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KNACK Magazine is dedicated to showcasing the work of artists of all mediums, and to discuss trends and ideas of art communities. KNACK Magazine’s ultimate aim is to connect and inspire emerging artists, working artists and established artists. We strive to create a place for
artists,
writers,
design-
ers, thinkers, and innovators to collaborate and produce a
unique,
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES PHOTOGRAPHERS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS & STUDIO ARTISTS: 10-12 high resolution images of your work. All should include pertinent caption information (name, date, medium, year). WRITERS: You may submit up to 3,000 words and as little as one. We accept simultaneous submissions. No cover letter necessary. All submissions must be 12pt, Times New Roman, single or double-spaced with page numbers and include your name, e-mail, phone number, and genre. KNACK seeks writing of all kinds. We will even consider recipes, reviews, and essays. We seek writers whose work has a distinct voice, is character driven, and is subversive but tasteful. ALL SUBMISSIONS: KNACK encourages all submitters to include a portrait, a brief biography, which can include; your name, age, current location, awards, contact information, etc. (no more than 250 words). And an artist statement (no more than 500 words). We believe that your perspective of your work and process is as lucrative as the work itself. This may range from your upbringing and/or education as an artist, what type of work you produce, inspirations, etc. If there are specifications or preferences concerning the way in which your work is to be displayed please include them. Please title files for submission with the name of the piece. This applies for both writing and visual submissions. *PLEASE TITLE FILES FOR SUBMISSION WITH THE NAME OF THE PIECE. THIS APPLIES FOR BOTH WRITING AND VISUAL SUBMISSIONS.
EMAIL: KNACKMAGAZINE1@GMAIL.COM SUBJECT: SUBMISSION [PHOTOGRAPHY, STUDIO ART, CREATIVE WRITING, GRAPHIC DESIGN] ACCEPTABLE FORMATS: IMAGES: PDF, TIFF, OR JPEG WRITTEN WORKS: .DOC, .DOCX, AND RTF
REVIEWS
KNACK Magazine is requesting material to be reviewed. Reviews extend to any culture related event that may be happening in your community. Do you know of an exciting show or exhibition opening? Is there an art collective in your city that deserves some press? Are you a musician, have a band, or are a filmmaker? Send us your CD, movie, or titles of upcoming releases which you’d like to see reviewed in KNACK Magazine. We believe that reviews are essential to creating a dialogue about the arts. If something thrills you, we want to know about it and share it with the KNACK Magazine community—no matter if you live in the New York or Los Angeles, Montreal or Mexico. All review material can be sent to knackmagazine1@gmail.com. Please send a copy of CDs and films to 4319 N. Greenview Ave, Chicago, IL 60613. If you would like review material returned to you include return postage and packaging. Entries should contain pertinent details such as name, year, release date, websites and links (if applicable). For community events we ask that information be sent up to two months in advance to allow proper time for assignment and review. We look forward to seeing and hearing your work.
EDITORS & STAFF Andrea Catalina Vaca Co-Founder, Publisher, Editor-In-Chief, Artist Coordinator, Digital Operations, Photographer, Circulation Director, Production Manager, Business Manager Jonathon Duarte Co-Founder, Creative Director Ariana Lombardi Co-Founder, Executive Editor, Artist Coordinator, Writer Chelsey Alden Editor, Writer Fernando Gaverd Digital Operations, Designer BFrank Designer
Magazine Design: Andrea Catalina Vaca First & Last Spread Photography: A.C. Vaca Photography
CONTENTS ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES 10 FEATURED ARTISTS MICHAEL BENEDICT 16 TABASSUM HASNAT 26 MAISHA TAHSIN 36 ABHISHEK SINGH 44 ASIA REYNOLDS 54 GRAEME WILLIAMS 62 QUICK LOOK ARTIST Yogesh Wagh 70
KNACK MAGAZINE, ISSUE #64
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
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WEB: www.michaelbaptistabenedict.carrd.co/#
EMAIL: mbaptista.benedict87@gmail.com
MICHAEL BENEDICT
Michael Baptista Benedictis an Americanmulti-instrumentalist, experimental musician, sound artist, conceptual videographer and graphic designer.He has produced over 50 albums and EP’s with accompanying videos. The bulk of his recordings have been released independently. He has also released a number of albums with otherindependent record labels, including the album Super(b)-Child-Ran, which was released onBrainfeederin 2013. This album included the track “phemy[ 3]”which earned a place on Pitchfork’ s t rack of the day list prior to its official release. Benedict is difficult to categorize and Benedict is difficult to mistake.
TABASSUM HASNAT
Tabassum Hasnat is a freelance writer of short-form fiction. She hails from Bangladesh and has a residence in the metropolis. She runs a blog on the global platform Storymirror Pvt Ltd. Her write-ups have been published by international companies such as Amazon, Kindle, Google Books, and Notion Press.
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IG: @ maisha_rtisan
ABHISHEK SINGH
Maisha Tahsin is a self-taught hobbyist artist currently living in Sylhet, Bangladesh.
Abhishek Singh is a photographer from New Delhi, India. Singh has 4+ yrs extensive experience in custom and specialized photography. He is a dedicated and energetic photographer.
IG: @ singh_abhishek999
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MAISHA TAHSIN
IG: @ reydesignco
Graeme Williams has been a photographer for 30 years. He has visited fifty countries and his photographs have been published in major publications, including National Geographic Magazine, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times Magazine. His work is in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian, Washington, DC; Duke University, NC; The North Carolina Museum of Art, NC; The St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, FL; and the University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, South Africa.
EMAIL: gwilliams@icon.co.za
Born and raised in Maryland, Asia Reynolds is a graphic designer and illustrator. She received her BFA in photography in 2015. Her work can be seen in Krull Magazine and LUMIN Magazine. She is currently freelancing in editorial design, and illustrating images with colorful manipulations, as well as flat illustrations of women of color. Reynolds lives in Tampa, FL.
GRAEME WILLIAMS
WEB: www.graemewilliams.co.za
WEB: www.reydesignco.com
ASIA REYNOLDS
Williams was awarded the 2013 POPCAP Prize for Contemporary African Photography. In April 2017, images from the series “As The Grass Grows” were included in Being There, the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s collective exhibition showcasing contemporary South African art. Williams is currently located in Johannesburg, South Africa. 13
FEATU A RT I
URED ISTS
Michael Benedict
“Spheres” is an exercise that encompasses a philosophy and system illustrating the passage of time - what it means to derive momentary value and implement it into the whole of what makes us us. Each sphere begins where the previous one ended. None of the spheres would exist without the history from where it came. The aesthetics and designs for each sphere are evoked from the mood of each day that it’s created. Each sphere’s evolution is randomized in small increments, only moving slightly in any direction. Their influence comes from memory, rejecting formulaic influence, binding themselves in time.
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SPHERES
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*
*Sun
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Tabassum Hasnat
This poem depicts a tale of marital rape - a f o r m o f d o m e s t i c v i o l e n c e a n d s e x u a l a b u s e .Â
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THE WHITE SHEETS A few or so fingernails clawed Along the cold mattress. They continued to screech And scratch ‘neath the white velvety sheets. A soft thud echoed in the canals of my ears As the back of my head met The frigid headboard of the bed. While the tips of those nails Now trailed along the forearms of mine Until I wrenched my eye open With my very own fingers clasped Around both of my bare arms. The crook of my neck Writhed with patches of stiffness As I stretched out my limbs, Only to wince at the horrid creaking That erupted out of them. My shoulder blades turned and twisted, As I caught the blotches of vivid redness Lingering upon them before frowning At the absence of the straps of my lingerie That ought to be there. Twitches of numbness exploded Along the spine of my back, As I propped onto my elbows To lean against the headboard, When a sudden soreness Bolted through the hips of mine. And I wondered, What were those scrapes of harshness That I felt running back and forth Upon the flesh of my thighs. My head hurt with the abrupt Unknownness of my surroundings While tides of debilitation and An overwhelming, inexplicable fatigue Hardly ebbed away as they ceaselessly Wrecked through the nooks of my mind,
Along with every inch of my every limb – Until my gaze found what it had been Seeking out all this while. I saw you, slumbering away beside me While the sheets shuffled and shrieked inaudibly As I inched closer and closer To the haven of familiarity that I lacked ‘til now. And everything, slowly and steadily Crept back to its place, The instant I tucked myself to your chest. As the placidly kept heaving of it Began to lull me back to sleep Until I couldn’t help but see it – No, not the ripped off buttons of your shirt But the long and dried scratches, resulting – From these sharply clipped fingernails of mine, That glistened across your very chest. And indeed, each of them Never once failed to resemble Futile endeavors of resistance, Perhaps from last night, which I absolutely Seemed to have forgotten. I trailed the tips of my fingers Along with the long gashes, At times tentatively, And at times tenderly, While sheer blankness Seemed to have kept Every corner of my head In its captive as I tried my best To recall what exactly had Caused them in the first place. I pondered and pondered As I pulled myself away From your sleeping embrace And to the my side of the bed Until the sprinkles of what, Perhaps blood – caught my gaze. And every bit of last night came surging Back to the front of my numbing mind. I remembered, 28
Jumping ever so slightly upon my heels As I heard the doorbell, sending judders of delight Through the feverish body of mine. You slammed the door shut, Gruelingly untying the knot of your tie As I slipped into your arms Only to halt for a while When you buried yourself In this very crook of my neck Before biting your way through the flesh of it With your lower lip and I wondered Where was the usual delicate peck That you always planted atop my head Soon after coming back home to me. I remembered, The glint of unadulterated mischief Flashing across your lids As you caged me between your arms Before twirling me around Just the way I usually liked But not that night for my head Felt light and giddy While you said with a tinge Of disappointment lacing your voice That I was perhaps, merely feeling under the weather. I remembered, Placing two cups of piping hot coffee on the sill As you stood by the closed window, While those orbs of yours eyed Every movement of mine with One known gleam of ardency Which always caused those teeny weeny butterflies To flounder and flutter in the pits of my belly. But just not that night For it was the nasty bouts of a migraine And inundating sickness That had held the reins of mine. I remembered, Heading for the bed only to be pulled back As you pinned me to the pane of the window, Pressing the tip of your nose onto that of mine 29
While your fervid fingers callously toyed With the hem of my camisole In the same old soothing manner That I undeniably adored But just not that night. For the fits of unwellness That raged through the bones of my being. I remembered, The deep grunts of sheer disapproval Dissolving upon my lips As my palms curled into fists Around the small of your shirt Asking for you to stop while you – Demanded to partly open my lips, Giving you the rightful entrance through them. But I couldn’t help but desist As waves of dizziness crashed onto me, And if it weren’t for you I might have lost my footing, However, I did wonder, Where was the usual gentleness Of your arms around my waist For what I felt was The impeccably tightened grip that I never seemed to have felt before. I remembered, Being lifted of my feet and placed Right at the heart of your embrace In such passionate swiftness That I always doted upon But not in that instance. For all that engulfed me Was one heavy sense of superiority Rather than the accustomed sense of safety That you had always known to give me. I remembered, Being plopped down almost in a split second Onto the mattress as it creaked beneath me With every diminishing distance amidst you and me. You hid your face somewhere In some cranny of my neck once again, Ravishing every tad of it with a kind fervor 30
That usually enlivened those moans and murmurs Of utter pleasantness upon the edges of my mouth, But I’d only heard the yelps of A nameless revolt breaking out of my throat. I remembered, Whispering to you to stop But I couldn’t remember When had my whispers transmuted Into shouts and shrills, And when at last transfigured Into whines and whimpers, Before molding and melting away As mere mumbles and mutters Against the brutality of your mouth That kept cutting through my skin With the shallow shroud of caressing. And as my love, You thrusted inside me without relenting once While that palm of yours fixated atop the mouth of mine, Clogging up and clamping down Every coherent or incoherent cry Of uttermost protest and pleasureless pain. I couldn’t help but resist Every gesture of yours In the name of making love to me With every scratching and scathing Of these fingernails of mine Across your chest Rather than enclasping them around your neck Like every other time before breaking out Into serene giggles that ricocheted In one harmonious lilt of our togetherness. And as you kissed me hard For one last time before Slouching down right against My sickeningly heaving chest While sighs of contentment Fanning my cloth-less skin, I couldn’t help but writhe and wrench Without any motion, For the euphoric blissfulness 31
That always filled these insides of mine The very moment every bodily part Of yours and mine Met and morphed Into one entity of exquisite wholeness – Never once seeped into me, For all that soaked up my insides In that fraction of a second Was one nasty repulsion On the whole and all together. The mattress dipped down beside me While I laid static with the loathsome White sheets pulled over my head. The clicking of the door resounded Across the empty space around me As I yanked off the sheets Hurling them all the way Onto the floor before staring hard At the other side of the bed, That remained tranquilly vacant now. And now what would I do? Would I clean these sheets Or would I just remain laid Clutching my chest With the back of my hands For it hurt so bad, not for The heart that throbbed So viciously underneath it But for the crippling helplessness That rippled across it. For I remembered What they had said, That there could never be any rape Between a husband and a wife. What would I do? Would I bleach these sheets For a day or two Before the stains of blood That had been the only vestiges Of every defiance of mine were Completely pulverized. 32
Or would I just stay put Right in the middle of this bed Running my fingers across my temples For they ached so bad. Not from the migraine, But the hideous recollections Of my very own husband Violating every inch of me Without my consent. And also for the words That whirled back and forth Behind my lids Screaming out loud That there could never be any rape Between a husband and a wife. What would I do? Would I wash myself off These traces of such devoting love That now felt nothing less Than splashes of rancor Upon my skin. For being abused and assaulted In the guise of lovemaking By the hands of my own lover But not once With the virtue of consensus. Or would I just immerse myself In one detestable oblivion While this body, With the very being of mine Burned and blazed with devastation, Not for recovering from the remnants Of last night But for its core Continued to enervate With a numbness budding in it As it profusely bled With whatsoever they had said – That there could never be any rape Between a husband and a wife. “and what do I do…” – 33
I must had mumbled out loud As a blaring thud this time, Boomed in the canals of my ears Repressing every one of those mauls From last night and Also the calming chuckles From all the other times, As the back of my head Met the plainly wooden headboard Yet again – While I lapsed into some soothing And safe realm of unconsciousness, Or perhaps momentary exhaustion That drenched me wholly Only to flutter my eyes open The instant I heard the doorbell. And there those were, The white sheets Crumpled and shriveled Beneath and beside me, Seething and sneering Ever so audibly, That yes, There could be a rape Between a husband and a wife.
M a i s h a Ta h s i n
I do traditional paintings and sketches. I am generally inspired by real-life scenarios and the relatable situations and scenes we each find ourselves in day-to-day. For sketching, I use watercolors, poster colors, pastels, colored and graphite pencils.
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Business of Knowledge
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Before Storm
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Lilypond
The Cotton-CandyMan
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Shahbag after Rain
A Rainy Noon
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Clockwise: Believe, Curzon Hall, The Perfect Morning
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t n i a p l a n o i t i d a r t I do m a I . s e h c t ke s d n a s g y in b d e r i p ns i y l l a r e d gen n a s o i r a n e c s e f i l realns o i t a u t i s le b a t a l e r d the n fi h c a e e w s e n e c s . y and a d o t ay d n i s e v l ourse
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Life i n t h e City o f Time
Abhishek Singh
Driven by curiosity and wonder, my photography explores and documents ordinary people - their life, their struggle, their survival, and their environment. Through my lens, I try to blend out the noise of today’s increasingly fast-moving world and extract the beautiful moments of everyday life that often go unnoticed, moments that we all disregard each day.
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Daily Street Life of Old Delhi
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Asia Reynolds
Print is not dead. We are surrounded by print - packaging, books, menus, and apparel. Print engages almost all of our senses and without it we would live in a world devoid of color, imagination, and functionality.
Opposite page: Ignite your Fire
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A
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A: Jean Jacket B: Blast Off C: Coca Cola Dreams D: Camera E: Bubbles F: Work from Home F
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Music
90s Vibe
Opposite Page: Sun Kissed
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Float
In the Jungle
Graeme Williams
This period of isolation and social distancing has made me aware of my fragility as well as given me a sense of loss. Not only the loss of freedom and the restriction of movement, but also the loss that is associated with change. During early lockdown, I decided to research my next trip to the North Eastern region of the USA using Google Earth Pro. Although I was no longer physically choosing my camera position or clicking the shutter, I still had an array of choices within the 360° scenes that are stitched together by Google Earth, and I was confronted by very similar obstructions and frustrations to those I experience while actually photographing. For example, a telephone pole that blocks the most interesting view of a subject, or insufficient space to apply the optimal choice of lens. The set of postcards in this essay are ambiguous in their authorship, their provenance, and their perspective. Google Earth imagery is essentially impartial before I impose my choices and amendments upon them. I can therefore claim as my own, the sequence of images and their presentation, but not the images themselves.
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QUICK LOOK
Yogesh Wagh I am a writer who believes in Shakespeare’s coined phrase “What’s in a name?” (unless the name is written under the poem). I am also a technology student, though I am often strolling around ruins at sunset and framing poems in my mind. My personal expression is done through words and my love for cinema.
Words Spoken Ever and anon I surmise, That Newton was a poet, And Gravity was a metaphor he used To say an unexceptional sentence like Earth has no tongue. Walks and walks, she never talks to peter out. Sometimes, I desire her semblance; In the dead air two feathers dive, An anthology on Silence authored in my name, And no more tiresome mornings ushered in vain due to numskull efforts for the utterance and being sane. I reckon in the mirror, Compare no more the hands to the one, Who is loved, Perorates no lie, Spills like leaves and shouldn’t concern. Talks and talks, the world never walks to peace out.
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Survival The other day, I disliked the monologue from my favorite film. Yesterday, my mother’s tongue rained words of compassion, and I don’t know why - I almost hated them. These days, my plane doesn’t roam around the universes of songs, especially the songs I can derive meaning from. They pass by & smell like discomfort. The lyrics, which I understand, are suspected of witchcraft. The languages in which I think have started to bomb my neural tombstones. No wonder why the letters in my poems look distorted and wear the semblance of thingness. Today, when the sun roars, the train howls, crickets palaver & a dog sings in its foreign vocabulary; this hubbub doesn’t bother me. But, now I’m afraid of flying towards the sun for research, or asking the insects what they’ve been gossiping about. I don’t let that dog lick my brain to nourish it with sense, I’m already tired of running behind a mirage, that denotation of survival.
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When It Rains There around the puddle, playing with mud, Can you see those lads in their rain attire? One, my friend best; to the other, I call sonny, he laughs like the cake cutter from my birthday post on Instagram two years old. When you don’t, I tell you the story, Of mouth whose lips flap like hummingbird’s pennons taking the flights in expedient yellows. In this consensual perusal, come, I let you intrude on the archeological site of my brain. Caprice in the power of the gaze, and you argue about a dry leaf on the ground that’s returned to green, flown upwards and married a timber; who’s life to whom is a rebus for you from an undeciphered language. In one frame, Buddha’s rainbow in Tushita and black clouds under the shadows of witchcraft; Now, you pretending to be in the shoes of a therapist, judge bi-spacer disorder of my polar! In your Holmes novel, you seem perished of fame when you give up on those monstrous footprints of the divine; Left, a broken piece of blue Chinese tiles, and right, a testament to deities of love, humanized. You read all the poems found, and dig for those ulterior. Is it synonymous with the exchange of blood? Not a phone away, my buddy is phone away. My hummingbird is airborne in a famine. Probably I’ll call those eyes impotent, yours in the back and mine at the fore, before that, Can you tickle my skin to present and fetch me between the deluge of azure and home? In poetry, I have learned to write my sentences last.
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humanized. humanized. humanized. humanized. humanized.
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