But, to answer your question, in order to steer people’s behaviour Art should easily reach people and that seldom happens. Art gets to people through its own channels. Sometimes it does happen, especially when certain artworks come off those channels and seep in through cir- cuits outside of art. Register of the series “En Tránsito”. Location: Port

IN|VISIBLES, Children´s game, and other projects we don’t mention here, are the result of observation and of a particular concern. Children´s game (heteroto-pias) is a register of practices, which takes place in spaces modified by citizens as a result of the economic crisis. Its point of departure is a conflict around which a collective creative and transforming activity has taken place. The registers - which mix together with other elements and written texts – show something totally temporary because of its changing nature. These registers do not fit any fixed pattern and might disappear in a short time. As to IN|VISIBLES, this project was initially conceived as part of El Cuerpo Sutil and it grew up unex-pectedly. I chose the installation format be#196 Winter

Project: “Children´s Game”(Heterotopías). Installation

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fects produced by the different screenings and contents with no start no finish. I’m particularly interested in those cases in which the role of the spectator as a passive consumer is under discussion. I think this is a delicate subject, difficult to deal with. A couple of cases come to my mind: interesting media art artworks, which go beyond traditional classifications and change the concepts of artistic authorship and the relationship between the public and the artwork. PAUL SHERMON, TELEMATIC VISION . INTER [IN] VENTION. Collection ZMK| Karlsrue An installation connects two spaces in different locations. Both spaces show exactly the same furniture layout. Through a broadcast system and by means of a ‘chroma key’, spectators in both locations mix up with the image thus sharing the same virtual space shown through monitors located in both spaces The spectator observes himself. He is the changing element in the artwork and makes part of it. This is precisely my photograph, the one I provided to illustrate the interview. The image is composed of fragments of this installation and fragments of another one I will mention later. The photograph proves my presence as an observer and as an integrating part of the artwork. Without posing, I show curiosity and relief after a group of students invading my field of vision as they performed a balancing act and acrobatics in the connected space, finally leaves my shared virtual space.

ugal.

PETER WEIBEL, OBSERVATION OF THE OBSERVATION: UNCERTAINLY. INTER [IN] VENTION. Collection ZMK| Karlsrue

cause it fitted better the contents I wanted to create. Installations allow the display of all the project material: photographs, written texts, video and sound. Screenings are done on translucent materials and the public walks through those materials thus reflecting the images over their bodies.

An artwork created in the 70’s, which deeply analyses participation levels and uses installations in a closed circuit. It is an installation based upon a closed circuit, which is only understood thanks to the presence of the spectator. Broadly speaking, the spectator moves within a physical, circular space with cameras and monitors displayed in such a way that they only register and project the image of his back.

The observer does not make the artwork possible, but he is present in the artwork, even if he doesn't want to, because in order to look at it, he has to “invade” it. I found the effects of that invasion very interesting, as many observers felt they had entered a very private space. That opinion surprised me because the installation suggests a sort of chaos to visitors and still, they didn’t run away; they stayed there, listening and observing the ef-

The spectator is then a co-creator and makes part of the artwork in real time. He doesn’t play the role of a passive spectator anymore and becomes an essential element, which makes the artwork possible. The control concepts are evident in the artwork. 43

Peripheral ARTeries

Gema Herrero

It goes without saying that positive feedbacks are capable of providing an artist of the indespensable moral support to go ahead with his art production an artist... I was just wondering if it could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

The spectator completes the artwork; his involve-ment is crucial. The artist should often question himself as he works in an artwork, and should also put himself in the shoes of the observer. He must be coherent in terms of what he wants to transmit. The process of each artist is a very personal matter and I think each artist should adopt an attitude, according to his objectives and priorities in relation to his work and to the “audience”. Feedback from the audience is important, but how this feedback gets to the artist is even more important. The most valuable answer is the one the artist gets personally, through a direct contact with the audience. As I try to answer your question, I wonder if there is another good formula, more or less automated, to know the effects produced by the observation of an artist work. I might stray off the subject you propose, but I honestly think we should always be critical when confronting systems and concrete platforms, which provide automate answers. Using technology is most interesting, but it is never neutral. When a programme is conceived, an interaction model is being designed in advance; this interaction model will allow the type of information to be gathered and the answers. It imposes a rational model, which might not be the adequate one. An automatism of the type ‘I like it—I don’t like it’ casts doubts on concepts such as ‘artistic autonomy’ and ‘aesthetic experience’ thus trivializing the answer. Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts, Gema. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thanks for your interesting questions. As to my plans for the future, the only thing I can say is that I will go on with my activity and my projects. Many things concern me at the moment. We just have to take a brief look at reality to find an inexhaustible source of worries and conflicts. If they become creative facts, I guess I should not stop in a long time.

An interview by Dario Rutigliano peripheralarteries@dr.com 44

Gema Herrero

Peripheral ARTeries

audio video installation time of light, water memory

Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Nico Amortegui (USA)

a.k.a.

Malo

An artist’s statement

Throughout my art practice, I aim to depict the perpetual changing direction of my country – a country where growing up with car bombs and kidnappings on the news everyday was the norm. I paint as a means of describing a childhood where the violence of that time and the people that were directly and indirectly affected were revolving in such a way that it created a menagerie of ‘normal’. As an immigrant, I became cognizant of the transaction between two “allied” countries and of my encounters in a place we had always referred to as the American Dream. Through my art, I seek to relay glimpses into the life of a young Colombian in the late 80s, a teenaged immigrant in the US in the 90s, and highlight the endless struggles of an immigrant with-out-papers. My work is full of color and is a product of expressed energy meaning there are no sketches or previous drawings. I work solely from in-the-moment-energy and I transfer what I see and feel on to the canvas. The rawness of my work exemplifies how my realities were never perfect as the images I render are not either. Nico Amortegui http://nicoarte.tumblr.com/ #196 Winter

Righteous Exploits performance, photo by Matt Lewis 2

Peripheral ARTeries

Nico Amortegui

An interview with

Nico Amortegui Hello Nico, and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

Anything that can create a conversation - from a nose job to a kid’s drawing – it’s the product of skill, talent, practice and individual expression. We are surrounded by art and artwork does not necessarily have to be framed or hanging on a wall. I think contemporary art just means in the now, but could still trace its roots from older time periods. I’m sure decades from the “now” it will no longer equate an interview contemporary and itwith will be given a new term to describe the time period. Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you grew up surrounded by artists and your learnt carpentry, photography, interior design, and painting along the way: how has this impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks? And why Throughout your 20s did you choose to focus on photography. By the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity...

I grew up in a very small artist community outside of Bogot·. I watched my uncle paint at very young age and so, I wanted to be a painter, but didn’t think I was ever any good at it. I focused on artistic photography and held a lot of different jobs that without knowing at the time would end up shaping my current art practice. My background in interior design, construction and marketing are a huge foundation in how my artwork is created and promoted.

Nico Amortegui, with Free Colombia

Some artists are able to get amazing skills by going to school, but I tend to ‘zone out’ in that setting. I learn by studying art books - examining how the works are made and their composition. For me, that is the best way since I can grab ideas from artists that I admire and not be subjected to what someone else thinks is better for me. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what Nico Amortegui technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do

Nico Amortegui

Peripheral ARTeries

create the piece. The eyes tell stories and that is what I am trying to do with my art. My process is a lot about lines and balance as I see it. I do research a lot of history first when it’s a topic I don’t have first-hand experience with. Now let's focus on your art production: I would like to start with Defining MALO and Self that our readers can admire in these pages and I would suggest our readers to visit your website directly at http://nicoarte.com/paintings/ in order to get a wider idea of your work: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of the project behind these pieces? What was your initial inspiration?

Like I mentioned before, I have no idea how the image will appear in the end, but I realize that something had affected me, someone said something about my signature and that created Defining MALO. It was a rebellion on what I “should do” according to others. Self was a bit different. I saw myself in the painting once it was done. It was me at that time; everything that I was feeling was

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

I love to go for a drive in the car and blast the music before I start working – it’s like pumping yourself up for a fight! Most of the time, I don’t have any clue what the image is going to be. I let the paint drive my hand. It’s a feeling of letting go and there is nothing like it. Once I start adding paint, a figure will come out and then the subject will speak to me. If I cannot connect with the artwork, I just walk away and work on something else. I don’t waste time or materials, so if it’s not making sense to me, I’ll come back to it later. The first part though is always the eyes - they are what

Self, Mixed media

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Nico Amortegui

Love Math

in front of me even though it didn’t look like me at all. That’s why it’s called SELF - it’s like looking at a photo of you, but you don’t recognize yourself and deep inside you know that is you whether you like it or not.

sations"... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Another interesting pieces of yours that have particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words are Piedad and Love Math... As I was said once "the moment when the painting is leaving its role of pure reproduction of reality it allows an adventure around several axes to highlight messages, sen-

I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to paint about personal experience, although it makes for interesting conversation. In my case, I try to tell a story, my personal experience is part of the artwork, and if it hasn’t affected me I probably wouldn’t create it. When there is a history behind #196 Winterin my opinion. it, it becomes more powerful

Nico Amortegui

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Vanishing Point, Mixed media trid.piece, 2012

Piedad

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Nico Amortegui

Jackson Pollock, acryl/oil sticks, 48x48

Now let's deal with the tones of your pieces: I would focus on Jackson Pollock, Frida Kahlo: I noticed that red is a very recurrent tone and I definitely love its nuances... I daresay that it's such a thoughtful red... and what has mostly impressed me is that it is capable of establishing such a dialogue, a synergy with all the other tones instead of a contrast, as in Kenya... By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

I started working with very bright colors. Red, blue and black had always been a part of them. I come from a country that is very passionate and I think red is a huge representation of that. My color palette is evolving into a more straightforward, in-your-face color with darker tones taking over the workâ&#x20AC;Ś I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because I am maturing as an artist. I want my pieces to speak loud and red with black have a very powerful impact on the viewer. I still use pastel colors, but only to tone down the message of the artwork so you can see the beauty in the subject perhaps before you understand the message.

Frida Kahlo, acryl/oil sticks, 48x48

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Nico Amortegui

I can recognize a subtle but deep social criticism in your artworks, as in The Banker and in 222 and also in Devil Wears Prada, which I have to admit is one of my favourite pieces of yours: as you once stated, many of your images illustrate the strenght that you have witnessed from people living off the streets in your country... I'm sort of convinced that Art these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this?

Well art has been used to steer people in a direction for a very long time. An example that comes to mind is tobacco company ads with beautifully painted classy women smoking. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that my intention is necessarily to steer behavior or opinion, but rather stir an emotion that evokes conversation or at least a second thought toward a topic.

The Banker, acryl/oil sticks, 48x48

Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

Amore, Mixed media

Piedad, Mixed media

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Nico Amortegui

Devil Wears Prada, Mixed media, 84x96

By the way, you now focus on painting and sculpting and woodworking with found objects, and we can admire an example of this in Free Colombia and in The Birth... Not to mention that usage of "found” materials is nowadays a very common practice, and I often wondered about the personal contribution of the artist, in such case... it goes without saying that also white canvas, acryls tube and pencil, they are all material that already exists... while roaming and scavenging through "found" material -personal materials, as well- might lead an artist to discover unexpected sides of the world, maybe of our inner world... what's you point about this?

When you don’t have money for a canvas, you tend to find ways to create on a budget! That was why I originally began working with found materials. Now it’s a little bit different as I do it as a way to learn new techniques. Painting is amazing, but I have a construction background and building things

The Birth, Mixed media #196 Winter

Nico Amortegui

Peripheral ARTeries

My Art for your Love

an interview with

tist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

El Che, Acrylic, Olil Stick, 48x72

I try not to expect anything of any show no matter where it is. I don’t set myself up to be disappointed due to poor turn out or lack of sales, instead I look at every show as a good way for exposure. You are always going to have someone that loves it and someone that hates it or doesn’t get it and that’s fine. I don’t put too much thought into comments or compliments. At the end of the day, the best compliment you can get is when someone buys your artwork. Money might not be the reason you created the piece, but it keeps you working. I don’t paint for anyone or anyone’s taste - I do it because I have something to tell.

keeps me sharp. On a construction site, you learn to salvage and repurpose. I have in my head a construction process for the canvas. There is no better brain exercise than to create something with a bunch of things that most people would consider trash. During these years your artworks have been exhibited in several occasion and you have recently had your Malo Solo Pop up Show at the Union EAV... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of a positive feedback- could even influence the process of an ar-

Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts, Nico. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I am going to have a solo show in NY and another one in August in Charlotte, everything will be up in the website soon. an interview by Dario Rutigliano

Vanishing Point, Mixed media trid.piece, 2012

peripheral_arteries@dr.com

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Astrid Jahns (Germany)

I like to feel free in choosing materials and techniques or even to combine them thus I get a manifold spectrum in which I can realize my ideas. But in main I focus on the collage technique because I can combine several realistic fragments with each other. The results are different surreal surroundings which often get into a connection with the language, based on poems or other short texts. So there is an interplay between the text and the collages thus resulting any kind of narrative storylines like dialogs or monologs. I think that the human being, with all its thoughts, emotions, moods and wishes, in combination of its surrounding, represents the most exciting elements to create art. I like to imagine scenarios that could almost happen everywhere. An important aspect often are human characteristics or properties that my protagonists do not want to show to the outside, but rather know in hidden deep inside. A good possibility which Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve opened up for me, is the humanization or personification of protagonists with their characteristics and properties. They merges into each other so that they become one, like I created in the series Kassandra or The Seven Deadly Sins. In the series The Seven Deadly Sins, for example, I imagined that we bear parts of these sins within us. One more the other less, it depends on the sin and our character.

Astrid Jahns

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We try to hide them deep inside, but sometimes we cannot control these negative emotions and they burst out of us. Suddenly we find ourselves inside a nightmare thus the sin(s) become pure emotion and triggers panic in their intensity. We have ourselves no longer under control because our subconscious mind is controlling us know. The black background has revealed to me, because this dark space seems to me as kind of universe or any other wide eternity, in which the individual scenarios are acting. The result is a space that is not attributable to any time or a certain place. Thus, the respective protagonists can devote all their actions.

Astrid Jahns

Tragik Tragedy from the Kassandra series Collage, 2014, 29 x 19,5 cm

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Astrid Jahns

an interview with

Astrid Jahns Hello Astrid and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: as a contemporary artist, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

I think that contemporary art is also a confrontation with past (art) eras. A combination of todays thoughts, which mature over time and thoughts from yesterdays and tomorrows. Thus contemporary art combines important features from the past, present and future. That’s what makes it interesting is the view to something of the past combined with thoughts from today’s point of view or the view into the future, with topics of today, maybe even a naive point of view if one remembers back later, as seen in earlier science fiction series like „Star Trek“ or „The Avengers “. Where the creators had other knowledge and funds available as they’d have today. That, what each era brings with it, is what makes it exciting. But the most important is to developing your own artistic way. Astrid Jahns

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that particularly impact on the way you currently produce your works? By the way, sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

Then I had initially turned away from the art for a short period of time in order to re-sort myself. During this time I have been interested in graphic design which I opted to study. There I, however, soon found that these art teachers, from my last experience, were an exception or just a bad coincidence.

I agree with you. I grew up very anti-authoritarian and have visited an alternative school. So I always had the ability to act artistically very freely and could experimenting with different materials.

The graphic design section was fortunately connected to the fine arts, so that I could choose my professors and I was able to connect both with each other which made my studies very interesting and a precious experience. By the way, I believe that the artistic development ta-

There were no one who wanted to lead me in any direction. Afterwards I visited two other schools, in a total of three years, I am encountered exactly those art teachers from who I was spared of fortunately before.

Cassandra Hanks 26

Astrid Jahns

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Schicksal Fate

Missgunst Grudge

from the Kassandra series

Collage, 2014, 29 x 19,5 cm

kes place very early and that children will have formed too much and run the risk to be a subject of the ego of the particular art teacher.

by themselves. The preparation or time is always depending on the material which I select or find, what kind of ideas I have, or which intention I follow and of course, how complex the idea or intention is. Since I have collected a contingent of materials that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m re-sorting from time to time.

That has got something very relaxing which simultaneously fills my subconscious mind with new associations and thoughts. What will let grow new ideas and intentions that might flow into the next work. And that is in main how I work, as I have already mentioned or will men-

In main Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m trying to feel free with any technical aspects. They arise during the creating process Jolanta Gmur 27

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tion further on, something is arising somewhere deep inside my subconscious mind. If it has reached my consciousness mind I’m only going to capture it, maybe like a hunter does. Once caught, I start to work. Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with you recent series Kassandra, that our readers have already admired in the introductory pages of this article and that I would suggest to view directly to your website at http://www.astridjahns.de/collagen/kassandra.html, in order to get a wider idea of it: in the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

I found an invitation to work out something about Cassandra. My first idea was writing some poetries, but that didn’t work well, somehow. The following idea was then, similarly as like I did already in the series The Seven Deadly Sins, to humanized certain circumstances out of Cassandras life. Her life offers a variety of interesting possibilities for interpretation, such as her fate, the curse that came upon her, the tragedy which crosses her life and the grudge of some people she has encountered. Those were exciting aspects that I wanted to visualize. If you have specific properties humanized, then they suddenly become real and perhaps you might recognize yourself. A recurrent feature of your pieces - and especially the ones from the aforesaid series - that has mostly impacted on me is the effective mix of few dark tones which are capable of creating such a prelude to light... I also noticed that several nuances of red are very recurrent tone in your works. By the way, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Recently I was interviewed on the topic of colors. I was asked if I have a favorite color. My answer was no, but I was talking about the color blue. Which gives a good impression of the various different meanings of color names within our language. Blue

Fluch (Curse) from the Kassandra series Collage, 2014, 29 x 19,5 cm

Astrid Jahns

Peripheral ARTeries

for example, means sad or melancholy within the english language, but within the german language blue (Blau) means being drunk or taking a day off or absenteeism. But I always have had an affinity to red, as well. So now I may give a brief impression of the color red. When I was still studying, I mainly worked with red, black and white. I think red is a very concise and strong color that should be used with a lot of carefulness and sensibility. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a signal color, but also has a strong symbolic language. Interesting is the contrast effect in combination with the colors blue and green, as well. In both cases the result can be an exciting and spectacular interplay of colors. I think that the conscious use of colors is very important. The Kassandra series and The Seven Deadly Sins, for example, are apart for almost four years, while the series The Little Prince were created in between, about two years ago. In some series I like to work with materials like old paper cuttings. The result is black and white and very poetic, which I often complement with a poem or a thought. The color palette I use depends on my instantaneous mood, the subject with whom I am dealing and of course, the materials which are available to me. Nevertheless, the color palette of the works I just mentioned are very typical for me and have also manifested over the time. Your The Seven Deadly Sins series show the immediate nature of collage and it effectively establishes such a direct narrative of the stories that your works tell: so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Well, that question is not that easy to answer, but I think no. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m dealing with the thoughts of the Surrealism for a long time. My opinion is, that the development of a creative process takes place in the subconscious mind. Since the subconscious mind is a combination of the experienced and the different sensory perceptions, coupled to the con-

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Astrid Jahns

The Seven Deadly Sins I-VII, Collage, each 20 x 25 cm, 2010

days this is a very common practice, not only in Collage. Folks often wonder about the personal contribution of the artist, in such case... it goes without saying that also white canvas, acryls tube and pencils, they are all material that already exists... roaming and scavenging through "found" material to might happens to discover unexpected sides of the world, maybe of our inner world... what's you point about this?

sciousness mind which means, that we cannot give up our personal or direct experience in a creative process. Without personal and direct experience, in my opinion, no creative process could arise. But I would also include dreams or imaginations to the direct and of course, personal experiences. Thus a combination of all makes art or a process is made of. An important component is the the wandering about or derive. Many ideas are born not necessarily during a direct process, but they do while jogging or taking a shower, for example, because the mind is not focused directly on the process.

Yes, to discover the world, is an important aspect, because if I don’t want to discover the world for me the curiosity is missing and I cannot be creative thus I cannot create art.

Thus it has the possibility to seek in the subconscious mind where it will find an idea, intentions or solution. I guess, our thoughts taking a trip into our subconscious mind, without letting us now, somehow. A good division of work, by the way.

Rummaging, seeking and finding or finding, seeking and rummaging are important processes, that invites you to wander about, which is indispen-sable if you’re an artist. It’s also exciting to discover varying materials to create something new out of it or to combine different materials from different eras. I also have another reference to the material when I find it exci-

As a talented collagist, your art practice is strictly connected to the usage of so called found” materials: not to mention that nowa-

Cassandra Hanks 30

Astrid Jahns

tedly at flea markets or in an antiquarian, because I never have a clue what I’m going to find beforehand and not what I’m doing out of it. Sometimes I find material, but cannot imagine what I’ll do out of it, but I’m going to buy it, nevertheless. I’ve got the feeling that I’ll need it some day, somehow. So I store it until I come across it once again, just at the right moment. Another project of yours that have particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Where did the Little Prince go? I have been struck with your capability of creating a deep intellectual involvement, communicating a wide variety of states of mind: even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I have to admit that in a certain sense it unsettles me a bit... it's an effective mix between anguish and thoughtless, maybe hidden happiness... I would go as far as to state that this piece, rather than simply describing, pose us a question: forces us to meditation...

The Little Prince is not from earth, he lives on a small asteroid, no bigger than a house. On his planet the Jolanta Gmur 31

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Astrid Jahns

Where did the Little Prince go? I

Where did the Little Prince go? II

Still waiting for Adam and Eve

Wish anyone would water me

Collage, 15 x 18 cm, 2012

Little Prince is mainly busy with cleaning volcanoes and tearing out the baobabs so they do not overgrow the whole planet and finally blew. I imagined that the Little Prince just not torn out and throw away the baobabs, but he developed the appearance of new forms of the trees that grow on its own asteroids and floating around in space.

visitors. He is a curious and playful guy, but he doesn’t share his knowledge. Thus, he remains mysterious which you can see on the „not-being-visible“ of the Little Prince. He does not appear in the collages, but he leaves us something which refers to him and shows his knowledge: The three baobabs which keep on waiting. Where the Little Prince is and what he is doing or what he is creating, remains hidden. You’re right by thinking of meditation or even derivé, having a little break.

The Little Prince wanders about and experi-ments by developing new forms of trees to create little waiting-zones for possible space

Cassandra Hanks 32

Astrid Jahns

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expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist...

To receive an award is a very important event for an artist, because it honors your work as well as yourself. You shouldn’t forget, that artist not always find recognition or get paid for what they are doing. A me-known author and philosopher, once said that a good review is worth more than money. I guess, that includes an award too! Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Astrid. My last question deals with your future plans: anything co-ming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Currently I am writing poems in main. There will be some publishing projects in the near future. I also work on sound-collages which are alike to the collage technique, composed out of indivi-dual sounds. I’m still experimenting as I connect the sounds with the collages and texts, for example. Furthermore, I continue to work on the things that come into my mind or if any other interesting project will emerge, I’d be very happy.

Where did the Little Prince go? III Keep on waiting for you

An interview by peripheral_arteries@dr.com

Collage, 15 x 18 cm, 2012

So it can be thoughtless, but also anguish in a way, being on your own means also being alone. Maybe floating somewhere in a strange space like the baobabs do. It depends on you how you spend those moments. Your works have been exhibited in several occasions and moreover in 2011 you have been awarded from the mayor of Lever-kusen: it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the Jolanta Gmur 33

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(Spain)

From Presence Obscure series #196 Winter

photography 1

Xavier Blondeau (France)

Since my childhood , photography followed me It represents an important milestone for me: the polaroids of my childhood, as intimate family to the first Kodak winks on time, building coil after coil of life experiences. At 16, I discovered in the blue sky , the light box . A capacity to remove our shortcomings to create a fantasy . Since then, despite the remoteness of my life with photography, our paths cross and intersect ... Obscure presence is research in which I currently subscribe . There are places or situations in which , despite the absence of human entity , a presence exists beyond objects . This presence "dark " as the persistence of the recent past , gives things another dimension. As if they needed a human footprint to exist. Thus, the darkness of the night when the nascent early morning mist , are smugglers to another world . They help us to feel the presence evanescent...

Xavier Blondeau

Righteous Exploits

performance, photo by Matt Lewis 2

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Xavier Blondeau

An interview with

Xavier Blondeau Hello Xavier and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork? Do you think that there's still an inner dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

Created by an artist following more or less elaborate methods, a work of Art is an aesthetic object whose deeper meaning seeks to move us. Free from the necessity to be even remotely useful, the work of Art is often associated with a larger artistic movement and can also be part of an artist’s body of work. More specifically, in photography, to my mind an an interview image can be called with a work of Art when it breaks free of the time frame to which it belongs. It must be able to transcend techniques typical of a certain time period, the conventional composition with perfect centering, or still, the intellectual concept which underlies its creation. It must reach a kind of universality and timelessness. It must be experienced as a true sensory adventure, stripped of any explanation or theori-zing. Therefore I reckon that a work of art should first and foremost be recognized as such by those who look at it. This recognition derives from this oh-sospecial moment that is the discovery of an artist’s world. My artistic journey as a self-taught photographer is certainly the reason why I am convinced that a work of Art should be accessible to all, regardless of their cultural baggage. However, I am aware that to be fully appreciated certain works of Art require some cultural training, and an openmindedness which does not necessarily come naturally to all. But I prefer to believe that, like for

Xavier Blondeau

intelligence, a ‘heart line’ should be enough to grasp a work of Art. From what I have just said, it therefore appears that I do not make a distinction between tradition and contemporariness to the extent that they are outside the scope of my definition. In my opinion, contemporariness and tradition are more relevant when discussing the form a work of Art takes. That said, I would more easily associate contemporariness with the ability to offer a different take on the world. Which is especially true for photography. The contemporariness of a work of Art therefore lies, in my opinion, in the fact that it offers a specific vision, an intensely personal take on the world.

Xavier Blondeau

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shadowy presence â&#x20AC;? untitled january 2011

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any experiences that have particularly influenced you and that impacted on the way you currently produce your Art? By the way, what's your point on formal training? I often ask to myself if a certain kind of training could even stifle a young artist's creativity...

My discovery of photography was sudden, and the result of pure chance. In my youth I was passionate about science and it is during an astronomy workshop that I gradually discovered what it was like to develop and print photos in a lab. That was a true revelation, which encouraged me to work throughout the following summer in order to earn the money I needed to buy my first film camera. I then proceeded to set up a photo lab and spent many sleepless nights tinkering in darkness, surrounded by the smell of chemicals, just to obtain a few silver prints.

Without any training or help I managed to produce very personal photographic work. Passion was definitely there, and so consuming that there had to be a deeper reason for it. It soon became clear that photography was providing me with an outlet, it was the perfect way to express the feelings that I had found so hard to get off my chest as a teenager. It also allowed me to build my own creative universe by protecting my oversensitivity from the outside world. Years later, during a photography workshop held in a studio, another experience caused a major shift in my photography. This was my first shooting session, and the expression in the modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gaze as I was about to start shooting completely overwhelmed me with swells of emotion which brought me back to a painful time in my youth. But instead of trying to bury this experience even more deeply, I now tap into it to create the energy and emotion that I now look for in a shooting session.

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Xavier Blondeau

shadowy presence ‐ untitled

shadowy presence ‐ untitled ‐

‐

may 2011

september 2011

Ever since then, shooting pictures has become for me a special time, one that allows me to capture my own emotion in the outside world. I feel connected to this world which lets out an intimate and irrepressible call. My photos aim to convey this intense emotion. No need to explain, to conceptualize, just raw emotion! Over time, I have come to realize that the painful yearnings of my past have given me the an interview with strength and the energy to produce photographic work that is sensitive and personal. My self-taught artistic background naturally leads me to believe that a formal artistic training is not always mandatory. This training could lead budding artists to unconsciously tailor their art or their technique to please a certain professor, all the more so that they do not always have enough perspective or strength of character to follow their own path. However I think that artistic training, as long as it doesn’t twist students’ perspective, can boost them and help them find their own style.

The fact that I don’t have that kind of formal training sometimes puts me at a disadvantage in the art world. Since I don’t have any art degree I often feel I have to constantly prove myself, for example by being regularly featured in art exhibitions.

shadowy presence ‐ untitled ‐ april 2012

What is of utmost importance to me is being in a certain receptive state so that I can capture a fleeting emotion, what I would call ‘the emotional instant’. When I’m in that state, I shoot on instinct, I don’t think through my photos beforehand at all because I’m not trying to ‘premeditate’ them. I let intuition take over and guide me, following my instinct, without rationality or mental construct. I’m not looking for the decisive moment so dear to the heart of humanist photographers but I try to be in a receptive state to the elements around me. It is the elements that ‘grab’ me: a particular light, a barely-there silhouette or the way a body moves. In a way, it is the picture that comes to me. If the mind insinuates itself in this utterly fragile process, all the magic disappears. That is why it is crucial for me to preserve this emotional moment, by #196ofWinter stripping my thoughts any attempt at rationality.

Laelanie Larach

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shadowy presence ‐ untitled ‐ september 2011

Of course, a stage of quasi-unconscious maturation exists. A long time can elapse between bursts of activity, as if I had become incapable of seeing the elements around me, as if they had lost their power to ‘grab’ me because the time isn’t right. A week, a month, a trimester. This period of latency is often tricky, because it is awash in doubt and anxiety, leading me to question my photography work and my ability to perceive things beyond the obvious. I feel unable to undertake anything. But then comes the moment when a little something, for example a stolen glance, triggers the feeling that something is going to happen. Emotion overtakes me when looking at a particular scene and I feel that the emotional moment I mentioned above is almost upon me. Then I grab my camera and let the miracle strike when it will. Some series saw the light in less than an hour, but I know that some others will take my whole life. With the advent of digital photography, another important stage has found its way into the creative:

digital processing. I did digital work on some series long after they were shot; sometimes several years go by before a series is finalized. It’s as if it was necessary to let the negatives rest. Even if little digital treatment is applied to a photo or a series, another maturation period sometimes seems necessary. Therefore there are no precise rules to how I go about my photography work; it even almost seems that each series requires its own specific process. But maybe that’s because it is the result of a unique set of events which cannot easily be controlled! Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with Shadowy Presence that our readers have started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest them to visit your website directly at http://www.xbphotographe.com/ in order to get a wider idea of this stimulating project... Mixed media trid.piece, 2012in Vanishing Point, the meanwhile, would you tell us something

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Xavier Blondeau

shadowy presence ‐ untitled ‐ december 2009

about the genesis of this project? What was your initial inspiration?

Shadowy Presence has two founding elements: night-related themes and the absence of human entity in the city. The painful flaw in my life which I mentioned earlier has led me to focus on the individual as a subject of interest. More specifically, I have been pondering this question: what defines our individuality, what relationship can we have with our surroundings? That is why I find the city, which by essence represents our capacity to create our own territory, to be a very interesting experimental field when trying to solve that issue. By representing the city without human presence in my photos, I lure the public into witnessing this absence, a void which they’ll naturally tend to fill, it’s a bit as if the viewer was looking at a mirror without reflection. Thus, by trying to introduce this missing human presence by way of a mental construct, the viewer will be better able to grasp that feeling

of existence and to, perhaps, try to find the answer to these questions. This mental exercise I propose to the person viewing these photographs is made easier by the fact that every scene takes place at night. Night is conducive to imagining, and I like my pictures to leave room for interpretation. This allows the viewer to make the photo his own, which increases the involvement of those discovering them. I used a nightly setting for this series, but for other series, the element that will draw the viewer into the picture and encourage him to project his own meaning onto it is fog, as in the series ‘Bad weather on the road’, or blurring as in the series ‘Lost bodies’ or ‘Imprint’. As you have remarked once, there are places or situations in which, despite the absence of human entity, a dark presence exists beyond objects... your works are capable of establishing a presence and such an atmosphere of memories, using just little reminders of human existence... I would like to ask you if

Xavier Blondeau

Peripheral ARTeries

shadowy presence â&#x20AC;? untitled â&#x20AC;? july 2013

in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

By now you will have understood that it is primarily my emotions which lead me to take photographs. These emotions are intimately linked to my past, to a number of personal experiences, to this part of us that transcends our own existence to seek some sort of link between us and something much bigger and more universal. It is the starting point of my artistic process nowadays. Of course, it is important then to build, or rather formalize, a creative approach. This allows artists to make sure that creation amounts to more than simply the inspiration of the moment. I sometimes feel that my approach to photography is a little schizophrenic, to the extent that my pictures seem to be primarily the fruit of my

emotions. These emotions can only express themselves if I manage to turn off all my rationalizing thoughts so that I can reach that necessary state of receptiveness. However, I am aware that some personal thought has already taken place upstream, often without my conscious knowledge, during the maturation phase I told you about. Similarly, after shooting photos I take time to observe and analyze the resulting pictures. It is then, looking at my work in retrospect, that the underlying concept or idea which led me to take these pictures really jumps at me. It is in this moment that a series begins to emerge. This makes me realize that my approach to photography canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do without this back and forth between a quasi-unconscious emotional state and a later stage of introspection and analysis. This might be the consequence of my personal history to the extent that I trained as a scientist, which has led to my current position as Associate Professor, while at the same time managing to develop my artistic side through photography. Live performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Xavier Blondeau

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an interview with

faux‐semblant ‐ untitled ‐ february 2012

This is the perfect illustration of one of my most strongly held belief, which is that art is intimately linked to personal experience. If that wasn’t the case and one’s art wasn’t instinctual and laden with personal meaning, if it was purely the result of some sort of deliberate method, then the artworks produced would be ‘intellectualized’, they would lose in great part their ability to touch the public, and they would require some theoreCaptions details tical knowledge to be fully appreciated.

Another interesting project of yours that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled fauxsemblant and one of the features of it that has mostly impacted on me is the way you have been effectively capable of re-contextualizing the idea of landscape and of environment... so I would like to stop for a moment to consider the "function" of the landscape suggested by your work: most of the times it doesn't seem to be #196 Winterand I'm sort of conjust a passive background...

Laelanie Larach

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Ever since photography escaped the narrow technical boundaries that confined it at the beginning, it has been commonly agreed that a photographer’s take on his surroundings isn’t objective. Reality is filtered through the photographer’s eyes. It is thus through his photography that the artist-photographer expresses an intention. This intention mustn’t be conventional, for fear the images produced should be of no interest, but on the contrary it should offer a different vision of things. As for the ‘Make Believe’ series, the signs that dot our roads have an obvious meaning. They give us information we need to drive properly. But their presence fades gradually from our memory.

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The speed with which we must process their presence and the information they contain leads us to erase them from consciousness as part of our surroundings. So I wanted to ‘rehabilitate’ them by assigning them not only a more symbolic function, but also a more personal one as well: that of holding a truth which escapes us, but of which we are dimly aware nonetheless. Through these images I tried to uncover and bring to the forefront this hidden truth, by creating an inner light from this road signs. This offbeat vision of things is, for me, an extremely important point when it comes to art-house photography. I think that people who sometimes find it hard to relate to our world, either because they have managed to preserve their inner child or because they have experienced certain things, are more likely to develop this offbeat

faux‐semblant ‐ untitled ‐ february 2012

vinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

I think that the role of a photographer, and the source of his strength, is precisely how he perceives all the things around him.

vision of the world around them. As far as I’m concerned, I believe I have managed to always retain some measure of poetic wonderment and imagination, the same one that allows children to create imaginary worlds from the ordinariness of life. While your works are completely analogue, in these last years we have seen a great usage of digital technology, in order to achieve Mixed media trid.piece, 2012 Vanishing outcomes Point, that was hard to get with traditio-

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Xavier Blondeau

TransEnDance ‐ untitled ‐ february 2012

nal techniques: do your think that an excess of such techniques could lead to a betrayal of reality?

As I indicated previously, the art-house photographer’s role is to offer his particular vision, his own very personal take on the world around him. My photographic work thus has more in common with the work of a painter than with that of a reporter. In fact, the artist has little use for reality. He looks at the world around him and handpicks some elements, a personal interpretation of which might later be offered to the public. The point for him is to offer his own creative world, his own sensory perception. Figurative painters are no longer sneered at for failing to render the absolute likeness of a face in a portrait, or for their sketchy representation of sunflower fields, for example. So why point the finger at the photographer who uses today’s techniques to create his own creative world? Some photographers will look upon the raw image obtained from a shoot as the gouache painters use.

They will knead it like clay until they arrive at a work which is very far removed from reality. Using modern digital techniques in photography doesn’t make the resulting artwork any less a photograph. I don’t mind using digital techniques to the extent that I have never aimed to take realistic photos; rather I strive to offer my own sensitive vision of the world around me. A fair number of my photos have been digitally altered post-shoot. You probably would be very surprised to know which of my images have had the most digital work done! But one must be careful not to get ‘locked’ into a particular technique. A photographer, to my mind, amounts to far more than just digital printing or a spectacular technical feat while shooting. We photographers sometimes happen to manage a particularly difficult photo on the first take. Does that photo have more value than the one I created digitally? If your answer is yes, you are implying that the main interest in the photo is the technique used to get it.

Xavier Blondeau

Peripheral ARTeries

TransEnDance ‐ untitled ‐ february 2012

I am convinced that an art-house photograph is more than that. I often smile when people ask me whether my photos have been digitally altered. I tell them about these great humanist photographers which led everyone to believe that they had produced their photos without any enhancement, just by being in the right place at the right time, as Cartier Bresson liked to claim. To prove they never cropped their photos they went so far as to introduce a black border in their prints, which was supposed to show where their negative stopped. Others followed suit by systematically adding a black border in their print photographs, even when they had been cropped! If the photograph is to be used to report on events around the world, it is mandatory to respect the photo’s integrity and to stick to high ethical standards so as to not deceive the reader, but in the context of artistic creation, forgoing digital techniques doesn’t make any sense. By the way, I can recognize a subtle but deep social criticism some of your projects as Corps

and even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I'm sort of convinced that Art in these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion about socio political issues: I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can even steer people's behavior... I would take this chance to ask your point about this. Do you think that it's an exaggeration? And what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in our society?

I think that, before anything, we need to distinguish between the photographer-reporter and the arthouse photographer. In the first case, the photojournalist seeks to portray an event or situation and tries to be as objective as possible. His photography must transcribe a political or social reality. However his vision isn’t neutral, because he is trying to take a stand versus this reality which is supposed to be objective: his photography will then be intentional. By leveraging this reality he tries very often to make us aware of the socio-political issues of the moment. For example, Nick Ut’s photo showing a naked VietnaLive performance, photo by Mark Hamburg

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Xavier Blondeau

Corps perdus ‐ untitled – march 2011

an interview with sents an exceptionally efficient means of persuasion. The artist can then take advantage of the fact that his work had struck an affective nerve to use Art for higher purposes. This way he will be able to denounce a particular situation and influence people’s behavior. Then is it advisable to use Art as a ‘propaganda weapon’ to serve a cause? I cannot answer this question. On the other hand, it seems important to me to let the artist choose the role he wants to have in society through his works

mese girl fleeing an area that had just been bombed with napalm became instantly famous around the world and the public outcry that ensued contributed to ending the conflict. Other photographs have also helped change the course of events. But in that case, is it right to talk about a work of Art? Through his work, an art-house photographer, unlike a photojournalist, offers a very personal vision of the world. He does not necessarily try to make people aware of certain issues, even if his work can lead to social criticism. Of course, his work is based on his personal experience and the intimate impression he has of the world he lives in. Let’s take the example of Picasso, who created in June 1937 the gigantic canvas ‘Guernica’ to denounce the bombardment of the city earlier in April as part of the Spanish civil war. I think that Art is a powerful means of expression and communication since a work of Art has the ability to reach us deeply. It goes beyond a certain rationality and is capable of touching us to the core.

It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, encouraging him: I was just wondering if an award -or even the expectation of positive feedbacks- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

The power that radiates from a work thus repre-

Winter I do not have any#196 kind of formal artistic training

Laelanie Larach

Corps perdus ‐ untitled – march 2011

and I do not come from the world of Art. It’s the reason why I am probably more sensitive than others to feedback from the public or art institutions regarding my work. When I showed my work for the first time it felt like I was baring my soul and it made me very vulnerable to comments and remarks. I experienced it like a trauma, and I was a fully grown man of 43 at the time. And yet, it seems very important to me that the work of an artist be seen by others. Facing people’s perception of one’s work, explaining one’s approach, sharing emotions and gathering the public’s impression is what makes us, artists, grow and continue down our chosen path. In addition, it seems to me that a work created by an artist cannot really exist if it is not exposed to people’s appraisal. It’s as if a vital bond had to form between the artist and the public through the former’s works. However my photographic work is not influenced in the least by the existence of this vital link. In fact, when I create my photographs, I feel completely disconnected from the world. This emotional state I described earlier leads me not to

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Corps perdus ‐ untitled – march 2011

be receptive to what others might think of the photo I am in the process of taking, but to find out there, in a precise instant, an emotion that matches mine. It is an intimate relationship which, at the beginning, excludes others. When I work on my photos post-shoot and that I experience anew the emotion that led to the shoot, I then know that I have reached my goal. I also know that my work on this photograph is done. All it needs to be complete is that others look at it. If by ‘business’ you mean gallery owners, I like to believe that there can exist a sincere relationship between the artist and the gallery owner. This sincere relationship can only develop if the gallery owner has a true interest in the artist rather than merely in the art the latter produces. The work of an artist is only a snapshot of his creative development. If the gallery owner only cares about the work, he is bound to hurt his relationship with the artist by trying to confine him to the type of work that will sell on the market. The gallery owner must accept toPoint, followMixed the media artist trid.piece, in his creative 2012 Vanishing development, without imposing a vision or a

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Xavier Blondeau

style that is easily marketable. This freedom to create without pressure from the marketplace is what makes a quality relationship between an artist and a gallery owner. The question that comes to mind is how many gallery owners actually take into account the artist rather than his artistic production? Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Xavier: anything co-ming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

It has been a true pleasure answering your very interesting and relevant questions. I have tried to provide answers that were both sincere and objective. I hope your readers will find the various points discussed to be of interest. Right now I am working on an ambitious project, one that is fairly difficult to implement. Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to produce photographic work jointly with a painter artist. This has allowed me to go beyond the scope of photography and to offer a particular kind of work which blends painting and photography. The challenge was to recreate a photograph using pictorial elements. This entailed a specific four-handed digital work and the collaboration between a painter and a photographer. This work was shown in France, at the castle of la Roche-Guyon. In the near future I would like to use the Shadowy Presence series to create photos targeted at the visually impaired. The idea is to introduce a dimensional relationship between light and heat; the photos would thus be perceived using the sense of touch. The heat sensation, more or less intense depending on how much light is in a particular area of the picture, should make it possible for the visually impaired to mentally construct a picture. This is still work in progress, which should ultimately lead to an exhibition in Paris next October. Stay tuned for more! An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator peripheralarteries@dr.com

Bad Weather on the Road ‐ untitled february 2011

Xavier Blondeau

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