LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue 2016

LandEscape A r t

R e v i e w

SARA DRESCHER DICK EVANS SCOTT ERWERT ELEANOR H. ERSKINE MARC LEV JOSE GALANT ELISA CARRENO AYESHA SAMDANI MARTA KAWECKA

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C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

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Sara Drescher

Dick Evans

Scott Erwert

Marta Kawecka

José Galant

Elisa Carreno

USA

USA

USA

Poland

Spain

USA / Brazil

My art has always been about the human face and iconography.

Traditional icons stylized the face to create a distance between the viewer and the subject. My faces offer a familiar realism to engage the audience, whether to challenge traditional ideas or to offer camaraderie. The golden circle as a symbol of completeness, the eternal, and a higher plane is an important running theme in my work. My current stream of work is mix of media that uses watercolor, acrylic and latex paint, colored pencils, graphite, and gold leaf.

I seldom begin a painting with any particular image in mind. I often start by simply loading a brush with a color of paint that appeals to me at that time and making a stroke on the canvas or panel surface.

My process usually involves sketching plein air to capture the physical place or moment, then bringing that into the studio to edit, simplify and develop further. With sketches, I utilize my sketchbooks and mediums which can be used to capture information quickly: graphite, colored pencils, watercolor and guoache.

Paintings based on these studies generally involve the use of acrylic paint, watercolor, and some collage. The surfaces of final paintings are either done on canvas or wood, on which I build framing devices out of repurposed wood scraps that I salvage from a neighborhood furniture store.

I am interested in emotional memory – a besides verbal, intuitive experience, which dwell in each of us under the layers of described catalogued experiences and exposes itself unexpectedly, sometimes against the will, sometimes thanks to effort and attempt of getting to the core of our own identity. Painting or creating in any technique presents for me the exploiting the oblivious content, in an everlasting process, everlasting negation of the self and exposing to new solutions.

I like surprising people creating extraordinary, different and unique situations, in which we can see the figures in a giant playground of discovery with surprise encounters, but reacting like normal, moving between the real and imagined, but always trying to give a little something extra back with new “Imaginary Destinations” that attract attention, stir emotion with fantasy, and my personal form of surreal humour. My background setting strategy is very intuitive, there is a certain point in the creative process that, I find in it the balance that appeals to me between abstraction and representation.

The nature of my work is autobiographical. I address my history, dreams, pain, joy, needs and regrets.

As I react to the form of that stroke, the way it divides the canvas, the weight of the stroke, the emotional impact, I lay down the next stroke, either in the same color or in a different color.

The entire painting evolves in that manner, in a series of reactions to the previous collection of actions.

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I create compositions that oscillate between control and chaos, reflecting my process as an individual navigating opposing influences.

I consistently use materials and surfaces that elicit the viewer's respond. By doing so, I invite the audience to partake in my inner experience. My pieces often combine loud colors and contrasting shapes that create a tension and a provocative dynamic.

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Elisa Carreno lives and works in New York City, USA

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José Galant lives and works in Barcelona, Spain

Dick Evans

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lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Sara Drescher

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lives and works in Midland, Texas

Ayesha Samdani

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lives and works in San Francisco, CA, USA

Marta Kawecka Ayesha Samdani

Marc Lev

Eleanor H. Erskine

USA

France

USA

I find myself getting immersed in the beauty of nature’s colors. My art is inspired by nature therefore I see my reflection in leaves, trees and branches that changes modes and colors with the seasons.

I use a various limited color palette for each painting to depict different moods of nature. Through variations of lines, layers and color palette, I explore the sensitivity and delicacy of changing seasons.

Some paintings reveal the beauty of spring and fall and some impression of summer and winter. On my painting surface, I look for interesting organic shapes and capture them. I explore the relationship between the loose marks and the developed shapes.

Creation is a way to send a message, a meaning to our lives, a kind of questions sent to the others. If you watch my "Exodus" it's my own questioning about the people having to live their lives, their homes, their lands, cultures, countries. If you get to "Evolution" it's my way of seeing the human's evolution but in bubbles, like a protecting houseworld; what happens if the human beings are getting out of these bubbles ?.. At "Le Monde Abîme", it's a paint on a slit conical log by which I'm saying : the world isn't one, isn't fraternal and most of us are just divided ( like that log) to choose where to be, where to stand.

Image comes from thought; thought form learning and experience; the soul from weighing and evaluating; the authored message from the integrity of soul and the values that it encourages. Dialogue in art first exists in the arena of human experience and perception. Second, is the studio. An object maker is author of content and simultaneously fabricator of physical form aligned with the narrative space carrying the implied communication. The dialogue is finalized in the reception and interpretation of the audience, giving the object of art meaning.

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lives and works in Warsaw, Poland

Scott Erwert

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lives and works in Portland, Oregon

Marc Lev

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lives and works in Eilat, Israel

Eleanor H. Erskine

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lives and works in Portland, OR, USA

Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.

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E lisa Carreno Lives and works in New York City

An artist's statement

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he nature of my work is autobiographical. I address my history, dreams, pain, joy, needs and regrets.

I create compositions that oscillate between control and chaos, reflecting my process as an individual navigating opposing influences.

I consistently use materials and surfaces that elicit the viewer's

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respond. By doing so, I invite the audience to partake in my inner experience.

My pieces often combine loud colors and contrasting shapes that create a tension and a provocative dynamic.

Elisa Carreno Elisa Carreno is a brazilian artist who grew up in the city of SĂŁo Paulo. she received her degree in art education at sĂŁo paulo state university, and since 2012 lives in New York.

Might be vulnerable Acrylic on paper, 20 x 16 inch, 2015

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LandEscape meets

Elisa Carreno An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Artist Elisa Carreno's work a channel of communication between the inner Self and the outside world to challenge the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations, offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience. Her paintings oscillate between control and chaos to capture a new perspective on the world. One of the most impressive aspects of Carreno's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to invite the audience to partake in her inner experience. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Elisa and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background?

You have a solid background and you hold a BFA that you received from the São Paulo State University (UNESP): you also earned wide experience in teaching and you worked in multiple projects teaching art for childrens, at the CCI Tiny People Institute in Bauru. How do these experience influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular,

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how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

First of all: thank you very much for this opportunity, it’s a pleasure to share my work and thoughts with LandEscape’s team and readers.

Teaching was a surprisingly rich experience for me, maybe even more important than getting my BFA. When I started to teach, I thought I had a lot to offer to my students, that I would be a “master”, but then I realized they had so much to teach me that the whole experience ended up being about a real deep exchange. I love the freedom with which kids create. There are practically no rules, none of those adulthood selfconscious limitations, and when it comes to the materials, kids don’t know what they should or shouldn’t mix, they still don’t know much about processes and techniques, there is no right and wrong.

And because of that, both results and “failures” are spectacular and, most important, they are really honest work.

For me, honesty is extremely important, it is the core of my art – I always want to and have to be truthful with myself, with my creation.

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Not my country Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 16 inch, 2015

Elisa Carreno

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I also did volunteer work for two years at SORRI, an institution for students with intellectual and/or physical disability, in Bauru, teaching art classes for adults.

Many of them didn’t have a full developed motor coordination – or had lost part of it in accidents, for example – and, because of that, often the final work was something completely different than what they planned on creating – many times they wouldn’t even be able to finish the pieces at all. The whole “let’s make art” thing was really about making art, not about going through a process to have a piece of art by the end of it. It was all about the joy of creating something and expressing themselves. That touched my heart and changed me – and, as a consequence, my art – completely. It made me rethink my own process, it led me to another level of understanding, respect, and acceptance concerning the time and the layers my pieces need.

And when it comes to my cultural substratum, well… I was born and raised in São Paulo, the biggest city of Brazil, a country that overflows us with a multisensory culture – nature, music, colors, flavors – since we are children. I also come from a family of travelers: when I was twelve, my parents removed me and my nine-year-old sister from school for one year so we could travel the world – we went to 22 countries – and later, when I was fifteen, I lived in New Zealand for one year. All these experiences served and still serve as the lens which I see the world through. Since my art is a result of how I feel at the moment and the way I live my life.

Your approach is very personal and your technique condenses a variety of viewpoints, that you combine together

into a coherent balance. We would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.elisacarreno.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas?

My work is spontaneous, I don’t make sketches, I don’t plan. I put some music on, have a snack, try to zone out and forget about everyday life drama, get the materials together, “have a look” inside of me to see how I feel at the moment, think for a while about the ways to visually represent that feeling and then I start to create. It is a very intuitive process, for sure. But it hasn’t always been like this. The painter I was three years ago was someone more concerned about geometry, balance, calculation, which work was more twodimensional. For the last three years, though, I’ve been trying to care less about control and more about playing with gestures. I tend to try to control too much the way my life unfolds, this is part of my personality, but, in fairness, control has never taken me anywhere good. I used to try to make sure my images were balanced and pleasant to the eyes, but now I am just honest with myself and my moment. The final product is no longer my biggest goal and many times it comes up ugly, but ugly can be great! Materials are also something I started to think carefully about. I used to spend a lot of money with materials and waste too much,

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which wasn’t good for me neither for the environment. Recently I started to incorporate thrown-away materials, old clothes, old prints and drawings that I’ve made, and many other kinds of recyclable “garbage” in my paintings and wall collages series. Actually, most of the Salivation series canvas were made on old throw-away canvas I found on the street.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Might be vulnerable, an interesting transdisciplinary project that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Might be vulnerable, would you like to tell us something about your usual process and set up?

Might be vulnerable is an important piece for me because it was made during the transition between the old Elisa, concerned about geometry and control, and the new Elisa, who likes to play with the unknown, the unexpected, with random chances, and unplanned results.

The work is a monotype, so, from the start, I had no intention of redoing it, correcting or changing anything, I wanted it to be straight to the point of how I was feeling at the moment – that’s where the name come from, as I was feeling exposed, vulnerable when I created this piece, going through big changes in my life. And the process was very intuitive: I set all the materials in front of me, concentrated, and choose the colors based on how I was feeling. My goal with

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Elisa Carreno

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Hugs and Siblings, Acrylic, ink, watercolor, nail polish and glitter on paper, 22x28 inch, 2015

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this piece was to translate all the joy, the curiosity, the expectations, the fear, and the insecurity that I was experimenting at the time.

You have once remarked in your artist's statement that the nature of your work is autobiographical: when showing clear references to perceptual reality, your paintings convey a captivating abstract feeling that provide with dynamism the representative feature of your canvass, as Me and Elisa. Would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?

Me and Elisa is a conversation with myself. There is the Elisa who exposes herself to the outside world, the one that everybody sees, a human being that hides under a lot of layers and is always concerned about its appearance to the world and world’s judgments; and there is the inside Elisa, whose layers I almost unconsciously avoid to show. In my art, these two Elisas can get together and talk – and laugh, and cry, and fight. With my art, I feel comfortable to show one hundred percent of both my good and evil sides, and Me and Elisa is a piece I create “meditating” about this idea, trying to reach the most hidden layers of myself. Since my work is nothing else but a translation of my everyday life, thoughts, fears, celebrations, pleasures, traumas, shames, achievements, and dreams, the abstraction helps me representing these feelings that are not even clear to me at first. They are buried deep inside of me, and when I am painting I am slowly digging and discovering them.

The way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain

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Me and Elisa, 2015 Acrylic, ink and nail polish on paper, 44x16 inch

sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

As I said before, my work is a visual translation of what I feel. But feelings are very hard to translate, even with words!

Elisa Carreno

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Bitch, Paper, fabric, glitter, gesso, acrylic, ink and spray on canvas, 29x29 Inch, 2016

For me, they are so complex that figurative symbols are not enough… But a layer, a mark, a drip or a stroke get

closer to my own “inside abstraction”.

Sometimes I have weird feelings that I believe we all have in different ways, like

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Roxo, Acrylic, gold leaf, ink and nail polish on Wood, 10x10 inch, 2016

feeling nostalgic about a moment that actually never happened or craving a flavor I’ve never tasted. My paintings are

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abstract because my sensations, memories, and experiences are also abstract, and they are often unclear,

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blurred. For me, the idea of hope can be understood and felt, but how does one can visually represent hope? Do we all see and fell hope in the same way? I don’t believe so. Abstract works allow me to express things that figurative representation would limit me. Like Hugs and siblings: I have a really deep strong connection with my sister, we grew up sharing bedrooms until adult age, she has always been my best friend, and in the last five years I saw her five times because we live in different countries.

For me, painting two sisters hugging would not be enough to reach the deepest level of how much I miss her and how I feel when I am with her. Again: my paintings are very personal and autobiographical, and figures just don’t make too much sense to me. But a texture, a curve, a brushstroke, a pile of glitter and salt, they do make sense. I guess I care more about the process and the materials than about the images. The image is a consequence of what happens between me and the materials.

Sometimes the process can be quick and sometimes it lasts for months, layer by layer until I finally feel it makes sense. In my world, it makes sense.

The brushstrokes that condense your visual vocabulary and we have really appreciated the ethereal quality of your pieces. When we look at Roxo we are struck by the atmosphere suggested by the darkness that saturates the canvass.

Is this a reflection of you? Can you describe to me how this darkness that appears in your work connects to you personally? In particular, how do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works?

It’s absolutely a reflection of me. I like to see my paintings as a mix of pages from

a diary of mine: old and recent events that I “write” about, positive and the negative feelings, thing that I like and that I am proud of, and things that I hate and keep hidden. I must paint them all because they are all part of who I am. But I wouldn’t say the darkness in Roxo connects with my personality, it rather connects me with human nature – everybody has a dark side. And when it comes to the concepts of the real and the imagined, I confess I often think a lot about situations that will probably never happen, I plan on things that I end up never doing, it is part of my daily inside conflict between control and spontaneity, it is a result of the mix of chaos and order inside my head. This uncontrolled, spontaneous, and, in a certain way, organized chaos makes sense to me when I finally have an artwork done.

While marked out with a deep introspective quality, your works are more than mere representations of your inner self: you rather seem to invite the viewers to an augmented perceptual experience to discover unexpected aspects not only of their inner world, but of the connectivity that affects our everchanging contemporary age. In particular your works and in particular Not my country brings forward that the landscape on which everything is happening: how would you consider the relationship between the inner landscape and the outside world? Could art provide us with a channel of communication between these apsects of reality?

As I mentioned, I don’t paint to achieve an image, I paint to discover, understand and “work on” my human being layers.

However, when I expose my work, it becomes an invitation to others to try to

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Carnal knowledge, Acrylic paint on acrylic Sheet, 2 pieces of 10 x 16 inch, 2016

Pushing!

Acrylic on Paper, 10 x 16 inch, 2015

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see how it feels to feel what I feel! I like the idea of creating intimacy with strangers and their lives, people that I will probably never meet or interact with, but that, with my art, I can create a certain type of connection with. As humans, we all have our own particularities that sometimes we can’t really show or even see, or understand, but it is there, hidden – I played with this idea years ago with Energy, a series of photography with a Kirlian camera. The idea of exposing my own particularities and discovering other’s particularities hidden in their bodies, it attracts me.

People make art for different reasons and I can’t say anything for then, but I love when I’m able to feel this connection with someone else through their artwork, this weird “intimacy”. Not my country, for example, represents my search for belonging somewhere, it talks about my constant moving around, all the different cities and countries I’ve been to, the processes of subletting new rooms, having new roommates, being away from my homeland, my culture, becoming this person with a so mixed culture, getting and giving different answers to similar questions, all this complex process of finding a place that feels like home… It’s all there to the world to see it.

You allow an open reading,a great multiplicity of meanings: associative possibilities seems to play a crucial role in your pieces. How important is this degree of openness?

Like I just said, each person has its particularities. I can try to share mine with you, but you would only get a taste of it – and I would also only get a taste of your inside world if you tried to share it with

me. We can’t possibly really fully understand what it’s like to be under somebody else’s skin. Abstraction opens the doors of real deep free expression for me, but it also opens the doors of real deep free interpretation for the other, they can think anything. And that is ok, I am happy with that, as long as they can relate my work to their own realities and stories and open doors inside themselves. The possibilities are unlimited! Simply sharing my work doesn’t make it complete, though, because it’s always evoking something different in each new person that sees it and creates any kind of connection with it, it’s in constant development. This freedom is important: the spectator/observer might not feel exactly what I feel, but I and my work will make them feel!

We would like to pose some questions about the balance established by colors and texture: your pieces combine loud, vivacious tones and contrasting shapes that accomplish the difficut task of establishing tension and a provocative dynamic. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that saturate your canvas and especially the way they suggest the idea of plasticity.

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

For me, creating is like dancing intuitively, it comes naturally, there is no choreography, I am feeling and releasing it, and feeling more and sharing it, and feeling it again, differently, and responding it differently one more time...

It’s a conversation with someone else, an

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Elena, Acrylic on Paper, 16x33 inch, 2015

Déjà Vu, Watercolor, ink, acrylic, glitter and salt on paper, 2015

exchange between me, Elisa’s layers, the environment, the circumstances around me and the materials that I set in front of

me. I don’t choose the colors and textures, they choose me. It’s an introspective and spontaneous process, it

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Elisa Carreno

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I almost forgot how good it feels Acrylic, watercolor, ink, salt, pen and glitter on canvas, 40x18 inch, 2016

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Música 42 ink, acrylic and glitter on paper, 15x5,5 inch, 2015 Watercolor,

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just happens. It’s like meditating: I concentrate and allow my inside world talk with me – everything else is a consequence. I make sure I always have many different materials is my studio, I collect a lot, I transform a lot, I experiment a lot, I mix a lot, and the textures come naturally. The texture and materiality is really important for my work, they must pop up, jump, and they have to be tactile. Because a strong part of my feelings are also carnal and physical: I taste, I smell, I ache, I rejoice, and I want to share it all! Shapes, layers, creases… Sometimes I like to mix materials that were not supposed to be mixed, like water and oil, because they will fall apart, will crack, will transform, but that’s exactly what I want. With time, my canvas change and transform, just like me.

Over these years your works have been exhibited in several occasions: you have had five solos, including your show Celebrating Color, at the Pushkin Art Space in New York. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

It is very important for me to share my feelings and experiences with other people through my creations, but when it comes to the process itself, the language and the context I chose, having any audience or being accepted or not by one,

it doesn’t exert influence at all. If I never exposed my work, my art would be exactly the same.

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

Thank you, I’m really grateful for this opportunity! Yes, I am very excited to tell that I’m having a solo show in November, at the BEA Art Gallery, produced in connection with the Brazilian Endowment for the Art in New York City. I also recently had my first group show in Europe, Paris, which was a very rich experience and put me in contact with new curators in Europe – soon I will be having new shows around the continent.

About my work, it’s in constant development, it’s evolving, and transforming as the person who I am is changing too. At the moment I’m really in love with finding new ways to present functional materials in different contexts, connecting them with old drawing, collage, and personal objects of mine in wall collages and installations – you can see them on my website. Painting is very important to me and my next steps will be connecting my wall collages with my paintings and make my installations became paintings, and make my paintings get out of the square canvas and papers and became more like sculptures, objects, and installations.

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

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José Galant Lives and works in Barcelon, Spain

An artist's statement

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I am a multidisciplinary artist, my practice includes Acrylic, Watercolour, 3D Computer Graphics and Augmented Reality. I began painting canvases and Graffiti in 1992, and I have been surrounded by artists, professors and paintings since that time. From 1993 to 1998, I attended the Fine Arts and Graphic Design School “Groc” in Barcelona as a painting and ceramics major.

From 1994 to 2006 I did so many individual and collective exhibitions at restaurants, graffiti events, popular ateneos and cultural centres of Spain and France. In 2006, I have a DNAP, at the “École supérieure des Beaux Arts de Perpignan” (France) in Fine Arts. Between 2006 and 2007 I obtained a post-graduate degree in 3D Computer Graphics at Escola d’Informática i Oficis de Barcelona and a second post-graduate degree in 3D Computer Graphics at the

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Autodesk Training Center of Barcelona.

I was working as a cultural mediator in “El proyecto Avión” (Barcelona, 2006), and as a cultural mediator too in the “Arts Santa Mònica” museum (Barcelona, 2006). After working on my own projects for a couple of years, I co-created my first startup, Mars’ Toad, in 2009. The aim of this startup company was to develop different and funny games for iPhone and iPad like Captain Glyph, a fast paced actionpuzzle-word game.

In 2012, I started the project that I am working on right now, called “Imaginary Destinations”, a personal metaphor of the 3D virtual worlds. In 2014, I started a second degree in Art History from UNED (National University of Distance Education).

José Galant

Selfie At Gaudi's Land (Manchester)

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LandEscape meets

José Galant An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Artist José Galant's work elaborated a discourse between notions of the “natural” and the “industrial” that engages the viewer. In his long term project entitled Imaginary Destinations, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he challenges the relationship between the viewers' limbic parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to produce new perceptions.

Drawing from StemPunk imagery, Galant's approach deconstructs symbols to challenge the relationship between the viewers' most limbic parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to produce new perceptions and thus obtain a new perspective on the world. One of the most impressive aspects of Galant's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to create the “Imaginary destinations” to create a parody or fine amusement but without any lack of respect for people. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production.

Hello José and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training: among your studies, you attended the Fine Arts and Graphic Design School "Groc” in Barcelona as a painting and ceramics major and you later earned your DNAP from the École supérieure des Beaux Arts de Perpignan in Fine Arts. How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Spanish roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to introduce myself and my artistic

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background. I have always been interested on all of these matter related to art, I began painting canvases and graffiti at the beginning of the nineties, and in 1993 I began studying Applied Arts and Artistic Professions at Groc School (Barcelona, Spain). Studying at this school was a very enriching experience, because allowed me the opportunity to stretch my skills across the various fields, learning various techniques, experimenting with materials, etc. A training that

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in one form or another has influenced my creations since that time.

But if a stage of educational training has influenced on my development as an artist, and in particular “Imaginary Destinations”, the project that I am working on right now, that will undoubtedly during the stage (2004-2006) I studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Perpignan (France), studying with students from all

over the world. I was lucky then, too, because I acquired different views and I really learned how to shape the projects, thanks to excellent teachers, and especially because it was the period I began studying 3D Computer Graphics, at the start in an autodidactic way and later studying two postgraduate degrees. In the other hand, even I have Spanish roots I don’t think that this cultural substratum inform the way I relate myself to art

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Boat ride on the old timesquare 26

José Galant

José Galant

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JosĂŠ Galant

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The Submerged Town Of The “Star Recuperators Seahorses

making, because I have always been a multicultural-minded person, I have a lot of different cultural influences that is reflected in my artworks.

Your approach is very personal and your technique condenses a variety of viewpoints, that you combine together into a coherent balance. We

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would suggest to our readers to visit http://jgalant.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style?

José Galant

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like it to be. Therefore, in order to develop the scenographies with my own style, I used to use the same methodology, from an initial idea, that will be gradually developed, but trying not to spend too much time to the conceptual idea that would represent the scenography, to don't miss the essence of the original idea. I started my research into the aesthetics combining some of my favourite art movements (Neo-Gothic, Romanticism, Art Nouveau, etc), with the resulting in an eclectic style, heavily influenced by the XIX century and beginnings of the 20th, with a touch of retrofuturism, in other words, incorporating to the scenographies steam technologies or futuristic inventions imagined by this hypothetical visionaries of that time.

In the initial phase of my creative process, and from the spontaneous idea I used to combine some elements from old photographs with “no known copyright restrictions”, 3D objects developed by me and my own digital photographies from the photo sessions I do with my amazing team of collaborators and epoch’s explorers, usually dressed in victorian fashion or retro-futuristic styles. Following the creative process, after creating the conceptual idea that would represent the scenography I give it a pictorial finish with my graphics tablet. Then, in some cases, depending on the complexity of the scenography and time available, I project the image and I draw some elements with watercolour pencils or directly with the brush in order to go faster. To paint, I use acrylics and watercolours, and different sorts of acrylic fluid or slow drying mediums on paper, or linen canvases, and also I use drawing pencils, markers, etc.

“Imaginary Destinations” is a personal metaphor of the 3D virtual worlds, and is inspired by “Second Life”, the largest-ever 3D virtual world filled entirely by the creations of its users. This personal metaphor is a resource, with which I intend to help people understand quickly and easily how I imagine the virtual reality of the future, or as I would

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected “Imaginary Destinations”, an interesting transdisciplinary research project that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of “Imaginary Destinations”, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?

Although in all the virtual worlds there are common features, each developer creates her own world, with more or less it's own personality. Therefore, in

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order to develop “Imaginary Destinations” with my own style, heavily influenced by the late 19th century & early 20th century cultural movements as the Neo-Gothic, a style widespread in Europe during the Middle Ages, and revived between 18th and 19th centuries, and that I really like because the complex amalgam of smaller towers, dark vaults, stained glass windows, spires, etc. I also have begun to incorporate Art Nouveau and Catalan Modernism (1890-1910 approx.) elements to the scenographies, mainly from Gaudí (like small tributes), a simply brilliant architect by going further than Modernism, creating new structural methods. What appeals to me the most about Art Nouveau is the intention of creating a new art, young, free and modern.

The influence of some aspects of the Romanticism, is also reflected in my works in some way, removing the limitations of surfaces such as canvas and paper, liberating the public, giving to them the possibility to can get inside and interact in a new world, full of Imaginary Destinations, fantastic and mysterious, populated by extraordinary characters as the steam beings, where they may be freely observed, from absolute individuality and subjectivity, because it is not mandatory interact with other avatars in the virtual worlds. As a result of this combination of elements from different artistic styles, I can offer neo-surrealistic images, which, unlike the surrealistic images, these are generated as a result of a very elaborate process, without losing the control and through the use of new technologies, without losing the subjectivity with the vast array of disparate elements’s associations, and from heterogeneous outside constraints. The “sense” of these imperfect and unfinished “Imaginary Destinations” seems to have stronger links to “feel” than with "understand" each of the aesthetical experiences.

Digital techniques are a crucial aspect of the cross disciplinary nature of your pratice: we live in an age that’s saturated with a wide multitude of image-making methods, from different film and digital technologies, and with all the variations and modifications that come with them. How does it affect us psychologically when we see an image that looks like it was made over a hundred years ago, even if it was made yesterday?

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The Snail's Steam Beach

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The Victorian-Defragmentation’s Generator

I think it will depend a lot on the attractiveness that these scenographies, with real or imaginary elements, of different styles and periods, spark inside the observers. Is a very individual and

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subjective experience. In addition, it means different things to different people over time, is possible that does not generate the same reaction than the first impressions, when seeing again the same picture, a short time later or on

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Dusk, At The Yellowstone Open-Air Hot Springs

several occasions. Any of these contexts ensures a meaning or a specific psychological effect and result. Another factor to consider is the torrent of daily images we suffer today.

In addition, as affirmed Marshall McLuhan «the medium is the message', If the media is changed, “the basic message becoming distorted”. The context is very important, in other words, the experience of having arrived by walking to an

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Oniric Salzburg

exhibition space and to admire, one of the pictorial images of one of the “Imaginary Destinations”, changes if for example, we came "flying in" to the 3D virtual version of the same scenography. And exponentially If in addition, we interact through an avatar that represents an

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idealized version of ourselves, with the avatars of other persons characterized as the characters of such “Imaginary Destination”.

One marginal detail, that might nonetheless be significant in the context of visiting for example

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Elephant Ride On Montmartre

the 3D virtual version of an scenography decorated just as it was during Belle Epoque, is the difference in the psychological effects that could generate visiting the “Imaginary Destination” with and personalised avatar or standard. It has been proved that personalised avatar predisposes unconsciously to the user to adopt certain attitudes and behaviour, which in turn make up the personality of the avatar inside the virtual world.

You draw a lot from natural and urban environment and the landscapes that you paint never play the mere role of backgrounds: how

would you define the relationship between environment and your work?

The “Imaginary Destinations’s” environments, plays a large role in contributing to attract and retain new online and offline observers, especially in the 3D virtual versions. Thanks to the virtual reality, aside from transcending or to make users feel in any different medium or media in which the pictorial images were created, allowing the possibility to the public get lost in the middle of nowhere, in the virtual infinite, as a metaphor for an inner journey to the search for the inner "me", dwarfed by nature and watch as

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if they were inside the “Imaginary Destination” itself, surrounded by the imagery and sound effects.

The creative process used to develop each of the scenographies is very elaborate, but my background setting strategy is very intuitive, sometimes taking a decision in seconds, deciding which elements will appear in the “Imaginary Destination” and where will be located. Although I need to spend hours on the image integration or adjust lighting, correct framing, etc, to generate attractive images and which also create emotions. The aim of these scenographies is to get visitors feel a special connection to the environment of this imaginary and fantasy places, make them feel at home whether or not to view or interact with the avatars. I would also like to investigate, what are the technical limitations when combining, virtual reality with other reality layers such as augmented reality, and the increased virtuality, and to review how the public performs from this experiment.

When showing clear references to perceptual reality, your work always convey a vivacious surrealistic feeling that provide with dynamism the representative feature of your canvass, as The Submerged Town Of The Star Recuperators Seahorses. The way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

I like surprising people creating extraordinary, different and unique situations, in which we can see the figures in a giant playground of discovery with surprise encounters, but reacting like normal, moving between the real and imagined, but always trying to give a little something extra back with new “Imaginary Destinations” that attract attention, stir emotion with fantasy, and my personal form of surreal humour. As I said before, my background setting strategy is very intuitive, there is a certain point in the creative process that, I find in it the balance that appeals to me between abstraction and representation, more than a beautiful composition, is a happy coincidence.

As you have remarked once, one of the most prevalent influences in your work is the subgenre of science fiction, called “SteamPunk”, that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs: how

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The Venetian Polyhedra’s Generator does it affect the way you conceive your artworks?

This movement of creativity have a strong influence in my creative process, but in a positive way, because gives me a lot of freedom. I don’t need to restrict myself strictly to the historical events, I can enjoy in the creative process at all levels, with a variety of answers and

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interpretations. I start always with the question: how the next “Imaginary Destination” will be?

And, I intend to answer with the image. The pursuit of the answer “this is how I imagine it”, is undoubtedly the most powerful cause in my ideas exploration in this alternative history of the 19th and early 20th centuries, that incorporates

cutting-edge steam technology or futuristic inventions imagined by the visionaries of that time.

We would like to pose some questions about the balance established by colors and texture: we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that saturate your canvas and especially the way in “Boat Ride On The Old Timesquare” they suggest the idea of plasticity and even such a

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tactile feeling. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture?

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The background of this images, are typically painted in grayscale with all sorts of nuances, and then, appears full-color elements, to give it more importance to what we are looking at in the foreground. I like that the final image features, an expressive aesthetic appearance similar to the detail images, that remind as much as possible to

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theme of vehicles - some of them are marked out with a strong allegorical connotations, as in The SteamDeer's Street and in The Snail’s Steam Beach - that accentuate one-point perspective. What is the role of metaphors and symbols in your imagery?

“Imaginary Destinations” is a personal visual metaphor about 3D virtual worlds like “Second Life”, a resource with which I intend that you can understand quickly and easily, how I imagine the virtual reality of today and for the future, or as I would like it to be, what is the technical limitations in order to adapt the virtual reality to other reality layers, and to watch how the public behaves with this artistic experience. The “Imaginary Destinations” pictures, must be seen as proposals to transform one of them in a 3D virtual world within the project “Sansar”. Their fundamental characteristic is the breakdown with day-to-day life, presenting the extraordinary events but perceived with normality.

With the human characters, I try to represent the human avatars that we could see in the 3D virtual worlds, they must be put in context and interpreted as a second self or “Alter Ego”, a tool for unbounded exploration, like a solitary hero that materialises or virtualizes its dreams and aesthetics. The virtual reality will allows me invite the public to share, the irrational feelings of the extraordinary characters that appears in the scenographies, and that are being observed imperturbably.

the 3D virtual worlds. In order to achieve the best possible result, I work with professional acrylic flow improver on linen smooth canvas, in order to generate textures as soft as possible.

Many of your works have a symmetrical perspective and quite varied contrast in dark and light tones. Also, we can recognize a recurring

In “Imaginary Destinations”, the animal-machines are Steampunk metaphors for animals in 19th and early 20th centuries. In this historic context it is recalled for example that René Descartes, whose meditations (1641) informed attitudes about animals well into the 20th century, animals were for Descartes as well as the major part of the society nothing but complex automata, with no souls, minds, or reason. I had the idea of creating the virtual steambeings, when I first saw for example the "SteamMan", by the american inventor Zadoc P. Dederick, (1868). And thanks to the interactivity capacities offered by the virtual reality (the complete work of art for me), I can give a soul to the animal-machines through the human online control, from anywhere to anywhere in the world at any time, making possible for example the dialogue and exchange of information, thoughts, feelings and hopes with this steam beings.

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In the other hand, I use the ruins often placed on the horizon of the “Imaginary Destinations” to symbolise life's ephemeral nature, but without feeling hopeless about it, because there are, a totally new world beginning to emerge with the best of the possibilities, offered by the virtual reality and the users visual creativity. Another “Imaginary Destination” starts almost as soon as one is over.

Finally, I use the holes in the floor appearing under the scenographies, just for integrating the eruption of unexpected disparate elements, from

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heterogeneous nature, different origins, cultures and periods.

Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions including your recent participation at the “Salon International D’Art Contemporain” at Carrousel du Louvre (Paris, France). One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship.

So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you

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public, in order to make real their dream places, and tests to improve the interactivity with the elements of the scenographies, that are beyond the linen canvas or paper through augmented reality. The possibilities for interactivity and participation of this new reality layers, helps make us even freer than ever. Finally, In the next phase, another crucial component of my decision-making process, will be the opinion-research from the public, in order to select one of this pictorial or digital images of the “Imaginary Destinations” which functions as a “art concepts”, and I intend to transform it in a virtual world inside “Project Sansar”, the new platform of Linden Lab (the creator of “Second Life”) for creating social VR experiences, which is slated for public release in early 2017, in which end users will can interact with each other through online 3D avatars and be enjoyed in VR with head-mounted displays like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, José. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

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

Audience reception is indeed very, very important for my creative process, because the aim of my transdisciplinary research project, is to create a fun and innovative artistic experience, in which the audience be able to visit through the virtual reality, the places I have painted, using an universal, understanding and adaptable artistic language. To achieve this objective, I’m doing a research with the

Over the next few years, my goal is to develop the practical applications of “Imaginary Destinations”, such as in the cultural, educational and Healthcare fields. I would like to create a virtual exhibition space inside the “Imaginary Destinations” selected, and promote the “365 Artists 365 Days Project” in which Im taking part, through immersive experiences provided by virtual-reality headsets. The purpose of “365 Artists 365 Days Project”, is to introduce its readership to a diverse collection of art, that is being produced at the local, national and international level. The goal is to engage the public with content regarding a wide array of creative processes, studio practices, and the successes and challenges that artists face from day to day.

Another of the practical applications of my project, would be in the Health-care field, through immersive virtual-reality therapies, in order to help patients in pain use their brain in a way it kind of ignores the pain signals by forcing it to react to different, simulated things. And finally, in relation with Meditation & Mental Health, I would like to create “Imaginary Destinations”, where users can find their happy place, by putting on their Oculus headsets and becoming immersed in one of this relaxing scenographies.

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D ick Evans Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

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seldom begin a painting with any particular image in mind.

I often start by simply loading a brush with a color of paint that appeals to me at that time and making a stroke on the canvas or panel surface.

As I react to the form of that stroke, the way it divides the canvas, the weight of the stroke, the emotional impact, I lay down the next stroke, either in the same color or in a different color. The entire painting evolves in that manner, in a series of reactions to the previous collection of actions. Throughout that process, the visual and emotional elements that I have collected during my lifetime of observation, as well as, I suspect, elements that are in the genetic evolution of the human species, all play a part in determining each new step. Ultimately my paintings are simply explorations, interpretations and expressions of the world around me and within me.

Now, I will say that I do love the New Mexico landscape. I will say also that I

love to look at just about any landscape or cityscape or room interior or the food on my plate! That is what I do. All that information is continually filed away, unconsciously resurfacing reappearing years later. I often don’t even remember a particular inspiration when I am painting. Then sometime later I might see something in the landscape that will make me exclaim, “Oh yes, I painted that last year in such and such a painting, something like this must have inspired that work.” I do not have a particular reaction that I am hoping for from a viewer. Rather, I would like for the viewer to experience an increased awareness or way of seeing, perhaps it could be called visual vocabulary, through encountering my work”.

Hopefully that will lead to heightened emotional and intellectual richness for the viewer. This goal applies to me as well as others, for I probably learn more through experiencing my paintings than does any other viewer.

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, 2015, 12x12, acrylic on clayboard panel

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LandEscape meets

Dick Evans An interview by and

, curator , curator

I spent my youth on a farm in the panhandle of Texas. The nearest house to our family house was a half mile away. The land was so flat I could see the street lights of small towns in each direction up to twenty miles away. I was out in the open a great deal of the time.

Space took on a real meaning to me during those years, and it still plays a part in the composition of my paintings. I also learned to be very self-sufficient, both occupying my time using my imagination and also being "handy" in a lot of ways. I

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could use nearly any tool and was good at all sorts of projects.

That all carried forward as I completed a very diverse formal art training program. Art was entirely new to me. It was only by happenstance that I even learned one could take art classes at University. I loved it so much I didn't want to leave, and even stayed for an additional year after filling my requirements because I felt I still had important things to learn.

Having a broad range of media possibilities has been empowering through the years, with each experience building on the last, and opening doors to the next.

, 2015, 30-x48, acrylic on canvas

I have spent a lifetime observing.

That's important. I LOOK at my surroundings continuously. Through that constant observation I have

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identified certain visual and emotional paradigms that I feel are important to me and also may

resonate with those viewing my paintings. As the years have gone by, I continually try to identify what

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, 2015, 12x12, acrylic on clayboard panel

is important and what is superfluous, not only in lifestyle, but also in any single painting.

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When I am painting it is nearly, but not quite, stream of conscious. I seldom have more than a vague idea of where the painting might take me.

Often times not even that...

I just lay in a stroke of color, enlarge it to a shape and react to that. I paint very physically, and the gesture becomes an important part of the expression. Nearly all of the gesture is instinctive, but occasionally a little intellectual consideration creeps in. If that part feels right, I allow it to remain. It's very, very rare that I work from a sketch or out in nature.

When I do it often becomes clichĂŠ. I find the best distiller of importance is the filter of mind and memory.

Sometimes my paintings seem to be totally non-objective, rather than simply abstracted. However, I still

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see landscape in them. But then, I see landscape in nearly everything‌ even to the food in my plate! The quality of the brushstroke is of major importance to me, taking on an equal importance to that of color, form, and line. I would compare it to the importance of voice quality of a singer or story teller. In the paintings mentioned, the trailing off of some shapes and brushstrokes, contrasted to the building of power in others, is what keeps the tension and interest in the composition. It also keeps the composition from being simply shapes without emotional meaning.

Real and imagined is an interesting discussion. One could say it's all real once it's on the surface of the painting. The journey from an actual tree, mountain, horizon line is based on observation and emotional reactions which are stored up over a lifetime. It all becomes the same to me, and I would have a hard time deciding whether it is real before it goes on the canvas, or only after. I just know I feel the compelling desire to express it.

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, 2016, 36-x48, acrylic on clayboard panel

, 2012, 30x48, acrylic on canvas

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, 2016, 24x24, acrylic on clayboard panel

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, 2015, 30'x30' acrylic on clayboard panel

The narrative for any particular work is only apparent to me after the painting is finished. Sometimes

I see it immediately, and sometimes it only becomes clear months later.

Putting a verbal narrative to works

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in general is somewhat selfdefeating, as ideas and emotions in works of art transcend verbal description‌ otherwise, why even do it? A person could just say it. I like for there to be many interpretations of what is going on in one of my paintings. Of course, the viewer brings his or her experience and emotion to the work. For some, the painting may be an opportunity to move into a space and experience it as a new way of seeing the landscape. For others it may be passage out of a confinement into a different reality.

It is absolutely a reflection of me. I believe it takes darkness and light to make up the whole of a person.

By embracing the dark as a legitimate part of myself, I feel I have a richer existence and a fuller understanding of the world around and within me. In artwork at its very best, the contrast between those elements creates an exquisite tension that is

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, 2015, 36x48, acrylic on clayboard panel

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, 2016, 48-x48, acrylic on canvas

powerful both visually and emotionally. I would like to think that I strive for that in nearly all my work. Here I am including another

painting, THREE IN WAITING, as an additional example of atmosphere of contrasting tones and brushstroke creating an emotional

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In this painting, color plays a particularly strong role in exciting the senses and establishing a real/unreal sense of the indication of plants, land, and clouds. Linear and atmospheric perspective combine to create a strong sense of space through which the viewer is swept along to a not-quite-clear destination. I'd like to think the outcome gives one a sensation of the adventurous, with a sense of peril, but also exhilaration. It's a similar emotional tug-of-war that is found in "Testament," mentioned in the previous question. The contradictions of the expected versus the shown are meant to keep the viewer in a heightened state.

situation that is non-verbal.

Intuition is something I rely on in all my life experience. In the realm of my paintings, it is the primary mover. Technique is simply a means to express those feelings. Over

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, 2016, 36x60, acrylic on canvas

time, my technique has evolved to fit the parts of my intuition that I

wish to share. I've learned which aspects of my technical abilities

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, 2015, 40-x40, acrylic on canvas

further that goal. Obviously my life has been spent developing the ability

to trust my own intuition, and the better intuition and technique work

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, 2015, 12-x12, acrylic on clayboard panel

together, the more successful are the results.

In each of these paintings I find a sense of quiet longing. The subdued tones are a part of the enhancement

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of that emotion, certainly, but the spatial relationships are also of prime importance. In "Quiet Moment," the spaces occur between the figures, and are related to the distances we find between ourselves and others, as well as our emotions within ourselves. In "Coming Back," the

spaces are between ourselves and our imagined destination. The shapes in the upper right could be the rhythm of our travels through life.

Understand, these are my own reactions to the paintings. Any viewer brings his or her own essence to play on seeing the work. I might

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add that I find a lot of this answer relates to my painting “Night Soliloquy,� as well.

Many, many years ago, I realized that painting for an audience other than myself did not work for me. Of course I care how my work is viewed.

However, I don't intellectually set out to tell a particular story. Again, the intuition is of primary importance.

Over the years I have come to the belief that the most personal work is also the most universal. At my desk I have posted a note to myself reading, "Never lose sight of the power of your own individuality." I believe that is good counsel for us all.

, diptych, 2016, 48x90, acrylic on canvas

I plan to continue to paint for as

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long as it seems relevant to me. That means that I still enjoy the process and still feel I am learning. Life experience continues to feed new information and I want to try to

assimilate that by the process of making my art.

An interview by and

, curator , curator

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Sara Drescher Lives and works in Midland, Texas

An artist's statement

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y art has always been about the human face and iconography. Traditional icons stylized the face to create a distance between the viewer and the subject. Hence, the subject was raised to higher level or dimension.

I have long played with the idea of an approachable icon, an everyday saint. My faces offer a familiar realism to engage the audience, whether to challenge traditional ideas or to offer camaraderie. The golden circle as a symbol of completeness, the eternal, and a higher plane is an important running theme in my work.

Religious themes have permeated art from prehistoric times and have led to some of our most treasured pieces of artwork. As a result a catalog and legacy of symbols has

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also been created. This visual language appeals to me. I have taken this catalog of traditional symbols and added to it from my own experiences.

My current stream of work is mix of media that uses watercolor, acrylic and latex paint, colored pencils, graphite, and gold leaf. Using the strengths and weaknesses of each medium allows me more flexibility to communicate my thoughts. The ideas of the mundane and the spiritual are represented by landscapes and images of outer space respectively. Traditional visual space is pushed and pulled to challenge the viewer to look deeper and discover the significance of these choices.

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LandEscape meets

Sara Drescher An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

Artist Sara Drescher's work establishes a channel of communication between symbolism and representation, to challenge the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum. Her works induce us to elaborate personal associations, offering at the same time a captivating multilayered aesthetic experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Drescher's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of taking the ancient tradition of religious art and bringing it into the 21st century using surrealism and symbols. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Sara and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background?

You have a solid formal training and you hold a BFA, that you received from the University of North Texas School of Visual Arts, Denton: how does this experience influence the way you conceive and produce your artworks?

And in particular, how does your

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cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Thank you so much for this opportunity to get to know your readers. I am honored. My education was invaluable in my journey as an artist. Before university, I was more concerned with the technique of art (i.e. drawing and or painting for accuracy) than what I was saying in my art. I thoroughly enjoy the visceral process of drawing and handling the mediums, but the multilayers of depth and meaning I can infuse into my work feeds my soul and challenges me as an artist. Learning about the history and the stories of the artists that have come before, gave me a grander perspective on my calling as an artist. My ‘artistic ancestors’ also gave me a foundation of artistic ideals and ideas to build upon. I found a mentor in one of my painting professors who understood what I was trying to communicate in my work. He gave me invaluable guidance that still resonates with me today. Having the regular support of distinguished and experienced artists is something I miss in my life presently. I have this innate desire to connect with people through my art. I think that is why I insist on having a face to interact with my

Kingdom Come

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audience. So, aesthetically, I seek to create a platform in my work that is not only appealing visually, but that also has just enough unexpected, if not unfamiliar, elements to cause the viewer to stay a little longer. My hope is that he or she will pause and receive something on a spiritual level from a physical painting.

Your approach is very personal and condenses a variety of technique including watercolor, acrylic and latex paint, colored pencils, graphite, and gold leaf, that you combine together into a coherent balance. We would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.artbysaradb.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such combination between different media is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

I do feel like the combination of multiple mediums is the only way I can convey the ideas I am working with right now.

Up until about three years ago, I was a watercolor purist with a little dabbling in acrylic for specific projects. I hit the proverbial artistic wall. I was at a place of not being satisfied with the quality and message of my work. After several failed paintings in a row, I decided to revisit a time when I was the most pleased with my work and happier with the results. I landed on the idea that incorporating an element of drawing along with painting was inspiring and exciting for me artistically. The moment I changed my direction is clear in my memory since I was starting an artist residency where people would be

watching me paint and create. No pressure, right? The work I started that day was so engaging that I had a difficult time stopping for the day. It was like that feeling of not being able to put down a fantastic book. I was hooked after that piece. By using multiple mediums, I can utilize the strengths of one to compensate for the weaknesses of another. Sometimes an idea will solidify as I incorporate the different mediums to produce the piece.

Would you tell our readers something about your usual process and the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas?

I start every piece with the face.

Capturing the personality and expression of the face to tie in with the direction of the painting is extremely important to me. If the face doesn’t work, the whole painting doesn’t work. I sketch out the face and the composition of the painting. Then, I adjust the size of the sketch to fit the format of the paper or canvas I am using. I regularly choose additional images, colors, and design elements instinctively. This action frequently results in the appearance of hidden meanings. My style has evolved from a short-lived background in graphic design and a love for realism. I am intrigued by David Salle’s technique of juxtaposing seemingly random images to create a narrative. I am also fascinated by the power and controversy surrounding traditional religious icons. Matisse’s irreverent use of space also interests me, so I keep

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that in the back of my mind. I like transposing areas of great depth with flat, graphic spaces, or using realism adjacent to more impressionistic passages.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Stone and Kingdom Come, a couple of interesting works that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Stone and Kingdom Come, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?

In both “Stone” and “Kingdom Come,” I am interested in creating a connection with my audience. Both pieces have elements of traditional religious icons (i.e. a figure, halo, static pose), but unlike the traditional icons, these figures are relatable rather than unreachable. An overarching theme in my work is the idea of ‘everyday saints.’

My hope is that the faces will remind the viewer of someone he or she knows, or even connect with the viewer as a friend or another human being. The figures look straight at the viewer, daring to engage them and refusing to be ignored. The viewer can also empathize with the figure and take on the mantle of spirituality in the piece.

The placement of the elements is very significant. I use the landscape as a symbol of our ‘earthly’ bodies. Hence, the body is the landscape. In the

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Christian religion, our bodies are symbols of the physical self, separate from our spirits. Our bodies are containers and tie our spirits to this earth while we inhabit them. The imagery in the landscape is also significant. The sun rising represents hope and a promise of good to come.

A shore line is a new beginning. Sheep represent those we are called to care for in our lives. A floating island represents life after death, the kingdom of heaven. Images of ‘outer space,’ galaxies, and stars represent the vastness, endless possibilities, and mystery of the heavenly realms.

Literally, ‘the heavens.’ Creating the hair from these heavens is purposeful too. The placement of the heavens on the head is to symbolize having a mind focused on spiritual things rather than the mundane issues of this world.

The drips hearken to the idea of being anointed. In the past, people were anointed with oil by holy men when they were recognized for their calling in life, whether king or priest or other.

I like the idea of anointing, dripping, covering, and marking a person for something greater. Even confirmation of who you are can be messy. The spattering of drops in “Stone” represents our humanness even as we strive for higher purpose. We fail, make mistakes, speak without thinking, but that doesn’t take away our destiny. “Stone” is specifically a portrait of the apostle Peter.

Your works allow an open reading, a great multiplicity of meanings: in particular, the golden circle as a symbol of completeness, invites to associative possibilities in the viewes,

Giant Killer

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Transient Permanence

that seem to play a crucial role in your pieces. How important is this degree of openness?

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Yes, I purposefully create my work to be open. I have always encouraged my viewers to find their own truth in my work. Whether he or she comes to the

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more life to a piece of art. However, I do create pieces with specific directions in mind. For instance, “Giant Killer” is a portrait of David the shepherd, the giant killer. I provide clues to the story, but again, if a viewer takes away something completely different from the piece, I have no problem with that. In “Giant Killer,” if the readers are interested, the landscape reflects imagery from the twenty third psalm. Over his shoulders are five circles representing the five smooth stones he chose to arm himself with to face his foe. One circle is red to show that only one shot was needed.

Letters From Patmos

same place I do, doesn’t matter too much to me. I don’t want to ‘hit people over the head’ with my meanings. This is especially important in works that can have a spiritual meaning since much of the spiritual life is intensely personal. It is important for me to be respectful to my viewer. I am not on the ‘shock and disturb’ path in creating my art. I think that has a place, but that has never been true of me or my work. So, pieces like “Drawing Near” are great examples of meditative pieces that will speak to my audience where they are in life. I think meanings for pieces like this can change for the viewer as his or her life changes. I like that fluidity. It gives

When showing clear references to perceptual reality, your paintings convey a captivating abstract feeling that provide with dynamism the representative feature of your canvass, as Transient Permanence. The way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

I consider myself a realist, or better yet, a surrealist, so I feel like I have a duty to push myself past the accomplishment of only rendering a representation of what I see. I think some realists like to show off their skills of representation, which are laudable. However, as artists it is our duty to challenge our audience somehow. Too much representation without challenge leads to an apathetic

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and lazy audience. Don’t get me wrong, finding the innate beauty in the detail and light of my subject matter thrills me, but providing more than just visual surface information to my audience is a way I challenge myself as an artist. I want my audience to come away from my artwork changed. Adding elements of abstraction to elements of realism stimulates the mind and encourages more consideration. Multiple style elements also keep a piece from becoming too rigid. As I said before, I like my pieces to be fluid and flexible, to be able to connect with many types of people. I may confuse some people, but I won’t be boring. In “Transient Permanence,” the abstraction keeps the eye interested and moving around and piece and is a tool to highlight different areas. I want the viewer to wonder at my choices whether they have a deeper meaning, are purely design, or are both.

I purposefully try to find a balance between realism and abstraction in my work. If I lean more toward realism, my work may not be engaging. If I lean more toward abstraction, I may not connect with the viewer.

The brushstrokes that condense your visual vocabulary and we have really appreciated the ethereal quality of Abiding Place. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works?

I think a balance of real and imagined elements is an important part of my style. Although the imagery is mainly recognizable, the combination, placement, and existence is imaginary.

Leaning toward the surreal allows me to present a person with dripping galaxies

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in his hair or a landscape, inspired by real life, but plucked from my imagination. In many of my pieces, like “Abiding Place,” I have even included an imaginary language. The script on the side is based on a few known written languages, but it is from my subconscious, my imagination.

Combining realistic elements in impossible ways is part of how I challenge my viewers to look at the world differently.

While marked out with a deep introspective quality, your painting are more than mere representations of your inner self: you rather seem to invite the viewers to an augmented perceptual experience to discover unexpected aspects not only of their inner world, but of the connectivity that affects our everchanging contemporary age. In particular your works and in particular you Stream in the Desert brings forward that the landscape on which everything is happening: how would you consider the relationship between the inner landscape and the outside world?

Could art provide us with a channel of communication between these aspects of reality?

I do think that landscapes can be symbolic of our inner selves. In “Stream in the Desert” there is a tension between the storms coming in the sky and the land’s need for rain. The violence of a storm can be frightening, but the result is much needed. Many situations in life can be that struggle between the fear of change or action and a need for that change or action. I think that tension between what we want and what we need is a battle for

Deliberate Path

On the Shore

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many people. The presence and absence of light in a landscape can also reflect the viewer’s own present situation. So, I do think art can stimulate communication between the unconscious mind and the present reality. My work is about reaching out to my viewer and possibly connecting with something deep that he or she didn’t even know was there. I think art can be a tool for healing as well, so helping bridge the divide between the inner landscape and the present reality is an important subtext in my work.

When inquiring into the the idea of an approachable icon, your work challenges an inner cultural debate between traditional heritage and contemporariness: despite the reminders to traditional figurative approach, your works is marked out with a stimulating contemporary sensitiveness. Do you think that there's still a contrast between Tradition and Contempoariness? Or there's an interstitial area where these apparently opposite elements could produce a proficient synergy?

When I started the path with traditional icons as my jumping off point, my goal was to bring the elements from the past that were still valuable and give them a contemporary voice. By presenting traditional ideas in a modern space, I can remind my viewers of the timeless aspects of these icons while making them relevant again. It was challenging to choose which parts to bring with me and which to leave behind. Also, how to translate this tradition into modern visual languages. I chose to keep the relative simplicity of design but I made it a point to make the figures more

global with multiple races and people represented. I added some pop elements and a brighter color palette compared to the traditional muted tones. The outer space element fit perfectly with what I was trying to accomplish. While being a strong symbol, it added a contemporary or even futuristic flair that appealed to me on many levels. I wanted to be respectful of the tradition I was mining but also push the boundaries a bit to bring it to a contemporary level. “On the Shore” and “Away No.2” are perfect examples of the range I have been working within. “On the Shore” has a more classic approach with a static front pose. She is very self-contained, as well, with simple imagery that lends itself to a meditative quality. However, she is a specific person, not a generalized stylized figure. She looks at the viewer with almost a quality of awareness. Her attributes, the specific symbols a saint holds to identify him or her in traditional icons, are more open. The dripping stars and bright landscape are more open for interpretation, while she herself almost starts a conversation. In “Away No. 2,” I push the boundaries even more. The pose is more dynamic while the figure still directly engages the viewer. The symbols of the stars and landscapes are reversed in placement. The landscape is over the head and the stars are in the body. I have added two more elements, attributes if you will: the pop culture figure of the flying astronaut boy and the rough red line across her forehead.

The elements of the spiritual are still there with an addition of humor and possible threat. I think adding these unexpected elements to a traditional

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Reflection of Choice

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format makes the piece more fluid and open to interpretation by the viewer. In traditional icons, there is almost an unmoving way of translating the imagery. I think that the traditional icons do have a sense about them that does speak to the viewer. However, there isn’t much mystery to most of the elements that comprise traditional icons. The modern sensibility of fluidity is something I bring to my ‘modern icons.’

We would like to pose some questions about the balance established by colors and texture: we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that saturate your canvas as well as the contrast between the dark background and bright tones that provides Reflection of Choice with a special, autonomous aesthetics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture?

My color palette reflects the importance of hope in my work. I have many pure, bright colors contrasted with areas that are very dark. I lean toward a graphic feel in my work and that birthed the pure color choices. The darker areas provide the complimentary backdrop for these colors to become radiant.

Although many of us would rather only live in happy, bountiful times, without the dark, dismal chapters in our lives, there would be no appreciation for the mountaintops. Psychologically, or rather let’s say in my personality, I tend toward the melancholy. I realized this

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tendency very young and I have worked to be aware of this leaning toward the dark. I decided that I didn’t want to bring a sense of gloom, as it were, into other people’s lives, so I have fostered the gift of encouragement inside myself.

However, pessimism is the default tendency in my mind. I purposefully work to counteract it in my mind, actions, and speech. I hadn’t really thought about it affecting my work until you posed the question, but I do see the light and dark balance, or battle, frequently in my work. I think “Reflection of Choice” is an excellent example. This painting is about balancing good and poor choices in our lives. The shining landscape holds its own against the dark, vastness of space. However, pin points of light and galaxies shine within the great expanse of dark blue and black. The choice of using multiple mediums in my work is the main way I create texture. The paint I have chosen to use lays very flat on the canvas with little build up. I like that crisp graphic quality. Pushing a pencil across canvas creates a delicious texture as it catches and bumps along the canvas fibers. I enjoy using the texture created by drawing on canvas even though it is not a conventional choice. In “Reflection of Choice,” I am pleased with the way the white pencil drawings of the raven and dove turned out. The imperfect texture of the clear, but somewhat rough, drawings has a lovely contrast to the clear drawing of the face and the crisp landscape. As I finish a piece, I reconsider the textures I have created. If the piece is too flat, I add more texture as interest whether it

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Away-No.-2

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Denouement

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is with pencil or more expressive brushstrokes.

Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions and you have had five solos, including your recent show Modern Icons and Everyday Saints at the CASE Gallery. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I agree that audience participation is of great importance to me. I think all artists want viewers to respond somehow to what is created. It is embarrassing to have people walk by and ignore a piece that has been presented. I do change some nuances of how I describe or present my work depending on the audience. Sometimes, the spiritual part of my work is welcome and sometimes it is not. That doesn’t bother me, and I want to respect the format and platform I have been given to use. I think because I have left my work open in many ways, it provides me more opportunities to speak to people. I think artists leave a little bit of themselves in each piece of art, so a piece has a resonance and can speak for itself if need be. I have been honored by the deep, emotional

response of many people to my work.

The response of the audience is what drives me to create. I want to touch people with what I translate from my mind to the canvas.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Sara. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

Thank you again for your kind opportunity to speak with you and your readers. The newest evolution in my work involves adding color to the faces in my pieces. The monochromatic faces are still going to be a part of the work that I am doing, but I am inspired by the stylization of Alex Katz. I may experiment with some elements from Art Nouveau and Art Deco as well. I am also building a series of work I am calling “The Seeds and Light Project.” This work is created to raise funds and awareness for organizations that help children in poverty around the world and locally in the area I live in. You can learn more about it on “The Seeds and Light” website: http://seedsandlightproject.com My fine art website is: http:/saradrescher.com

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator articulaction@post.com

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A yesha Samdani Lives and works in San Francisco, CA, USA

I

find myself getting immersed in the beauty of nature’s colors. These colors have a very strong impact on my personality and paintings as they remind me of my cultural background. My art is inspired by nature therefore I see my reflection in leaves, trees and branches that changes modes and colors with the seasons. I use a various limited color palette for each painting to depict different moods of nature. Through variations of lines, layers and color palette, I explore the sensitivity and delicacy of changing seasons.

Some paintings reveal the beauty of spring and fall and some impression of summer and winter.

I arrange my composition by depicting organic forms, lines, colors, drips and brush strokes.

On my painting surface, I look for

interesting organic shapes and capture them. I explore the relationship between the loose marks and the developed shapes.

My lyrical lines add a rhythm though out the piece. I leave the evidence of the painting process by adding translucent layers on top of each other. I add drips to ease the tension between shapes and colors.

By adding the energy of brush strokes, I guide the viewer’s eye to each corner of the painting. The exploration of different shapes and marks continues to evolve until I reach the veiling process. The veil adds daintiness, softness and tranquility to the overall look. This cohesive body of work is a combination of my cultural and personal experience.

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LandEscape meets

Ayesha Samdani An interview by and

, curator , curator

Thank you so much for having me, I am so honored! In Pakistan I studied traditional art and my focus was more in lanscape painting. When I moved to USA and decided to study again, I chose abstraction. I wanted to learn something different and acquire knowledge of diferent painting techniques and styles.

Reason why I chose abstration was to find my own voice in order to take a leap in the art world. I could have found my own voice through lanscape painting too but when I moved to USA, a new place, I was so confused and in cultural shock. Did not know anyone and had no clue how things work in this new world. My decision to study again was to get familiar with the system and make some connections in the art world. In the begining I had to struggle a lot with my painting style, transitioning from traditional painting to abstraction was not easy step for me. In representational work your subject is your guideline and you follow your subject to

Christopher Reid

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Christopher Reid

Christopher Reid

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Ayesha Samdani

Ayesha Samdani

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create a painting. In abstract painting all you have is colors,to create harmony, rythym, balance and compotion which in my opinion is harder then traditional painting. After all the struggles, learnings and adjustments, I am happy and staisfied with my current painting style and I can proudly say that I have found my voice.

Now I enjoy painting abstract more then landscapes.

No matter where ever you move, one thing never changes, The color of sky, trees and water, they make me feel connected to my roots and inspiration to my work.

The theme of my work is based on nature’s colors and changing seasons. I aim to capture organic shapes found in nature, on my painting surface. I take picture of leave, flowers and branches to look for unique organic shapes which becomes the starting point in my work.

Using oil paints as my primary medium, I add paint directly with brush to create organic shapes. My painting process evolves by adding layers with large and small brushes, some times I pour paint directly on canvas to add drips. Since,I paint in layers and oil paints take longer to

dry, I paint bunch of paintings together so if one is wet I can move on to next.

Each painting has between 10 to 20 layers. Most of my paint layers are translucent, these layers shows the traces. I work small to large scale paintings. I have explored both canvas and wood surfaces for oil paint medium and I enjoy working with on both.

For silk painting my setup is little different. I use 100% silk and silk chiffon and I dye them with jacquard silk dyes with silk stretched tightly on a frame. I treate dyes as paints and use the same layering process with brush on silk which I use for oil paintigs. I love how dyes spread on silk once you add a brush stroke, colors are more vibrant and luxurious on silk. Once the process is completed I then steam silk for hours to set the dyes.

Finished product is sold as a wearable art, scarves and shirts. If I get the opportunity I would love to do a silk installation.

My paintings are painted instinctively.

While painting I think about visual vocab-

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ulary and the experience I want to share with viewer through each art piece. In Blue Stoke, I did more of a brush work to achieve movement and rhythm at the same time viewers can see the traces of history which is a result of layering technique. These layers create depth in my work.

Where, as Peaking Orange is towards calm side, you can still see some brush strokes but I tried to tame the movement in this particular piece.

When I start the painting I cannot predict how the finish piece would look. The idea develops through the process and eventually takes a form of my expressive emotions and feelings. Some paintings take longer to finish then others. I keep adding layers until I get satisfy with the results.

Before starting my painting I think of season, I want to choose. Once I choose the season, then comes the color palette related to that perticular season. “Snow Fall� is related to winter, while creating this painting I had snow in my mind. During winter, forest is filled with snow and branches. I have tried to express the feel of cold forest. I start with the basic idea of theme and rest of the composition evolve with the process by adding and subtracting layers.

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Ayesha Samdani

Ayesha Samdani

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Through my paintings I express the emotions of my personal experience and thoughts.

Abstract painting is a expression of artist’s feelings. I speak with the viewer through the language of colors to show my emotions and feelings. For me, the role of viewer is to experience the chalenges artists has gone through in the process of creating a piece.

I explore all the possible ways and techniques in my paintings to keep the viewer emotionally involved.My brushstrokes and lyrical lines give them a guide lines for their eyes to follow each corner of the canvas. At, the same time my paintings are open for viewer’s interpretation, some find my voice in them some dont, which totally fine with me. Some viewers see big animals in my work as they try to connect the dots in their imagination.

Painting is a personal experience and it reflects artist’s personality. Our experiences shape us, who we are. As an imigrant I had to go through a lot when I first moved to USA, my life style, atomephere, friends, home and food changed. With my changing personality and culture, my painting style changed as well.Thats why I say that my work is

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combination of cultural and personal experience.

Ayesha Samdani

Ayesha Samdani

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I belive art peice is reflection of artist’s personality. There is a deep connection

between creater of painting and the work.

In my case, I have a melo personality which draws me to color blue. You will notice in my work I use a lot of blues, I have to force myself not to use but you

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will still see small brush strokes of blue here and there.

Ayesha Samdani

Ayesha Samdani

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use to explore relationship between loose marks and developed shapes.

In my opinion abstract painting is intuitive and my layering process is a technique I

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Ayesha Samdani

Ayesha Samdani

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The texture in my paintings is not

intentionaly, it is a result of layering process. I do not think of a style and composition while starting a painting it develops as the painting process evolves.

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Palette choice comes from the inspiration of moods of nature. I try to choose a limited color palette for each painting. If i am not staify with a certain color or layer I add a new layer or color to create a hormany and color balance. For “Joy� I started with scarlet color and rest of the color palette was added with color balance and harmony in mind. This painting was created to represent spring, you see a lot of bright colors during this season.

I belive for an artist audience is important.While creating my paintings I think about exploring the elemnets that can keep the viewers engage in my work. It matters to me what type of experice my audience will walk away with, I want them to have a different experience with each piece.

If you are exicted to know about my future project, follow me on instagram to get latest news from my art studio in San Jose, California. @ashiartist.

An interview by and

, curator , curator

Ayesha Samdani

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Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland

, exhibition in Hagen, Germany

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LandEscape meets

Marta Kawecka An interview by and

, curator , curator

During my studies at the Warsaw University I needed to look at the reality from a distance to be able to describe it.

The anthropological perspective, I gained in the time of my culture studies, made it easier to me to precise my thoughts, diagnose myself – what I feel and what is the reason for it. During the culture studies I've learned to observe the external world more closely and to find cause and effect relationships between seemingly distanced phenomena. At the same time while getting to know the tools of humanistic analyses I longed for direct, non-verbal, sensual, physical experiencing such as while drawing and painting. I was appealed to being inside of the creative process, totally emerged. I think now I find myself in the moment, when these two worlds meet. While clarifying the idea, the base of the future work, distance and intellect play an important role. During realization the intuition is the most important. I'm trying to be inside, to follow what I feel and at the same time to keep on my mind the primary idea. I never approach aesthetic problems that occur apart from the idea.

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Marta Kawecka

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I strive for aesthetics that would be a result of my emotional reaction to the idea.

In the last years I’ve started experimenting with expression tools different to drawing and painting. It happened naturally. Catalyst for it was friendship with some musicians. I found myself in the new environment, which led to experimenting with sound and moving images. I enrolled to the Intercollegiate Multimedia Specialization where I learned new abilities....Although I gained new skills, the creative process itself hasn't changed. It simply gives me more possibilities when I realize a project.

Usually I choose particular medium intuitively, often various media which complement each other. Movie and sound last in time and it is easier to show there a change and a process than in a painting.

In a painting we experience different time, which will be later discovered by a viewer .

He/she has to put effort into discovering subsequence layers, the time of the picture. In the film or sound this process of a change is easily visible, although I see the film and the sound anyway as a painter. My films don't contain traditional narrative, I create them like a painting or collage. The same applies to the sound (realised in cooperation with musicians) which doesn't contain words, but a lot of colours. I like when media involve the receivers’ perception in different ways at the same time.

Metaphors allow the ambiguity. I don't like literality. I'm happy when a person who perceives my art has personal associations. Metaphors keep things open and don't limit them to their meaning.

The work (de)construction was created in Podmacharce, near Augustów – a place where you can feel you are a part of nature. I built a kind of rectangle mosaic from pieces of a rock. The activity of putting the irregular creation of nature together into a geometrical shape became for me a metaphor of dualism in which we live. Something similar happens when we build structures from

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, 190x150cm, oil on canvas, 2014

memory pieces. Thanks to them we feel safer in reality. The inspiration for the most of the metaphors that one can find in my works comes out of this kind of observations.

A crucial factor for me turned out to be the book of Umberto Eco “The Mysterious Flame of Quinn Loanna”, in which the main character loses his emotional memory. He remembers only facts, situations, with which he didn’t have any

, 190x150cm, oil on canvas, 2014

emotional connection. He has to guess who he really is. Reading this book made me realize that events in our lives become important because of our perception of them and emotional connection to them. I am fascinated by ambiguity of this situation. Sometimes people carry with them some last which makes it impossible to positively perceive situations that seem to be positive. E.g. a view of the sea can trigger in one memories of losing a job or a close person, so this person feels conflicting feelings – on one hand they he/she enjoys being at the sea on the other hand the memory of unpleasant situation is unwillingly coming back almost as an

, 190x150cm, oil on canvas, 2014

, 240x240cm, oil on canvas, 2015, in the studio

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, 240x240cm_oil on canvas

obsession. This kind of dualism you can

where the harmony is split by black spots

see for example in the painting Unrest

– obsessions.

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. The city. 240x240cm, oil on canvas, 2015

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, frames from the animation from the picture

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, frame from an animation, 2015

In my paintings I try to express the idea in an emotional way – through colour,

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gesture and texture. I think that the emotional impact does not depend on knowledge, on the ability to decode cultural references. In the whole world people have the ability to perceive sensual code such as delicacy, harshness, last, lightness.

The narrative in my work takes place on the level of the idea – each of my work has a reference in live, the impulse that had caused the idea. I am interested in phenomena and states at the boarder of perception, that’s why my narrative is often very subtle. I think that in the contemporary world, where everyone has to adjust to being efficient, everyone stands in one way or the other at the edge of neurosis. I am interested in the narrative that opens emotionally for a different view than the one we know from everyday live, for the one that helps to understand the neurosis.

I don't like this kind of division – in abstraction and representation. I’m looking for a sign which in the most precise way will express my feelings, observations and at the same time it will be open to many various interpretations.

In my paintings these signs are more

abstract – I show my ideas through colours, textures, light, structures. But these signs are also adopted from reality.

It is not realistic, but it could have some characteristics of reality for example something is very soft like cat’s hair, but it isn’t cat’s hair because it’s blue and is cut by the red line.

In slow motion animations I deal with more direct representation. I use photographs of objects to create an illusion of reality. But the photographs of objects are also signs for me.

I like to let things free (it doesn’t matter if it is more abstraction or representation) and referring to Your question I believe that it is a way to induce the viewers to elaborate personal associations.

When I start a painting I sense which colour should be used. Nevertheless this sense is changing while working on it. I am working using colour and texture till I am satisfied with the result, till I feel I touched the idea. I put further layers.

Sometimes by chance I discover new solutions. My choice of "palette" is changing constantly together with the ideas which come up. Realisation of my diploma and cooperation with the professor Jerzy Boninski were very

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important to me. The Professor Boninski paid my attention to purity of expression and thought me to be braver when it comes to colour.

What is common in all of my works is my interest in human perception. The perception which changes under influence of language, experiences, life style, psyche. It fascinates me how we see and what we omit. How we try to put our experience in order. How the external world influences our perception. How our memory filters memories, which help us to function. How sometimes suppressed feelings come up to the surface and destroy our precisely created persona, history, place. It is important to me to create situations, in which the viewer looks at the reality from different perspective and reflect on his way of looking.

, frames from slow motion anima

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tion

Creating act is for me a process and surely the reception influences my work.

As events and reality that surrounds me

do. Creating act does not exist in vacuum.

Each sensitivity arises out of interaction.

My last work – Road – was developed in cooperation with the musician Rafal

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, installation view

Smolinski together with children from one district in Gdansk – Biskupia Gorka. This work was a part of the Narracje Festival.

Biskupia Gorka is often seen by residents

from other districts from historical perspective – because e.g. public executions took place there and a Hitlerjugend-school was there. We got however in touch with

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our work this energy of now and through this action to show who is the real owner of the place. The contact with children from Biskupia Gorka was inspiring and influencing the shape of the final work.

In the work Road it was important to me to lose control. So that it would be created in the process, through the encounter. The work itself wasn’t however interactive. In the interactive works as Observer and Chaos or Landscape as an eye a viewer had a direct impact on the work through his movements. But the influence was only deceptive – a choice of one out of many programmed possibilities.

Different ways of contacting the viewers arise as well questions about the possibility of control in the contemporary world.

children from the district, for whom Biskupia Gorka is most of all present, a playground, a place of hideaways.

It really mattered to us to show in

I assume that I will still create in two different ways. Some of the works I will create in silence, in my studio and will focus on phenomena, states, feeling and intuition on the border of perception, subconsciousness. And I will create interactive works, with other artists or communities, people who in everyday are not engaged in artistic activity as well. At the moment together with Rafal Smolinski we are working on the Project City as an instrument where we deal with city’s acoustics. We are planning to engage in this activities not only musicians but residents of the city where we live. Parallel to collective activities I am going to paint soundscapes, my personal note on the phonosphere of the city.

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Scott Erwert Lives and works in Portland, Oregon

An artist's statement

I

I am often captivated by what I see, but usually there is an emotional trigger that drives me to interpret every day occurences into a visual language of my own making. These moments happen for me sometimes when I stumble upon the simple awe of a landscape, or biking over a favorite bridge, or when in the company of musicians. I feel compelled to communicate these scenes in a natural way that also provides an emotional layer of meaning. There’s a connection there, or something that draws me in. It’s my job to find the connection through paint and the 2D surface. Sometimes it reveals itself quickly and organically; other times it’s a struggle that takes time and hard work to pull out the meaning and uncover the soul of the thing.

My process usually involves sketching plein air to capture the physical place or moment, then bringing that into the studio to edit, simplify and develop further. With sketches, I utilize my sketchbooks and mediums which can be used to capture information quickly: graphite, colored pencils, watercolor and guoache.

Paintings based on these studies generally

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involve the use of acrylic paint, watercolor, and some collage. The surfaces of final paintings are either done on canvas or wood, on which I build framing devices out of repurposed wood scraps that I salvage from a neighborhood furniture store. I like to think that the handmade quality of the frames tells part of the story of each piece.

I am inspired by the environment and culture around me, and so the subject matter is the urban landscape of this city: the Portland bridges, views from my studio overlooking the industrial part of the Willamette, nature vs progress, and music.

Painting for me is a necessity. It is my means of expression and communication.

My goal in painting is at the same time simplistic and difficult: to create a refrain that gets caught in people’s heads, so that they never tire of looking—just as a melody from a song will engrain itself. It doesn’t need to be, or even shouldn’t be, explainable—just so it has a depth and intracacy to invite a visual dialogue.

Scott Erwert

Marsh Angelpastel of Harlem 24�x18

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LandEscape meets

Scott Erwert An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Katherine Williams, curator landescape@europe.com

Exploring the expressive potential of a wide variety of materials, Portland based artist Scott Erwert considers the vital relationship between direct experience and visual interpretation, in order to draw the viewer through a multi-layered journey. In his recent body of work that we'll be discussing in the following pages he encapsulated both traditional heritage and unconventional sensitivity, to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Erwert's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of creating a refrain that gets caught in people’s heads, breaking the social constructs that affect our unstable contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Scott and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted professional background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a BFA of

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Graphic Design that you received from Oregon State University.

Moreover, over these years you have earned a wide experience as a consultant/independent design and illustration contractor for wide range of clients including: Lucasfilm and Warner Bros: how do these experiences influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works?

All of the professional experiences I've had over the years definitely influence my current work and my approach to each individual job. As a creative, I've been lucky enough to work in a multitude of realms, each with their own creative challenges and scenarios: With the Lucasfilm Art Director position, I was responsible for helping to bring the Star Wars brand into the 21st century, which was the most unique and widely seen work I had the opportunity to be a part of.

Working for agencies is yet another challenge and there are different methods to the work process — collaboration, teamwork, deadlines, managing clients expectations, and other elements of corporate work. So overall, you tend to pick up things

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that help you along the way: for me it's knowing that I always think visually and to keep my sketch book with me at all times, or to make the client part of my process so that they are invested in the project or art that is being created, and most importantly, to believe in what you are doing and follow where the spark of inspiration leads.

Over these years you have experimented with a wide variety of different techniques. The figurative language you convey in your pieces is the result of a constant evolution of your searching for new means to express the ideas you explore in your work: your inquiry into the expressive potential of colors combines together figurative as subtle abstract feature into a coherent balance. We we would suggest to our readers to visit a few of your websites in order to get a synoptic view of your work: www.behance.net/erwert, and www.scotterwert.wix.com/arts.

Meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?

Style is an interesting thing. It's a way to offer something unique and individual that isn't being offered in the same way. It's not something that is usually taught in school, rather you tend to develop it along the route of a career—and if you're fortunate enough, early in that career. For myself, I never think of style when I

draw in my sketchbook. Instead, I try to capture what I am seeing or thinking in an interesting way on paper. As those sketches and thoughts slowly turn into larger drawings and compositions, I start thinking about my own aesthetic and stylistic elements: composition, dynamic shapes and forms, color theory, simplification. I guess those ingredients mixed together creates my own personal style. That style has definitely evolved over time. I am more aware of developing it now and making sure that it is speaking out in most everything I do.

My process starts in the sketchbook. I don't keep a particularly clean or crafty sketchbook — quite the opposite because it's my idea book. I like to keep sketches fairly loose and open ended in order to develop them in another state, usually a tighter drawing. Depending on the piece I'm working on, and if it is fine art or illustration, I will either use these preliminary sketches as my starting point, or I will work on smaller rough paintings until I find the composition I'm satisfied with. The sketch is then hand drawn on the intended surface (canvas, board, or sometimes digitally, on the wacom tablet) and the underpainting begins, where basic shapes and colors are layered as the surface is filled.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape and that our readers

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have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention is their dynamic and autonomous aesthetics: in particular, it seems to communicate a successful attempt to transform tension to harmony. While walking our readers through the genesis of Angel of Harlem and Jacob Miller, would you tell us what is the role of metaphors in your work?

These two paintings come from a larger series focused on jazz, and in particular, the art of the live performance. I think as a modern society, we've been so hooked on technology that over time, we have forgotten about some of the great cultural achievements of our culture.

Jazz is one of the greatest discoveries in music, and it started in the United States. I wanted to pay homage to the innovators and true artists of the age.

In the paintings, members of the band start to overlap and create interesting intersections and shapes within the piece. This mirrors a live performance where the music starts to overlap and become a unified whole.

As you have remarked once, your process usually involves sketching plein air: how does drawing inform the following steps of your process?

Drawing is a crucial part of my creative process. It's the stage of quick exploration and development, so it is a very conceptual and creative part of the process. Even though my

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Fremont overpass

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Bagdad

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painting process allows a lot of room to ad lib, the drawing stage is usually more so. I can do as many sketches as I need in a small amount of time, so it's crucial to allow for this stage of development.

Your successful attempt to capture the physical feature of a place or a moment leaves space for the spectators to replay the scenes in their own intimate lives, letting them become emotionally involved in what you are attempting to communicate.

How do you conceive the narrative for your works?

The narrative is not always at the front of my mind when working on a piece. It can be a story that develops as the piece does. But sometimes it's the first thing I think of when conceiving a new painting, and it's driven by the story. For instance, with The Performer, I kind of came up with the story as I was working on the initial underpainting. The subject started out as Billie Holiday, but I had someone else in mind as well, because both of their stories intertwined and made the painting better than what I had initially envisioned. Not that there's any one story in any of my pieces‌I think everyone can experience a different narrative or emotion when looking at my work. That's what's great about painting. I think a piece is successful when it can make someone look for longer than usual‌and possibly make them think and see themselves relating to some element about the work. The implied narrative is one of those elements.

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Rhapsody in green

Blue Note

Nature and urban environment are particularly recurrent in your imagery and it never plays the role of a mere background. Do you see a definite relationship between nature and your work?

work from nature and plein air, and I still work that way today. As I stated before, most all of my work starts from my sketchbook, which is generally done in the field. Take a piece like Clarendon, which is a motif that I've focused on for the past 8 years, which was based on a

Nature plays a very large part in my work. In my schooling I was trained to

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Reliable drugs

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neighborhood hill in San Francisco I used to sketch. It began as a painting based on an actual location. Several years later and 4 or 5 paintings of that same location has now turned into a stylized, almost abstract work. For this motif, I have consciously transitioned from working directly from nature to now developing my sketches and other paintings into further investigations of a theme. Nature is still there…the place is still the subject matter, but now it has morphed into the idea of the place.

Many of your paintings have a symmetrical perspective to them and quite varied contrast in light and dark colors. Also, we see a recurring theme of straight lines in some of your paintings as Bagdad, Freemont and Fay City Café that accentuate onepoint perspective. Can you describe how you determine the particular subject matter when you paint.

Subject matter usually depends on the theme I am working on at any given time. My themes for the past 5 years have focused on urban landscapes and on music/performers. Urban landscapes are generally the spaces around me and the city I live in or am visiting at any time. I think urban spaces are influential because there is a balance of the order and geometry of the man made, with the organic quality of nature. This combination usually makes for an interesting composition.

Regardless of the subject matter, I think the treatment of the subject is

most important. By treatment, I mean: dynamic composition, interesting color choices, brushwork, looseness, simplification of form…whatever it is that makes a painting interesting to engage with. It could be a painting of a piece of trash, but if that is an interesting interpretation of a piece of trash, then subject matter is secondary.

If you are inspired by something, then you can paint it.

The effective combination between both delicate and thoughtful nuances of tones sums up the mixture of thoughts and emotions. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture? Moreover, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

I see myself as a colorist…so I am always looking for harmonizing combinations of color and texture. I try to be thoughtful when applying tones and colors because they help set a mood for the viewer. When I was working on Bluenote, for instance, I wanted to see if I could create harmony with a strictly limited palette of blues.

Since I didn't have the freedom to use contrasting color combinations, I had to get the mood out of the placement of blues that were used. I think it made the work stronger because of the limitations and because it related to the imagery very closely. The lights in a jazz club may be monotone, so it

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Clarendon

played into the theme very well.

Texture is another important aspect of applying paint in that it can greatly affect the mood of a piece. I try to implement different textures in any one piece in order to add variety and excitement. The same tonal treatment overall can get expected and possibly boring, so it's my job to mix it up and keep things fresh.

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My palette usually starts with basic primary colors from which I can mix to create secondary and tertiary colors.

Sometimes the palette I choose for a painting will consist of analogous colors (or colors that sit beside each other on the color wheel) and sometimes I'll use color contrasts (yellows and blues, or oranges and purples). I am a student of color

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theory and I've studied the color usage of the masters of the early 20th century, so my palettes can change from piece to piece and day to day.

Over these years you have exhibited your works all along the West Coast, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Gallery and Oakland Museum of California. One of the hallmarks of your work is the

capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of

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Fremont

what type of language is used in a particular context?

Audience reception is a tricky subject

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because even though, as a visual artist, you are trying to connect with the public, you are also trying to

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follow your vision and challenge yourself each time you start a piece. I think if I didn't consider the audience

at all, my work might suffer from tunnel vision. But luckily, I think my subject matter and approach makes

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Clarendon

my work relatable to people. I like to push myself and sometimes push the audience to think about things differently than they may be used to.

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

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Clarendon

projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I am currently working on new paintings for a solo show at a gallery in Washington in March of 2017. I have applied for several mural projects in Portland and am waiting to hear back.

My painting is always in progress and I

continue growing my freelance illustration and design business. I see my work continuing to evolve and being able to share it with even larger audiences.

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

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Marc Lev lives and works in Eilat, Israel

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he artist presents MARC LEV woodwork: gouache or oil paint on wood raw expression of his life in a desert and its symbiosis with nature.

After painting for many years on various supports, Marc LEV recently discovered material wood. It maintains a physical contact and a sensual smell the wood hence the name "painter woodwork".

His expression reveals: - On small sizes (pieces of wood have retained their original defects: about 22 Ă— 12 cm), he asks, with a very fine poetic, his gouaches enchanting landscapes, rich shades of blue and light green .

- On larger formats (palm bark 50 cm), he painted large watercolors composed of ethnic subjects from different continents crossed.

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LandEscape meets

Marc Lev An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Artist Marc Lev's work draws the viewers through an aesthetic journey to challenge their perceptual parameters. After having painted for many years on various supports, he recently discovered material wood: Lev's works combine both figurative and abstract into coherent unity and are capable to offer a multilayered visual experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Lev's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to invite the audience to partake in the artist's inner experience, in a journey towards the liminal are between the real and the imagined. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production.

I'm drawing and painting for years and years having also studied painting as ceramics, and I've also created some years ago a caricature published weekly in my village local newspaper.

My life in a desert, my journeys around the world (from China to Finland, from Greece to France, from Senegal to Turkey..), my meetings with different cultures, traditions as people have brought me to my current vision as to my creations as songs to the earth, to nature, to human being...I've dealed with environmental topics which brought me to respect the nature and to deal with while painting a lot on pieces of wood found here and there...way to use these lost pieces as to rebirth them, as to get closer to mother nature by that great material.

Hello Marc and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background?

Are there any experience that has influenced the way you conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate

Your approach is very personal and your technique condenses a variety of viewpoints, that you combine together into a coherent balance. We would suggest to our readers to visit http://levmarc.jimdo.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular,

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Christopher Reid

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would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Do you like spontaneity or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes?

When I've begun to paint more seriously ( about 7 years ago) and decided to share my creations my approach was much more naive in my paints as a need to get closer to the african culture as traditions. I do like the african art where you find not only the feeling of the day by day life, but also the meaning of the religious sides, believes...The warm colours from that part of the world's art were and are still an important part of my paints where I do want to express the difficulties of life, the lonelyness, the inhuman world as the joy we may feel by its beauties, lands as people..My creations depend first of the kind of canvas or piece of wood that I will use (log, bark..), the feeling that it brings to me, and then slowly I begin to imagine what kind of paint I do want to develop on that, which view: people, lands, places...Afterword it's the visualisation of the scenes, the sketches with a pencil on a paper, the choice of the colours, and then the paint gets life..It might be a three or four hours job and then I'll give myself some time to look, observe, check, correct..until the final result gives the real answer to my feelings , as it might be a months ( or more) job creation where I need to let the idea speak enough to me to concretize it..

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For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Incantation and Ode to the freedom, an interesting cycle of batik paintings that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article.

What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Incantation and Ode to the freedom, would you like to tell us something about your usual process and set up?

These two paints (but there are others..) are in a way the link between the freedom, nature, the sea, the beliefs, the black magie and the human beings..At my point of view these two creations bring us back to the Genesis, to the beginning of the world where we then had to discover all without knowing what's behind everything..the unknown could have been god, the nature, the sea, the unknown but with that "forbidden space": giant sea, bars like in a jail..we do believe in a religious or non religious way but not always get the answers...

After having painted for many years on various supports, you recently discovered wood as material for your pieces: what does appeal you of this material? In particular, how does the physical features of wood, including its intrinsic smell, affects the way you develope your initial inspiration?

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That wood material is for me the perfect link to the nature..It's a material that breathes, that smells, a "noble"material, with its own imperfections, eyes, holes, not strait lines or limits, not a flat space to paint on. While I find a piece of wood I do have to be full of it, to understand it and then find the direct link to a specific motive of paint. The wood structure brings me to feel what kind of paint, of subject I will realize, and then the whole process will set off.

As you have remarked once, your works are raw expressions of your life in a desert and its symbiosis with nature: your pieces seem to invite the viewers to live an augmented perceptual experience, to discover unexpected aspects not only of their inner world, but of the connectivity that affects our everchanging contemporary age. In particular, your works bring forward that the landscape on which everything is happening: how would you consider the relationship between the inner landscape and the outside world?

Could art provide us with a channel of communication between these aspects of reality?

For me (as a writer too), the creations are a way to send a message, a meaning to our lives, a kind of questions sent to the others...If you watch my "Exodus" it's my own questioning about the people having to live their lives, their homes, their lands, cultures, countries.. while some look behind to all there roots they have to let behind them. If you get to "Evolution" it's my way of seeing the

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human's evolution but in bubbles, like a protecting house-world; what happens if the human beings are getting out of these bubbles ?.. At "Le Monde Abîme" ( The Abyss World), it's a paint on a slit conical log by which I'm saying : the world isn't one, isn't fraternal and most of us are just divided ( like that log) to choose where to be, where to stand.. The art is also a way to give the opportunity to see things differently, to sometimes open the vision to other ways of observing, of understanding and why not to adopt that way of questionning..

The way Ode à la liberté captures non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory. How would you define the relationship between real and unreal, between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how do figurative and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

In my creations, I do think that my drawn characters might be everybody, each of us; that's why I do draw them like non-sharpened, without a way to point out a specific group or person. In "Ode à la Liberté ", the view might be real, it might be any shore, it might be like a couple with a kid.. and is'nt it the same view we all saw of couples, kids, on a beach, watching the sea and thinking themselves: what is there, far

away ? Would I find a better world, a better life somewhere else, anywhere ?

Where's my island there, the place where I'll feel free, good, better ? In my paints I do think there's no unreal and real but a common link where we might find and feel our own ways of being..

We would like to pose some questions about the balance established by colors and texture: your pieces combine loud, vivacious tones and contrasting shapes that accomplish the difficut task of establishing tension and a provocative dynamic.

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that saturate your canvas and especially the way they suggest the idea of plasticity. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture?

I do like warm colors and depending of the painted subjects and the feeling of the scenes I will use the green – blue ones or at the opposite the yellow- red ones or even more brown – black ones.

I do mix a lot my colors searching on each part of my creations the right shades, painting one coat on the other, putting some specific color touch here or there, getting back on it with another shade...My general idea when I do decide which kind of paint I will realize is first to decide in which general shade I want to create it, and then to "play "with the derivated shades to get relief, life to my creation.

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Your works have on the surface, a seductive beauty: at the same time, you often allow an open reading, a great multiplicity of meanings: associative possibilities seems to play a crucial role in your pieces. How important is this degree of openness?

The symbolic of my creations is indeed part of my way of saying things while who am I to decide for an interpretation more then another ? Each one may feel,understand, translate his feelings while watching a specific paint as his own feelings. Art might be an open way on one side to show as on the other side to understand the creations.

Over these years your works have been internationally showcased in several occasions: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

The viewers are spectators with their own perceptions. With some of my paints I do touch them by my way of questioning and it belongs to them to build up a relation around a creation by speaking about it, sharing their own

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thoughts , telling what and how they think.. It's important for an artist to know that its creations do bring feed backs, do bring people to speak about. Meanwhile I will continue to paint, to create, to

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deliver my own ways of seeing what happens around..

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Marc. Finally, would you like to tell us readers

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something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

I'm nowadays working on a solo exhibition in IsraĂŤl preparing new paints, checking for the right place to exhibit,

and yes, my work is evolving and is "traveling" throught my own experiences, my own life, my own expectations from the life, and it's just great !

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E leanor H. Erskine Lives and works in Portland, Oregon, USA

The world is not what you want it to be or even what you want to make it, but rather (as a non- linear thinker) I have arrived at the realization that it is evidently more centrifugal. I believe now that it is true in life through the act of making of one’s work on a daily basis that life is really about who you meet, and that this human connection is a most important influence about how one’s life is formed. This moves one to accept what is beyond one’s own desired endeavors, and then optimally and strangely to accept in everyday life, that the reasoning and making of art everyday is pulled unexpectedly to create connections that somehow make some kind of sense.

Eleanor H. Erskine

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mage comes from thought; thought form learning and experience; the soul from weighing and evaluating; the authored message from the integrity of soul and the values that it encourages.

Dialogue in art first exists in the arena of human experience and perception. Second, is the studio. An object maker is author of content and simultaneously fabricator of physical form aligned with the narrative space carrying the implied communication. The dialogue is finalized in the reception and interpretation of the audience, giving the object of art meaning.

Although artist and viewer do not inhabit the same sensory worlds, and do not share immediately the same physical, emotional and intellectual experience or have the same social, ethnic, or cultural perception, the artist neverthe-less expands the viewer’s experience. By adding insight to the human condition and helping to recall or clarify the emotion shared by many, the desire is to arrive at new conclusions and new understand- ing of things that have and have not before been felt before.

The art dialogue is furtive when the object of art is shifting the perception of the viewer, either strengthening or altering the ways in which the universe is seen, thereby expanding culture’s evolutionary possibilities.

An “self un-limiting” approach to art, the empirical world, is that place of mind where the subconscious is encouraged to circumvent

the restrictions of dogma, tradition, or quantitative validation, in order to sustain the delicate tension between intuition and sensory information. It is the artist’s place to eliminate the barriers and obstacles that otherwise act as hindrances, stopping people from feeling the immediacy of seeing. This is a space for the artist to think freely, allowing for the cross connections and references to overlap, to express many feelings, arousing the viewer’s curiosity.

Many events take place simultaneously. Each event is the result of a thought, an organic mechanism or ecological and environmental web.

Each event is an experience that contributes to a layering of perception and imagery. A good thought lasts a mere fragment of time. These fragments, thoughts of moments or of events trigger a responsive in which content and message, visual vocabulary and process are reconciled in the artist’s hands, measurement and mind of one’s hand. Most often in sensing, the first signal communicated in an experience beyond sight, is touch, an actual and immediate reference for scale. Touch then is translated into the activity of thinking through the measurement and mind of one’s hand. The hand then has a tactile memory, which becomes a part of the conceptual framework for the response and construction of the object.

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

LandEscape meets

Eleanor H. Erskine An interview by and

, curator , curator

Thank you for that question. I certainly reflect on my experiences as a student since I am currently both artist and educator. I have been teaching full time for 29 years now. The late seventies was a very special time at KCAI -- I guess the good old days? The teachers were young, many pretty fresh out of graduate school themselves. Most were male and many came from

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Christopher Reid

Christopher Reid

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from Yale. Ken Ferguson was acknowledged as one of the top ten ceramicists in the art world. Dale Eldred was making sculpture about “light.” Jim Leedy had a zen like presence and Wilber Niewald was influenced

by Cezanne. Stanley Lewis and Lester Goldman were covered head to toe in paint, (They were making gallons of paint at a time.) Victor Papanek was head of design; the art historians made art and exhibited. The faculty were artists. The Foundations Program was alive with new ways of educating — both innovative, performative and experiential. The campus had a special feel to it, a southern charm for this young woman from Northwestern Illinois. And the Nelson Atkins Museum was free for students.

Although a small school, there were many talented students. The studio classes were tough, but I can’t quite remember why. I remember three years of life drawing were required, and that the school had a very disciplined curriculum. There was a rigorous and serious focus of study in each discipline. KCAI had an amazing Visiting Artist program, with artists Agnes Martin, Duane Michals, Ken Tyler, Laurie Anderson, and then most importantly — my peers. We all seemed to be driven by something, actively finding out how to talk about art and how to see it, conceive it, observe deeply, and think critically all at once. And we were from all over the country.

Cranbrook is such a stellar learning environment, I found both the environment and the people endlessly inspiring. The Artist in Residence program brought highly intelligent and fascinating communicators together. There was every kind of thinking and making going on, from conceptual to visceral to emotional and contextual. You were treated like an artist. My peers were stellar as well.

I learned here that it was going to be impossible for me to ever define what contemporary art is. I appreciated so many numerous and different approaches, techniques and processes. It was a great time to learn to trust in myself and discover what I had to say with my own tools, while observing others doing the same. Again, visiting artists came weekly from all the areas of study to share their ideas and work. When I look at my sketchbooks from that time they are filled with writing, echoes of the ideas presented, always drawing a portrait of the speaker. Now my sketchbooks only sometimes carry a random written

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Eleanor H. Erskine

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thought, insight or reflection. They no longer are full of words. The visual world is most important, I am learning daily through marking, drawing, painting. I have completely stopped trying to define contemporary art, because I can’t figure it out, its too big of an idea for me , like comprehending the future of the internet.

I think these learning experiences are woven into my studio practice today; they have given me the freedom to believe in something unpredictable and mysterious like only art and life can, embracing the process with a passion that makes sense to me. We were encouraged to discover and design our own path, our own way of being, and because of these experiences, I feel a deeper love for making and curiosity about art and life that is so much greater than I ever could have dreamed of in my youth. I am very grateful for having these shared insights and experiences. I am grateful for the quiet refuge of thinking and making simultaneously on a daily basis, even if at times (like life itself) this place can be uncomfortable.

Hmmm … I don’t really think of my work as having a “style”. Maybe because I am trying so much to be free enough to let out what I feel, which requires a concentrated self-awareness that is both excavated and cultivated. Brushes and pencils fascinate me; the many possibility of marks in a single brush is astounding; each fiber has quite an expansive

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language. It is my effort to be one with the brush or tool I am using.

At this point in my life, I am actually still shedding some of the ways of working that I was taught when young and impressionable. In other words, I am trying to express myself completely using all of my faculties as a human being. In the process of this “shedding” I feel an opening up of my psyche which brings some willingness to listen deeply to what I feel inside, what directly surrounds me, and then what can I make happen in that very moment from the combination of these many layered thoughts and feelings. I am pretty sure I think in pictures. When I was younger I drew very symbolically, metaphorically. At some point I turned to focus on the space itself as the content of the work, giving over to abstraction.

To me everything is an abstraction, whether it is depicted as illusion or broken down into formalities. I have found myself wanting to trust and listen to the materials to guide me, to listen to the space that is being created without placing something recognizable in it. It is similar to looking at the clouds in the sky: sometimes you may see an animal, and other times you may just see it for the forms and shapes that are there. Then it changes while you are looking at the clouds, and suddenly you see that everything is moving and realize nothing is still. Everything is in motion. My process is to work every day, at least one hour of drawing, often times more. However, photography is now taking on a both personal and parallel investigation. I feel like I am collecting what I see always, which is a basic interest in “light.” I use an evaporative dialogue with the materials to start, where I paint with something’s liquid and stir it around with various brushes and try to feel the environment arrive from these gestures. It is after this looseness that the dialogue begins and the piece is telling me what it shall become. Sometimes pieces make themselves (that is a great and easy feeling), but that is not always what happens, just as there is a large part of life that is unpredictable. I want to stay open and fresh and see what comes up in the making of the work.

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Eleanor H. Erskine

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I would agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Demand.

The medium is the conduit; the process acts as a meditation. I want the language to step aside and allow for other visual ways of understanding to present itself. To trust in the many languages that are instead witnessed, observed, seen rather than even read or heard. Arriving at the narrative in my works is a deeper listening process of the visual stimuli that presents itself through constant positioning and repositioning of my mind/ body with the tools /materials themselves. I am a paper collector, and I surround myself with brushes and pencils and colors….

I work on multiple pieces at one time; this helps as some pieces succeed and some don’t. Those that don’t sometimes succeed at a later time. There is a subconscious dialogue that goes on between my mind and my heart and the substances/ingredients I am working with. There is a hidden place deep in my lower abdomen (where I believe there is another brain) that is the most important voice I listen to. It tells me when I am taking a chance, when I am safe. I know I am onto something when I get a little bit scared.

I don’t think it is possible for creativity to be disconnected from one’s individual experiences.

Actually I think it is vital to know oneself directly in order to infuse and envelope the processes of making in order to be fully and completely creative. This is a complex reality that I believe in. I believe we are

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becoming who we are all the time, constantly changing. Our “cells” are dying off and being replaced continually. We wrestle with the old and what is about to be new while trying to be (being) present. This consistent shift and transformation aligns us with each other and the cycles and particles of the earth. To own the knowledge that we are to be ourselves and to exist navigate our ways inside and outside in this world is a creative undertaking in and of itself. The ego can get a person in trouble I think-You do need it to survive in this world, but it can get in the way of being human; like a plastic coating, it may deflect necessary human attributes and experience if one isn’t careful.

Being human is about being in the world, creativity stems from this basic consciousness and conscientiousness. Creativity is desire. It is a curiosity. Creativity is trusting circumstance. Being creative is about being and feeling alive in the moment. This is not necessarily a magnificent moment: it can be anything, for me mostly a very still and quiet place, yet I may be dancing.

Sometimes my dances are pretty erratic, and that is a good thing.

In my idealist mind the role of the audience/viewer completes the work, but the environment the work is in also completes the work and can either enhance or take away from the viewer’s experience.

Environment for the artist is everything.

Presentation of works helps engage the viewer tremendously as well. However I must be honest: In making a work I am making it mostly for myself, trying to create a work that is as beautiful as it can be while being truthful to the honesty of thoughts and feelings which are not always pure or proper. In my heart sometimes I am making work for the people I greatly admire, dead or alive. Somehow

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conversations with them help me to make the work meaningful and credible. We look for that which we are attracted to. Art can share something that may be different than one is ready to see or comprehend. Until the audience/viewer is able to receive this they will not look at it for very long or for any length of time; it can catch a person by surprise and even sometimes open up to new way of seeing, thinking, and being. Art bridges diverse cultures, explains/expresses who we are to one another. Art finds ways for us to share things even as we remain distinct in our identities and feelings and bodies. Really different people, from really different backgrounds, can look at a work and share something that’s pretty darned universal.

My own psychological makeup is essential to the outcome of the many layers in the works on paper; drawings, prints, and paintings. I spend a great deal of time looking at the work to discover, while sometimes still working on it, where and how to proceed. I also work very meditatively, a sort of moving meditation or dance that assists in aligning the mind with the rhythms of the body’s nuances- Strangely enough, this is a very present place of working where time disappears and there is a strong connection to a greater metaphysical universal space and time. The physical texture of the work is very slowly and carefully built. The physical activity of touching the works on paper over and over is often a good thing. I used to feel that the more a piece is touched the better it gets. I still believe this in some cases: the patina of a heavily worked piece can bring meaning to the work. However these days I am becoming more interested in a cultivated gesture, I want to work both fast and slow, sometimes fast, sometimes really, really slow and for long and short periods of time. I want to see if I can make a line cry (I haven’t accomplished this yet). I also want to linger gently inside the making process as long as I can. The piece tells me when it is done, complete, finished. I cannot touch it anymore.

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

I admire Richter very much- what he says about being with the work, while it is being made at all times.

Watching yourself make your own work is a great course of study. It occurs more often when something is new, in the beginning of the process, when you are learning how to do something. Richter is saying that one is always learning during the making of the work, and that seeing is an active part in the making of the work I think he also may be saying artist is both maker and audience. There is a unique seriousness to the way he is using the word seeing. Seeing is an active collaborator. Seeing is processing the thinking and doing simultaneously. The process itself, like the environment, is everything. The process is where I want to be. That is why I work every day. I do not like starting and stopping, so by being in tune with myself and the world, its people and the places I inhabit, I am able to be in the flow, moving slowly but surely like the earth itself — in the process. I work on several pieces at a time so I do not have to think too much about what I am going to do, but rather trust in the thinking and doing simultaneously. My work is always with me, when I sleep, in whatever I am doing. The work is a kind of studio place in and of itself that flows into both the work and me.

Color is emotional, sensual and spiritual. I don’t think I contrast very well; I am less graphic than I used to be.

Texture and illusion is the color of the space and then again it is everything. I collect color daily; it’s a natural kind of collecting. It is fall now in the Pacific Northwest and I see the color changing from day to day, hour to hour, as light is color. I look for a color to pop sometimes an otherwise soft space. The act of mixing

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color is transformative. I can mix any color I see, or come incredibly close to its nature.

Sometimes I try to come up with a new color, which at times seems impossible. It is color combinations that are so tricky. Using both transparency and opacity of color -- combined with layering -- is all about taking chances. It is not about knowing the outcome. Learning how to draw changes the way one sees the world forever. Seeing color is also about seeing life differently. I think my palette is changing because I am simply more knowledgeable about color. I’m more experienced, and I can achieve color more quickly. I feel a kind of seasonal shift when experiencing color. As color brings so much feeling into a piece, it is also a place where great risk taking occurs. (Funny how a rusty red can feel so risky). There is also the value of the dialogue that happens in the space between pieces. It is here where I hope the viewer gets a

glimpse into the machinations of the world I see and inhabit. And it happens in seeing the whole of the works, multiple pieces at a time in one place. As the maker I have very little control over this; this is why shows can be so trying for artists.

Until the work is displayed in a physical space for an audience to see it, it is not until this happens that the work’s message is first begun to be received by both viewer and artist. It’s a great challenge for the artist to stay open and see what the work is communicating outside of the studio, seeing the work being seen/observed. It’s not easy.

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Well, yes and no. I certainly would love for everyone to like my work, but honestly I do not think that is possible. At the least, I hope to reach a feeling in the viewer that matches the feelings I had while forming, layering, arriving at the finished piece — this carries so much meaning for me. Specifically I try not to think about the audience too much. There is so much more to think about. Not that I take the audience for granted: I want the work to be seen! In general though, audiences make me nervous.

Right now I am working on a series of etchings for a show in March at the Rogue Gallery and Center for the Arts in Southern Oregon. I am looking at the surfaces of old plates to find what present-day landscapes exist within them, and meanwhile I’m starting some brand new plates.

I have been working on one of these plates for over twenty years.

I have a few bodies of work I plan on working on over the course of my lifetime (whatever that is); hopefully I’ll be able to display them intermittently. I’m also curating a drawing show with my mentor Hugh Merrill and a young colleague Lisa Jarrett for February 2018. Did I mention that I also I teach full time and am on

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the Steering Committee of the Surface Design Association Conference happening in Portland August 2017. In short, I’m very, very busy. I am making many books that seem to never get finished.

Well, it is interdependent with everything I do and all I come in contact with! My energy and the energies in the people and events that surround me affect my personal, private, and artistic growth. My hopes are foundational, or even basic: to gain wisdom, to be sensitive to the world around me, to be intelligent in reflecting that world, and then to continue to manifest these experiences in and on the objects I make. I hope to work deeper and deeper as time goes on. I am a bit of a restless person by nature; it’s hard to sit still, which motivates the making process some.

Most of all, I want to be as authentic and real as possible in the process of thinking and making the work. To feel free enough to create anything is very important to my imagination. I’m always trying to develop and hone my listening skills, to achieve greater perceptiveness & self–awareness. Listening requires more than traditional hearing. It is about fully sensing the world around you and others, integrating all of one’s senses. I’d love to make some large drawings. I secretly wish for the beauty in the work to somehow be appreciated. And then, there is this overall feeling I often get which tells me “I dearly desire to draw/print/paint my way outta this place”.

Somehow in practicing these things I wish life itself then to elevate my daily experiences, and this feeling is in direct communication with my soul. It sometimes feels cursed to be creatively driven. The thing that saves me (drawing each day), sacrifices my private life. Life is so full of contradictions. I can only hope that in the endmaking resonates into some greater understanding unknown to me yet. This feeling allows me to deal with the uncertainties and stresses that arise in daily life as well. It is a hope that something better is ahead if I am true, in the moment now.

I cannot help but wonder how the work will come through me as I continue to grow and age. How I will play my part in the evolution process. Not knowing is part of the fun, Hopefully, I’ll create some works worth showing to someone, somewhere. Isn’t that what we all wish for? The future seems to be deeply? involved with the desire to create good memories.

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