LandEscape A r t
R e v i e w
CATE LIS ANGELA MCFALL RONNIE STELLING FINN GODWIN LAURA IOSIFESCU IRENE POULIASSI JAMES HALVORSON VERA L.P. CAUWENBERGHS Patron Saint of Regret Installation by Irene Pouliasi and Kyriakos Bournas
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Irene Pouliassi
Rosalyn Song
(Greece)
James Halvorson
Laura Iosifescu
Angela McFall
My artwork takes a critical view on the narration of time and its effects exploring the human body as a manifestation of nature and universe. I implement time as both a tool and an idea so it attains temporal qualities as it experiences change and fluctuation. My work reproduces familiar visual stimuli such as the temporary nature and distortion of the human image transformating artwork to a memento mori.
USA
Romania
Ireland
My paintings are performing paintings as its interacting with our environment through its dimensions. In spite of how representational this artwork may seem it breaks conventional way of painting through its unique and laborious executions of painting. In order to create unique marks and textures I use unconventional tools to paint and my own designed painting machines to place the paint on the surface.
I have travelled so far and seen so much, and traces of all these places remain in my mind like a strange collage. I think this sense of ‘mind’ is a place in itself.
I intend to allow my subjects to converge, to bring about moment specific meaning, stories generated that remain open ended for the beholder to complete. Our web of knowledge, which are the certainties formed by our personal histories, are received by these works. I intermingle form, text, and object to examine how we have identified truth of meaning and certainty of ideas.
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It is an abstract place, we are constructing in our mind, it is like an emotional map. The memory of a place is no longer the physical place like a concrete fact but a place reconstructed and overlaid with our emotional state.
USA
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Our awareness of our surroundings and our lives is often based on what we can perceive. A mistake sometimes made is not acknowledging what is absent, what is not there. Our lives seem lacking when we are bored with nothing to do. But this emptiness is something. It is the lack of something. And until we can appreciate and see the “nothingness” we are only seeing a portion of what is around us.
Belgium
My source of inspiration can be literally anything. A hint of a certain colour can be the start of a new idea. Wherever I am and whatever I see or experience is included in my work. I paint in a rather instinctive way. Once in the painting mode, I become one with the work. I paint what I paint simply because I am driven to it. Fact is, that I use the most vibrant colours and the outcome seems to be uplifting.
In this issue
Angela McFall Lives and works in Vevey, Switzerland Mixed media, Painting
Laura Iosifescu Lives and works in Leuven, Belgium Mixed Media, Installation
James Halvorson Lives and works in Portland. OR, USA Mixed media, Painting
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs Lives and works in Mechelen, Belgium Painting Ronnie Stelling
Cate Lis United Kingdom
Most of the time before starting a new work i like things to be tidy if i am working in my studio. i will meditate for 5 minutes for having more focus on the creative flow. For my abstract work i often had music in the background and can of dance with the shape and the colors. For Flowers and impressions d'ailleurs some where made outside and i will got inspire by something start painting then finishing other time from imagination, moving with colors and shapes.
Finn Godwin United Kingdom
I generally work quite quickly and am in an almost constant production of serial artistic pleasures, each work made in a single session. I work mostly in my studio; employing techniques that I can use without the need for assistants or other people- this has an effect, most notably, on the scale of my work. Sometimes I feel the need to do a more time consuming or complex work, such as the photo, “Image One�, that represents a few weeks work.
Cate Lis
USA
Lives and works in London, IK Mixed media, Painting
Ronnie was born in Sacramento, California. Her education and travels have taken her many places, but now, she is residing and painting in northern California. She received her B. A. from Univ. Of Minnesota at Bemidji Cum Laude and her M.F.A. from the Tenderloin Institute of Art in San Francisco, California. Ronnie's work has been seen in over 40 shows in galleries and museums so far with her first mural commission at 8 years of age at Tahoe School.
Finn Godwin Lives and works in United Kingdom Mixed media, Installation
Ronnie Stelling Lives and works in California, USA Mixed media, Painting
Irene Pouliassi Lives and works in Athens, Greece Mixed media, Installation
Courtney Henderson Lives and works in New York Fine Art Photography
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LandEscape 40 Art Review
LandEscape 5 Art Review
Angela McFall Lives and works in Basel, Switzerland
An artist's statement
B
orn in N.Ireland in 1969. Grew up in Ottawa Canada.
Graduated from Canterbury School of the Arts in Ottawa.
Exhibited in Ottawa Canada. Graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art. Joined the artists’ collective ‘The Enriched Bread Artists’ in an old factory space in Ottawa.
Moved to Tokyo, participated in art exhibitions around Japan. Was hired to teach art in Switzerland, Head of Art Department. In recent years exhibiting in Switzerland and internationally. Currently working on several projects ‘Monument’ and a series on ‘Place’ in my studio in Vevey, Switzerland.
Angela McFall
LandEscape 6
LandEscape meets
Art Review
Angela McFall An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
An intense synergy between a careful attention to emotional sphere and a refined artistic sensibility leads Angela McFall to accomplish an insightful exploration of the liminal space between representation and abstraction, in which memories and perceptual reality coexist in an atemporal dimension. One of the most convincing aspect of McFall's work is the way her investigation about the relation between time and space creates an area of intellectual interplay between contingency and immanence, that invites the viewers to explore the crossroad between human emotion and Nature's geometry: I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production. Hello Angela, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art that you received from the from the University of Ottawa, and then you joined the artist's collective The Enriched Bread Artists in Ottawa. How did these experiences influence your evolution as an artists and how do they
impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your works? Hello and thank you for the opportunity to respond to your very insightful questions. For this interview I have looked deep into my paintings, and explored some ideas that I have expressed visually, but never before put into words. I’ll begin with background- Yes my experiences with my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and my involvement with the Enriched Bread Artists’ Collective had an influence on my work but I think the experiences that shaped my work date from much earlier. My early days in Northern Ireland, my experiences as an immigrant, and later my experiences as a traveler heavily influenced my work in terms of how I perceive place, and I would have to say that my work is all about time and place. In the 1970’s Belfast was in political turmoil. The streets were burning. I remember being in bomb scares and seeing the destruction. I remember piles of rubble, buildings blown up and reduced to rubble. I think that gave me my first sense of how dynamic and fluid the physical world can become. Later my experiences as an immigrant showed me how cultures grow out of the physical environment, as we move around there are things we carry with us, almost like physical pieces of a place. Much later as a traveler I learned so much about different cultures. Travelling also teaches us about time. In some of the places I have been, there has been an Juerg Luedi
LandEscape 8 Art Review
Fall color of Paris Watercolor on Paper 14 x 11
detail from myFunerals, Performance
Angela McFall
Angela McFall
LandEscape 9 Art Review
element of time travel. Walk through an ancient market place in China you could be experiencing a place 1000 years ago. Or a port in Morocco where the fishermen fish in rhythms passed down through time, not much has changed. Find yourself on a moving sidewalk in Tokyo before a giant screen under a neon moon and you are moving through the future. You asked how my Bachelor of Fine Arts influenced my creative process. I am passionate about drawing and painting but I was studying art at the height of conceptual art’s influence on art schools. Drawing and painting were already out of fashion, passé, but I just couldn’t give them up. Everyone was making installations out of sugar and human hair and I was making massive charcoal drawings of ruined castles in Northern Ireland. To some extent my paintings have a conceptual element, in terms of the ideas they contain. One of my favorite works of art is ‘One Chair and Three’ by Joseph Kounellis. As much as I admire the cool, removed, somewhat scientific approach of conceptualism, it just wasn’t enough for me. I want to get swept up, carried away by the moment, and in that sense I am a romantic, an emotional extremist. Early on people often compared my work to Turner so I purposely avoided Turner, as I wasn’t consciously referencing his work. Many journeys later I dreamed of a canyon with rushing water. The next day I painted the canyon, shortly after that I came across a very similar painting by Turner. After that I came across another painting by Turner looking out from Montreux (where I live) onto the small town of Villeneuve (where I had been living). After that I looked into Turner and realized there was a deep sense of the sublime in my own work, and a light that had always been present, but not conscious. I would suggest to visit
http://angelamcfall.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production that we are going to discuss: I would begin from your Mixed Media works, that our readers has already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When I first happened to see #1 I tried to relate all the visual information to a single meaning. But I soon realized that I had to fit into the visual unity suggested by the inner coherence of the canvas, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process? This is a complex question and I’ll begin by responding to the idea of inner coherence in the canvas. There is a theme running through my work, which explores place. Yes inside my canvas there is an inner coherence, a place in itself, which relates to a place beyond the canvas. There is a Japanese concept called ‘Shakkei’ , Borrowed Scenery. A Japanese garden has its own set of relations within its walls, its frame so to speak. However the garden should also connect with the space beyond its walls. It should borrow the forest beyond, and the nearby trees, and draw those elements into its own frame. I think this happens in my own work in that my paintings communicate with the space around them, and reference places beyond the edge of the their frames. In terms of systematic or intuitive approach-I would have to say both. The foundation of each painting is a line I draw freehand and then another line. I create an axis, as if each piece has its own inner map; an equilibrium. Cartesian coordinates. On top of this axis I start to build layers of structure, colour, light, and lines. At this point the work becomes very
LandEscape 10
Angela McFall
Art Review
intuitive. I like the way #4 and #5 show a symbiosys between the abstract idea of night that evokes such an indefinite impalpability and a tactile feature suggested by a careful saturation of intense tones, which is a recurrent feature of your works and that I can recognize also in #5: not only for the obvious references to urban elements, but especially for the sensation of movement suggested by the stimulating nuances of tones that pervade your canvas: any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time I like this image you evoked-‘the abstract notion of night’. In a way much of the world disappears at night ; deconstructs. Things we know to be there are no longer visible. I think this touches on an idea in my work about disintegration. Disintegration, change of state, sublimation; the moment when one thing changes state. Day becomes twilight ,becomes night. Perhaps my paintings evoke this sublimation of the physical world. Take any moment and it will disintegrate fall apart, even structures which seem solid are in various states of erosion; entropy. In terms of palette it is interesting that in order to evoke light you need dark. It is this contrast that sets off a visual reaction. In my colour choice I want things to react off each other, to activate the colour. While referring to an easily "fruible" set of symbols as starting points, you seem to address us not only on a mere contingent view but especially to invites us to rethink about the way we relate ourselves to Reality in an absolute sense. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an
absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... In this question I will address the idea of our relationship to reality. My work questions reality, as there really are just so many questions about reality. Our world has become so visually oriented that a great deal of information comes to us in the form of pictures, and symbols. We are literally bombarded by images. It has reached a point where I think we are overloaded with visual information and this is having an effect on our perception of reality.
Angela McFall
LandEscape 13 Art Review
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Angela McFall
Angela McFall
LandEscape 42 Art Review
We are taking everything at face value, a very superficial level, and few are looking beyond, or
deeper. We are stuck on the level of sensationalism, and shock. In this state many
LandEscape 14
Angela McFall
Art Review
things, which are untrue, are accepted as true, or real. Real, what is that anymore? I explore
this in my mixed media series. The painting below is a real man, a passerby, looking at a
Angela McFall
LandEscape 42 Art Review
painting, which I placed in the street. Your works seem to be pervaded by a subtle narrative, although you seem toreject a direct explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer an Ariadne's
Thread that allows to find personal interpretations to the subject you question. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative This is a very interesting question. I love stories
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Angela McFall
Angela McFall
LandEscape 42 Art Review
and I believe a narrative can be present while leaving the viewer to construct their own version of the story. It doesn’t need to be linear. In life I no longer believe that this leads to that, there are far greater forces at work than the control we attempt to exert over things. I personally don’t like being directed, I don’t like things, which are closed, fenced in. In stories, and films I like being left the space to imagine, I think that is what we do naturally. We construct our own interpretations, we all perceive differently. I would say that while painting I have very abstract stories in my head. Somehow these stories are expressed in the paint. Stories which are present, but loosely defined, in order to leave space for interpretation. I once had an exhibition in Zurich and one painting evoked a beach in winter. I was in a discussion with 5 people from all over the world. Everyone claimed to know the beach, yet for each person it was a different beach, in a different country. This would be an example of what I refer to in my work as ‘archetypal places’. The beach in winter, the woods at twilight, rainy evening in the city in late autumn just before winter. These are places we many know, or have experienced. These places stir something deep inside usbecause it is perhaps the ‘us’ that exists far beyond the boundary of our own skin in the present. This touches on some Jungian ideas on the collective unconscious. Back to the original question of narrative perhaps my work gives a setting for some unspoken narrative to take place. I create the scene and the viewers bring their stories. When I look at your pieces, I feel like I am getting drawn into a complex world, and a relevant feature of your approach that has particularly impacted on me is the way you highlight the our perceptual process in realtion to the environment we inhabit: in
your Places series you seem invite the viewer to appreciate the intrinsic but sometimes disregarded beauty of ambiguous envirnomental patterns, offering a multilayered experience that, like Wolfgang Tillmans's works, raises a question on the role of the viewers' perception, forcing us to going beyond the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... I'm personally convinced that some information 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 love this question as it really gets to the core of my work, the perception of place versus the physical place. I have travelled so far and seen so much, and traces of all these places remain in my mind like a strange collage. I think this sense of ‘mind’ is a place in itself. It is an abstract place, we are constructing in our mind, it is like an emotional map. The memory of a place is no longer the physical place like a concrete fact but a place reconstructed and overlaid with our emotional state. Like the grain of sand and pearl, the mind transforms the place, and I believe the painting is the perfect space to express this duality. In reading an article by Jordan Wolfson I was amazed to find the most articulate definition of the painted space that I have ever read. ‘…may help lead us to the unique contribution and gateway that painting provides. Painting offers two contradictory experiences. On the one hand, a painting is a flat two-dimensional object, with its surface texture and color shapes. On the other hand, a painting offers the possibility of a three-dimensional experience,
LandEscape 14
Angela McFall
Art Review
the illusion of moving into space and discovering form. Stability and instability. Fact and imagination. Actual and fictive. It is this twin role, and its simultaneity, that gives painting such power. Real and unreal. Real and more real. Painting, through the coexistence of two seemingly opposite experiences, interwoven into an actual unity, may provide the receptive adult the possibility of moving from an experience of fragmentation into an experience of wholeness and integration, not only within oneself but with the world at at large. Boundaries between me and other, between inside and outside, prove to be not quite as firm as previously thought. This occurs not only because our minds are teased into nondiscursive awareness by the shimmering interchange between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional experience…’ http://paintingperceptions.com/artpolitics/how-painting-can-help-save-the-worldactually When admiring Cubification that I have to admit is one of my favourite pieces of yours, I daresay that your approach take the our perception with bathed breath, lingering about the dichotomy between the real world and a dream-like dimansion: such symbiosys takes an intense participatory line with the viewer. But at the same time, you remove any historical gaze from the subject, urging us to take us in such an atemporal dimension, that seems to invite us to question the consequences of contemporary age on a sociopolitic aspect... In particular, I would like you to elaborate for our readers the interesting concept of CUBIFICATION that you have in order to highlight the standardization of everything in our society.
Yes, Cubification is a pressure I have been feeling recently. It is a word I came up with a few months ago to describe the sense that we are being forced into smaller and more controllable spaces (or lack of spaces). We used to live in neighborhoods, now we live in zones. Public transportation feels more like some subtle criminal activity as time based tickets force us to be more and more stressed about time frames. It just seems that humanity is under attack, and we are being forced into a dystopian vision of the future. We are already living in the strange reality that Fritz Lang imagined in the film ‘Metropolis’, in 1927. ‘CUBIFICATION is a word I made up to describe the contemporary experience. Cubification is the standardization of everything. Fittng into smaller and smaller spaces, organic spaces are becoming cubified. The seats on the train are smaller therefore you must be smaller. Each year the lines in the parking lots are redrawn smaller, your car should be smaller, in fact you shouldn’t have a car you should have a bike. Should and more should. Freedom is being filled with should and more should, and more people are telling you what you should do, wear, eat, and there is less and less space for freedom. Less freedom and less time, time is being cubified dissected into smaller and smaller particles- Zeptoseconds- smaller and smaller divisions of time so you can get angrier and angrier at the person in front of you who has taken one zeptosecond too long to buy their ticket to get on the train which is now even smaller.’ In a certain sense, your vision about the intimate struggle between our inner dimension and the outside world that often leads you to a process of a deep recontextualizion the of the idea of the environment itself... the works of many artists as Michael Light and Edward Burtynsky often reveals some form of environmental or even political message in
Angela McFall
LandEscape 42 Art Review
their works. Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? 8. Art has many roles, many functions. As I’ve stated in many of my earlier responses I
personally love art that makes me feel something, that transports me, that shows me something in a different way. If my work has a political element it is quite simply to create a space for a human experience, an emotional experience. It seems strange to need to state
LandEscape 14
Nara Walker
Art Review
that, but as I explained in the idea of cubification, we need to fight for the space to be human. Our technology at the moment is awe inspiring, and we are on the threshold of some epic shifts both socially and biologically. Our technology has entered so many parts of our lives, and it has improved our handling of information, data, communications etc, but personally, I still want to see art made by humans. I walk into a lot of galleries these days, and the work I see just leaves me cold. Shiny sculptures churned out in a factory in China, signed by the artists. Where is the art in that? In the design? In the signature? The foundations of conceptual art where in questioning the art object, in questioning artistic practice. So when the ‘art’ object’s goal is purely sell-ability and commodification, where is the concept? If the concept is marketing strategy then that is business practice, not art. There is just so much of that type of slick, vacuous work around at the moment. There is no human investment, no risk, no emotion. I see clever ideas, market-able, and consumability, but I see very little art. So if there is a politic in my work it is simply to create a space for human experiences. During your over twenty years career your works have been extensively exhibited in several occasions around the world, including a recent show at the Galerie Böhner. So, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?
I think about where the works will be viewed, but I don’t think reaction to my work is something I can anticipate. I love watching people interact with my work, they either get it or don’t, and I think my work requires a certain level of engagement and the people who get it really get it. I think my work also open up some emotional channels that may be too much for some people. Many years ago I had done a series of paintings about telephone poles. In Canada I found them very interesting, these giant wooden poles crisscrossing the city, carrying everyone’s conversations, full of words. During an exhibition a woman took the painting off the wall and was already heading out to the street with it. She said she could hear what it was saying. I think when I paint there is so much happening on many different levels that a lot of emotions are woven into the painting, and then what people will take from them I can’t control, but I do feel they communicate a great deal with the viewer. Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Angela. Finally, I would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of? It has been a pleasure to respond to your very interesting questions and yes I am very excited about an upcoming project in one of the oldest cities in the world. I have been selected for a painting project in Mtskheta , Georgia in the spring. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and I will get to spend a week painting in the streets of a city with a 2600 year history. I will continue my series of work called ‘Monument’ which explores landmarks in the city through drawing and painting.
LandEscape 40 Art Review
A Land With Flowers and Crying Plants,102cm/76cm,2013
LandEscape 5 Art Review
Laura Iosifescu Lives and works in Basel, Switzerland
An artist's statement
S
ecret Garden Series are performing paintings created from oil paint and acrylics on linen. My paintings strive to challenge the boundaries set by conventional painting and the art world. With multi-coloured abstract structures and forms that jet out into space my style very much plays with the ambiguity between painting and sculpture, flatness and three-dimensionality. To me working in three dimensional feels like is an extension of myself, a discovery of my potential and a new way of thinking. I use impasto to give weight to my colours, movement to my organic plants, and emotion to my landscapes. In my painting, paint acquires different powers; it becomes alive through natural forms. It
will take years to dry with the intention to compliment what my work stands for and that is to create a living alien nature made out of paint. The idea that my painting transforms in time is memorising. My paintings are performing paintings as its interacting with our environment through its dimensions. In spite of how representational this artwork may seem it breaks conventional way of painting through its unique and laborious executions of painting. In order to create unique marks and textures I use unconventional tools to paint and my own designed painting machines to place the paint on the surface.
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape meets
Laura Iosifescu An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator with the collaboration of Katherine Williams landescape@europe.com
Laura Iosifescu's paintings reject the tradition of mere decor and establish a permanent interplay between inscrutability and beauty: her performative approach conveys memories in a multilayered and colorful combination that invites the viewers to a lively experience. While dispensing with the theoretical precepts of minimalism, her works keep independence from the context they explore, so the colorful performative paintings that we'll discuss int he following pages can be viewed as an aesthetic testing ground for the autonomy of painting and its historicity. I'm particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Laura, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a Fine Art BA Honours, that you received from the prestigious University of East London: how has this experience influenced your evolution as an artists and how does it impact on the way you
currently conceive and produce your works?
Hello to you and to all of your readers! Before I have studied at the UEL I did other 4 years of fine art in my high school on traditional painting. So really my main background was in traditional art .It did helped me because only by knowing the rules you can break them so that few years later when I got to study at the UEL was the time when my practice truly blossomed. For the first time there were no rules and I could do anything I wanted or imagine; from being so restricted to being allowed to push my imagination further as I could. To me it was so incredible to feel the freedom that I had which more and more has transformed into an obsession. I have developed strong desires to challenge concepts and ideas that I knew. I will always be grateful for the opportunity that UEL has given me and for their support. Juerg Luedi
LandEscape 8 Art Review
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Laura Iosifescu
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Their encouragement was new to me and it helped me tremendously to develop and become the artist I am today. 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? I think it's important to remark that you unconventional tools to paint, and In particular, I would like to know something about your own designed painting machines that support the laborious executions of your works.
LandEscape 10
Laura Iosifescu
Art Review
I use different unconventional tools because I want to create unique textures, forms and a particular style. I respect the conventional way of using brushes but I
tend to keep myself away from that. It is a new era and a new kind of paintings should be created. I love tools with personality. They almost have a mind of their own. When you are using a brush you are mainly in control of most of the things
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 13 Art Review
but personal I don’t like that idea. I play around with notions about tools that are being possessed by spirits, angels or Gods .I like to think that in my work I communicate with Divine powers and that those tools has got the power to
manipulate the paint that I am using and not me.My machines are fundamental element but are always hidden from other people. I like to keep them secret. My machines are like secret ingredients in my works of art. They are part of an obsession.
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Laura Iosifescu
Art Review
This obsession emanates from the need to use mechanical tools to create the landscapes of "society", to commune with cities and the metropolis that constantly shift and reshape the natural environment. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from the Secret Garden, an extremely stimulating series of performing paintings that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit directly http://www.laura-iosifescu-art.com/ in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?
I love that you said performing paintings because it’s exactly what I am trying to create. “Secrets Gardens” are magical gardens and that is because my plants have the power to become alive when in contact with other people. These plants are very unusual as they are created from oil paint and they are still living. The reason that I use so much oil paint is to keep them raw, fresh and alive inside. I called this series of work, Secret Gardens, because they are hiding astonishing secrets in their textures, colours and forms. What type of secrets? I can only say that they represent sadness, pain, but also life and love. Secret Garden isn’t only a representation of a
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Laura Iosifescu
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
beautiful botanical vegetation but it has the force to control not only it`s dimension but to control our reality of the world. I create paintings with personality, with a voice and a purpose. The way your multidisciplinary approach connects Painting with Sculpture establishes an area of intellectual interplay with the viewers, that are urged to evolve from the condition of a merely passive audience. In particular, your process of semantic restructuration of a view has reminded me of the ideas behind Thomas Demand's works, when he stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". While conceiving Art, even in the case of Photography, could be considered an abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you explore. So I would take this occasion 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?
I believe a great artist is extremely courageous in their process of creativity. I say this because as human race in our life we get to acquire tones of baggage’s of experiences and it take a lot of courage to face those demons of your past when you are creating. And plus to that what longer
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Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
The Beautiful Chaos That I Need, oil paint on canvas, 100cm/120cm, 2011.
was your secret is no more yours but the
purity of your soul. The soul will follow you
world`s. You cannot escape as the creative
no matter what path you have decided to
process cannot truly exist without the
take. Beyond doubt the instrument of
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Laura Iosifescu
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
creation is not the brush or my machines but it’s my soul and its life inside. The soul nourishes the art and the art nourish the soul. Art cannot exist without the blessings of the life.
The nuance of intense tones that I have admired in your pieces, and in particular in Another Face of My Fears and A Land With Flowers and Crying Plants has suggested me such a tactile sensation: any comments on your choice of
LandEscape 14
Laura Iosifescu
Art Review
"palette" and how it has changed over time?
I dont see my „palette“ has changed over time.Since from the first year of university all I wanted was to explore .I have been always in love of paint and in these
artworks you will only see a face of what I can do with paint.The idea was to transform the paint into something real,alive through natural forms.So I have started pushing and manipulating oil paint and acrylis to almost the extreems.I have
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
continue incorporating my past styles and forms in my new works too just to keep a natural flow but in different contexts and concepts. You will see that in my latest work of art ,the wearable landscape: “Blossom Escape“ Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is the Inside of my mind series. The multilayered experience conveyed by the paintings is capable of bringing a new level of significance, to the usual idea behind the concept of landscape: and I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense it invites the viewers to challenge the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, 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?
Our inner nature? I think this notion has to do more with our biological and spiritual state. I believe an artist role is to try to make sense of everything about this world as if he doesn’t, how is the world supposed to know what to do? I believe this gives a purpose to our human kind existence. And a purpose makes us want to reinvent the future.
I dare say that your works can be also considered allegories of the conflictual relation between Time and Memory: your paintings seems to be pervaded with an inner narrative, but you reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer an Ariadne's Thread that allows to find personal interpretations to the stories you tell through your colorful plasticity. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
All of my paintings have a story behind it. Every texture and each drop of color used is a word written on the canvas. Inevitably my work is an integral aspect of my personality and experience. In fact, these paintings are the poetry of my life. When you see texture in my work you must imagine there must be a story behind it. Psychologically you don’t accumulate layers of paint and excessively play with it for no reason. Coming from a background of fear with violence and poverty my paintings symbolize freedom of expression. The more texture you see the lauder is the sounds of my scream. I like the way your exploration of the semantic potential of the media leads you to play with the ambiguity between Visual and Plasticity: the hallmark of your approach seems to be an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between several disciplines, that in a certain sense augment the expressive potential of painting: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that sometimes a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to
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Laura Iosifescu
Art Review
Natural Flow, 2013, Acrylic painting on canvas
achieve some results, to express some concepts?
your work takes a turn that made you lose control was probably natural to happen.
Yes of course. Being a great artist is to be able to be open to whatever work takes you even if sometimes you don’t like it at first. Your creative mind is a natural talent and knows you better then you know yourself so you must trust that if
For example one of the directions that my work took is into fashion. Initially I didn’t like the idea as I thought fashion is only ornamental in compare with fine art which is representing the conceptual values of
Laura Iosifescu
LandEscape 42 Art Review
life. But then in time by learning more about myself I understood that these two combined made sense and no value was lost and not only but a new concept was born. Now I have created an art that you can physically embrace and wear not just looking at it. During these years you have exhibited your creations in several occasions and you have been recently Shortlisted for the Shoosmiths Art Prize 2014. So, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?
What I create is my way to communicate with the audience. I use so much texture to make my voice louder than other artists. I want it more and I am not afraid to risk. I need the audience as much as I need to create, as both work and people feeds on each other energies. A hidden painting will not have the same vibrancy as it would have if displayed it to the public. When I have exhibitions I genuinely see my artworks blossoming in front of my eyes. It’s only than when it’s truly alive. I feel blessed to witness the transformation of my works of art when they are around other people.
Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Laura. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?
If there was one word to describe my work I would say “ambitious”. So everything that I am working on right now will be representing another stage of my potential. Furthermore I am working towards my first ever solo show and its going to be grand. You can only imagine that I am determined to make it the most striking event of the year . Also I have started working on a collection of wearable art and shoes which by the way are in a very high demand. You can only expect the unexpected and I would love to ask my audience to keep visiting my website and my upcoming shows. Regarding how do I see my work evolving into ,I would say ,performance painting ,fashion shows and directing movies but then again that’s is going to be very far away nevertheless you never know what might happen.
LandEscape 40 Art Review
Parody Past and Future, 18”x14” Acrylic mixed media and collage on Rives BFK, 2015
LandEscape 5 Art Review
James Halvorson Lives and works in Portland, OR
J
ames Halvorson b. 1974 was raised on the High Plains of the Western Dakotas, he received his BFA in Painting in 1998. Halvorson cofounded the independent annual student art exhibition that runs concurrently with the Wilbur Stillwell Juried Student Exhibition, the following year he received the Art Department's Senior Scholarship. His mixed media work integrates disparate cultural residue for an investigation of humanity's acts, and its remnants as their effects persist. His creative process builds upon openings uncovered by interdisciplinary methods. In this spirit, he uses the principles of simultaneity and paradox as a frame of reference for conversations about context and the impact of those elements in bringing meaning to bear in a work of art. His themes are informed by study and his methods include improvisational compositions and language building derived through chance and necessity. These are meditations on the nature of representation and synthesis of associations that belong to an image. Process invention, liminal states of meaning, narrative as an outgrowth of the interplay of meanings. By combining various images and using elements of language, I am asking these forms to serve purposes other than their source meanings. Let them make new arrangements by chance and necessity. These works are on a Rives BFK hand torn paper and Arches paper. The collage incorporates digital
images printed on abaca semi opaque hemp paper, vintage book jackets, vintage dictionary pages, and original photography. Mixed media is a fusion of charcoal, graphite, compressed watercolor, acrylic, conte, and oil pastel. The layering of images melds identifiable forms and allows transfer of cultural legacy and historical significance between images. I am interested in levels of meaning that can be conveyed simultaneously or exchanges of identity between signifiers be they basic shapes, repurposed glyphs, house hold objects, or diagrams from an encyclopedia. I intend to allow my subjects to converge, to bring about moment specific meaning, stories generated that remain open ended for the beholder to complete. Our web of knowledge, which are the certainties formed by our personal histories, are received by these works. I intermingle form, text, and object to examine how we have identified truth of meaning and certainty of ideas. These works have specific meanings to me, yet I refuse to presume that my interpretation should guide the outcome for anyone who would consider them. James alternates between studio and social practice projects, sourcing through studies in history, economics, ecology, and philosophy. He enjoys bringing a research based approach to these disciplines. His studio practice is located at Artist’s Milepost Studios in Portland, OR.
James Halvorson
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LandEscape meets
Art Review
James Halvorson An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
Through a coherent combination of abstraction, text and reference to contemporary age, James Halvorson's work questions about personal values and the relationship between the individual and the changing reality we inhabit: his gaze on contemporariness doesn't simply deliver us a mere report but also offers a personal view on what's behind our the experiences mediated by our perceptual process. The way his figures are a personification of the human condition, allows Halvorson to create a subtle area of interplay that urges the viewer to unveil the messages that hare hidden behind the world we perceive, discovering unsuspected but ubiquitous connections. I'm particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his artistic production. Hello James and welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview, with some questions about your background: you have a solid formal education and after your undergraduated studis in Painting at the South Dakota University, you earned your master's degree in accounting at the University of Montana. Would you like to tell our readers how did these different experiences influence your development as an artist and how do they impact on the way you currently conceive your works?
Hello and thanks, it’s a pleasure to be talking
with you in LandEscape. In retrospect the lasting influence of studying at the school of business was insight into organizational behavior, working in teams, and experiencing work out side my comfort zone. It certainly provided an outlet for my tendency to organize. As an undergraduate in the painting studio, I was content to stay within the vacuum of art creation and theory. The generation of painters in my school were taught mainly by professors that anchored art's return to objects, and it's flirtations with commodity, with their roots in formalist artistic training. Discussion of subject matter was not invited. Finding a personal mythology was focus of our program, though the specifics of what we found were not a topic of discussion. As a young painter my work was inward looking. Switching fields of study opened up the chance to approach any topic or activity from a more structured point of view. Getting out side of art production lead to finding a way of comfortably bringing subject matter into my work and introducing topics in subtle, less literal ways. Experiencing business practices through the lens of an art student has provided a way into research based or project based art, and sparked an interest in relational aesthetics. I would suggest to visit https://visualprogressions.wordpress.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production that we are going to discuss in these pages: I would begin from Post Political, that our readers has already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When I first happened Juerg Luedi
James Halvorson pauses for a studio break, Portland OR, 2015
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James Halvorson
Art Review
Aegis and Tabula Rasa (Detail) Installation (Desk jet print on semi opaque abaca hemp paper), 2013
to get to know with this project I tried to relate all the visual information to a single meaning. But I soon realized that I had to fit into the visual unity suggested by the conceptual narrative that pervades this project, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... detail from myFunerals, Performance
Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?
It's an intuitive process in that the idea had been incubating throughout conception of the installation piece Aegis and Tabula Rasa which was intended to be participatory. The process of hanging that installation provided insight into how the idea of confronting our
James Halvorson
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Aegis and Tabula Rasa (Detail) Installation (Acrylic paint, plynth, charcoal, plaster cast, primed cavas), 2013
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James Halvorson
Art Review
intentions, or let's say the awareness of our true intentions in a given endeavor could take form in other more or less participatory works that each became small environments. This lead to an exhibition of installations that were held together under the umbrella of Post Political. These participatory pieces gave opportunities for destructive or constructive behavior. Confrontation of the self was a key idea that evolved as the work was installed. The altered book, Strike Anywhere was partially burned and a strike anywhere match provided along with a wrench. It might very well be easier to start the book on fire that it would be to unbolt and read it. Destroying My Ideologies provided fireworks at the base of the mural, in the arte povera inspired collection of debris below the mural’s wishing well. Aegis and Tabula Rasa gives the participant both a quiet self reflective and private environment in which to contribute to a blank canvas anything they wish to write. The sense of autonomy within the constructed environment was counterpointed by an unsettling feeling as the way is made behind the white corridors of draped paper, surrounded by the otherness of these letters to write on the canvas. The words Aegis and Tabula Rasa printed in Greek on the curtains, the definitions of each given below in English. I wanted to tease participants into noticing that the wrong choice is easy to make. I think extending this vision out to more works allows the idea at issue to be approachable from hopefully a more diverse collection of personal experiences. That project has lead to carnivalesque themes that defer to playful rebellion rather than revolutionary protest. I like the way your offer a rigorous but at the same time lively visual translation of immaterial and physical sights that pervade our reality: in this sense, your approach intrinsically connected to the chance of
Curios, 20� x 14� Acrylic mixed media and collage on Rives BFK, 2015
creating an area of intense interplay with the viewers, that are invited to evolve from the condition of a passive audience. In particular, your refined investigation about constructed realities has reminded me of the ideas behind Thomas Demand's works: while conceiving Art could be considered a purely abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes
James Halvorson
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A Circus, A Written Law, 5” x 5 1/4” Mixed media, watercolor, and typewriting on found paper, 2012
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James Halvorson
Art Review
beyond the ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion 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?
Liveliness diffuses any potential activist tone and hopefully invites participation. In my work personal experience is definitely indispensible to the creative output. The art I produce is a reflection of either a personal musing or direct statement I would like to make. The theme of undoing certainties in my work probably comes from my efforts to avoid literalness. Though this is a skeptical strategy of representation, it is in service to removing any undue influence my interperetation of these works would have on another viewer. To the extent that I would want to just be another viewer of the work I'm making, I suppose direct experience could be separated from my creative process. Though, this is pure conjecture since I cannot really be another person. This raises some interesting questions about the direct experience of the viewer. I think even in the works of conceptual artists from the late 1960's to the early 1970's there are traces of the artists' personal experiences in the pure ideas they produced. I would say that the viewer making a sincere effort to engage such works has a substantive experience in grasping art of this nature simply for the lack of any art material. In terms of theory the act of making art, for me, tends to be a process of choosing to what extent I am intentionally leaving my personal experiences in play. I'm inclined to think that absolutes are useful as a tools, but not the best choice as an end in itself. A couple of interesting pieces that have particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words are
Heretic Song, 9� x 5 1/2� Mixed media collage on book cover, 2014
"Dustbowl Orchard" and "Long Harvest". The multilayered experience suggested by these works is capable of bringing a new level of significance to the usual concept of landscape: from a pictorial viewpoint, they force the viewer into taking a position from different angles, questioning our perception from a perspective aspect. On the other hand, when referring to the relationships
James Halvorson
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Dustbowl Orchard, 30� x 22� Acrylic mixed media on Arches, 2007
formed with the land by the farming communities, they show clear reminders to economic and political tension in contemporary society... many contemporary artists as Edward Burtynsky, Andrea Bowers and Judy Baca use to convey socio political messages in their landscapes: I'm sort of convinced that nowadays Art can play an effective role in questioning such questions,
not only by providing an artist of a platform for his own expression, but also sttering people's behaviour... do you think it's exaggerated? Moreover, what could be the role of an artist in contemporary society?
Growing up in a small farming community, experiencing the necessity of industrial
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James Halvorson
Art Review
Reinforcement and Interference, 4 1/4” x 5 1/2” Acrylic mixed media collage with letter press on handmade paper, 2012
agriculture to sustain an ethic tied to harmony and interdependence with the land has informed my sense of ethics. I think of artists as accidental journalists of their age. I believe that intentional socio – political statements are indeed useful to the practice of art and in retaining necessity in our specific and global cultures. I'm thinking of
Guernica or The Death of Marat. I find that in making a statement, one can easily diminish its effectiveness by appearing to only take a stand. That is where I see the line between agit – prop and fine art emerging. Both have their place and their autonomy, yet I would not want to mistake one for the other. I find it a worthy challenge to artfully address urgent geo-
James Halvorson
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Meanderings Chapter II, 4 1/4� x 5 1/2� Acrylic mixed media collage with letter press on handmade paper, 2012
political or environmental issues while maintaining the intellectual integrity that makes the statement credible. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to see art make a convincing statement, articulating a point of view that motivates constructive change. With the immediacy of contemporary media, I see in audiences a well justified need for our
information to be verified. To add a voice that constructively moves a dialogue forward, it is important to be aware of one's own biases. Immediacy can let them creep in, unbeknownst to author or audience. Though being allusive in art helps me to filter my biases, at some point it's necessary to set aside overly self conscious concerns and just speak. These pieces are
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James Halvorson
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inspired by the resulting barren landscape and the reclamation of the tools used to take our relationship with the land out of balance. It is a document of the legacy left by that era to my life time, fifty to seventy years beyond the harsh years of the 1930's. I grew up amid the rusting machinery of that era and have seen how the lessons of those years are lost on our generation and those who follow. Your landscapes encapsulate a freedom of form with abstract features that reminds an oniric dimension and what mostly matters, they do not play as a mere background. Do you conceive these composition on an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?
I approach this in an instinctive way, it is a process that has stayed with me because it has become a way to retain the playful, energetic spirit of experimentation in early 20th century European art. Though, these abstract features are grounded in contemporary conversations. I have recently been deliberately stepping away from a predetermined plan at the outset of a series. As the works progress, I tend to find a balance as the individual pieces play off one another. I have tropes of images that choose to work with, say the circus, or a carnival fairway before opening day, a nonsensical mantra, or the rusting farm machinery of my childhood. I approach these as though they are abstract elements. Proceeding like this allows me to see how these images could integrate and recontextualize. I enjoy synethesis, this is an opportunity to bring dream-like qualities into the work, using the paint and drawing media to reintegrate the objects depicted. This usually takes me to language, gestural paint strokes, and active lines in graphite or charcoal. This produces subjects that tend to be philosophically concerned with the nature of
Primitive Mechanics, “7 ½ x 5â€? Mixed media on vintage found paper, 2014
being and constructing meaning. The nuance of light colors that I have admired in "Long Harvest" and the reference to basic geometric patterns have suggested me a sense of dramatic luminosity, that seems to flow out of the canvas and which communicates such a tactile sensation: any
James Halvorson
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Long Harvest, 30� x 22� Acrylic mixed media on Arches, 2007
comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?
Early on I was taken with active, expressionist color when working in oil. I switched to drawing media to work on moderating my palette. Over time I have established a more measured approach to color. It begins with conte and
graphite, yellow ochre and earth tones, and then I add in color with acrylic. The drawing media contributes to the atmospheric feel in the landscapes. Energetic color always finds a way in, though. That yellow was the finishing act in Long Harvest. For me, it evokes the rising harvest moon. The geometry is lifted from the pattern of harvested fields of
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James Halvorson
Art Review
Destroying My Ideologies (Detail), 6' x 15' Installation (Oil on canvas and painted objects), 2013
James Halvorson
LandEscape 42 Art Review
rotation crops, formally it provides an opportunity to stay loose and gestural. It helps bring some tension to the theme in the work. You often draw inspiration from reality: although marked out with abstract references, in your works the scene is real and it seems that one of your goals is to represent what’s really there, translating it through a painterly approach: Philippe Dagen once established in his Le Silence des peintres, the coming of a straight realism has caused a progressive retenchment of painting from the role of representing reality. With exception of Hyperrealism movement, Painting is nowadays more and more marked out with a symbolic feature. Do you think that the dichotomy between Representation and Painting is by now irremediable? Moreover, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
I think that in general, art is dealing with what we know about the images we create, both their allusive and physical properties. What we know is fairly open ended due to the subjective nature of our memories. Now that information exchange is the cornerstone of a greater part of the world economy and our individual self awareness, for better or worse we are intrigued with what is beyond our physicality. When we consider realism, the current scientific consensus on the behavior of sub atomic occurences allows room for second guessing about how to represent what is real. It is curious that research through objects we have invented has revealed logically inconsistent yet verified probability patterns in the building blocks of material existence. We can't experience this, we can only know this and remember it to the best of our ability. We have discovered this through technology that has gone beyond or physical abilities. Often I imagine the abstract forms derived from
objects and text behaving as sub-atomic particles would. Having dual identities or simultaneously occupying more than one space. Though, tranferences in my work are more in the nature of the symbolic, linguistic, and ethereal. My preoccupation with text can refer to the landscape of what we know. The work, I think, is more about psychology than it is about material. Though it is always about the subject, that is the linkage to the researched aspect of the subjects, it's a way to interweave them coneptually. A setting is necessary in my subject matter. I often go to a horizon line or use planes that apply a connection or intersection with horizon. I enjoy using dual horizons in larger paintings. Working in the studio, the active making process is when I construct narrative. I usually have an intention or topic, but the narrative evolves as I make the art. I think the dichotomy between representation and painting is a rich well to drink from. It might be irremediable, I'm not sure, but it is an exercise that propels me onward. In your investigation about the liminal space between representation and abstraction, the references to a universal imagery suggested by natural elements are quite recurrent and seem to remove the 'sense bias' that exists in Western society, sometimes removing the historic gaze from the reality you refer to. This invites the viewers the chance to perceive in a more atemporal form. In this sense, I daresay that the semantic juxtaposition between sign and matter that marks out your art, allows you to go beyond any dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness, establishing a stimulating osmosis between materials from an absolute dimension and a personal, lively approach to Art... By the way, do you think that there's such an irremediable fracture between Tradition and Contemporariness?
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James Halvorson
Art Review
Monument to everything, 4' x 2.5' Installation (Painted books, window, silver gel print), 2013
Post Political, 17 ½” x 7” Acrylic on panel, collage, 2013
Yes, I think there is a predominantly non-retinal element in these works. For now I have been using somewhat dated media artifacts applied
James Halvorson
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Using the absolute as a sort of web to relate the interpersonal is a more tangible certainty than a specific continuity throughout history. Perhaps indivdually we can find a unique sort of historical continuity that serves useful in the moment. However, it just might be that breaks from tradition allow an art of its era to be the most realized. I think it's important to mention that in 2008, you established an indy art gallery that soon pooled resources with young creative leaders to incorporate a nonprofit arts center in Missoula, MT. I do believe that interdisciplinary collaboration is today 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... By the way, the artist Peter Tabor once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of several practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists?
Grafitti Oracle, 22� x 30� Acrylic mixed media on arches, 2007
with contemporary sensibilities. Because I am preoccupied for now with removing my interpretive thumbprint from the works, interpersonal histories are the pathways to convey an exchange between viewers, completing the meanings. These works require a viewer to actually be finished, I think. Maybe the art object is a document of the activity of a temporal endeavors. I fancy the idea of continuity, so I want to say that a fracture could be bridged since my work does experiment with how matter could exchange between signifiers.
Now I want to look up Peter Tabor. My collaborative efforts have mostly been in the capacity of organizational development, DIY gallery curator, and writing fundable programs to sustain non-profit gallery projects. The current project I am involved with here in North East Portland has provided occasions to work on group curated themes and peer evaluated group shows. I am looking forward to moving beyond organizing to collaborate on studio practice projects. I am a proponent of synthysis in my own work and in artistic communities. Synthesis between artists in varying disciplines produces healthy art. In March 2014, I was able to present work based on Leif Inge's 9 Beet Stretch, where Beethoven's 9th Symphony is extended out to 24 hours without tonal distortions. One count becomes 17 counts. The results have lead to a broader
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vocabulary of images and reinvigorated my interest in primitive imagery. I admit a nostalgia for the Cabaret Voltaire of 1916, The Lost Dog Cafe of the Russian Futurists, and the Black Mountain College. When possible, I collaborate with poets and appear in literary journals. These images are collaborative only to the extent that I can be exposed to an artistic community, working in an environment were I can exchange ideas with other artists is indispensable. During these years you works have been exhibited in several occasions, so, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?
I do take a certain amount of interest in setting up a potentially contradictory or antagonistic relationships by testing the sacredness of certain cultural forms. For example, placing arabesques from mosques near secular Hebrew texts. The intention is to rely on the associations to interplay and pollinate across cultures in a general way, and to reference a particular circumstance. I have adopted enzo circles and amphorae as objects to reference as formal points of departure or as a way to connote cultures or a moment of history. Other recent images have been the flag form and carnival stripes. I can see potentially all the objects I use in terms of pictographic language. So there are conditions set up in the picture plane that allow a shift from object to text. Audience reception is important to me. Currently most of my work is interpersonal and probably does not make a strong
culturally targeted statement. This question is inturiguing since it demonstrates the power of written languages, and the preeminence of certain languages over others. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, James. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
In the long term, the prospect of working on a collaborative studio project is appealing. I have been looking at the formal organization of Midrash texts which could be an inventive way to collaborate. Since I have video clips that are waiting to be edited, video and intermedia projects could be in my future. I have some new work in progress that have more substantive representations of figures and architecture. I have discovered Lawrence Jordan's work from the early 1960's and see his flims as an interesting point of departure in terms of melding media artifacts with current technology. After sending work to Bound Unbound III – Altered Book Exhibition, I am finishing a large canvas intended as an installation, where the surface imagery extends its objects into the gallery space.
An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
Recollections, 20� x 14� Acrylic mixed media and collage on Rives BFK, 2015
LandEscape 40 Art Review
Message in a bottle, 2014 Oil on linen, 70x90 cm
LandEscape 5 Art Review
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs Lives and works in Mechelen, Belgium
An artist's statement
M
y source of inspiration can be literally anything. A hint of a certain colour can be the start of a new idea. Wherever I am and
whatever I see or experience is included in my work. I paint in a rather instinctive way. Once in the painting mode, I become one with the work. I paint what I paint simply because I am driven to it. Fact is, that I use the most vibrant colours and the outcome seems to be uplifting. The realistic style gives the viewer the reassurance that our reality has a bright side. We don’t need make it up, it is around us. I just lead the viewer to it.
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Belgian fine art painter Vera L.P. Cauwenberghsis is mainly autodidact. She believes in independent thinking. Her work redirects the viewer towards a positive reality. It aims to reassure rather than to disturb. Humans are represented as a part of nature, rather than being above it. The colourful images subconsciously influence the viewer and create a sense of "joie de vivre". Read More... The artsist paints "alla prima", which enhances the spontaneity of her work. To maximize authenticity, she avoids projection or other artifice, and draws freehand. The technical quallity is guaranteed by using richly pigmented oil on handmade Flemish linen.
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LandEscape meets
Art Review
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs An interview by Josh Ryder, curator with the collaboration of Katherine C. Walker landescape@europe.com
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs' paintings reflect the tradition of decor as a permanent interplay between inscrutability and beauty: her instinctive approach conveys memories in a multilayered, colorful experience that invites the viewers to a joyful experience. While dispensing with the theoretical precepts of minimalism, her works keep independence from the context they explore, so the colorful paintings that we'll discuss int he following pages can be viewed as an aesthetic testing ground for the autonomy of painting and its historicity. I'm particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Vera, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you are mainly autodidact and you strongly believe in independent thinking: are there any particular experiences have influenced your evolution as an artists impacting on the way you currently conceive and produce your works?
As many artists I have been painting and drawing for as long as I can remember. I once went to the art academy in my home town. It seemed to me that the pace of teaching was
way to slow to keep me interested. The fact that it was a school with teachers and tests did not appeal te me. How can one put a right evaluation on a work of art? It just didn’t make sense to me. Of course, learning about techniques and art history would be very interesting, but the art academy didn’t see that as very important. I often hear that one should “learn” to understand art. For me, it has always been a very natural instinctive state of mind. I did read and learn everything about (visual) art, I could find. I still do. As for experiences… Though I felt like art was my only passion, I’ve been told that I shouldn’t get my hopes up… So I did what I was supposed to do for a long time. I got a regular job untill I reached a point where I just couldn’t ignore the longing inside anymore. Like a volcano it erupted and I started painting and never stopped since. 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?
As everything else, a painting starts as an idea, or sometimes as just a feeling. I’ts hard to describe. I might just see a certain colour and get an idea of how I can turn it into a painting. I can walk down the street and hear a Juerg Luedi
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
conversation of see a certain interaction and an idea pops up. This idea slowly starts growing and it can take a week , a month before I really know how to make it visual. Sometimes different ideas just linger in my mind and months later I know how to make an interesting painting out of them. I use lots and lots of pictures and make a composition that represents a certain reality. What I paint actually exists, or could exist. The material I use is oil paint and linnen. I know it’s not a revolutionary technique an sich, but the beauty lies in using this very old technique to create something very personal and unique. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Message in a bottle and International Yarn Bombing, an extremely stimulating couple of works that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit directly http://www.veracauwenberghs.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects? What was your initial inspiration?
“Message in a bottle” is a very dreamy work. It’s a challenge to get the right atmosphere in a work with a simple compostion. I wanted to give the viewer the impression he’s on that beach himself, reaching for the mysterious object at his feet. That’s why I painted the bottle right on the rim of the painting… “International Yarn Bombing” is a composition of yarn bombing pojects from around the world. Even the statue of Lenin has been yarnbombed with bright red gloves. The rebel in me jumped up by seeing all these rather funny forms of self expression. The nuance of brilliant colors that I have admired in your pieces, and in particular in detail from myFunerals, Performance
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 9 Art Review
International yarn bombing, 2013 Oil on linen, 100x150cm
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
Hot Air Balloons at Dawn, 2012 , Oil on linen, 80x100cm
Yarn bombed VW camper and Hot Air Balloons at Dawn has suggested me such a tactile sensation: any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?
I aim to keep the colours as pure as possible and it took me a lot of years to get to the point
where I am now. I paint “alla prima”. That means I don’t use layers of paint. Its challenging to keep the paint “clean” because of the contact of wet on wet paint. But it had the advantage of using the colour in its brightest possible way. Especially “Hot Air Balloons at Dawn” is a perfect example of the
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 13 Art Review
Yarnbombed VW van, 2014, Oil on linen, 100x120cm
way pure paint can create a sense of light. The illusion of a shining light on a painting is hard to obtain because paint only reflects light and doesn’t emit it. “Yarn bombed VW camper” was another
adventure! The structure of the wool and the knitting pattern needed to be visible in order to get the “yarn bombing” sensation. The technique of oil painting permits the painter to experiment. It took a lot of erasing and starting
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
Doily apple tree, 2015, Oil on linen, 80x90 cm
over to create the impression of real knitted and crocheted wool. Only by painting a lot, a painter learns the
possibilities of the material. My older paintings are rather dark and the type of colours I use has changed enormously. Your self confidence grows by extending your bounderies and I use
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Under a Bridge, 2015, Oil on linen, 80x100cm
the most vibrant colors that are for sale now. There’s no way I would have done that some year ago. I discover other possibilities with every painting I make. What has particularly impressed me of your approach is the way, by heightening the
tension between reality and perception of it, your work explores the concept of emerging language and direct experience, so I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process...
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
Stormy weather, 2013, Oil on linen, 60x80cm
Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
Direct experience is an inevitable aspect of the creative process. The way an artist perceives the world around him, is always reflected in his work. If I didn’t notice the way the light falls on a cloud, how would I be able to paint it? Colours in itself have an inlfuence
on every human being, though they might not be aware of it. A painter can grasp this influence and transfer it to the painting. In “Doily Apple Tree” the bright blue sky contrasts with the white crocheted doilies and the the green and red apples. An everyday doily turns a simple apple tree into a glorious sight. When walking under a bridge, no one notices the structure of the concrete or the
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 42 Art Review
works on a certain work, nothing else existst but that aspect. The work is a representation of that detail. Since we all have a different perspective, we interpret a image in an individual way. Indeed a revelation of former hidden dimensions can occur.
Sea Turtle, 2013, Oil on linen, 60x70cm
desing of the architecture, until it is adorned with murals or the most amazing graffiti. Suddenly a bridge is transormed into a place, worth noticing. The multilayered experience suggested by your paintings is capable of bringing a new level of significance, to the usual idea behind the concept of landscape: and I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense Storm invites the viewers to challenge the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, 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?
An artist, and especially a visual artists, focuses on a certain aspect of life. When a painter
Let’s imagine a person with a very vivid emotional life. This person can look at the painting “Storm” and see an expression of his own strong feelings in the image. The rainbow on one side, the pouring rain r and the sun shining on the orange mountainside on the other. You can experience contradiction (sun/rain) or hope etc… Another person will look at the same work and see the contrasting colours… Usually artists are quite sensitive. They can use this sensitivity to the advantage of every one else by showing sides of reality they can share with people who would otherwise perhabs miss out on them. There always seems to be a sense of narrative in your paintings and I have appreciated the way you convey the notion of instinct in your pieces, sometimes drawing inspiration from fiction as in Herbie. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
I am a visual person. I think in images and the stories emerge with the image. Herbie is fiction, but on the other hand, such a car really exists. While I was dressing Herbie up with yarn, he kinda became “alive” in my imagination and I was just letting my imagination go free. That is what often happens in my work. It grows and develops like a fun dream that makes you wake up laughing. I definitively love the way your colorful brushstrokes seems to extract a joyful vision of reality from the general the idea of the environment we live in. Many contemporary
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
The Park Hotel, 2015 Oil on linen, 80x120 cm
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 42 Art Review
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
Crocheted coral reef, 2014, Oil on linen, 60x80 cm
landscape artists as the photographer Edward Burtynsky or Michael Light have some form of environmental or political message in their photographs. Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach?
My approach is not neutral. The message is
definitely there, but it’s one that comes through in the way it makes the viewer feel. I do have a strong opinion on certain political aspects, but there are things that are universal and that surmount politics. My work is a reaction against a pretend- world where ego drives a lot of people. I strive to keep it straightforward. It doesn’t make it superficial, quite on the contrary. The passion shines
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Herbie incognito (Yarnbombed VW beetle), 2013, Oil on linen, 100x120cm
through the colors, shapes and it’s in every brushstroke. Though it may seem neutral, my work will have an effect on its viewer and I do hope it’s a positive one.
conversation, Vera. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?
Thanks a lot for this interesting
I am always getting to know new artists with
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Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
Art Review
Old staircase, 2015, Oil on linen, 70x90 cm
new ideas to learn from, in my own country as well as abroad. Every year I have at least one solo exhibition in Belgium and one or more group exhibitions abroad. For the moment there’s the exhibition “Landscape and Memory” in Cavan (Ireland) I am participating in and I am planning to join an exhibtion in Paris next year.
My work and network will grow, no doubt , with every opportunity. Since I am an intuitive person, I usually end up putting every experience in my work. The challenge of trying out something new is never far and I will keep pushing my bounderies.
Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs
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Fierse lion, yarn bombed
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Cate Lis Lives and works in London, United Kingdom
An artist's statement
I
always associate colors with everything. For me they convey a sense of feeeling for many things, countries, people, personalities, dress, sense, environments. I like bright, strong colors, playing with them I like flowing, meditative colors and shape.
Cate Lis
Cate Lis is a French self-taught artist who studied later at the London School of Communications.
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Art Review
Cate Lis An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
One of the most convincing feature of Cate Lis' work is the way her brush strokes convey an intense emotion capable of creating an area of experiential interplay that transports the viewer back to special memories. Her delicate paintings establish a symbiosis between Perception and Imagination in a lively and coherent unity that offer to get the spirit of hidden but ubiquitous meanings behind the world we perceive. I'm particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Cate, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, you started your career as a basically self-trained artist, and you later studied at the London Textile and Design Institute: so I would like to ask you how these different experiences have influenced on your evolution as an artists and how they impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your works.
I grew up in France in countryside then from the age of 15 in Paris, then I moved to London. In school we have mostly one hour a week creative class, later my teacher wanted me to study at the beaux art in Paris but I choose other subjects. I have been creative since an early age doing Juerg Luedi
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Cate Lis
Art Review
crafts, drawing in classroom notebook during boring lesson. I didn't have traditional art training. i studied later in london textile and surface design in LCC, UAL. Studying design i will say was good and bad for me in my creative way. i was always very 'free' in my creativity, then with design you have to look carefully at things, go throught process.It was hard at first for me to do so. After my 3 years study i wasn't able to paint for a while. Now i will say it make me more aware of the environment, more carefull at looking at surrounding. i try nowaday to incorporate in my work my spontaneity,feeling and integrate ideas from diverses sources. 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?
Most of the time before starting a new work i like things to be tidy if i am working in my studio. i will meditate for 5 minutes for having more focus on the creative flow. For my abstract work i often had music in the background and can of dance with the shape and the colors. For Flowers and impressions d'ailleurs some where made outside and i will got inspire by something start painting then finishing other time from imagination, moving with colors and shapes. I don't have a routine in my work i paint often i fee the urge, if i see or feel something, my only routine is to meditate few minutes before starting something. i use differents medi oil, acrylic and for outside work watercolors. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from your Flower series, an extremely stimulating project that our detail from myFunerals, Performance
readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit
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Captions, details
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directly http://catelis.wix.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects? What was your initial inspiration?
inspired by Georgia o'keiffe flowers too. Some of my flower have been painted from flowers i have seen somewhere or from imagination.
My Flower series started few years ago. i like flowers i found them fascinating, they have a sense of feminity, beauty. i found their different shapes, colours inspiring. i like their natural organic shapes, fluides lines. I felt also
What has particularly impressed me of your approach is the way, by heightening the tension between reality and a spontaneous perception of it, your work explores the concept of emerging language and direct
But i start from a model i alway finish from my imagination.
Cate Lis
LandEscape 13 Art Review
from the Impressions d'Ailleurs series
from the Impressions d'Ailleurs series
experience: this is clearly revealed in the pieces from Impressions d'Ailleurs.
that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
There's such a hidden feedback between the complex act of painting and the idea of sharing a feeling, that allows to an emotion to go beyond its intrinsic ephemeral nature, emerging from an a mere perceptual dimension. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think
In my opinion personal experience is an absolute indispensable part of a creative process. For me it depend of the project. For instance in my abstract project i am more guide by my instincts, by my 'dance with colours and shape' i try to forget the world around me and focus and the colours and shapes. i try to seek harmony, balance, spontaneity, fluidity in this series.
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Cate Lis
Cate Lis
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For impression d'ailleurs it is more my experience how i perceive the environment, my experiences, the sensation, the visual part of a place. i usually have a feeling of colours for places for instance for me Paris is grey, white, london black, dark green, red... I will say differents project is different but i suppose is connected to my direct experience how i perceive things somehow. The nuance of intense, strong colors are a hallmark of your brilliant style: I have admired the way the symbiosis of tones creates an intimate unity, establishing a vivid involvement with with the viewer. Moreover, I daresay that your pieces often suggest such a tactile sensation: any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?
I suppose are colors i am drawn to. My abstract and flowers series especially are strong, bright colours i felt drawn too. i have in divers just black line this series is more about shapes. But i have always been drawn to colors. For me colours are very important for liking a painting i have to like the colours. They can convey a different feeling to differents people. i like artists like Matisse, Gaugin.. who had a strong colours palette. I have highly appreciated the way you explore the blurry boundaries between Imagination and Experience, as in the pieces from your Abstract series: although marked with such abstract feature, there always seems to be a sense of narrative in your paintings and I have appreciated the way you convey the notion of instinct in your pieces. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
I think it depend of the work: in Flowers for example some of the shape can be view in different way it can represent nature,
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Cate Lis
Art Review
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humanity.. For impression d'ailleurs it is more about my experience, my feeling about somewhere. The capability of discerning the essential feature of a view and and the way you convey instinct and emotion, allow you to translate it into an accessible visual, that seems to be a key point of your works and
plays a crucial role in your process: you seem to reject mere decorative aspects, in order to focus to the inner nature of the stories you tell with your shots. How much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your images?
I think I like also people to interpret my work, feel it the way they want. i don't want people
Cate Lis
LandEscape 42 Art Review
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to have fix idea sometimes. i just express myself most of time with the colours and shapes, it is good also i thing that people that it what they want from it. I have appreciate what I would define an emotional investigative feature of the way
you explore emerging visual contexts: in particular the pieces from Divers, that I have to admit is one of my favourite project of yours, show an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between colors associations and arrangement of textures. Like many art forms, painting can
Cate Lis
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borrow elements to create new art: are in your opinion any limits to what can or should be used to create a patinting? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
Captions, details
Painting can borrow elements to create new art in my opinion it depend of the individual. it can be good to take reference from the past,
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somewhere, some influences. in my concern i like looking at differents sources but i always do my own. i develop a style quite early on. i think it should be no limits of what can or should be used to create a painting, because it create limitations.
create. i like to see the trend, the ideas of art world. i go to exhibition sometimes to see other people creativities, ideas, to be connected with what's happening, wht's the 'trend' but follow my own creativity, ideas mostly.
For me art is about expression not limitation. i don't follow constraints or rules when i
Positive feedbacks are not indespensable for keeping on with Art making, but it goes
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making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?
Once I was very sensitive to others people opinion, I was very shy to show my work, by fear to be criticized. But I have been encouraged to show it, share it by positive feedbacks. As i grow older other opinion is less important. When I create I don't really think about the consequences, how the work will be perceive. i follow the flow of creativity i try to be myself. of courses i am please when people like my work. Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Cate. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?
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without saying that they are capable of supporting an artist So, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience. In particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-
My futures projects. i started a project a while ago, 2 of my work are on divers. 2 women one asian type looking with tattoos. they are part of series that i will call butterflies people. it is about people i met or fictive, that have uncommon look or life. This series has more a narrative. it about people who dare to be different in their looks, lifestyle... I am also working more in nature, always inspire by her, her beauty, her calmness i am often paintings in park in london at the moment, nature, trees, plants, ...
Finn Godwin
D
Disclaimer: I have not always practiced my opinions. Everything I think may change by tomorrow.
1: Keeping Busy First and foremost I make art because I attain pleasure from doing so. People have chosen all kinds of things to do in order to keep themselves mentally and physically occupied, I have chosen to make art because it keeps me busy and it makes me happy. 2: Paper Paper has long been attributed importance by humans and given value above its material worth: money, tickets, official documents. Paper is a quintessential example of human technology and craft, it is something we are in constant contact with: books are mad of paper; you can smoke it and wipe your arse with it too. Paper is a medium that people expect to divine information from because we are used to reading books and words on paper, seeing art and images on paper. Most of my work exists on paper, including actions and threedimensional works photographed with the intention of printing them onto paper. If I want my work to provide visual information then making it on paper associates it with something people already expect to hold information, is familiar, considered important and intertwined with the history of humanity. I think there is something profoundly pleasurable about an unmarked sheet of paper- so the beginning of most of my processes to make art start with pleasure. 3: Two Dimensions The thing that is common between drawing, painting, printmaking and photography is that they are able to produce two-dimensional images. This characteristic distinguishes them from sculpture, music, dance, performance, theatre… The thing that my art can do that cannot by the other arts is to give form to two-dimensional space. I am very jealous of music because it seems to be easier to create a relationship in a profound way to its audience. It is somewhat more accessible and popular than art too- I listen to my favorite songs more often that I look at my favorite works of art, sometimes I even listen to music when making my work. By focusing on the two-dimensional nature of my art I am not working in competition with any form of the arts- this prevents me from doubting my medium too much and keeps me productive. 4: Rectangles Rectangles, like paper and two-dimensional space, are distinctly human, not really existing in the natural world. These three things come together to produce one of my favorite things in art and the wider world- the rectangular sheet of paper. A4, a golden rectangle defined mathematically by Fibonacci, is my favorite sized and dimensioned rectangle. Rectangles relate to books, sheets of paper, tables, walls… these are the supports I make or show my work on. Most of my work, in some way or another, is concerned with composing the formal elements within rectangles. 5: The Formal Elements
Shape, line, colour, texture and space. These are what I call the formal elements of my arts. They are the ingredients or tools I utilize when constructing my work- they are also the terms in which I comment on my art. 6: The Manual The making of the work is normally a time of little thought- I’m exercising hand and body rather than mind. It’s a record of time passing; often I emphasize the passage of time through repetitive acts when using certain techniques- sowing by hand or using a small brush to fill large fields of colour. In this sense the manual can act as a sort of meditation. The manual can affect the content and the concept, as it is the time when mistakes can be made, or when the manual or the medium exerts itself it can become the content or concept of the work. The manual side of my work gives me more pleasure than any other aspect of it. I would not like to make art if I was detached from its manual creation. 7: The Content The content of my work can come from anywhere- experiences or events and objects in the world, my observations of the formal elements or from thought. The thing that is common to all my content is that it has caught my attention for some reason or another. This selection happens somewhat bellow conscious thought and is hard to put into words. I select my content intuitively, not always knowing, (or to be honest, caring), why. If it feels like the right thing to use I use it- this makes things simple when conceiving work. I also feel that this methodology makes the work conceptually ‘light’ which can allow things to have a sense of humour or it makes them somewhat ambiguous- giving people the scope to attach their own personal meaning to the content. 8: The Concept Beauty. It’s an abstract term and completely subjective but I feel it when I see it- pure visual pleasure- the composition is well balanced, the colours complement or contrast in an aesthetically pleasing way, the content interests me. On a fundamental level the concept behind my work might be just to have something beautiful to look at. If I truly knew how to describe my concept using words I would be a writer and not a visual artist. Language is constructed from words, my art is constructed from the formal elements, my thoughts constructed in the brain. Because each is made of different things one cannot truly represent another. 9: The Audience I generally do not consider my audience when I conceive or produce my work- but I may do afterwards- dictating the context in which it is shown to other people. The audience for my work is other humans- I have not yet made art for plants, animals or non-living things. I make art that is mostly on two dimensional paper rectangles, constructed using the formal elements of art, with content derived from personal experience. Each of these characteristics is distinctly humanistic and therefore it is inevitable for a human to connect to my art on some level. In the end it’s great if an audience can form some kind of relationship with my art but it is not the driving force that makes me do it. I will carry on regardless of outside opinion.
LandEscape meets
Finn Godwin An interview by J. Ryder and C. Walker landescape@europe.com
Working in the tradition of Minimalism, Finn Godwin's work reacts to the standardized nature of materials, investigating about their expressive potential: devoting a particular attention to balance, order and geometry, the multilayered experience suggested by his works gives life to a concrete aesthetics that engages viewers, while connecting rational and emotional approaches. I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production. Hello Finn and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and have attanded the Gerrit Rietveld Academie: would you like to tell our readers how has this experience influenced your evolution as an artist and how does it impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your works?
Before going to the Rietveld I was studying Art in London with a big emphasis on craft; I learnt and began to experiment with the techniques and manual processes I now use in my work. I think that this grounding in Juerg Luedi
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craft and making things with you hands is still an important aspect of my practice. The Gerrit Rietveld Academie has given me time in which to continue to develop and refine my work and opinions on Art. Because I am always showing my work within the Academie it becomes the context for my work- this has a big effect, not so much on how I conceive or produce, but in how I present, conceptualize and talk about my Art.
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 generally work quite quickly and am in an almost constant production of serial artistic
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5 pleasures, each work made in a single session.
without pausing for many hours without thinking too much.
I work mostly in my studio; employing techniques that I can use without the need for assistants or other people- this has an effect, most notably, on the scale of my work. Before starting I may have been thinking about what I’m going to do or I may begin straight away- letting the process itself produce the work. I have the ability to draw
Sometimes I feel the need to do a more time consuming or complex work, such as the photo, “Image One”, that represents a few weeks work. I do not think that one approach is better than the other it merely allows me to see how time can effect process.
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When I first happened to get to know the interesting works that our readers have already started to get to know in these pages, I tried to relate all the visual information and the presence of a primary geometries to single meanings. But I soon realized that I had to fit into the visual unity suggested by the work, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic
content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?
Sometimes the primary geometry is the single meaning of a work just as the colour of something could be. I would want the
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viewer to establish a relationship with the very formal elements that are directly visible.
Gonzales Torres attacks art in order to discover not only its weak points, but also the creative potential, urging the viewers to take active part to the construction of the sense... This aspect of your work has suggested me the concept 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
I daresay that the emotional geometry conveyed by your works offers such an Ariadne's thread to the viewers, forcing them to investigate about the nature of the work of art itself... in this sense, your approach reminds me the way Felix
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could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?
Everything I feel that is good in my work can be seen outside of it. Something I have learned from minimalism is the way in which it presents something from the world- a colour, form, object, material… without the clutter and visual mess of every-day life surrounding it. What this leaves is a focused attention on what the artist deems important. Your abstract approach is intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of deep interplay with the viewers, that are urged to evolve from the condition of a merely passive audience. In particular, your investigation about the intimate consequences of constructed realities has reminded me of Thomas Demand's works: while conceiving Art could be considered a purely abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion 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?
from immediate experiencerather than past experience. There seems to be always a narrative behind your canvas that the viewer are invited to recognize. In particular, I have highly appreciated the way you explore the boundary between Imagination and Representation, especially for the sensation of movement suggested by the stimulating nuances of tones that pervade the canvas: any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?
If we consider a work like, “Red Puddle”, I have a personal narrative associated with the creation of the work- yet it remains somewhat abstract and ambiguous so that each individual viewer can project meaning onto it. This is representation susceptible to imagination. My palette has been collected, either in material like the big bag of Indian red Pooja powder used to make, “Red Puddle”, and, “Scottish Pigment”, or more conceptually like the colour of pond weed and wet pink paving slabs in the suburbs of London. I reuse colour and some permeate through my archive of work- each time they re-surface it adds to their narrative. When drawing or painting I rarely mix my own palette, preferring the standardized colour of materials- not only does this mean the same colours pop up time and time again, it allows me to really investigate how certain very particular hues work with others. You seem to be in an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between several viewpoint out of temporal synchronization: moreover you
is this the right way? I don’t think that you can disconnect from personal experience but I think it is important to realize that the experience of making work can inform other work. Also, Something can be self-referential In that the nature of the material or process exerts itself to create the work. This comes
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14 also seem to remove any historic gaze from the reality you refer to, offering to the viewers the chance to perceive in a more atemporal form. In this sense, I daresay that the semantic juxtaposition between sign and matter that marks out your art, allows you to go beyond any track of contingency...
15 I’m very interested in the zeitgeist held within works of art. It is true that within my work I do not try and create any obvious indicators of time but I think in the future it will be inevitable that the work is characteristic of the time it was made. I am also incredibly interested in western art movements of the twentieth century and in
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some way my work reflects this. Part of my practice has always been to create copies and transcriptions of other people’s art. This then may make my work more atemporal because I am drawing on visual information from art history in combination with my experience and view of the world today.
Your approach shows references to the Zurich school of concrete art, as well as to Minimalism but you seem to go beyond any dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness, establishing a stimulating osmosis between materials marked out with such an absolute feature and a modern, lively approach to Art: By the way, do you recognize any contrast
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Finn Godwin
Art Review
between Tradition and Contemporariness?
I believe that tradition is contemporary because we experience it in a contemporary context. A work of art can change after its creation beyond the intent of m the artist. I am aware of the Zurich school of Concrete Art, not because I have directly come into contact with it but because I have seen reproductions of work seen in books or on screens. The reproduced image is a different size, material, texture, etc. Not only is the reproduction different to the original but the original has a different context because of the existence of the reproduction. Before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?
Most of the time I do not consider my audience when making a work. At this point it is akin to play or a kind of personal amusement. I produce art in order to keep myself busy, and because I enjoy doing it. Once something has been made I might destroy it or never show it. On the other hand I might put it into a context where people can see it, as I am doing now. These decisions are closely concerned
with audience reception but it happens after the works production. In the end it’s great if an audience can form some kind of relationship with my art but it is not the driving force that makes me do it. I will carry on regardless of outside opinion. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Finn. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
I continue to work and produce and continue my studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. If any readers wish to contact me about my work they are able to do so on finngodwin1@btinternet.com. I would also like to thank LandEscape art review for their interest in my production.
Finn Godwin
LandEscape 42 Art Review
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LandEscape 40 Art Review
LandEscape 5 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling Lives and works in Northern California
An artist's statement
R
onnie was born in Sacramento, California. Her education and travels have taken her many places, but now, she is residing and painting in northern California.
She received her B. A. from Univ. Of Minnesota at Bemidji Cum Laude and her M.F.A. from the Tenderloin Institute of Art in San Francisco, California. Other studies in art have been at San Jose Stat Univ. Calif, Humboldt
State Univ. Calif., Sacramento City College and the University of Arizona. Ronnie's work has been seen in over 40 shows in galleries and museums so far with her first mural commission at 8 years of age at Tahoe School.
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 6 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Ronnie Stelling's paintings reflect the tradition as a permanent interplay between inscrutability and beauty: her abstract approach conveys emotions inviting the viewers to a joyful experience. Conveying Realism and Abstract Expressionism in a lively and consistent combination, her works keep independence from the context they explore, so the colorful paintings that we'll discuss in the following pages can be viewed as an aesthetic testing ground for the autonomy of painting and its historicity. I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Ronnie, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, are there any experiences that have influenced your evolution as an artist and that still impact on the way you conceive and produce your works? Some of my earliest childhood experiences of colors and their relationship to numbers still influence and impact on my work. Juerg Luedi
LandEscape 8 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 9 Art Review
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? For the painting in this series I built a very large table so I am painting flat, horizontal. For preparation I paint lots of small paintings. I paint almost everyday. I spend most of my time in my studio. I try to paint fast so I can make quick choices. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Fondness and Bright Future, a couple of stimulating works that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.ronniestelling.com/ in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects? What was your initial inspiration? Sometimes I don't need outer inspiration to paint. I just need to paint as was the case with Fondness and Bright Future. There were some paintings in this series that were inspired as memories or memorials. Turkey Feathers and Pigeon
LandEscape 10 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 13 Art Review
Vision were painted in my fathers memory, as a tribute. My web site is http://Ronniestelling.com. What has particularly impressed me of your approach is the way you heighten the tension between reality and the perception of it: although marked with a clear abstract feature, you sem to
draw inspiration from the sunset and the ever changing colors and energy of nature that concerns the perceptual dimension, so I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative
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Ronnie Stelling
Art Review
process could be disconnected from direct experience?
Our inner nature would affect how we see the world around us.
The creative process is built on experience and imagination.
In all of your multifaceted artistic production there's a recurrent sense of narrative: although each of your project has an autonmous life, there's always seem to be such a channel of communication between your works, that springs from the way you combine the ideas you explore: German artist Thomas Demand stated once that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this? And in particular, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
I have appreciated the nuance of lively but at the same time thoughtful tones that sometimes suggest such a tactile feature, as in A Unique Deal, that allows you to get a refined a balance between Realism and Abstract Expressionism: any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time? I have been studying true color for a long time and my palette has progressed along the way. The multilayered experience suggested by your paintings is capable of bringing a new level of significance, to the usual idea behind the concept of landscape: and I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense Pear Tree Symphony invites the viewers to challenge the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, 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?
" An amazing form alchemy Turn a bucket of paint Into a masterpiece." This poem is my narrative . I definitively love the way your colorful brushstrokes seems to extract a joyful vision of reality from the general the idea of the environment we live in. Many contemporary landscape artists as the photographer Edward Burtynsky or Michael Light have some form of environmental or political message in their photographs. Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach?
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 42 Art Review
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Political in that I would like my paintings be part of the healing of the world. I have painted in response to shocking acts like 9-11. Sad, that I have a small group of large paintings.
Before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: it goes without saying that positive feedbacks are capable of providing an artist of an important altgough not indespensable
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Ronnie Stelling
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 42 Art Review
LandEscape 14
Ronnie Stelling
Art Review
support. In particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context? Unlike an actor or musician I don't need the direct energy exchange with an audience. I could have a painting in my studio a long time before anyone see it. Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Ronnie. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving? I have been working on a series of small paintings that I call the "Smears" and I also have a 3D pen project. Last year I got a 3D pen and I made 50 small horses before the pen broke. I just got a new 3D pen. The dynamics of change.
Ronnie Stelling
LandEscape 42 Art Review
LandEscape 40 Art Review
LandEscape 40 Art Review
The Direction Molded Plaster and Oxidized iron, 2015
LandEscape 5 Art Review
Irene Pouliassi Lives and works in Athens, Greece
An artist's statement
M
y artwork takes a critical view on the narration of time and its effects and it explores the human body as a manifestation of nature and universe. With influences of Vladimir Veličković and David Altmejd 's bodies and studing the tryptych Nature -Human-Genesis I want to state human has with its own nature. I implement time in my work as both a tool and an idea so it attains temporal qualities as it experiences change and fluctuation. Having engaged subjects as desintegration and existentialism my work reproduces familiar visual stimuli such as the temporary nature and distortion of the human image transformating artwork to a memento mori. The iron rusts being free in nature just like a human ages. Landscapes seek resemblance with lying bodies reminding us that human and nature has the same design. While I use a variety of mediums in each project the
methdology is the same: Design-DesintegrateNarrate. I travel from one medium to another citating a continuity among the projects. The subject defines the medium and the “Landscapes” as well as the “Bonescapes” serve as storyboards viewed under the microscope. As my main materials I use plaster and iron, Oxidated or not. And I use them with a purpose on creating flesh and bones through minerals and resembling the prossess of aging through oxidization. The time narrates its own process and let the ''Landscape'' reach both zenith and Nadir at the same time. Seeing something as it matures, you can accept more easily the passage of time. ''Given sufficient time, oxygen, and water, any iron mass will eventually convert entirely to rust and disintegrate''
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 6
LandEscape meets
Art Review
Irene Pouliassi An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
Marked with a stimulating multidisciplinary feature, Irene Pouliassi's work provides the viewers of an extension of the ordinary perception, in order to manipulate it and releasing it from its most limbic parameters: rather than lingering on merely decorative aspects to seduce the viewers, her interdisciplinary approach allows her to conveys the evokative potential of different materials to create a coherent work marked with a lively and consistent unity. I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production. Hello Irene, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and as soon as you received a B. A. from the AKTO College you have been accepted with distinction at the School of University of Western Macedonia, where you are currently studying in the 3rd Visual Arts Lab. How do these experiences influence your evolution as an artists and how do they impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your works?
Hello and thank you for selecting me in LandEscape Art Review. From a very young age I was a fan and avid reader of graphic novels. The ability to narrate through illustration, the compelling compositions and visual storytelling made a lasting impression
on me and I realized it was a way of expression fitting to my artistic approach. Combining visual arts with graphic design helps me to evolve as a creative individual and to impose critical thinking and analysis on my thought process. The principles of Design and foundations of human anatomy help me solve the technical issues and concentrate on storytelling. I find inspiration in human body and by studying its anatomy I can understand its mechanics and physiology. In my opinion a solid foundation renders you able to articulate and visualize every kind of idea you might want to express. 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?
It is a lengthy process, I would really like to be more productive but before I start a piece I explore variants numbering in hundreds. My field of study is time, space and the effect of desintegration on the human body. I see human body and energy as a manifestation of nature and universe. First and foremost, studing human anatomy, I am exploring for the forms. The a very interesting thing about the Juerg Luedi
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Irene Pouliassi
Art Review
Human Landscape Plaster and Oxidized iron, 70X120 cm, 2014
body is that under a microscope you can observe forms that narrate the passage of time and prove our physical existence. Then after many sketches and story drafts, I lay down a visual composition and start detail from myFunerals, Performance
experimenting about technical aspects. I prepare the right surface,oxidize the iron and arange its color variations. Firstly, I place the metals and then I pour the liquid plaster. As the water evaporates the plaster dries and
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 9 Art Review
Human Landscape Plaster and Oxidized iron, 40x40cm, 2014
our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://irenepouliassi.blogspot.it/ in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production... In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?
rust emerges. For a lengthy period of time its form is in flux until it reaches a stable peak. Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Human Landscape that
As I mentioned,it all started with anatomy studies. I am very fond of illustration, sequential art and narrative drawing. It led me to visualise the anatomy as microscopical storyboards and it allowed me to connect factual ideas of human existence as part of a natural order. I consider it to be a similar narrative contructed of different matter but
LandEscape 12 Art Review
Human Landscape Plaster and Oxidized iron,70x90 cm 2014
Irene Pouliassi
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 13 Art Review
Detail of the Bonescapes series, Plaster and Oxidized iron, 2015
with entropy as its common denominator. It focused my attention to the passage of time and the afflictions it lays upon the human body as it experiences change desintegration and eventualy death. Its a neverending circle which you can observe in every aspect of life. Regarding materials when I began “Human Landscapes” I was already working on “simulacrums” and it made me realize that iron which also exists within the human body bears a striking resemblance to the skin as both of
them are harshly affected by the passage of time. An important aspect of "From Bodies to Landscape" that has particularly impacted on me is the way you unveil the inner connection between Man and Nature: you seem to appreciate an abstract beauty and sense of geometry that goes beyond a stereotyped idea of landscape, bringing a new level of significance to images and I would go as far as to state that in a certain
LandEscape 14 Art Review
Bonescape study Watercolors on paper, 50x70, 2015
Irene Pouliassi
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 42 Art Review
Simulacrum study Watercolors on paper, 50x70, 2015
Earthly Tether Acrylic on Canvas, Part of "From bodies to landscapes"series 60x120 cm, 2014
sense your works challenge the viewers' perception in order to going beyond the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension. . . By the way, 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?
This is a very insightful description,regarding ou inner dimension. In my opinion, draws
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Irene Pouliassi
Art Review
Patron Saint of Regret Collaborative Installation with Kyriakos Bournas, 2015
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 42 Art Review
inspiration from an archetypical ideal. For every person there is a fixation in such an ideal although artists strive to articulate both the fixation and its source, as human beings. They are challenged by the magnificent size of such ideals and the effort it requires comprehend internalize and express it through their art. In my opinion there are no unexpected sides of nature only unseen and misunderstood, Because creating art is such a personal and at the same time universal thing, each individual artist presents an unique insight on the core of those matters. Art has educational investigative and critisizing purposes it tries to make us aware and realize of what we subconsiously already know yet we refuse to aknowledge. In ”From bodies to Landscapes“ I expose a part of the prossess as “Simulacrum“ is becoming “Landscapes”. Personally, I consider my artwork to be a visualization of the archetypical concept of death. No part of death can be considered unexpected: everything and everyone eventually die. What I can offer is an opportunity for the viewers to witness that natural process through my understanding as a transition of energy and not just the end of something. As you have remarked once, "given sufficient time, oxygen, and water, any iron mass will eventually convert entirely to rust and disintegrate" I can recognize such a political value in this statement: in a wide sense, your vision often re-contextualizes the idea of the environment we live inviting the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive the world we inhabit in... Many artists as the photographer Michael Light and Edward Burtynsky often reveals some form of environmental or political message in their works. Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach?
Both of them are amazing artists and I can visually identify myself with their work. My
LandEscape 14
Irene Pouliassi
Art Review
Bonescape Molded Plaster and Oxidized iron, 2015
questions are not political, but existential. Although living in a country with in such political turmoil, talking about politics is going for the low hanging fruit. Maybe it is a subconsious reflex to being exposed everyday in such a political climate. Nowdays you can use politics to justify every way of action and as such I try to maintain a more neutral approach. The symbiosys between organic materials and iron provokes a reference to parts of
human body, as in the interesting Bonescape: in this sense, your art practice takes such a participatory line with the viewer and one of the features of "Bonescape" that has mostly impacted on me is the way you create an intimate involvement with with the viewer. At the same time, you seem to remove the historic gaze from the reality you refer to, offering to the viewers the chance to perceive in a more atemporal form. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 42 Art Review
The master of all organs Molded Plaster, installation, 2013
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?
Mastery over your mediums is a crucial requirement. Only having attained that you may be able to express your artistic character through them. When I started exploring my materials I had technical issues with the ratios, I had to understand their nature and
work with it and not against it. When I achieved competency I had yet to implement my personal esthetics on it. Is is a continuous balancing act beetween the how, why and what. It works the same way you would might explore yourself, asking the right questions and finding not just correct but fitting answers. �Bonescapes� is a detail of somebodys identity, there is underlined irony and controversy. In one hand you have a Molded replica of teeth, your post mortem identity, static in time and then you have
LandEscape 14
Irene Pouliassi
Art Review
rust changing time over time. You depict a infenently small time window which originates from a temporal eternity. I have highly appreciated the way you explore the boundary between Imagination and Experience and the interesting Simulacrum you seem to take advantage of Collective unconscious about the idea of human body in order to disclose the unrevealed narrative behind the instant you capture. Accordingly, I daresay that imagination acts as cornerstones for the fullfilment process of the viewers that has reminded me again Thomas Demand, when he stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead": what's your point about this? And in particular, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?
Narration is the key,”Simulacrum” contains narratives and ideals considering our body and its nature. In “Definition” I let the hands define the space . According to Aristotle,the hand is the “Master of all organs” the one that can defne space. And in the “Patron Saint of regret”, I remove the vertebrae and I replace them with fingers. I think it posseses a sense of theatricality. Everything starts from concept exploring sketches. With every project being either a sequel or a prequel in a ongoing personal narrative. Art had always a narrating purpose which even in symbolistic approaches, the events narrated had a place in a temporal line. Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice and you seem to be in an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between several disciplines, taking advantage of the
Irene Pouliassi
LandEscape 42 Art Review
The Crown Part of the bonescapes series, Molded Plaster and Oxidized iron, 2015
LandEscape 14
Irene Pouliassi
Art Review
creative and expressive potential of Sculpture as well as of Painting and Drawing: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?
If you want to narrate a story or a concept, you have to consider and chose your words wisely,as you enrich your visual vocabulary you produce a highly compelliing and articulated result. I am very interested in discovering and becoming aquainted with new mediums, its similar to be knowledgeable of several spoken languages. In my work the narration transitions from one medium to another. A continuous shift between two dimensional and three dimensional art with time being the only constantly present variable. I try to fulfill the requirements that are present in every concept, but sometimes it feels as being a slave to them. Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Irene. Finally, I would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?
Thank you for Asking me all this chalenging questions and for this productive interview. Many things coming up, First of all my final thesis Project which I will exhibit next June under the coordination of Harris Kontosphyris and Thomas Zographos. But for now I will participate in Incumbarte International Art Fair in Valencia, Spain and in Art Athina as a member of artistic team En Flo.
An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
Towards Heaven from the simulacrum series, 2013
Untitled Part of the Bonescapes series Molded plaster and oxidized iron 2015