LandEscape Art Review, Special Edition

C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w

Poland

I am an artist, and I hope that I am a representative of contemporary art. When I put paint on a canvas, I am not trying to turn it into a colored figure in order to convey the material qualities of the subject. In the process of work, I think a lot about what is happening on the canvas. Also, the objects of concentration of attention are both the physiological processes of reflection at the beginning of work, and the inspiration that arises when tracking one's emotions from emerging images. In the process of work, an atmosphere of mental analysis of the very process of creating an image is created, which has nothing to do with an arbitrary overlay of color strokes, but involves a thought process based on an inner feeling. Of course, this is not always the case. Sometimes I get inspired by what I see in nature or on the streets of cities, and I convey these images to the viewer using different techniques. From time to time I get out of the process of visual "meditation" and communicate with the outside world. I organize my exhibitions and everything that a contemporary artist has to do.

Brian

has been honing his

Adrian Flaherty

Québec

since

first exhibition at “Best of the Stockade” in 1965 in Schenectady, NY. In 1973, he received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. By 1975 he founded and directed the 63 Bluxome Street Gallery in San Francisco.McPartlon’s technique seeks to present true depth of field through layers of shapes and colors. He uses staining, pouring, spray and a diverse set of brushes from a traditional 6” house painting brush to palm fronds, cactus, and animal bone fragments to his fingers. The range of colors and depth of each of McPartlon’s work evokes powerful reactions from anyone who has entered one of his studios in San Francisco or his current studio in Santa Fe.The large bold canvases can be ominous, antagonizing, invigorating and breath taking. A single painting may take him ten minutes or over 40 years to complete. Observers of his works will struggle to not touch the textures or crawl into the portals that exist in the layers of his paintings.McPartlon’s works have been on exhibit in New York, San Francisco, and Santa Fe, NM.

I am a Londoner, having lived here all my life and where I also studied Sculpture, completing my degree at UAL in 2016, with work interested in ideas related to the home. I worked across a variety of media on this course but since then I have been concentrating on paintings. I have always been interested in the use of Chance in art over the last century or so and I use various methods of painting and drawing to create chaotic effects on the canvases which I then try to reason with, bringing it together with more detailed work. After completing the series of bridges along the River Thames, up to the edge of London, I have been making paintings of cliffs and beaches along the West coast of England. This is meant to symbolise how both myself and the `Western’ world is constantly being unpredictability affected by the forces around it, as can be also seen in the nature of the landscape changing with coastal erosion, tides, winds, etc. The effect of climate change is only going to heighten the impact on people’s lives.

I love the leaves of the trees Nature and the leaves and the trunks of the trees and the tree of this glorious word have alwayss been a symbol of life, greenery and health for me. I like to keep the leaves with the same color and shape and Immortalize them in my memories.

The existence of so much variety In the color and shape of the leaves is unique and amazing and I love this wonder.

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the forms of nature, the freshness, the greenness of the leaves, and this rejuvenation, yellowing, falling, and a new beginning…

For me, It is an association of life and death, and the distance between the two that must be lived very well. Leaves is an experiencee from my recent collection that I have dealt with most In the Covid_19 period. This collection started many years ago and continues to this day, and Its charm never ends.

Nature is always attractive and very inspiring to me, and for this reason, many of my paintings and drawings feature different views of nature. For example, my previous works have included such landscapes: vast meadows, green hills, a forest in the distance, some green trees on the horizon, single trees or a bush of grass in a cold and gray atmosphere, and other such landscapes, all of which are minimalistic in terms of form and color.

In continuation of the same naturalist and minimalist approach, the collection of my recent works that you can see here, have reached the maximum extent of brevity in terms of form and color. So that the forms, which are inspired by leaves, stems and grass in nature, are very geometric and abstract, and the color is limited to black and white only, because my goal in creating these works is to show simplicity, purity and visual harmony that relationships and interactions between the components of the work evoke a musical feeling.

Whatever I wish to express, atmosphere is a constant in the conception of my works. I enjoy creating dramatic ambiences in which imaginary places and the real world merge, giving rise to different possibilities. In them, I highlight, through their eye-catching aesthetic, certain urban details lost in these vast spaces. Out of them arises a mixture of immobility, mystery and silence in which humanity proceeds towards its elsewhere . . . It is in contemplating my surroundings that I find inspiration. Through the happenstance of strolling about, my eye catches forms, lines, saturated colours and the vibrations around me, recording them in me. When I am in front of the canvas these elements

up again, revealing themselves and in this way forming the basis of my own aesthetic. To this is added the influence of the current state of the world, on which the editorial thread of my work draws. Through this artistic language, I communicate my perception of the world today.

Oleh Lavrii Iran

Brian McPartlon USA United Kingdom

Ali Khorshidpour Iran

Mitra Tashakori

rear

Cécile Filipe Naima Karim

Jorge Rojas

McPartlon is an Abstract Expressionist based in Santa Fe, NM.He

skills with acrylics, watercolor, oils, pastels and mixed media sculpture

his

Marie Rioux

As a child, Tanya knew she wanted to be an artist. She formally trained and earned a Fine Arts Bachelors degree in Chandigarh, India. After graduation she moved to California and made it her permanent home.

Her work falls into several categories: Realism, Cubism, Abstract, Sikhism and Social Realism. Recently Tanya has focussed her efforts into an abstract spiritual series. She experiments with new forms and ways to express inner beauty and strength.

Tanya’s paintings reveal to the greater extent the sufferings of the people around the world in different ways. Her latest painting depicts the 1947 India’s partition and the suffering involved with the displacement of people.

Tanya has shown her paintings internationally: Toronto, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Copenhagen and Singapore. She has exhibited her work in over 45 solo and over 30 group shows. The painting, Whisper, is presently displayed at the Triton Museum of Art.

Tanya’s work continues to touch, move and inspire people around the globe.

Sabrina is a cultural worker based in Miami, FL. Using a transdisciplinary approach, they illustrate capitalist processes of land privatization, mass incarceration, and the use of crises (natural or otherwise) to obliterate working-class communities. Countering widespread narratives of individualism, essentialism, and what we deem as “commonsense”, they create containers that prompt disturbance, surprise, and play. Exploring elements rooted in socialist histories and global acts of resistance, Sabrina’s work moves to strengthen solidarity amongst oppressed people. Collective memory, alternative mythologies, and mysticism become tools to disrupt previously assumed truths and underscore the interconnection and ongoing becoming of all.

I create a foundation on which she applies new layers of pictorial materials occasionally resembling the experiences of informel, yet complex, dynamic and frequently tumultuous processes, inspired by some inner reasons of my nature, a feeling of absolute domination of visual is born. At first sight it might seem that I give priority to a typically modernistic presentation based on the collage technique. However, if that process is present here it is understood in quite a different sense. My college is a different visual game: it is a combination (synthesis?) of practically all known disciplines of visual art. My paintings are some kind of art labyrinths, which we are conquering with the sense of great concern for our own future, for what is waiting for us in the next century – but through those same labyrinths we’re going with the sense of joy, for living in age so rich with different events and experiences that there was something for us to leave in the mud behind us!

Tanya

Jelena

Special thanks to Miya Ando, Juerg Luedi, Urte Beyer, Beth Krensky, Rudiger Fischer, Lisa Birke, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman, Ariane Littman, Max Epstein, Nicolas Vionnet, Sapir Kesem Leary, Greg Condon, Jasper Van Loon, Alexandre Dang, Christian Gastaldi, Larry Cwik, Michael Nelson, Dana Taylor, Michael Sweeney, Colette Hosmer, Melissa Moffat, Marinda Scaramanga and Artemis Herber.

Marie Rioux lives and works in Québec

Oleh Lavrii lives and works in Poland

Mitra Tashakori lives and works in Iran

Adrian Flaherty lives and works in the United Kingdom Ali Khorshidpour lives and works in Iran

Brian McPartlon lives and works in the United States Sabrina Diaz lives and works in the United States

Momi lives and works in the United States

Minic Mrdjen lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia

Tanya Momi

India / USA

Joe O’Brien

Serbia Jelena Minic Mrdjen

USA

Sabrina Diaz

LandEscape meets Marie Rioux

Whatever I wish to express, atmosphere is a constant in the conception of my works. I enjoy creating dramatic ambiences in which imaginary places and the real world merge, giving rise to different possibilities. In them, I highlight, through their eye-catching aesthetic, certain urban details lost in these vast spaces. Out of them arises a mixture of immobility, mystery and silence in which humanity proceeds towards its elsewhere . . .

It is in contemplating my surroundings that I find inspiration. Through the happenstance of strolling about, my eye catches forms, lines, saturated colours and the vibrations around me, recording them in me. When I am in front of the canvas these elements rear up again, revealing themselves and in this way forming the basis of my own aesthetic. To this is added the influence of the current state of the world, on which the editorial thread of my work draws. Through this artistic language, I communicate my perception of the world today.

I express my emotions through the composition and, as a result, initiate a dialogue with the other. In my pictorial world there is no boundary between figuration and abstraction. They penetrate one another. My visual language is primarily and profoundly instinctive, intuitive and non-conformist. The essential thing is that my paintings project duality, that they be enigmatic and open to various readings.

In the studio, listening to music which creates a protective bubble around me, I choose the format and colours I wish to work with. Oil, acrylic, sometimes pastel and pencil . . . I use monochrome shades to produce a dramatic effect and to accentuate my serious purpose, even as I enjoy and have an aptitude for mixing colours. I do not follow artistic trends of the day and do not work to meet viewers' expectations. It is up to them to find their own resonance, their own meaning and pleasure. Above all, my ideas respond to an inner need, independent of fashions.

The artwork, like all that is vital, must be able to evolve.

Hello Marie and welcome back to LandEscape. We already got the chance to introduce our readers to your artworks in a previous edition

and we are now particularly pleased to discover the development of your artistic production. The new body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape is has impressed us for the way it connects the sense of place that you capture from real surroundings, with the realm of imagination,

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Monténégro, oil on canvas, 102cm x76 cm, 2022

walking the viewers to explore the point of convergence between figuration and abstraction. More specifically, we would like start this interview with Pendant ce temps, an extremely stimulating work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. Would you tell us something of the genesis of this captivating painting? In particular, how did you select such intense nuance of red in order to achieve such unique sensation of contrast with the background?

Marie Rioux: Thanks to the LandEscape team for inviting me back to your magnificent journal. Your very considered questions have made me engage in true introspection . . . and at times I got a little lost in the process! (smiles)

In response to your kind comments introducing the first question of the interview, I will begin here by pointing out an important aspect of my artistic project.

In the course of my diverse rambles I observe attentively and record within myself images of striking places. Back in my studio I let my brushes go, following diverse avenues of my imagination. I place no initial constraint or restriction. Only at the very end do I finalise my composition and certain details in order to polish the work on the aesthetic level and especially to give it meaning.

The work “Pendant ce temps” (“Meanwhile”) refers to the society and environment of my land. The painting is a contemplative and reflective look at Quebec’s vast landscapes. It shows the countryside on a September afternoon. In this work I chose to bring together a church steeple and elements in red, symbolising the many traffic signs cluttering our roads. I love bringing out the unexpected,

the unusual, from which there arises an enigmatic little story. These church steeples dot the landscape all across Quebec, soaring up to the heavens and the gleaming light of the day’s end, vestiges of an era in which the Church dominated our land and our lives.

These days, endless road works have overrun these same landscapes. Hence the artificial fluorescent red pigment rising to the surface, creating a sharp contrast with the surrounding natural monochrome tones. I enjoy this aesthetic confrontation and its symbolic meaning.

The tones of your recent body of works be they intense as in L’heure bleue, and Le début, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative ambiance, as in L'Éboueur du ciel — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works?

Marie Rioux: My sole thoughts when beginning a work concern the tones, hues and colours. I approach the application of colours as a purely retinal aesthetic process – for the pleasure of one’s eyes – and once this is connected to the composition it becomes a visual experience. My contemplative gaze is often attracted by intense, deep colours. This is reflected in my work.

The works selected for my first appearance in your journal in 2016 focused on the river environment and its fogs, as I had to take a ferry every day to get to my studio.

Today I am exploring new options for monochrome hues, and I enjoy mixing colours which initiate different atmospheres. This is what I am most fond of doing. I then project myself into wide open spaces. These new

Marie Rioux

Le début, mixte on canvas, 76cm x 152cm, 2021

paths I explore give me the freedom to continue developing nuances such as those in the works you mention in your question. This, however, has nothing to do with my mood . . . I know from the moment I begin a

work exactly what kind of mood and atmosphere I wish to establish. I am and remain a dramaturge of the visual arts.

Your artworks often feature human figures,

that are usually present as tiny, blurred figures, that seems to be out of reach and that provides the viewers with feeling of remoteness, as in the interesting En route vers le ciel. How do you consider the role of such

human figures in your artworks? More specifically, does the fact that they're almost immersed in their surroundings, could be considered an allegorical aspect of your artworks?

Marie Rioux

Marie Rioux: These figures have an asexual form which I prefer to use in my work. I believe that they encompass all our ambivalences and that given the precariousness of life the main thing lies not in differences, but rather in emotion. These characters enable me to add tangible figurative elements in spaces which are often, but not always, abstract. They provide bearings. The appearance of these silhouettes accentuates the vastness of the land and, out of this, our own smallness and solitudes. They give rise to a psychological tension which invites contemplation of our wide world. Sometimes I feel that we circulate in our universe like ants in an immense wasteland. Looking from afar, my gaze frequently settles on similar small forms.

“En route vers le ciel” (“En Route Towards the Sky”) is a joyous work. A dreamt journey in the clouds. It recounts our re-found freedom after the isolation of the pandemic. In this sense, yes, the character in this work is a stylistic device for expressing this vastness of the world compared to the insignificance of our person, our individuality. Here there is a clear allegory. In fact these small human figures – which are, moreover, a significant element of my artistic signature – convey this allegorical world in which my thoughts and dreams have dwelt since childhood.

We have been captured with the atmosphere of Le sang des innocents. Artists from different art movement and eras — from pioneer Richard Morris, passing through Thomas Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more recently Kelly Richardson— use to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our everchanging society? In particular, as an how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and unstable society?

Le bloc, oil on canvas, 106cmx 137cm, 2022

Marie Rioux: Some artworks are activist. My own work, without being in the service of a cause, sometimes is. Artists are sensitive witnesses to their times. With their creativity, they have the opportunity to grasp the social issues of today’s world from unusual, striking, unexpected and sometimes even dissonant angles. Their art enables them to bring out their personal thoughts in various ways.

The social engagement of a work of art exists in its relationship with a particular context, as well as in the artist’s intent. It is thus connected to a precise moment in time. If taken out of this temporality, all that remains of an artwork would be aesthetics and memory.

Through their work committed artists share their convictions and their interpretation of the meaning of people’s lives and of events. But artists can choose whether or not to take up this role in the face of our shifting and turbulent world.

As our age is one of great upheavals of every kind, our contemporaries are becoming increasingly aware that humanity is headed straight towards unrelenting destinies. As a picture is worth a thousand words, the impact of works of visual art which strike the imagination and hit a nerve in the audience can significantly raise the awareness of people receptive to these issues.

The painting “Le sang des innocents” (“The Blood of Innocents”) refers to the discovery of a clandestine cemetery on the grounds of a Catholic residential school for Indigenous children in western Canada. It is an editorial work on the atrocities committed in the cultural genocide of First Nations peoples ordered by the government of Canada and carried out by the Church.

Marie Rioux

For my part, I try to move myself and reach the observer while at the same time conveying my perceptions of life and, at times, the issues of the day. In this case, such a terrible tragedy. I made this work the day after the discovery. I was completely appalled by this tragedy. Everything fell quickly into place: colours, church steeple, the half-outlined figure and the blood-red texture, alluding to the traces left behind at a crime.

We really appreciate the way you achieve to create such unique combination between dramatic — almost surrealistic atmospheres and references to realistic elements. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, it is in contemplating your surroundings that you find inspiration: do you think that such dreamlike ambiance that marks out your landscapes belongs to the real images that inspire you, or is it in your opinion

L’Éboueur, oil on canvas, 76 cmx 91cm, 2021

the result of your inner state, that is reflected by the work of art as a whole?

Marie Rioux: These atmospheres are the result of ceaseless observation on my rambles through nature, although they are in no way reproductions of precise places. I am an ambler, and am constantly possessed by what I see. During these sorties in nature – or even in the city – I am taken by the great beauty of sites,

landscapes and buildings, or by eye-catching elements and by everything that these places can appeal to visually. This ensemble is arranged before my eyes like a stage play. In short, I am often struck with wonder at a crossroads . . .

Before the blank canvas, the hues and ambiences observed earlier come spontaneously to mind. I do not seek to reproduce the reality I experienced but rather

Marie Rioux

Pendant ce temps, oil on canvas, 91cm x 102 cm, 2021

the unconscious impressions left in me by this reality. To this is added the influence, deep down, of urban structures or newsworthy events which are omnipresent in my daily life. And so I give room to my imagination. In my brushstrokes everything merges, returns and

appears in a story full of imagery. I thus initiate a depiction of the land with my own aesthetic in order to make possible a new reading of and perspective on the landscape. To answer your question, I presume that this must be, in fact, something of a reflection of my soul.

Avant la nuit, oil on canvas, 76 cm x 152cm, 2020

We dare say that the aesthetics that you develop could be considered a response to direct experience condensed in memories, mediated by the lens of emotions and of the unconscious sphere: do you agree with this intepretation? In particular, how you consider

the role of memory within creative process? More specifically, did you ever paint en plein air, in order to capture specific ephemeral details of what is caught by your eyes?

Marie Rioux: I believe there is a deep

Marie Rioux

Variation no3, oil on canvas,91cmx91cm, 2022

overlapping in our mind between our past and present actions, our memories, emotions, dreams and other images derived from the imaginary realm. All this pandemonium is undoubtedly a vector of my creativity. That my

aesthetics are connected to visual experiences when I am out and about, to encounters or to other experiences, and that they are channelled by the emotions I feel at the time or by the unconscious, is certainly the case up

L’heure bleue, oil on canvas, 137 cm x 106 cm, 2021

Bosnie, oil on canvas, 91cm x 76 cm, 2022

Toi et moi, oil on canvas, 61 cm x 61 cm, 2021

to a certain point. And yet right from the first moments of the creative process this is mostly a conscious search for the aesthetic through hues

and forms: establishing a particular atmosphere that commands my attention. Towards the end of the process is where the

more figurative aspects of the work clearly come into play, and as a result this is when ideas distinctly come to me in connection with already perceived memories or emotions.

As for the role of memory in the creative process, in my case it is a central tool. All creators turn inward in order to draw on

energies and the creative impulse, and in so doing steep themselves, in part, in their memories. An anecdote: when I was a child, one day I was riding my bike late one stormy day. The sky was black, purple, rent with lightning and with deafening thunder, and in a striking contrast the grass on this early

L’atelier du Vieux port, oil on canvas, 122 cm x 106 cm, 2022

summer’s day was so green, almost fluorescent. I was excited, it was mad fun. The savage beauty of the spectacular, menacing ambience around me had a profound effect and revealed to me the extent to which I was captivated by similar natural spectacles. Splendours such as these are certainly the bedrock of my artistic personality.

I take no pleasure in reproducing nature exactly. I tried plein air painting in the past but did not find it satisfying. I don’t really like reproducing anything at all. My work does not contain the kind of specific details you allude to in your question.

I prefer to work in my studio, giving free rein to my yen. There I transform reality by bringing a degree of the dreamlike into my work: figurative, abstract, surrealist, I like to break down barriers.

How do you consider the relationship between visual arts and music? In particular, how does the music that you listen to when creating influence your process?

Marie Rioux: Both of these art forms create in the listener or the observer a sense of well being or other emotions, but by different means. What music and the visual arts have in common is to create enveloping and complementary worlds which affect our senses. In addition, each of them enriches the other. In the studio, having music in the background lets me concentrate better. It creates an enveloping protective bubble. Without music, I have too many ideas which go in every direction and make me lose a lot of time. With music, it’s like I am working in another world...

My choice of music creates an ambience in keeping with my tastes at the moment. The music selected probably influences me, but I

don’t know to what extent. I presume, however, that some of my favourite music stimulates me to use strong, powerful, deep and even sombre colours. Do other kinds of music also have an effect on the light introduced into my work?

I think that music – or sounds – most likely can become an intrinsic or complementary element in certain kinds of pictorial or spatial art.

We really appreciate your ability to create such harmonic balance between figuration and abstraction, that invites the viewers to elaborate their own meaning and pleasure. Moreover, your paintings often features titles able to offer guidance to your spectatorship: how do you go about naming your work ? In particular, is important for you to tell something that might walk the viewers through their own visual experience?

Marie Rioux: Your questions are all so kind! Thank you again for your kind words.

In fact I believe I have achieved a fine equilibrium between figuration and abstraction, and I ascribe this to the period in the 1990s when I did mostly abstract painting. I am quite at ease with this kind of art and I make use of it easily and spontaneously without barriers.

The painting’s title emphasises what the work suggests to me once it is finished and comes to me spontaneously. This must be the result of channelling the ideas of my initial inspiration when I started work on it.

My works are small stories with intentional messages, and with the title I suggest a way of reading it. Nevertheless, it is up to each observer to give it individual meaning and to make it bring another story to life if they wish.

Marie Rioux

Déjà le soir, oil on canvas, 61cmx 122cm, 2022

It is not very important, but I find it pleasant to guide observers in the direction of the way I myself look at my work. For a long time I thought that the visual work

spoke about itself and that it did not need a title or an explanation. I changed my way of thinking in the wake of frequent questions by observers when faced with my work. So now

I enjoy guiding them to the meaning I give the work. Moreover, often when responding to questions I like to develop the story by inventing all kinds of things that come to mind.

I amuse myself a little bit . . .

For my part, through my work I try first of all to give rise to an emotion in me. Creating, after all, is an egotistical act. In this sense I am

seeking pleasure. Then comes the action of communicating with the other person. Intution plays an important role in your approach and your visual language is primarily and profoundly instinctive: how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your artistic process?

Marie Rioux: I am naturally instinctive and experience has taught me to have confidence in myself. So when I start work on a project I basically reflect on the colours I wish to use. Improvisation comes to the fore in my first brushstrokes as I apply layers of colours to establish the ambience of the work. Improvisation thus has a fundamental role for me.

Nevertheless, it is by no means a product of chance that these hues appear on the surface. They are the reflection of what I am feeling more or less consciously at that moment. Then comes the work’s construction, its composition. In this second stage I sketch out the narrative I have in my head. Despite the spontaneity and freedom of my gestures, an enormous amount of work is involved, because I maintain a critical eye towards my work and don’t hesitate to start all over if the magic is not there. Sometimes little blunders create felicitous opportunities: is that a matter of chance?

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts again, Marie. How do you see your evolution as a visual artist over time? Are there any things that you do fundamentally different from when you?

Marie Rioux: Looking back on the work I have made since I started out I see that my ideas have not changed but rather have simply evolved. After several digressions these ideas

have freed themselves from established artistic fashions and currents. They have become singular, with assurance. My interests remain the same, but I now fully stand by them! I am driven by a sense of urgency. So many new paths remain to explore. I always have the sense of just starting out!

I would like to be more disciplined in my pictorial investigations. A short while ago I decided to work in series, because this method will enable me to explore, from the same starting point, the many aesthetic possibilities of a work. I’m presently working on an exciting new series taken from my painting “Rivière Humber” (“Humber River”). The goal is to carry out experimental modifications to it by inserting various elements using fluorescent colours in order to observe their effect. I would like to explore this composition in depth without being distracted by my other interests.

Nevertheless, because I now live in Montreal, I have the idea of possibly creating a series of small works depicting the heads of unusual individuals such as those you come across regularly on the bus or the subway. This is how I am: always intensely influenced by my experiences in my surroundings.

From November 26 to January 6 a solo show of my work, entitled “Voies de traverse” (“Cross Roads”) is being held at the Angers gallery in Montreal, and I still have works at the splendid Abbozzo gallery in Toronto and the Jack Meier gallery in Houston. I work a lot and the days in my studio pass too quickly.

In addition, I am thinking seriously about the impact of my medium, oil paint, on the environment. I thus have a project of returning to video art. In fact a second version of “Marche en terrain inconnu” (“Walking on Unknown Land”). The initial work, dating from

2018, was an experimental work made during a research and creation course at UQAR (the Université du Québec à Rimouski). It was well received, judging from the commentary on it I received.

So there you have it. Thank you very much for your attention to my work: it’s encouraging, and I greatly appreciate being one of the artists in whom you are interested.

Marie Rioux

Rivière Humber no 2, oil on canvas 91 cm x 91 cm, 2022

LandEscape meets

Oleh Lavrii

I am an artist, and I hope that I am a representative of contemporary art. When I put paint on a canvas, I am not trying to turn it into a colored figure in order to convey the material qualities of the subject. In the process of work, I think a lot about what is happening on the canvas. Also, the objects of concentration of attention are both the physiological processes of reflection at the beginning of work, and the inspiration that arises when tracking one's emotions from emerging images.

In the process of work, an atmosphere of mental analysis of the very process of creating an image is created, which has nothing to do with an arbitrary overlay of color strokes, but involves a thought process based on an inner feeling.

Of course, this is not always the case. Sometimes I get inspired by what I see in nature or on the streets of cities, and I convey these images to the viewer using different techniques. From time to time I get out of the process of visual "meditation" and communicate with the outside world. I organize my exhibitions and everything that a contemporary artist has to do. I would be very happy if I have new contacts with people who love art, as well as with gallery owners and curators.

Hello Oleh and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://lavri.netgallery.eu in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview

with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you studied at Crimean Art School. N. S. Samokish: how do these formative experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum address the direction of your current artistic research?

Oleh Lavrii: Experienced teachers can shape the

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

@olehlavrii

Northern lights, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022

Clouds over the beach, oil on canvas, 100x120 cm. 2022

worldview of students and influence the development of an aspiring artist for several years and even decades to come. Especially if the teacher is interested in the development of his wards and is passionate about the process of transferring experience not only in terms of drawing techniques, but also in the formation of the spiritual qualities of students.

Although there were not many such teachers in my life, I nevertheless received enough knowledge in the field of easel painting. The teachers of Crimean Art School. N. S. Samokish were able to open the way for me to the world of art and taught me how to professionally use a set of tools, for which I am very grateful to them.

As an artist, you are particularly interested in the physiological processes of reflection that guides the creation of the work of art: when walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? More specifically do you create your works intuitivelly, instinctively? How important are improvisation and spontaneity in your practice, in order to capture the inspiration that arises from the emerging images?

Oleh Lavrii: I think many artists are interested in the process of creating a work of art at the moment of inspiration. It is also very important for me when inspiration and perfect movements of the tool on the canvas work in tandem, when thoughts do not get ahead of the flow of smooth work, then it becomes possible to think a little about the processes taking place on the canvas and direct them in the right direction. For example, the work "Catharsis", When I started this work, I thought about the sea, about the sand on the beach, but in the process of work I thought about the sources that fill the seas and oceans, at the end the idea of \u200b\u200bCatharsis appeared.

It is very exciting to follow the process of work, and experience the joy of emerging images.

The works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way they blend reality with imagination, inviting the viewers to explore the crossroad between reality and the dreamlike dimension: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?

Oleh Lavrii

City lights, acrylic on canvas, 40x50 cm, 2022

Pearl, oil on canvas, 50x70 cm. 2022

Oleh Lavrii: I try not to give free rein to fantasy, as fantasy images scatter attention and can lead to passive imagination, this is not what an artist needs to work with. In my case, it is better to keep the main theme in mind and develop the idea in the process of work until the moment when I feel a surge of hormones of joy from the result. I think that at this moment inspiration gains its volume and helps to complete the work with the best result.

The tones of your works be they intense and bright as in the works from Petrichor and Yellow field, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative ambiance, as in Invasion and in Melancholy — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works?

Oleh Lavrii: I like to work with sky and sea colors, they blend well with black and gray. These colors bring a sense of stability, nobility and contemplation to my life. Very rarely, according to my mood, I write a work only in gray shades, for example, the work of Melancholia. And such works as Petrichor and Yellow field, I think this is the perception of everyday simple joys. Although we can live in interiors with white and gray walls, sometimes you want to go to a restaurant with a bright interior and get a boost of vivacity. When I paint pictures in yellow, I do not give in to reflection, but I try to quickly finish the work and return to the usual slow analysis of images.

You are a versatile artist and your artworks as City lights, Clouds over the beach and Catharsis — encompasses both abstract and figurative feelings. Still, each of them

cm. 2022

conveys such stimulating visual ambivalence, able to walk the viewers to develop personal visual interpretations and feelings. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the

viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In

Catharsis, oil on canvas, 80c80

Summer evening, acrylic on canvas, 40x50 cm, 2022

Plaza katedr, oil on canvas, 60x80 cm. 2022

The trees are sleeping, oil on canvas, 70x70 cm, 2022

particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

Oleh Lavrii: Yes, of course I want my work to be

understandable to the viewer. Moreover, I find topics that would be close to the viewer and affect their feelings. I give titles to my work that will help the viewer to go through

Oleh Lavrii

Birds in the city, oil on canvas, 70x70 cm. 2021

the visual image without tension. And of course viewers are entitled to their own interpretations. It's nice for me to notice and hear how viewers comment on their personal

impressions and associate with personal experience when considering my work. This is a very effective way of communication, with the help of abstract images you can

Oleh Lavrii

Tower construction, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022

Yellow field, acrylic on canvas, 120x100 cm, 2022

convey impressions and even specific ideas.

We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before

leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Oleh. What projects are you currently working on, and

Oleh Lavrii

Lincoln island, 70x70 cm, oil on canvas, 2022

what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

Oleh Lavrii: I am currently working on a new collection of works called "Eloquent People". https://lavri.netgallery.eu/?new-collection In these paintings, I depict ordinary people in everyday life. It is interesting for me to observe people, and I try to understand what they think about, what they value, what they strive for. People are not able to live without desires, because they have elementary physiological needs, which are primarily related to survival and reproduction. It is in us

Water lilies, oil on canvas, 70x50 cm, 2022

by the Creator. In one wise book it is written; Everything that your hand can do, do it according to your strength; for in the grave where you will go there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom. Ecclesiastes 9:10. I, as an artist, try to fulfill my functions to the fullest. In the near future I plan to create a collection of sculptures that should show the image of a person in a transforming world.

Harbor, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022

LandEscape meets

Mitra Tashakori

I love the leaves of the trees Nature and the leaves and the trunks of the trees and the tree of this glorious word have alwayss been a symbol of life, greenery and health for me. I like to keep the leaves with the same color and shape and Immortalize them in my memories. The existence of so much variety In the color and shape of the leaves is unique and amazing and I love this wonder. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the forms of nature, the freshness, the greenness of the leaves, and this rejuvenation, yellowing, falling, and a new beginning … For me, It is an association of life and death, and the distance between the two that must be lived very well. Leaves is an experiencee from my recent collection that I have dealt with most In the Covid_19 period.

This collection started many years ago and continues to this day, and Its charm never ends .

Hello Mitra and welcome to LandEscape.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum address the direction of your current artistic research?

Mitra Tashakori: Greetings to the lovely team of LandEscape

I do believe that we are surrounded by a myriad of objects that shape our artistic character on a daily basis. As for me, I well remember how the patterns and flowers in my mother’s embroidery would interest and entangle me.

Soon after I graduated from high school, I chose art and graphics as my major. So, I think all these would ultimately affect the formation of my works.

Graphics is a creative field which offers a wide space to maneuver in. It is used not only in advertisements, but also in the creative works of art. This field became a good platform for the creation of my art.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for your exploration of the relationship between reality and imagination, as well as the unique choice of tones that unveils mystical qualities from real places: when walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?

Mitra Tashakori: If you mean the leaves collection, the work begins with the arrangement of the leaves on the page, and it immerses me so much that the work takes shape by itself without me consciously giving it a thought.

Maybe it's better to say that I put the leaves on a paper or cardboard surface, my imagination draws me to nature and it is transferred from nature to my work, and then other visual elements come to my work, I put surfaces, lines and finally dots.

Mitra Tashakori

I place the dots more carefully and obsessively and finally the work is completed.

The formation process definitely goes back to my memories, the landscapes I have seen and my mentality.

As for my other works, I just need to start the work... and the next, the work itself draws me and takes me with it and a new work is created.

When my mind is occupied with a problem, more and more lines and dots come to me,

they engulf me and after creating that work, I get a strange sense of peace.

The tones of your works — be they intense and bright, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative atmosphere create delicate tension and dynamics: how

does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works?

Mitra Tashakori: To create these spaces, I have used a special material and because the colors that can be used on paper or

Mitra Tashakori

dark cardboard surface are limited, so the choice of colors has also created a special limitation for me, of course, I benefit from this limitation to coordinate the colors and

forms. Limitation has brought me a special creativity.

We highly appreciate the way your

artworks address your audience to dive into the dreamlike dimension, helping them to question the nature of human

perception. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic paintings are derived more from within the

head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?

Mitra Tashakori: I completely agree with Peter Doug.

Yes, even in the most realistic paintings, the innermost of the artist affects the work. Perhaps we see in the works of different artists that the type of lines, hatches, and levels are different from each other. Even the color in one hour of the day and in a

specific place is different from the eyes of different artists and it goes back to the inner world of the artist, that is, the artist’s worldview, imagination, and mindset. Imagination has influenced my work a lot. I used to draw trees in outdoors and real space with pencil, metal pen, and Rapid, and in retrospect, all those studies, all those lines and designs have been influential in my current work.

You are personally involved in topical issues that affect our society, including the crisis of air warming, forest burning, environmental

Mitra Tashakori

pollution. Artists from different art movement and eras — from pioneer Richard Morris, passing through Thomas

Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more recently Kelly Richardson— use to communicate more or less explicit

messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues? In

particular, as an how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and unstable society?

Mitra Tashakori

Mitra Tashakori: In my opinion, artists can be pioneers in showing environmental crises to the world.

Of course, a good communication between artists and environmental scientists and scientists in the field of

Mitra Tashakori

science and technology can be a new step in advancing environmental goals. The warning or display of these works is

much more effective than television news coverage.

The effect that art has on the audience, be it performance, painting, dance, theater, music, or a combination of all these, is

much, much deeper and more permanent. Showing a leaf and acknowledging its beauty and appreciation of nature and the

Mitra Tashakori

power and natural magic of leaves and trees and showing it through art can be more effective than the news coverage on

deforestation. After all, the visual language has the most impact.

You are a versatile artist and your artworks seem to be rich of symbols, as leaves. In this sense, your artistic production aims to urge the spectatorship to a participative effort, to realize their own interpretation. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

Yes, I really love symbols. Usually, the production and creation of a work of art or artwork may not have anything to do with the audience. I make art because I feel the need for it inside me. Air pollution, wars and destructions, etc. make me sick and this pain forces me to create a work that is a salve for this pain and then I share these works with my audience and my work affects the audience. And I see its feedback. I have never created a work to please the audience.

I have been asked a lot by the audience in regard to the collection of leaves whether this work is long-lasting? And even collectors have told me, "this work is not enduring, what would you do to make it last longer?" And in response, I would say, “Are we eternal?” The name of the collection is Leaf and Death, after all. It is not sustainable.

Of course, this collection had two general goals; firstly, the leaves are not permanent. We are not permanent and we die.

And secondly, the leaves are born again in the spring.

In the "Leaf and Death" exhibition, I put an excerpt of Fereydon Moshiri's poem entitled "Believe in Spring" (‘Bahar ra Bavar Kon’) on the wall of the exhibition:

"... the soil has come alive Why have you turned to stone? Why are you so heavyhearted? Open the windows And believe in the springs."

Of course, I would very much like to see and hear the feedback of my audience both in the exhibitions and in the virtual space. This is very effective and enjoyable for me, even if their feedback is not in accordance with my own purpose or my personal perception of the works.

It is still very inspiring and informative for me.

With their unique aesthetic quality on the visual espect, your works seem to be laboriously structured to capture echoes from reality, pursuing such effective and at the same time thoughtful visual impact: how important is direct experience for you? In particular, how do you consider the role of memory playing within your artistic process?

Mitra Tashakori: I think I have fully addressed the importance of nature and

its tremendous artistic impact in the previous questions. Nature marks the beginning and end of my work; it makes its

way into my works in a subconscious and imaginative manner.

I have never used images, photos, or real landscapes in my works. I think that nature

techniques of each artist, painter, and designer. Land Special Edition

Marked out with such organic feeling and balanced sense of geometry, your works feature recurrent smooth contours and shapes that we dare say essential on the visual aspect. Would you tell us something about such refined geometric aspect?

Mitra Tashakori: I trace this strange order, which is completely noticeable in my work and is out of my control, and which has appeared in all my works back to my strong interest and desire for graphics.

There is a close relationship between painting and graphics in my works, and of course I like it. On the one hand, the strange symbols and order in the work and on the other hand, my feelings and connection with the events have affected my work and the painterly feeling of it.

You are an established artist, and over the years your artworks have been exhbited in many occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? As the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?

Mitra Tashakori: I think that the Covid, in the last few years, has greatly affected the nature of the exhibition of the works of art and has provided us with better and more useful ways to display works.

Virtual exhibitions, street performances, and especially Instagram have strangely brought the artist closer and closer to

his/her audience. On the daily routine of our mechanical world, we need to produce and display works of art more than ever. We need more tenderness, art, and creativity to keep away from this mundane and tedious world.

We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Mitra. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

Mitra Tashakori: I appreciate you and your good team. I myself love artistic discussions and I read them in art magazines and on Instagram, using Google Translate. It helps me understand the artists' works and the process of their creation better. I think this helps the affinity of the artist to the audience and you are the means to this perfect end. Thank you.

I have new projects for which I need a good team to implement.

I am thinking of implementing them and I don't know how to explain them, maybe I will share them with your good team after the implementation.

I love you very much.

Mitra Tashakori

LandEscape meets

Adrian Flaherty

I am a Londoner, having lived here all my life and where I also studied Sculpture, completing my degree at UAL in 2016, with work interested in ideas related to the home. I worked across a variety of media on this course but since then I have been concentrating on paintings. I have always been interested in the use of Chance in art over the last century or so and I use various methods of painting and drawing to create chaotic effects on the canvases which I then try to reason with, bringing it together with more detailed work. I work in administration as well at the moment which also brings out this organising nature of mine.

Having also studied Architecture I have an underlying interest in location discovering new places that are related to a wider idea of where I am from, and walking is central to the work of my recent paintings. After completing the series of bridges along the River Thames, up to the edge of London, I have been making paintings of cliffs and beaches along the West coast of England. This is meant to symbolise how both myself and the `Western’ world is constantly being unpredictability affected by the forces around it, as can be also seen in the nature of the landscape changing with coastal erosion, tides, winds, etc. The effect of climate change is only going to heighten the impact on people’s lives.

landescape@europe.com

Hello Adrian and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.adrianf-homeworks.com in order to get a wider idea about your artistic production, and we would like to start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a BA of

Sculpture, that you received from the Camberwell College, University of the Arts London: how do these formative years influence your evolution as an artist?

Adrian Flaherty: Although the course was called Sculpture we were encouraged, on all courses there, to experiment with different media. With that in mind my flat became the sculpture, with interventions, paintings, photography, functional works and sculptures in response to the various spaces and ideas of the home. Over the course I also developed my interest in the use of chance in art over the last hundred years

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

@adrianfhomeworks

Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

or so. In one assignment I wrote about Marcel Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages – the dropping of three 1 metre long strings in a humorously ironic reference to perspective and to draftsmanship, where he would suggest that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a curve. This has now become a motif in many of my paintings. Another artist I very much like is Jackson Pollock and his drip paintings and the declaration that “I am nature” which became important to the expressive and organic nature of my work. In my twenties I also completed over two years of an architecture degree which has made me interested in the environment and the interest in discovering new places.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way your studies of the unpredictability and structure of the nature of coastal erosion invite the viewers to revaluate each step of the mechanism of art making, highlighting at the same time the uniqueness of the viewers' response to the work of art. When walking our readers through the genesis of the Cliffs and Beaches series, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?

Adrian Flaherty: This series followed directly on from my Bridge series where I walked the length of the River Thames up to the edge of London producing paintings at each connection over the river. This was where I started exploring the juxtaposition of chance and structure (or reason), where the depths of water have often dangerous currents under the surface if you were trying to swim in it, contrasted against the strength of the bridges. It also developed further ideas of the home. London is where I was born and where I

have lived all my life, but when I had finished that series, I wanted to explore the idea of living in the “Western World”, and its chaotic and yet usually ordered nature. I work from drawings and from photographs taken on some of my walks along the cliffs of the west coast of England. When I start a painting, I have a general aim of what I want to depict, of late usually laying down string to try and control some of the added paint to mark out the subject. I have been using 27 one meter long pieces recently a lot. I love this number because it is 3 to the power of 3 (or three cubed), which is also the number 3 less than 30. It is an ironical reference to the freedom of the “West”, where most Londoners pronounce this number `Free’. There are also obviously three primary and three secondary colours, so this process has become like my signature method. I use a combination of oil and acrylic paints, thinned down, so that when the paint is added to the horizontal canvas it flows and mixes with other colours from other areas of the painting. I usually have to control some of the flows as I go along by tilting the canvas until an equilibrium is reached or an interesting effect is achieved. This can be seen in much the same way as there being many ways that humans attempt to control some of the impacts of nature in coastal areas as well as the urban towns and cities. This process, after it has dried, is then worked into to bring out, and accentuate various aspects and to try and make the painting as much as possible like the original scene in the photo. It is this process that is often very difficult to end very much like the ongoing need to take care of the environment and the nature that I depict, and I often return to the painting with the common question of when to decide that the painting is finished. There is no time limit only the aim to make all parts harmonise together.

Adrian Flaherty

The tones of your works - be they intense and bright as in Cliffs and Beaches XVII, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative ambiance, as in Fulham Railway

Bridge — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works? In

particular, what role does intuition play in the composition of your palette?

Adrian Flaherty: Like I say I work from

Flaherty

photos usually for these projects, making quick sketches of these with accentuated colours drawn into my sketchbook. The experience of walking the cliffs and feeling

Adrian

the colours in that environment where changes in weather, the tides, and coastal features change markedly on the journey along the path, or in the bridge series as the land use and the colours of the bridges change, they also influence other aspects in my palette. At the start there are many other variables to influence the colours I choose, not just the scene. I lay out the colours I might want to contrast or combine certain ones to create an effect or choose a colour that I feel is useful to an idea, or even a colour that I haven’t used for a while. But generally, I use the primary and secondary colours, and blacks and whites added neat in contrasting oil and acrylic applications to form effects as they `mix’ together on the canvas. This is much like the impact of weather on the land, water and sky that I try to represent. Like the weather and the seasons, I change my palette, and sometimes the method of the way I work with an initial vision of how I feel about the location in the drawing or photo. My psychological state is important because I live and have a studio in London which is sometimes stressful, yet it is quite therapeutic on my walks, so I find I like to often express that contrast. Other factors in my life or the music I happen to be listening to can also affect the process at the initial stage. I often want to try out a new material or method of creating effects, as you can see in the Fulham Railway Bridge painting where I ground up oil pastels which I then mixed with some turps for the section of beach that ran along the river at low tide. Sometimes importantly the amount of paint

and how strong the mixture is, or even the sequence that the paint was applied can totally transform the piece. So it is the living process of trying to achieve effects in the scene in the early stages that dictates most of the range of colours in each painting.

You have a background in Architecture and as you have remarked once, you have an underlying interest in location discovering new places that are related to a wider idea of where you are from. In this sense, we dare say that your works could be considered a response to direct experience mediated by the lens of memory: do you agree with this interpretation? In particular, how does your everyday life's experience and your memories fuel your creative process?

Adrian Flaherty: The inspiration for my paintings, as I just alluded to, and the feelings do very much come from the experiences and the interests I have had, not just on the walks, but also the contrast of living my life in the city. Between this and the calm of walking along the riverbanks away from traffic and the crowds in the first series, or along the cliffs with its often-buffeting winds and crashing waves. These are important when combined with the graceful movement of clouds and of the light and shade that makes the scene in front of me, and the textures that come with that. Some paintings have ended up on the walls of my new house and I find it is great to live with them and relive some of the feelings I have tried to express, not least because some aspects might influence another painting later on down the line. The decision to return to landscape painting, and these seascapes, some 20 years later can be seen to be very much influenced by my recollection of my Geography studies at school, and my

frequent family trips to the coast during my childhood. Also, as a child I was a very keen club swimmer and I think my fascination with water stems from that as well.

We highly appreciate the way your works address your audience to dive into the dreamlike dimension, helping them to

discover its connections with ordinary life. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic paintings are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and

imagination, playing within your artistic production?

Adrian Flaherty: Painting from photos and sketches is obviously different to working en plein air, but the fluidity of the paint important to a lot of my paintings is not possible unfortunately outdoors. But maybe

what I lack in experiencing the specific location for longer, is countered by the experience of the paint and in the act of making the painting, and how it takes on a life of its own often as it slowly mixes and dries out. This is often wrestled with to bring it back to be more like the original scene but also fairly often the chance occurrences in the paint creates a new scene entirely or a weather condition in the Cliffs and Beaches series. This chance method can also be used to add something else to the work that wasn’t what I saw originally. In this way light effects, or the movements of water and clouds can also become very imagined, and ideas develop for more surreal parts, as the paint flows into different areas. Pieces can also become quite abstract working with the unexpected. So there is usually a general plan of what I want to achieve but I'm always looking for, or finding new ways to show the contrasts between chance and reason, or reality and more of an experience.

You are a versatile artist and your works convey such stimulating visual ambivalence, able to walk the viewers to develop personal interpretations. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is it for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

Adrian Flaherty: I think it’s very important that my paintings trigger the imagination transporting the viewer into being in the landscape in these two series’. The paintings are made with the initial objective to be felt

Adrian Flaherty

like how the landscape affected me during my walks, but often the ideas of the painting happen during the process of making it. I found the group exhibition titled The Sea to be great because its location in Sheffield in the UK couldn’t be much more centred between the west and east coasts of England, so the ability for art to do that to the viewer and take them into that environment is great and important sometimes. Everybody takes their experiences and knowledge with them to view art and it is important to apply that to each work of art. There are clues to what I’m expressing in my work but it’s obviously open to interpretation sometimes, and I’m sure that there might be things that I haven’t realised that some viewers might grasp, so I think that personal interpretations are vital in any work of art. This is in much the same way as I often find it more rewarding to study another artist's work and try to work out what they were trying to express before reading the caption or the press release about the exhibition. The saying “Every picture speaks a thousand words” is very true and I am actually writing a book at the moment bringing together ideas I’ve been influenced by over my life to go along with my artwork since my degree. The chapters titled The CV and Me, The Home, Chance, Reason, Walking, The Fire and the Signature, and Books go into detail of why I am interested in certain things, work the way I do, and what has made me the person I am. It is a bit of a journey of self-discovery of books, magazine cuttings and even subjects I studied back in school that have influenced me and has been put together in quite a fun way I think to understand my work and me as an artist.

Your artistic production offers a critical political point of the unstable relationship

between relationship between climate change and our lives. Artists from different art movement and eras used to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an ever growing audience on topical issues — as environmental ones — that affect our everchanging society? In particular, as an how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised society?

Adrian Flaherty: It is definitely important that artist do this! Art has always been a bit confrontational around the ideas of what art is and raised current issues in society in particular over the last century. Conventional art, i.e. landscapes, portraits and the human figure, have been replaced as the main genres with more conceptual art and categories such as Land Art and the modern day social initiative type projects that some artists are involved in, becoming more popular. My return to doing landscapes was done to express my need to see more of the world around me and generate work that both communicates ideas but also my desire to enjoy and show my appreciation of what nature has to offer. So, my aim is that if work can encourage that enjoyment or yes increase the awareness to the environment more in others, I would be very happy indeed. Nature should be appreciated and nurtured more because we very much rely on it for our survival. It doesn’t matter where you are, or what background you come from, most people would say that nature does things that humans find hard to beat aesthetically or indeed structurally. My studies in architecture have very much instilled in me the environmental side of

Adrian Flaherty

living but also this fascination with how nature makes such amazing forms, such as the simplicity of the spiral of a seashell, or the complexity and the strength of the material in a spider’s web, which our scientists are apparently currently trying to reproduce for work in our own structures.

You use various methods of painting and drawing to create chaotic effects on the canvases: how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your artistic process?

Adrian Flaherty: Each painting starts with improvisation, when the more expressive aspects of the work are generated or when textures are laid down. Whether it is by a sweeping curve of a piece of string to define a form or a thrown mix of paint onto the canvas. Chance then often takes over to create new forms, textures and effects which I later try to develop, accentuate or edit away. This final stage can take very much longer to bring all the effects and colours together. Sometimes though, as I mentioned, I return to paintings with fresh eyes after they had been in storage for a long time and worked on some more, finding solutions to parts that don’t quite work with other areas, or I have been known to totally redo paintings with other layers built up on top. The original subject matter sometimes becomes less important, and I concentrate more on the mark making process. So, I find the expressive aspects and the use of chance in my work is often the most important factor because everything thereafter, that makes the painting, is indebted to it. This is again very similar to us humans and our reliance on nature and the environment that we are in.

You are an established artist and over the years your works have been exhibited in many

occasions, including your recent exhibition The Sea, at the Fronteer Gallery, in Sheffield: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? As the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?

Adrian Flaherty: My relationship with my audience is mostly done through feedback with the gallery staff during physical exhibitions. The galleries and the online exhibitions continue to like to present my work which is very satisfying because they usually have a grasp of what is interesting and what makes good art. I am on the website Etsy with some details of my paintings uploaded to give a better feel of the textures of the paint, but I have been told that my paintings are much better viewed in person.

I have exhibited outside the UK when I was part of a group show in Venice and I have had offers from other galleries in major cities including New York, so I am happy that my work is getting to be seen and enjoyed worldwide. It obviously takes a while to hone skills and ideas and develop a portfolio that leads to more solo shows, and this opportunity to explain some of my art is another good step on the road to be able to consider myself a professional artist. I think the Covid virus came just as my work was gaining more recognition and I am very happy that things worldwide are finally getting back to normal for most of us on that front. I tried Instagram https://www.instagram.com/adrianfhomeworks as a method to share my work to a wider audience for a time and received some good comments, but I think that it definitely suits some people’s work and personalities more

than others. However, as a force of showing art and of connecting people and ideas I think the internet is so very powerful and can only help the culture of the individual and influence a wider community.

We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Adrian. What

projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

Adrian Flaherty: The Cliffs and Beaches series is one that I’ll be working on for a very long time I think because my aim is eventually to walk the West Coast of England, having only walked on the southwest coastline so far. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of the landscapes and seascapes that can be found there. Currently, however, after going to a life drawing class to do something different, I am working from watercolour studies I made there

transferring them into my current style mostly using my string and fluid paint technique. I predominantly use the three primary colours in these paintings with the imparted belief that red is positivity, blue negative and expression itself signified by yellow. So, I have tried to express in this way some of the human struggle in these psychological states according to the poses of the models. I also mix things up sometimes with an abstract piece or a sculpture for my home, and so I just hope to keep my ideas and work fresh and developing. In much the same way as the paint flows around my canvases I will see what it leads to … It was great being able to allow a better understanding of my work here, so many sincerest thanks go to the LandEscape team for this opportunity to express myself!

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Adrian Flaherty

LandEscape meets

Ali Khorshidpour

Nature is always attractive and very inspiring to me, and for this reason, many of my paintings and drawings feature different views of nature. For example, my previous works have included such landscapes: vast meadows, green hills, a forest in the distance, some green trees on the horizon, single trees or a bush of grass in a cold and gray atmosphere, and other such landscapes, all of which are minimalistic in terms of form and color.

In continuation of the same naturalist and minimalist approach, the collection of my recent works that you can see here, have reached the maximum extent of brevity in terms of form and color. So that the forms, which are inspired by leaves, stems and grass in nature, are very geometric and abstract, and the color is limited to black and white only, because my goal in creating these works is to show simplicity, purity and visual harmony that relationships and interactions between the components of the work evoke a musical feeling.

@khorshidpour.ali

landescape@europe.com

Hello Ali and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training you studied graphic design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, and you are your currently a lecturer at the University of Art in Tehran: how do these formative years influence your evolution as

an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your Persian roots address the direction of your current artistic research?

Ali Khorshidpour: Hello and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to do this interview.

I must say that since the beginning of 2020, at the same time as the covid-19 pandemic, I have not been teaching at the University of Arts in Tehran.

The fact is that my artistic background goes back to before studying at the Faculty of Fine

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator

Arts because I have been painting since childhood and when I entered the faculty, I had experiences in drawing and working with different art materials such as oil paint, acrylic, gouache, watercolors, inks, colored pencils, pastels, charcoal, and technical pens. But quite serious and academic training began in the Faculty of Fine Arts. It was there that I got to know the visual values of visual elements through exercises and workshops and specialized courses. Workshops such as the basics of visual arts, logo and logotype design, poster design, book cover design and magazine design. It was through these workshops that I learned to use only the most essential visual elements to achieve an

effective graphic design. This kind of attitude continued throughout my years of professional work as a graphic designer and I gradually realized that each visual element has different effects depending on its shape, size, color and placement on the page. For this reason, composition is very important to me in graphic design, drawing and painting, and I have tried to convey the great importance of composition and paying attention to the values of visual elements to my students at university.

Regarding cultural roots, I must say that I was born and raised in a country that has a long cultural and historical background in mystical

literature and Sufism. The mystic and Sufi view reflected in the literary works of a poet like Rumi, and I was familiar with his literary works and studied them since my youth. One of the basic concepts in Sufi mysticism is piety, that a person by giving up unnecessary things in his life and mentalities, reaches mental and spiritual peace, which is a prelude to understanding the truth. Therefore, I think that the sensitivity towards the values of visual elements and the precision in choosing and using them that I explained before, along with this spiritual point of view, have caused my tendency to create spaces that can be seen in my works.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way your essential Black and White style captures the most universal perceptive parameters of the viewers, communicating such deep sense of harmony. When walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?

Ali Khorshidpour: Working with black on a white background has fascinated me for years and I have created paintings in this way in the

past, of which I can mention a few examples from 2010 (Images number 2, 3 and 4). I think one of the reasons for this interest of mine goes back to my professional activity as a graphic designer, which has caused me to naturally deal with black color a lot. Basically, black is a widely used color in graphic art and graphic design. For example, in various printmaking techniques such as etching, lithography, linocut and woodcut, mostly black ink is used for printing. Also, due to technical reasons, the logo, logotype and typeface must be designed in black on a white background at first. And dealing with black color a lot over the years has made me quite comfortable and familiar with the black and white space.

But these geometric works in particular are in black and white because what is essential in them is only the absolute form and I believe that chromatic colors attract the viewer's attention, causing less attention to the form. In addition, chromatic colors create more complex feelings and emotions in the viewer, while in these works, my goal is to express simplicity and purity.

The process of creating these black and white geometric works is that first, I roughly mark the white areas of the composition with black ink on a white paper. In this step, I use the whiteness of the paper itself for the white areas. Then I gradually define the shape and

size of each white area more precisely. After defining these areas, I completely cover the rest of the paper with black ink (Images number 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11). I then carefully evaluate the work. After the composition is finalized, I make a detailed geometric drawing of it (Images number 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19).

Meticolously refinished in their details, your artworks — have struck us for the way you sapiently conveyed rigorous sense of geometry with such unique refined aesthetics: how do you consider the role of details within your artistic practice?

Ali Khorshidpour: The role of details in this collection of geometric works is very important because it is these details that make the character of each of the white forms and determine the type of their relationship in interaction with each other and with the entire negative space of the work.

If the smallest change is given in the details of the shape, size, angle and position of each of these forms, this harmony and the desired visual relationship that currently exists between the forms in my opinion will no longer exist.

In fact, from my point of view, each of these geometric works is like a visual melody in a way

that each of the white forms is like a musical note that has its own tone and sound, and by putting these different notes together, a short melody is created. This melody is played in absolute silence because the color black in these works can evoke absolute silence. If we look at these works in this way, it should be said that these are the details that make the special tone and sound of each note.

Your artworks often feature such monochromatic visual quality: would you tell us something about your aesthetic decisions?

paintings and drawings are monochromatic is that form and composition are much more important to me than color.

We highly appreciate the way the minimalistic aspect of your works address your audience to dive into the sphere of imagination, helping them to discover its connections with ordinary life. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic paintings are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?

Ali Khorshidpour: The only reason that all my

Ali Khorshidpour: Thank you very much.

This reminds me of what Edgar Degas said: “It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.”

I also completely agree with Peter Doig's opinion because an artist who tries to represent reality in his work sees reality from his own point of view anyway.

In fact, everything that man creates is based on the idea that he had in his mind at the beginning. For example, an architect imagines

a building - which has not yet been built - in his mind and thinks about its details and draws its plan and then builds it.

Therefore, the main source of all human creations is his thought and imagination.

As for me, all my drawings and paintings are created based on my mental imagination, and in fact, they are my artistic inferences from reality, which are mostly on the border between abstraction and reality. In some of them, the realistic aspect is seen, and in others, the abstract aspect is more visible.

You are a versatile artist and your works conveysuch stimulating visual ambivalence, able to walk the viewers to develop personal visual grammars. In this sense, we daresay that your artistic production aims to urge the spectatorship to a participative effort, to realize their own interpretation. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

Ali Khorshidpour: You mentioned the right point. Yes, in my works I always tend to perfect the form in terms of a minimalist aesthetic while working in a way that leaves the understanding of the subject of the artwork to the viewer's imagination. In this way, the form does not sacrifice the subject and the viewer actively participates in the understanding of the artwork. It is important for me that my works have the ability to imagine.

Marked out with balanced sense of geometry, your works feature recurrent sharp contours that we dare say essential on the visual aspect. Would you tell us something about such refined geometric feeling?

Ali Khorshidpour: According to the German architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, "less is more". My approach in these works has been

the maximum refinement of the real subject in terms of form. In addition, as I have already explained about the reason why these works are black and white, my goal is to express simplicity and purity, and in order to achieve this goal, while choosing a suitable color space, I also simplify the forms as much as necessary. As a result, I have reached geometric shapes. For this reason, the forms are worked geometrically and with sharp corners to evoke simplicity and purity.

Furthermore, by using geometric shapes, I can precisely control the visual impact and how the forms interact with each other and with the negative space.

Regarding the recurrent sharp contours, as I mentioned before about the musical aspect of these works, I intended to create a visual rhythm through repetition that evokes a musical feeling in the viewer.

How do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your artistic process? In particular, what role does play intuition in the composition of your pallette?

Ali Khorshidpour: The fact is that improvisation is true of all my drawings and paintings. That is, I always start working with the motivation of an inner passion and without any sketches. At the beginning of the work, I don't even have any idea in my mind about what image I will draw. Therefore, I only start working with passion, which is very important in the final result of the work. It has been proven to me many times that whenever I have

started without passion, the result of the work has not been satisfactory from my point of view, even if I have spent a lot of time on it. So my method is that I just start working and after a few minutes the intuition comes. From that point on, I gradually shape that intuition and then complete the final form and composition with great sensitivity.

But the interesting experience I have about these black and white geometric works is that during the creation of these works, due to the great mental concentration I have for composition and also the influence of black and white colors and the minimalist space, I naturally enter a completely cozy, quiet mental space. I feel safe and calm and experience absolute solitude. Therefore, I can say that each of these works is the result of a kind of meditation.

You are an established artist: your artworks have been published in more than 25 local and international books and catalogs and two books of your selected graphic design works have been published: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? As the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?

Ali Khorshidpour: Although the quality of visiting the physical reality of a work of art in a traditional gallery is different from visiting the same work in an online gallery, online platforms have unique features that

make them very different. On online platforms, visitors can visit their favorite works of art at any hour of the day and night, from anywhere in the world, without time and geographical restrictions, and in any traffic and weather conditions. In this way, the difficulties and limitations of visiting traditional galleries have been removed. In my case, as an artist, for example, I can share my latest works instantly on my Instagram page with a large number of viewers worldwide. Therefore, I can have a much easier, faster and wider relationship with the audience, and this is a wonderful possibility. https://www.instagram.com/khorshidpour.ali

We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Ali. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

Ali Khorshidpour: I thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. Currently, I am still working on the same black and white geometric works because I think this style still has a lot of room for growth and development. I decide to try this method with more diverse forms and also strengthen the visual rhythm and musical sense in them.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com