ART
Special Edition
H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y
ART
A r t
R e v i e w
ZITA VILUTYTE STEPHEN L. MAULDIN YE CHAN CHEONG JASPER GALLOWAY ALEJANDRO RAMBAR CLARA LARATTA BRIGITTE AMARGER MUYUAN HE AZERI AGHAYEVA Homo Algorithmus, a work by Installation of 45 bodies for Biennale Hors Normes ‘’Le jour d’après’’ and conference ‘’De la cellule au savoir’’
ART
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C o n t e m p o r a r y
Stephen L. Mauldin Brigitte Amarger
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Alejandro Rambar
Jasper Galloway
Ye Chan Cheong
Zita Vilutyte
USA
France
Costa Rica
France
South Korea
Lithuania
From the day I stepped out of undergraduate school in 1974 until the present day, I have always worked almost exclusively with acrylic on canvas, or occasionally on masonite or paper. I have always worked using unconventional methods, as well. This has not been for purposes of being different for different's sake, but in order to express what I want (need?) to express. Somehow, applying paint to canvas with a brush has never been adequate to express what I want to express.
I create mural or sculptural achievements, interior and in situ installations that explore themes of nature, light, memory and human being.
Ale Rambar is a Costa Rican artist who’s work is based on the topographic analysis of the human form through three dimensional compositions made with layers of paper. Rambar’s pieces are created by analyzing human bodies topographically, just like a topographer would analyze mountains, valleys or rivers.Each piece is cut separately, layer by layer and then assembled by hand to create “human topographies”. This technique was developed by Rambar throughout his career as an architect.
I feel we all perceive things differently, a colour, a sound, an object.
I am fascinated with colour, with the diverse and rich history of how colours can be spiritual and symbolic but also how they came to have commercial names.
We are going through a very exciting, broad and fundamental time of transformation, where everything is changing, from lifestyle to technology. Although it is a time of great opportunities, it is still full of dangers. Now is the moment when we have to make a decision and become responsible for our own lives, and not just for our own, but for our live in general. For thoughts, words, every action and everything we do. To think that changes in the consciousness of all mankind will be easy and fast is a utopia. But those who realize - they must act.Where is the artist’s place in this period of changes?Being an artist in today's world requires a lot of effort.
My practice includes textile and numerical techniques, laser cutting and engraving, photography, painting. I work predominantly with the mediums of medical imagery, handmade paper, hot glue, textile, luminescent and reflective materials. These last years, I wonder about the traces left by time, engraving in filigree texts or laces on X Ray film and paper.
She wont fly was me initially experimenting with different tools, with the object of manipulating the paint and making patterns, lines in it. Some might see a bird in the composition, some might see just blocks of colour but some will hopefully see something completely different, that’s the beauty of art, it touches us all in different ways.
For me a colour can be meditative in the same way a bible story can be. Using magazines was a way to bring both of these aspects together to visualize colours on different backgrounds of colour, shape, hue and tone. By applying each colour in diverse locations I hope to find a harmonious space.
In this issue
Brigitte Amarger
Alejandro Rambar Clara Laratta
Jasper Galloway
Zita Vilutyte
Ye Chan Cheong Azeri Aghayeva
Clara Laratta
Muyuan He
United Kingdom
Canada
United Kingdom
‘Residue of the Unspoken’ records the intimate moment where objects meet at one point, a bedside table; objects whom outside this point hold their own identity but here and only here form the information of a moment, immortalised into a picture, like a ‘visual encyclopaedia of everyday life’ (Marianne Dobner).
Clara Laratta received her BFA from McMaster University, where she graduated with distinction, specializing in photography and printmaking. Recent solo exhibitions include Relational Affects, Rotunda Gallery, Kitchener, ON, Unleashed, Gallery 4, Hamilton, ON and Liminality, O Gallery, Kitchener, ON. Recent group exhibitions include Dying. Toronto, ON, A Book About Death: The Last Waltz, Islip, NY, and Manthan: Exhibition of Prints, Kala Srot Art Gallery, Lucknow, India, She participated in Residencies and artist talks in Chelsea, Quebec (Biophony), Toronto, ON (Awakening, Artscape Gibraltar Point), Dundas, ON (DVSA).
I am a researcher and educator based in New York City. My work focuses on improving people’s learning experience through fun activities. Growing up in an urban city in China, I learned how daily products can make an educational impact. By folding garbage boxes out of old junk mail to collect fish bones at the dining table, I unconsciously learned the basics of paper engineering. Meanwhile, I was also learning Chinese characters, mathematics and English grammar through memorization, repetition and examination at school. The curiosity for alternative schooling has grown in my mind.
When removed from their original setting the relationship between the objects with one another become peculiar, and one begins to wonder how they met, though we know their relationship is merely a result of a man who drove them together. Their relationship seems so peculiar yet is so real for a moment.
Muyuan He
Azeri Aghayeva Stephen L. Mauldin
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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seeges, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner.
On the cover:
, a work by
Lives and works in France
HumanoĂŻds 2010. Installation for Fiberarts International, Each body: 84.6 x 25.6 inches. Bones, organs and prosth
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video, 2013
Pittsburgh, USA.
esis X Rays and MRI pictures cut and gathered by sewing. 422 0
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Jordi Rosado
4 03 2019 SoloIssue exhibition ‘’ D’Ame Nature’’, Carré d’Art, Montgeron, France Special
Brigitte Amarger An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Brigitte and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit http://brigitteamarger.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training, and you graduated from the high art schools (ENSAAMA, ESAA) and the Art University of Paris, where you had the chance to study under the guidance of Robert Wogensky and Jacques Brachet: how did those formative years — as well as your following experience as an art teacher — influence your evolution as an artist? Brigitte Amarger: From childhood I was passionate about drawing, photography, literature and I wanted to be a teacher. As a student, I wanted to follow a double artistic training to understand crafts, art and design, find my way as an artist and acquire the maximum necessary knowledge for my teaching profession. Thus, I acquired a solid practical and technical knowledge in the higher schools of Applied Arts and followed theoretical courses, in art history, contemporary art and aesthetics at the Fine Arts University. Then, during the preparation of my professorship, an internship allowed me to discover a field that I associated with the ‘’ lady’s work’’ and which had never attracted me before, the one of textiles.
Brigitte Amarger
I went backwards and ... I had a real revelation for techniques, materials, textures, volume and space. I discovered the work of artists who were previously completely unknown to me and influenced
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my early research. I started by making two large pieces, like a threads sculptor. I was asked to exhibit them, and that's how my artistic career started. At the same time, I became a teacher in Visual Arts then in Applied Arts, and I had the happiness of becoming a mother. Three passions to manage at the same time, it is not easy, but it was a unique opportunity and a great adventure. As a teacher, I was fortunate to teach what I practiced as an artist. I have been able to make the link between traditional and contemporary techniques and I was led to test and practice new skills, often in self-training, and to be on technology watch to expand my artistic, practical and technical knowledge. It was also at that time that I recovered materials that were thrown away and looked for finding ways to re-use them with the students or for myself. All these approaches and experiences have been very enriching, influenced and complemented, to evolve as an artist and teacher. Marked out with such unique visual identity, the body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —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 you use your visual language in a strategic way to counter-balance subjectivity, offering an array of meanings. When
3 bodies, each: 84,6 x 25,6 in Special Issue
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QR code tattoo 2. Fiberarts International, Pittsburgh, USA. 2016. ch and 6 squares, each: (13,7 x 13,7 inch). QR Code laser engraved and cut on X-Rays and reflective material; sewing. 21 4 06
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Homo Algorithmus
Installation of 45 bodies for Biennale Hors Normes ‘’Le jour d’après’’, UCL Lyon, France. 2019 and conference ‘’De la Special Issue
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walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you usually develop your initial idea for your artworks? Brigitte Amarger: If my inspiration is related to a theme that touches me, I start by deepening my knowledge, looking for more information and visuals on the subject. I have a precise and structured idea at the start, and then develop the concept. As I am working, it sometimes evolves in such a way that it gives birth to new ideas or directions. If a place is proposed to me for a personal exhibition, it is the space itself which will inspire me for a well-defined in situ installation, adapted to it, like, for example, for '' D’âme Nature '', at the Carré d'Art in 2019. Finally, the discovery of specific materials, whose qualities seduce and intrigue me, and which I can associate with particular techniques, gives me means of expression and inspires me. My studio is a bit like a laboratory. I search, I test, I experiment, I discover, break boundaries, challenge myself to find solutions and appropriate material and technique. That’s how I got to work with textile materials, paper, hot glue threads, porcelain, ceramics, X Rays and techniques such as tapestry, laser engraving and cutting, electronic textiles. With their unique multilayered visual quality, accentuated by the diaphanous and ghostly transparency that the cellule au savoir’’. 21 4 08
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Brigitte Amarger
‘’ Homo Algorithmus ‘’ 2019 ‘’ Biennale Hors Normes’’ Lyon, France. 2019
Trash recovered medical imaging and electronic circuits. Perforated Jacquard lace cards. Reflective fabrics, threa Patterns of electronic circuits, algorithm, coding laser cut and engraved.
material support delivers, your artworks walks the viewers through the liminal area where reality and imagination find such unexpected still consistent point of convergence. Scottish visual artist 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 process?
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Brigitte Amarger: What are the boundaries between reality and the reality of oneself, in sensation, memory, and imagination? We shape our reality from past events, from our experiences and knowledge, from stored images, from their internalized and recombined fragments, to invent and express a perceived, dreamed, imagined personal vision. It is often when I wake up that my ideas are born. I'm always amazed to see how a
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ds, laces. Electronic textiles , machine embroidery and wrapped threads.
project can suddenly arise, just like this, emerging from the unconscious, bringing out an unexpected and original thought, in a fraction of a second.
is really the result of completely unexpected associations. Finally, I also sometimes want to deal with a specific subject and, in this case, spontaneity is not required. Then, it becomes a long series of researches, reflections, trials punctuated by failures and successes that brought the basic idea to mature and finalize the project.
In a few minutes, I can see it precisely taking shape, developing with all its components, each element logically linking with another, each part of the whole assembling with evidence. Sometimes it is linked to a recent event, a subject that touches me, but other times it
Your artworks highlight contours of known reality in an unknown world and seem to
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Brigitte Amarger
Homo Algorithmus, 2019
invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. Austrian
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Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto: how important is for you to trigger the
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Brigitte Amarger
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Homo Algorithmus, 2019
viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like
your works to be understood? Brigitte Amarger: I like to play with ambiguity, illusion, surprise, dream, the
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QR code tattoo 2, detail
intangible, the seen and the unseen, according to aesthetic or symbolic interpretations and meanings. The X Rays
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support, by its transparency, calls to project itself inside the other and in oneself. It reveals an elusive border where
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Homo algorithmus, detail
Dentelles à l’âme, installation for Artextures, 2013
Brigitte Amarger
reality and imagination can mix. Also, the reflective and luminescent materials that play with light, day, under black light and at night, allow me to reveal a part of the invisible, revealing hidden layers and other readings of the work, like palimpsests. I am very observant, paying attention to things that many people do not notice. I like to share the exciting jubilation of my discoveries, stimulate the imagination of others, and provoke both emotional and intellectual responses through my works. It also gives rise to interesting discussions with my viewers or listeners during exhibitions or conferences. The fact of having been a teacher certainly explains my tendency to want to be clear and accessible in my intentions, also the pleasure that I have in informing, explaining the foundations of my thinking, analysis and approach. However, spectators combine what they see with their own experience and emotions and the work remains open to a multiplicity of associations, interpretations, and unexpected meanings. I just want them to snatch the spirit of my work, that it is not just confined to passive observation but that it stimulates, asks questions, and engages dialogue. With references to the imagery from technology, your works broaden the boundary of aesthetics, inviting your audience to capture beauty in everydayness. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the
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political system you’re living under": do you think that your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? Moreover, as an artist particularly sensitive to ecological issues, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our globalised and everchanging society? Brigitte Amarger: Too often we speak of a dichotomy between arts and sciences, technique, between tradition and contemporary. Personally I have always been more in the union, the complementarity of the elements rather than in their division, their opposition. I started with traditional techniques like tapestry and photography that mix art and technique, and now I use new contemporary technologies. It all depends on what we do with it in the end, and nothing prevents us from perpetuating the traditions, in a contemporary vision and aesthetic, where arts and sciences can play together. If there is an influence on my artistic research, I would say that it is societal one and not linked to a particular cultural moment. I am especially touched and concerned by problems related to the place, the role, behavior of the human being in our society and to the ecological issues which question me more and are my search engines. I have always worked on Nature, light, memory and writing. I approach these subjects from an aesthetic point of view
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but, when I can, I take the opportunity to convey a message that educates people and leads them to reflect on important contemporary issues. The diversion of materials for artistic and memory purposes is very important to me. Sensitive to ecological issues, they give my artistic practice a very symbolic double direction: creating works of art by recycling discarded materials. We really appreciate the way your choice of unconventional materials and techniques —as handmade paper, hot glue, textile, luminescent and reflective materials— provides your works with metaphorical aspects, eliciting response in the spectatorship: New York City based photographer and sculptor Zoe Leonard once stated, "the objects that we leave behind hold the marks and the sign of our use: like archeological findings, they reveal so much about us". We’d love to ask you about the qualities of the materials that you include — or that you plan to include — in your artworks: in particular, , as an artist who create artworks by recycling discarded materials, how important is for you to use materials rich of metaphorical properties in order to create such allegorical artworks, capable of inviting the viewers to investigate the traces left by time? Brigitte Amarger: Textile artist, I was interested in the history of clothing. It is assumed that at the base, an exposed anatomy, a flesh in raw state, seemed as intolerable as threatening. The bodies, the skin, in their only nakedness, had no
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Lace blues 2012/2015 Installation for Textile Museum, Lodz, Pologne. 2016 21 4 16
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possible existence and were only acceptable if transformed, covered with signs, dressed in artifices. Hiding its nudity or highlighting the body is the source of the garment. I just realized that I had worked on these threads that we weave to become fabric and clothing in order to offer a second skin to humans. Then, about the scars,the tattoos, a skin material of memory, which tell the story of a body identified by its marks. After, I discovered the X Rays transparency that invites to a surplus of nudity, which illuminates the opacity of other tissues showing a subcutaneous tissue that reveals a spectral image of the body. To look at an xray is to look at the heart of an anatomy, to take a guided tour of intimate history, to carry out a sort of police investigation whose object is, in medicine, the search for clues and traces on a body fixed in the moment. I believe that it allows, artistically, also to feed the imagination, to foster a drift, to encourage diversion and to arouse the reverie and the fantasies of the laymen. I have always been particularly interested in the scientific and medical worlds, surgery and archeology. In my artistic creation, I find a similarity in their working process, in this desire to discover, to open, to see or to pass through, to enter an interior world, to reveal the invisible, to plunge into the mystery of the origins. My artwork is an invitation to share these stories of time, memory, light, visible and invisible, life and death‌ We have particularly appreciated the way
d positive) and with reflective material. 21 4 18
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your artworks highlight the physical nature of art making. New York City based artist Lydia Dona once remarked that in order to make art today one has to reevaluate the conceptual language behind the mechanism of art making: are your works created gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? In particular, how do you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you aim to communicate and the physical act of creating your artworks? Brigitte Amarger: It all depends on the subject. Some of them require preparation, a methodical structure that does not leave too much place for chance but others are more spontaneous. The electronic textiles used in ‘’homo algorithmus’ ’require essential technical knowledge to be successful. Laser engraving and cutting also require specific skills for preparatory work on computer software and precision for machine settings. My painting work is more instinctive, the handling and assembling of threads and textiles more gestural. I would say that if the technique becomes more precise and refined in the creative process, the role of chance, with its errors, unpredictable effects, unexpected discoveries, disturbs and modulates the initial conductive line. Often, they allow progression and opening of surprising new ways. You are an established artist: your work has gained recognition and features in public and private collections and since 1979 you have participated in numerous exhibitions in France and all over the world: how do you
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Le Jardin des Supplices detail Laser cutting and sewing on X-rays; threads; red and retro reflective silver fabrics 21 4 20
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‘’ D’Ame Nature’’
a 1600 inches installation with a central vegetal waterfall and 16 different flower beds. Solo show , Carré d’Art, Mont SummerIssue 2015 Special
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consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Brigitte Amarger: Every artist needs an audience and, I prefer my artworks to be seen physically, during exhibitions. This allows me to have direct comments, exchanges with my audience. It is a more spontaneous, intimate and cordial relationship, which creates links and feedback. My exhibitions abroad also allow me to reach another audience and meet other artists, create links and networks on an international level. In addition, my site is a virtual extension of course, but it has the advantage of establishing contacts, allows me to respond to requests for sales or exhibitions or other proposals. I'm having trouble with online exhibitions, Instagram etc. I do not adhere to this system that I find reductive, under the appearance of a large opening. I believe that this type of functioning belongs more to the new generation, more trained in this type of contact from an early age, contrary to my habits. And then, I work all the time, I have too much to say otherwise, artistically. I really don't know where I could find time to do this and prefer to devote myself to the geron, France. (2019) 21 4 22
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Brigitte Amarger
‘‘ Le Jardin des Supplices ‘’ and ‘’ À fleur de peau ‘’ 2016 Installation in solo show ‘’ NATUROSCOPIES’’, Galerie de l’Ecu de France, Viroflay, France (2017-2018)
realization of my ideas.
hope to explore in the future?
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Brigitte. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you
Brigitte Amarger: I am preparing a large installation on the theme of the cosmos for Los Angeles this summer and another one using transparent elements in volume. In parallel, I works are always in progress, about nature and on human displacements, exodus and networks. For a long time I have
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also been working on books for sick children, in hospitals, using medical imagery.
will not change and be adapted to this new terrible context...
Already two years ago, I made the elements on the theme of microbes and bacterial cultures, and I did not have the opportunity to set it up. It was not a premonition of the coronavirus ... but with this pandemic, and all that which questions, I wonder if this project
Thank you for this interview. It’s been a pleasure to work with you. An interview by and
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, curator curator
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Alejandro Rambar
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video, 2013
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Self-portrait, 2018, Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper, 58 x 75 cm
Alejandro Rambar An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Alejandro and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.alerambar.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you are an architect and after having degreed from the VĂŠritas University, you nurtured your education with a Diploma in Program of professionalization of emerging artists, that you received from NODE Center, in BerlĂn: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Alejandro Rambar: My artistic career began from architecture. When I was beginning college we had to do lots of stuff 100% by hand, every single plan had to be drawn and every part of the architectonic models had to be hand cut. No laser cutting, no computer modeling, just you and the tools. So I had no other choice but to level up my skills in order to make it through the career. This is when I began creating topographic models of terrains by cutting cardboard, foam board, card stock, acrylic sheets or whatever material I had at hand.
Alejandro Rambar Photo by Alejandro Ibarra
For my thesis project I joined a program called "Landscape Architecture" where we created projects that had a responsable impact on their landscape. After analyzing kilometers and kilometers of topographic maps I began to imagine what would happen if I transformed human bodies into sculptures the same way I had learned to transform terrains into architectonic models. This became my artistic work, which is based on the topographic
analysis of the human form through three dimensional compositions made with layers of paper. The first "human topography" I created was made of paper, and from then on I just kept running with the idea. After architecture I finished a postgraduate degree in Branding, Vitrinism, Environmental Graphics and Commercial Space, and a Diploma called Professionalization of Emerging Artists.
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Exposition “Our Tolerance” Grand Hotel Costa Rica. International Film Festival for Diversity, NŌS Film Fest. June
Both degrees gave me the tools that shaped my work today. The first one gave me a deeper understanding on materials, building methods and merged my fascination with art pieces and architecture. The second one helped me understand the ropes and challenges you may find on the career as an artist.
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The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens 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 you use your visual language in a strategic way to accomplish a topographic analysis of the
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, 2019. Photo by Roberto D'Ambrosio.
human form, highlighting such unique osmosis between architectural practice and artistic sensitiveness. When walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you usually develop your initial idea for your artworks? Do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you
methodically transpose geometric schemes? Alejandro Rambar: With time, I have found that my creative process has two parts, a very creative and instinctive one and a very industrial and methodical one. I find it to be a union between the artist and the architect in me.
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Alejandro Rambar
the way I feel it, or the way I unconsciously imagine it.
I prefer to create my pieces in collections, so first I envision the concept behind the collection and which images could portray that idea. This usually tells me how many pieces and of which sizes will be in the collection.
I you think about it, paper is everywhere, we literally touch paper every single day and way more than once. But, unintentionally we chose to give it importance or not, to see it as a creative outlet or just let it pass. This is a metaphor I carried into my creative process, many issues regarding tolerance are like paper, we are in contact with them everyday, we just chose to ignore them or to do something about it.
After that, I imagine, draw and sketch my art pieces as freely as I can. I just let myself go wild with ideas. Then the industrial process begins. I first draw all of the paper layers that would be part of all the pieces. Then I cut all of them, glue them, and assemble them. So I don't see it as a "piece by piece" process, I usually finish all the pieces of a collection almost at the same time.
With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks — as the interesting Frente al mar — highlight contours of known reality in an unknown world, to invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. 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?
I personally enjoy the creative part a lot, it just lets me feel liberated, but I also appreciate a lot the industrial part of the process, since I feel like I just unplug myself from everything else and I just relax cutting and creating. We have appreciated the way you combine reminders to reality — as anthropomorphic shapes — with such unique abstract visual qualities. Scottish visual artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic works of art 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?
Alejandro Rambar: To me interpretation is key. When I envision my pieces I give each one a concept, but this comes more like a personal reading rather than a fixed interpretation. Depending on the piece I keep this concept to myself or share it, in order to open spaces for conversation.
Alejandro Rambar: For me, the function of art is to change society and to bring attention to problems that are part of our daily lives. In my case, I use my art to open conversations about the experiences of all kinds of people in my community in relation to their sexual identity, or the discrimination they have felt due to it.
One of the main examples of this is my piece “Discovery”, which depicts a person in a sweater. Even though I created the piece, I can’t tell if it portrays a man or a woman, if the
So, my main source of inspiration comes from “what’s out there in front of us”, but pictured in
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Heart, 2018 Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper 21 4 08
80 x 55Issue cm Special
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Alejandro Rambar
Heart, 2018, Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper, 80 x 55 cm Special Issue
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sweater is being put on to conceal or being taken off to reveal. It is a play on identity and social constructs. “Discovery” doesn’t have a defined gender, it is up to each viewer to decide if it is a man, a woman, neither or both. It also doesn’t have a fixed emotion, not happy, sad, ashamed or elated. “Discovery” just exists. This play on identity is one of the conceptual backbones of my art. I seek to make people wonder. Specially, wonder if other people’s identity is a question you have to resolve, or if you can look past that and see them just as what they are: humans. Your background in Architecture is an important factor of your artistic practice, and we have particularly appreciated the way your practice highlights the osmosis between two different fields. How do you consider the relationship between artistic research and architectural method? In particular, how does in your opinion art could be used to explain scientific and technical themes and vice versa? Alejandro Rambar: By the way I see it, both practices can share the method, but not the goal. Art exists to create questions rather than to answer them. While technical fields, like architecture, seek to answer questions and deliver results as clear as they can. Art can help us in the process of wondering, imagining and inventing, it can helps us see ideas under a different perspective and to escape the laws of science and reason, but it won’t gives us a scientific answer. It won’t fit in the “1+1=2” box that science follows. On the other hand, through method (or science) we can create almost anything. It is an endless source of ideas and resources that continuously opens new questions and hypothesis.
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Men don’t cry, 2018 Three dimensional composition made of layers of paper 82 x 105 cm
ART Habens
Alejandro Rambar
So, my artistic practice comes directly from architectural method, it nurtures it, but my art solves a complete different set of questions that creating a building would. Another interesting body of works that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is The Tolerance Collection, a stimulating project that address the issues of issues of gender, sexism and sexual diversity: how do your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your Costa Rican roots influence the direction of your artistic research? Alejandro Rambar: Social context is what “feeds” my art. My artistic work has developed around my life as a homosexual in Costa Rica. My pieces portray ideas that I have heard since I was a child, like “men don’t cry”, “girls with short hair are butch” or “being gay means you’re weak”. Costa Rica may be one of the most tolerant countries in Central America in relation to human rights, but we still have a long way towards a complete social acceptance. Machismo and discrimination are still present and they do have a relation with the political stances our country has been taking. When I planned the Tolerance Collection, around 2017-2018, there was a very public political discussion regarding same sex marriage and the legal recognition of transexual people in Costa Rica. This discussion even fueled the popularity of the candidates in our last presidential elections. We found ourselves on a second voting round between an extremely homophobic candidate and a progressive one. As an openly gay man I felt the need to speak through my art about what it’s like to be a part of this community, in the hopes of opening discussions towards tolerance, equality and
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Alejandro Rambar
ART Habens
Men don’t cry, 2018, Three dimensional composition made of layers of paper, 82 x 105 cm 21 4 12
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Men don’t cry, 2018 Three dimensional composition made of layers of paper 82 x 105 cm
Alejandro Rambar
ART Habens
passed. At the moment it may fit into Queer Art, Sustainability or into Paper Craft, but I feel that my practice goes beyond those limits. These are definitely global ideas that keep falling into my local context, I simply analyze them and send them back into the universe.
encouraging the younger LGBTQI+ generation to stand tall and proud. Most of the times that I gave guided tours of my exhibitions people approached me to tell me how they wish they could be socially open with their sexuality, even with their families, and how they longed to be accepted just as who they are. Since then I have made my best to align my art with people, causes and organizations that seek to make a change towards acceptance, tolerance and equality.
I’m not a fan of labelling things into buckets, I prefer to share my vision, to talk about the topics that my context demands me to talk about and let the conversation grew as large as it wants to be. I do believe that artists have the power to move people, and what is globalization but a human movement?
As you have remarked in the ending lines of your artist' s statement, your artworks seek to open spaces for dialogue in favor of respect and tolerance of all humans. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in": does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? In particular, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues in our globalised age?
We have really appreciated the allegorical quality that marks out Torn, an audiovisual production that presents the deconstruction of a masculine figure, and that is metaphor for masculine fragility: how would you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic production? How important is for you to create works whose value goes beyond the aesthetics, in order to awake more intellectual and intimate reflections in your audience?
Alejandro Rambar: I believe that in the world we are currently living the lines between local and global are faded so much that every global movement has its own local interpretations, which fuels back into the global vision.
Alejandro Rambar: Symbolism is everywhere and it constantly finds its way into my practice. I believe that a quality of queer culture is taking a symbol used to discriminate (call it a phrase or an image) and reconceptualize it into something that makes you stand proud.
My art relates to what I have lived and what I am currently living. I don’t seek to convey an image of being local or being global, I just talk about what comes into my life. This means that inspiration for my pieces may come from a conversation with a local friend, from a movement on social media, from an experience on another context or simply from a memory.
In Torn the idea was clear, to tear apart a traditional male figure; a “David of Michelangelo”; to talk about the deconstruction of this idea of beauty that we have been carrying since ancient times. On Identity I and II the figures are portrayed taking off their shirts to reveal a pink triangle, a reference to the symbol used in World War II to mark homosexuals, as an appropriation of the
Personally, I find my art difficult to label under a specific movement, specially since cultural movements can’t be delimited unless there is a time frame of separation since the movement
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Playing with dolls, 2018 Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper 120 x 120 cm
ART Habens
Alejandro Rambar
I don’t want to wear my hair long, 2018 Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper 120 x 120 cm
symbol. For me, those pieces say “Yes, I am gay. I am aware of our history and I am here to make a change”.
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Regarding aesthetics, I believe that art has to go beyond looks, if there is no depth then
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Alejandro Rambar
ART Habens
Torn, 2019 Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper and watercolor 50 x 50 cm
there’s not much to say or to be said. You have
looking and it, and when analyzing it. This is
to learn through art, when making it, when
where artists change history, one idea at a time.
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ART Habens
Alejandro Rambar
Identity II, 2018 Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper 80 x 55 cm
That being said, I also believe that aesthetics are there to fulfill another mission: To make the concept easier to digest, to attract an audience and to build a brand as an artist. In my case, some of the topics I approach may not be well received by a more conservative audience, but the technique, the color palette and the overall imaging of the piece may make that same audience ask “How was that made?” or “What
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is it made of?”, which in many cases has been the opening door into a deeper conversation around tolerance. You are an established artist: in the last five years your work has been presented in CostaRica’s National Gallery, Costa Rica’s Central Bank Museum, Cartago Museum, and in multiple biennales, such as the Beijing
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Alejandro Rambar
ART Habens
Topography I, 2016 21 4 18
Three-dimensional composition on layers of paper Special Issue 80 x 55 cm
ART Habens
Alejandro Rambar
International Art Biennal: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Alejandro Rambar: I believe that the portrayal of the spirit of any work of art has to come from the honest expression of the artist. That means that independently of the medium in which you are presenting your pieces, physical or digital, the way you present them has to come from your heart, in an honest way. I know I want the world to change into a more tolerant space, this is what motivates me and my art, so this is what I seek to portray wherever I my art moves into. That being said, the way you see an art piece in real life is not the way you would perceive it in a picture or a video. But the concept behind it, the motivations, and YOU, should stay the same. Keep them in mind and transmit them to your audience in the way only you can do it: by being you. There is not a formula for this, I am aware that the digital medium is constantly evolving and since the lockdown due to COVID-19 the digital game is going to drastically change. So you just have to adapt, evolve and be true to what motivates you.
We have really appreciated the originality of
I currently upload my pieces to my website, Facebook and Instagram, (www.alerambar.com, www.facebook.com/alerambar, www.instagram.com/alerambar), but who knows where we will be posting a year from now.
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your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Alejandro. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of
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Alejandro Rambar
the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Alejandro Rambar: Thank you for this space! I am truly thankful for the opportunity.
ART Habens
My main focus is to step outside of the comfort zone that paper art has given me. I am exploring materials, compositions and ideas to keep challenging my creative brain. I really like that paper art can be transformed and combined with almost anything, the
Currently I am working on several projects, some individual and some are collaborations.
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Lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.
2019 Self Portrait Series, Installation View, 2019
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
video, 2013
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ART Habens
Jordi Rosado
4 03 22" x 30". Self Portrait Special Issue253, 2019, Archival pigment ink on Somerset,
Clara Laratta An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Clara and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.claralaratta.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a BFA from McMaster University, where you graduated with distinction, specializing in photography and printmaking: how did those formative years influence your evolution as a visual artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum direct your current artistic research? Clara Laratta: Thank you Josh and Melissa. My undergraduate education years were actually quite transformative and very influential to my evolution as a visual artist. I came to art from a background in science and education. I was involved in healthcare since I was in my teens and with education for 8 years. My undergraduate studies were not only fundamental to my understanding of art and art history but, to the ability and comfort I now have with sharing who I am and what I would like to say through my art.
Clara Laratta
As a healthcare professional, a part of your training and practice is to maintain a professional distance with your client. I found this to be quite detrimental to an artistic practice. Art requires such a personal investment and expression of self, so learning to be comfortable with that expression was invaluable. Learning to express this in a way that transcends this cultural matrix is always my goal. My formal training and that of artists residencies were all amazing experiences that forced me to think in ways I never did before. During my time at McMaster University I learned so much about
what art can be. I will always be grateful for that. As with most artists, my artistic research revolves around elements that I am aware of and those that I am not. I attribute my upbringing in a small rural community, the solitary time that arose from this, including time to think and create, to my connection with nature. My relationships with nature, or components of this relationship, are often found in my work even when I am not always conscious of this at the time, I am creating the work. My previous careers as a
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
Self Portrait 201, 2019
Self Portrait 226, 2019
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
health care provider and professor, of course, have an influence on my research but, I think even more so, was finding art later in life. Having worked with many clients and students over the years, I came to find human behaviour very interesting. Specifically, the ways in which our experiences with one another and with nature leave an impact on us, how we perceive and process this information and how it informs the fluid aspects of our identity.
attention for the way its images counterbalance subjectivity and offers an array of meanings to the viewers, inviting them to question the theme of identity: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you develop Self Portraits? Clara Laratta: The 2019 Self Portrait series began one morning after a shower. I was looking at myself in the mirror and I began to wonder how others viewed me. I saw myself, but in a way, it wasn’t me; but my reflection behind a layer of steam. So, I saw the reflection of what others see and the thinly veiled barrier made of steam and I realized that others see me as I see myself
For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Self Portraits 2019 series, a stimulating project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and that has at once captured our
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
Self Portrait 2, 2019, Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30" 21 4 06
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
Ravished Missive - Self Portrait, 2018, Layered digital print, archival pigment ink, vinyl, acrylic, 40" x 50" Special Issue
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
Self Portrait 16, 2019
Self Portrait 23, 2019
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
in a photograph, a mirror image, and that some type of barrier will always be there in some way. As someone who doesn’t like the way they appear in a photograph, I began to contemplate how these passing thoughts about the way others see me, changed the way I look at myself. I started thinking about my own identity and how interactions with others impacted me throughout my life. I wondered if this was something that changed on a daily basis or whether it was something that is only noticed over a period of time or had no impact at all. This was the impetus for the daily selfportrait series that spanned 2019. Utilizing a language of documentation, to assess changes in perception of self, I also inadvertently
documented growth and change in my practice, which was a pleasant and unexpected outcome, something that may have been a potential obvious outcome to others but, that I had not thought about or preplanned. As far as set up and process, it is the same every day. After my morning shower, I draw on my bathroom mirror with water, wiping away the steam. These drawings are not pre planned but intuitive. I look at them as a mark making, documentation of myself at that time. The drawings that were made to leave a record that I would later reconstruct when steam was reintroduced. The marks remained, although not
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
In Tandem with the Earth - Self Portrait, 2018, Layered digital print, archival pigment ink, vinyl, acrylic, 40" x 50"
Untitled Self Portrait, 2019
as visible as when they were first created, similar to the fluid aspect of our identity. At the end of each day, I showered again, as a symbolic cleansing of the day's interactions and events, leaving who I was at that moment behind. I then took photographs of my reflection in the mirror, the way others would see me, through the barriers of the steam, the mirror, the camera lens, so I could examine what they would see when looking at me and knowing that even with being in such a vulnerable and open place they still would see only a part of who I am. Also, that this would further be subjected to the audiences own experience and viewed through their lens. Some of the images were still and quiet, some contemplative, others
moving and fast. Each was dependent on what happened that day and who I was at that time of the photograph.
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Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
We have appreciated the way you draw from daily experience, transfiguring the idea of everydayness, and inviting your audience to look at their experience in a whole new light: how important is for you to refer to actions rich of metaphorical value, as the symbolic cleansing, in order to create such allegorical artworks? And how does your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Clara Laratta: I’m not so sure it’s a whole new light but more a pulling away from a one-
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
21 4 10 55, 2019, Archival pigment ink on Somerset, Special Self Portrait 22"Issue x 30"
Self Portrait 113, 2019, Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
Clara Laratta
ART Habens
Captive - Self Portrait, 2018, Layered digital print,
Self Portrait 158, 2019
archival pigment ink, vinyl, acrylic, 40" x 50"
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30"
dimensional view in favour of focusing on a multidimensional one, an opening up and looking into how these everyday experiences affect identity. That art has the ability to do this, to allow an opening for someone to begin to focus aspects of our life that we may overlook appeals to the educator in me, I guess, that explains the fondness for allegory as a facilitation tool. Each aspect of my work is carefully considered and of importance to me. As far as the symbolic cleansing as a metaphor, I liked that it could be two things, both literal and metaphorical. I think being aware and examining how our everyday interactions with others impact the way we view the world, lets us think about the way we deal with these
interactions. It may bring out behaviours, feelings and thoughts that are not regularly experienced. Whether we interpret these emotions and their influence as something that is more fluid or static in nature is up to individual interpretation. By being aware of the way our relationships shape us, it brings attention to these interactions. Each time we encounter them and we are able to make conscious decisions about the ways in which they change in who we are. My work uses a documentary language and figurative model of representation that conveys meaning in a way that may, appear literal to some. For me, it is a natural way to encrypt meaning in allegory. I find using the everyday to underpin seemingly
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
Self Portrait 7, 2019
Change - Self Portrait, 2018, Layered digital print,
Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 22" x 30".
archival pigment ink, vinyl, acrylic, 40" x 50"
ordinary situations a way to open the work to a wider audience. I enjoy using symbolism as a metaphor and have trust that the viewer will see the prompts and consider the way the work offers an opening to understand the self in a way that transcends the physical. I feel it is a valuable tool to promote exploration and provoke the viewer to contemplate and decipher the complexity of life’s experience.
artist. You can use photography in a realistic way". What is your opinion about the importance of photography in the contemporary scene? Clara Laratta: Not only do you not have to paint to be an artist, although I enjoy both, but I often find that I appropriate photography in my paintings and also, appropriate painting and or drawing in my photographs! As an artist you obviously need to consider the history of the medium you are working in, in relation to your message and in contemporary art I believe there is a lot of overlap of mediums in the creation of the final works. One of the things I love about photography is the controversy surrounding its
We totally agree with you when you underline that the new genre of selfies is also of interest and provides an opportunity for dialogue with a wide audience. Provocatively, German photographer Thomas Ruff stated once that "nowadays you don't have to paint to be an
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Personal Effects, Installation View, 2018
ART Habens
Clara Laratta
ability to portray a truth and the manipulation of truth, This is something that I am always very aware of when creating a work. I also feel that photography plays a central role as a critical tool of representation in many Western cultures. This is the culture of selfies and their distribution on social media allow them to be widely viewed. Photography is something familiar to most, whether taking selfies on their cell phone, vacation or family photos or photos of landscapes and sunsets. The popularity of the medium was one of the reasons for its choice as the medium for this project and others I have completed. I think it’s extremely important that photography has the ability to break down barriers that can sometimes be found between art and the public. I find this familiarity, something that can bring people closer to the work, it removes intimidating factors. There is also a trust and intimacy that can be found in the subject matter. During the 2018 FLUX exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art, I witnessed a number of people taking selfies with images of my 2018 Self Portrait series. I found it fascinating to witness the way others were interacting with the work and the way they were adding this additional layer to the work. With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks highlight contours of known reality in an unknown world, to invite the viewers to look inside of what appears to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto: 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? Clara Laratta: Layers play a key role in much of my work, whether there is a physical layering prior to or during the creation of the work, digital layering
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
Necklace, 2018, Silver gelatin print, 8" x 10" 21 4 12
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
Evidence - Necklace 5, 2018, Silver gelatin print, 8" x 10" Special Issue
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
or the layering of meaning. The work is meant to be an impetus for contemplation by the viewer. It’s my hope that the viewer relates to the work in some way to draw them in and allows for deeper investigation. Although each of the works is imbued with personal meaning, they are very open to individual understanding and were created with the knowledge that each viewer will see the works through their own lens. Each of us comes from a different set of experience and will view the work differently based on our own experience. I attempt to use this in my work, leaving an opening for personal interpretation and understanding. Another stimulating series of yours that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled Personal Effects, a series of 50 photograms investigating the way we are effected by and affect "others" through an examination of the way we hold on to objects and memories. We really appreciate the way your works highlight the Ariadne's thread that unveils the connection between the inner Self and the outside world. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your images are a reflection of the impact of day to day experiences and interactions with others, objects and nature. To quote Max Ernst's word, every human being has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious and into his inner world: it is merely a matter of voyaging into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light. How important is for you to show the link between the inner world and the outside reality? And how does your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Clara Laratta: The inner world and outside reality are intertwined, one doesn’t exist without the other, examining the link between the inner world and outside reality is of great importance in my work. Showing the link is less important to me, as it is different for each of us. The
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Evidence - Necklace 3, 2018, Silver gelatin print, 8" x 10"
ART Habens
Clara Laratta
prompting is more important. In the Personal Effects series, I was exploring the death of a loved one and the way her jewelry was presented to me. The jewelry and belongings of a loved one are important. They hold the images, experiences and feelings that each of them evokes. After the death of my grandmother, I was presented with container filled with her jewelry. Many of the items were costume jewellery, each individually and carefully packaged. While looking through them, I was thinking a lot about the reasons that we want to hold on to objects of loved ones. I also thought about how these objects provide comfort and closeness to that cherished individual, when they are no longer with us. I thought about the role of these mementos in healing and was struggling how to express this. After a number of painted and drawn studies, I decided to use photograms in order to capture the essence of the object, in the same way that the object held the essence of my grandmother. I feel that the utilization of everyday life experience is important in fueling my artistic research in order to maintain the integrity of the work. You have remarked once that as a female, the control and ability to represent yourself as the subject rather than an object is appealing to you: do you think that being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? Clara Laratta: There was a conscious awareness when I began working with selfportraits regarding what I was researching and who I was representing. I believe that the utilization of everyday life experience is important in the maintenance of integrity in the work and its ability to connect and resonate with others. When discussing the control and ability to represent myself as a subject rather than and objects in relation to my self-portrait series of 2019, I was referring
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Clara Laratta
ART Habens
Evidence - Necklace 10, 2018, Silver gelatin print, 8" x 10" 21 4 16
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ART Habens
Clara Laratta
to the feminist research approach that was considered in the planning and construction of the works and my interest and awareness of a need to address the male gaze.
accessed in a gallery space in another country or continent. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Clara. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
Your work can be found in permanent and private collections and over the years you have internationally exhibited, including your recent solo Relational Affects, at Rotunda Gallery, in Kitchener, ON, Unleashed, at Gallery 4, in Hamilton, ON and Liminality, at O Gallery, in Kitchener, ON: how do you consider the participatory nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the audience in a physical is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
Clara Laratta: Thank you, it was a pleasure speaking with you about my work. I will be maintaining my exploration into themes of identity through everyday experience and relationships. Specifically, I’m continuing to research these themes through the exploration of the relationship with nature in relation to identity. My interest is always in the way these experiences and relationships with others, food, nature and objects shape the way we view the world and interact in it. I hope to continue this research as well as researching new ways of expressing these themes in order to reach a wider audience.
Clara Laratta: I’ve been fortunate to have my work exhibited across Canada, including a number of solo exhibitions, as well as exhibitions in the United States, Italy and India, with the next being an upcoming exhibition this June at Nord Art in Germany.
I have a number of upcoming international exhibitions this year that I am looking forward to however, due to public safety issues I expect those in the immediate future to be cancelled. It is my hope that by the time this is published that this will be something that humanity endured in the past and that although we will most likely still be grieving, that we are in a position to move forward.
I agree that a direct physical relationship between the audience and the work of Art is extremely important in truly understanding the work. Another significant factor is that the viewer spends enough time with the image. Although I’m aware that it is not the ideal way to view the work, one of the positives about online viewing is the ease of access to the work across the world to those who would like to view it. With that in mind, I do post images of my work relating to ongoing exhibitions, on social media like Instagram https://www.instagram.com/claralaratta. This provides an opportunity for viewers to get a feel for the work when viewing the image is not easily
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Thank you. An interview by and
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, curator curator
Bound III, Archival pigment ink on Somerset, 16" x 20"
Retrograde 2019
Lives and works in Paris, France
ART Habens
Jordi Rosado
Dinner is a balancing Act
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Jasper Galloway An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Jasper and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://jaspergalloway.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: after having earned your BA (Hons) that you received from Wimbledon College of Arts you nurtured your education with a Masters of Arts, that you received from the prestigious NYU Tisch School of Arts, in New York: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum direct your current artistic research?
Jasper Galloway: Hi, Before my Art education I used to work as an Art Director in Pop Promos, commercials and small student films, my plan was to study my BA Hons in Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art and then complete with a MA at The Royal College of Art with the purpose of working as a Production Designer in the Film Industry. What happened was that I completed my Foundation course, got excepted at Wimbledon but not the RCA (Rather than say I wanted to experiment with black and white sets etc I said I wanted to work in the future on giant Hollywood sets, it went down like a lead Balloon!!!) so my back up was NYU Tische which I started, sadly after the first semester it became apparent whilst the 3 year MA course was very good, I was going over a lot of training I had received at Wimbledon, it was time to move on and get back to the UK to start working again. This started with working on the Beatles Anthology 1 Album, ‘Free as a Bird’ in the art
Jasper Galloway
department. (For a bit of background on me!) Now answering your question! Yes I always wanted to be a painter but of course I had to make money off the bat after Art Collages. So Film, Set design has always been a fascination of mine. So this is all about designing and forming a world which on its
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ART Habens
Jasper Galloway
own says a story for the viewer, can be on a small space like a theatre, or big space like a film studio. Some of my paintings definitely show this, vanishing points, trickery of the eye, structured compositions, sharp lines and Colour. Those years were very much influenced by Architecture and Interiors.
front, remembering someone’s name etc… ‘Retrograde’ came about because my girlfriend mentioned that Mercury was moving into retrograde and that it marked new beginnings (Astrology is not my thing!) but I thought about it and wondered what it meant and more importantly what would it look like!
The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens 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 you use your visual language in a strategic way to explore the liminal area where the consciuos mind and imagination find such unexpected point of convergence. When walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you usually develop your initial idea for your artworks? Do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes?
Your works feature such effective combination between the refined sense of geometry and thoughtful nuances of tones that communicate alternation of tension and release, providing the paintings with such sense of dynamics. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in an artwork and in particular, how do you develop your textures in order to achieve such brilliant results?
Jasper Galloway: I love geometric shapes, Circles and Colour. This started as a boy, I remember looking at a book on Pop Art, it was incredible, giant washes of hot colours, dark lines and the excitement of large scale paintings. Colour and composition are key to me, my colour ways do change due to mood and setting. Sometimes I want to shout with colour and then there are times I want subtleness to soften the composition, it really depends.
Jasper Galloway: Good question, To be honest it’s a collective of different things, Sometimes my inspiration comes from the news, cultural problems (Dear Dog), going on Holiday (Visiting the Godmother – Naples), setting up a still life, experimenting with different techniques (That Pipe in Paris), observation, thinking about times which can be socially testing (Dinner is a balancing Act) or something some has said.
Reminding us of the surrealistic ambience that marks out Giorgio De Chirico's artworks, The Studio and Abstract Paris 18 have struck us by the way they unveil the connection between figurative and abstraction. Scottish visual artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic works of art 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? In
For instance, ‘Dinner is a balancing Act’ was inspired from a Dinner, I was invited to in Paris. It was a very smart restaurant and I was given a name setting, the food was tricky to eat, there was numerous knives, forks and spoons, the conversation was contrived and I felt it was a balancing act. You know, not get your food down your
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Abstract Paris 18
The Studio
ART Habens
Jasper Galloway
Balance Special Issue
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Jasper Galloway
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particular, how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?
Jasper Galloway: Doig in my opinion is right, a lot of painters will and have looked at a subject painted it and added to it through their imagination, this is normally in colour and background, sometimes we have to improve on what we see. The Studio – was the first painting I completed feb 2018 in Paris, it is a compilation of all the aspects of my Studio but I changed the colours subsequently changing the mood. Abstract 18 is a collage, it formed itself by me applying metal, wood, canvas and card, it was pure imagination. The creative process has to be fuelled by experimentation, using new materials, not being afraid and letting yourself go, no one is watching you paint, sculpt, draw this. Mistakes can make a painting, picture even better! Everyday something will catch my eye, a shape, shadow, colour, light or even a texture. With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks — as the interesting She won't Fly — highlight contours of known reality in an unknown world, to invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. 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?
Jasper Galloway: I feel we all perceive things differently, a colour, a sound, an object. She wont fly was me initially experimenting with
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Jasper Galloway
different tools, with the object of manipulating the paint and making patterns, lines in it. Some might see a bird in the composition, some might see just blocks of colour but some will hopefully see something completely different, that’s the beauty of art, it touches us all in different ways. Marked out with essential still powerful narrative drive, Sleeping Girl seems to unveil hidden details of the identity of your character to manifest: what’s your philosophy on the nature of portraiture? How do you select the people that you decide to include in your artworks?
Jasper Galloway: Sleeping Girl was a friend of mine who agreed to sit for me. Initially it was quick sketches and then a longer sitting on a chair. During this time she lay on the floor and fell asleep, it was here I sketched her face, with her eyes closed and hair laid out, it all came together as a composition. It is delicate, pure, like sleep, so I wanted the colours to represent that. I feel portraiture needs to be real, as an artist you want to capture their soul, you will never get it totally right. Look at great artists like Cezanne, Modigliani, Freud and ToulouseLautrec their portraits seem to capture their subjects, they might not be technical perfections but they capture a real person, a soul. Today a lot of painters, paint from Photographs, yes they get it technically correct but something is missing and that’s the soul. Portraits should be about imperfections, they capture the reality. We have really appreciated the allegorical quality that marks out Dear Dog Hero, and especially the way you sapiently show the resonance between the characters and the
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Jasper Galloway
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Jasper Galloway
Empty Canvas - The Studio
Flowers against the window shutter
urban environment on the background: how would you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic production? How important is for you to create works whose value goes beyond the aestetics, in order to awake more intellectual and intimate reflections in your audience?
the dog like the teenager/man were both born innocent/pure. Now due to their environment they are involved in violence, guns, knives etc we have all seen someone like this in a city somewhere, if the teenager was without the dog would he be so tough? Probably not and the dog without his master, would he be less aggressive? They stand in front of a manmade environment, which of course influences their lifes. Symbolism helps us read the story. Behind all that I paint, there is a thought process a meaning. Even if it is ‘Flowers against the window shutter’ it shows nature, architecture and shadows can produce
Jasper Galloway: ‘Dear Dog’ came from a few things, I was at the time reading a book which had a chapter titled ‘Dear Dog of Luxembourg’ I loved it and wondered what he looked like. At the same time there had been a piece in the British papers about youths and fighting dogs used as status symbols. The two came together and formed ‘Dear Dog’, it questions innocence,
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On the move
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Jasper Galloway
Sleeping Girl 2019 Special Issue
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Alignment
She won't Fly
something interesting, they work beautifully together and you question it. It is not all about aesthetics.
am lost for a name! It can take a while…. You are an established artist and over the years your artworks have been showcased in seveal occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jasperbgalloway — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
Your artworks often are marked out with explicative titles that sometimes seem to reflect personal feelings, as She won't Fly and that sometimes seem to speak about the outside world, as Flowers against the window shutter: how do you go about naming your work ? In particular, is important for you to expressly tell something that might walk the viewers through their visual experience?
Jasper Galloway: Interesting, sometimes I will have an idea for a painting and very quickly a name will come. The subject matter normally gives the piece its name but there are times I
Jasper Galloway: Yes I have been very fortunate to have been able to exhibit in many wonderful Galleries, here in the UK and
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Jasper Galloway
Chopsticks and plate on table
Dear Dog
abroad. When a show is on I love to sneak in and listen to the audience viewing my paintings, as I mentioned everyone can see something in a painting which touches them or they dislike, it fascinates me and I learn a lot from this. Also yes Galleries are now sadly in decline but it is the best place to view art, thanks to the lighting, white walls and ambience, and you see the painting in the flesh. These days we view a lot of art online, for instance I upload images on to Instagram jasperbgalloway which is great because a larger audience can see your new paintings but sometimes a camera can not catch what the human eye can see in reality.
stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Jasper. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
Jasper Galloway: Thank you, it has been my pleasure talking to you. I am currently working an a set of three figurative paintings, all painted on wood. I am going to visit the theme of ‘Dear Dog’ , male or female and how their dogs reflect them and their social environment. An interview by and
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this
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, curator curator
Jasper Galloway
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Crunch Bourdelle
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video, 2013
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Š Zita Vilutyte The wheel of Fortune, dreaming Rose.. Time is out of essence. ...the words petrified in the throat, but in real the poetry of this moment floods the whole space inside and outside. 180 x 120 cm, acrl. canvas, 2020
Zita Vilutyte An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Zita and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.saatchiart.com/zita_vilutyte and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training, and you studied at the KTU University: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Zita Vilutyte: Hello, it is a pleasure to be here, thank you for inviting me to this chat, really happy. The studies at KTU University were a short period of my life. Art formation I got at Siauliai University, and music in Siauliai High Music College. I do not think that studies are so important. All what you want is possible to learn in different ways. I think the most important is this, what happen with a human in early childhood when you are getting feeling where you have to stand in this life, where are your roots and which direction you must grow. When I think about this, I was really lucky what I got from life. I was born in such a mystical place. It was little place with an ancient and very strange pagan name ( if we sight the history, Lithuania was the last pagan country in Europe), which means ‘wild horse and wolf’, the little village with ancient sacred mound and river. And in real all these little details are so important, when you recognize them as the signs of our path and starting to be aware of them. I was born in very interesting time of history, which provides to me lots of crossroads. So, it was the first – to experience spirit of ancestry which disappear in few years later.
Zita Vilutyte photo by Saulius Jankauskas
I got the possibility to touch the source where art originate in its very deep and primitive forms - I could see how the ancient crafts are born in hands of authentic village people and how they do all this in the simplicity of their lives, when the creation is just part of life integrity, and how it makes a balance between simple daily things and spirituality.
It is so important to search for creation impulses in the nature, to perceive them and to see their reflections inside, to look for the sources and depth inside yourself, to understand, that you are a Creator first of all, and then turn back to the true
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Ancestral blood... 90 x 70 cm x 3, acrl.canvas, 2019 cause of spiritual experience, turning the whole art back to its sources, when it was used as the means for expression of the life mysteries. Also to experience the greatest mystery in the world - to disclose WHO WE ARE. When I saw how the
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ornament is borning in the ancient textile machine, from the process of making third, then transforming it to the ornament which represents the matrix of life, destiny, natural process of reason and sequence, and then, when I saw the river and
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Zita Vilutyte
the same reflection of this process in it, I was 5-6 years old then, but I lived the mystery of life. I loved silence, feeling of solitary, when you just are and I liked observe all the things around. And I think this part of life is the greatest ‘studies’ which gave very
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clear background and understanding of holistic approach of this life. Other things came in a natural way. Marked out with such unique visual identity, the body of works that we have selected for this
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special edition of ART Habens —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 it features such stimulating and ambivalent visual identity, that seems to unveil the bridge between the real and the imagined. you use your visual language in a strategic way to counterbalance subjectivity, offering an array of meanings. When walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? Zita Vilutyte: I think the line between the reality and imagined things is so thin. And possible the things that we think are imagined are more real. Human being is so interesting and never-ending gnostic process. Other thing what I got from this wonderful life is my fantastic brain. At the beginning I couldn’t understand that my thinking, perception and feelings are a little bit different. Latter when I studied and got formation in neuroscience, I understood many things about myself. And I got the key to disclose and explain the process of creation. Synesthesia was a little secret in my brain which I was needed to discover for to understand better the creative process in my brain. The process itself and the creative movement reflect me, as if moving through interpretations and guesswork in a world of cognition. I feel like I’m mediating very different systems, even where at first glance it may seem like nothing in common. Traveling along this very narrow path that stretches between these systems, I can recognize that underground net that is born between elements belonging to different fields or layers and combine into a common relational field. That multilayered perception is naturally inherent in my thinking, I think it’s because of the synesthetic connections in my brain. As I see connections between words and views in a very specific way, as well as the vibration of sound and colour I connect in a natural way. So, in a simple words, I can see the words as signs, hear my pictures and see my music, of course not only mine. There are a lot of artworks of other artists that I hear perfect and so many music which I can see in colours. I discover this during the studies in music college when I was studying
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lots of music scores and was needed to remember all these themes of classical music. My conspectus were full of pictures and I was remembering music not from notes but from my own visualisations. As later I
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ART Habens
Š Zita Vilutyte Genuine 120 x 180 cm, acrl. canvas, 2020
understood that the sign does two very important things - it says and shows. The sign illuminates the object based on many interpretations, and the semiotic power of the sign is the only means that
allows us to truly orient ourselves in this complex world. In creation, when language breaks and silence takes place, a language system - other than silence, takes root, which expresses what is often slipped
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Š Zita Vilutyte Dreamweaver 120 x 180 cm, acrl. canvas, 2019
through the eyes in the language of words. So because of this my creation has so many layers, different matrixes what are possible to discover when you see and analyse any kind of art – painting or music,
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sometimes my music is just other layer of the painting. You are a versatile artist and your creative activity is very broad, including holistic art, interdisciplinary art,
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ART Habens
develop your attitude to experiment with different techniques? In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your work as an artist? Zita Vilutyte: There are just different mediums where is possible to express all the same things. For me always was interesting to see the same reflection of the sign ,or the system of signs, in different stratums in one time. I could test myself if I really said true things with my art. And chance, yes, I can say this chance is a sign which I catch and understand that it is for me, because at this moment I am ready to go through this sign and possible to find connections. Because of this my art can be considered as art of movement. I can say that the biggest experiences which gave me this flexibility is the movement theatre, which I discovered in me first of all. As I started the experiment with my body and consciousness at the process of creation. For me always was interesting this question and I always have the desire to find the way how does it work. So experiments with body movement allowed me to find so many interesting codes which I could use in the process of improvisation. This improvisation got another quality, I learnt to dive very deep. What is the meaning of the code? I can say it comes from desire to find the way of unification, some dialectic of orderliness and creativity, or never ending fight between an order and a game. Each action arises from the need to look for the answers to the questions and from the endless desire to reveal the greatest secrets of life, which are hiding in each of us. A spectator and a creator are inseparable parts of such a creative process, participants of the process experiencing transformation in its course. Metaphors are the components of this process. It describes without any explanation, just repeating the life. From the unknown and always new spaces which in interaction draw the only and unique image. painting, graphics, music, poetry, movement theater, video art: what does direct you to such multidisciplinary approach? In particular, are there any experiences that did particularly help you to
Metaphors are our experience. We perceive the environment through the interchange of information, events and energy. With the help of metaphor we can join the known and the unknown, to come nearer to
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Š Zita Vilutyte TERRA NOVA 178x188 process he changes in accordance with the laws of the Universe. In the endless dance of vibrations and colours the interacting elements join into the
inexhaustible potentiality of creation, to feel the laws of the Universe and harmony in the process of creation. When creator becomes a part of the
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Š Zita Vilutyte TWINFLAME 100x100 experienced. This is a synergetic process during which the intuition creates new combinations and metaforms - ideas, conceptions, objects, notions
undivided volatile whole. Despite the context in which the process of creation exists our consciousness can join it with something jet not
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Š Zita Vilutyte Listen. Ancestress voice in your blood... (You can hurt me, and it is ok...) 100 x 150 cm, acrl. Canvas, 2019
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and processes thanks to which a new way of solution is found. If something is lost in the form it can be found in the process. Process is a movement; it is a creation course to the new quality forming some more subtle and perfect one. We really appreciate the way your figures — as in the interesting Terra Nova — work as an Ariadne's thread that unveils the elusive still ubiquitous link between reality and the subconscious. To quote Max Ernst's word, every human being has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious and into his inner world: it is merely a matter of voyaging into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light. How important is for you to show the link between the inner world and the outside reality? And how does your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Zita Vilutyte: As I told before my art is art of movement and because of this in real I try not to keep still images inside of me. I’m making this ‘cleaning’ in my brain all the time, because already made and stored images are dead for me and I do not want this feeling inside of me. I work a lot with a wide practice of inner trainings. In real I have so much time in my life which I can use for such kind of practice and it helps a lot to keep my thinking and creativity flexible. The human is unit of body, instincts, emotions, mind, creativity, spirituality. The process of development of all these parts is really wonderful. And the feeling of balance giving the taste of life and real happiness. This balance push me to be creative and alive. This feeling allows to create some clean corridor between reality, thinking and spirituality, inner world or universe how we want to call this, through this is possible the transit of the signs with what this kind of creation is possible. It is the process of transmission acceptance, transition, mediation and interpretation, because to interpret means to move from one space to another in search of connection. It is an epistemological process involving ignorance of what is perhaps indefinable at all and the rejection of any unstructured explanation. Your artworkssometimes feature thoughtful nuances, as WILD SOUL. WILL YOU SEND ME AN
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Š Zita Vilutyte Hieros Gamos 50 x 60cm, acrl. canvas, 2019 21 4 14
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Š Zita Vilutyte Crystalline Sun... 180 x 180 cm, acrl. cnvs., 2020 It is about the true Divine Love and humility, which always is endless lesson... The living with open heart that heals all it touches - is the choise...to remain in the Light Essence of soul...
nuances of tones that you decide to include in an artwork and in particular, how do you develop your textures in order to achieve such unique results?
ANGEL. Moreover, we have particularly appreciated the way they create such enigmatic patterns, communicating tension, as in TWINFLAME. How does your own psychological make-up determine the
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Zita Vilutyte: I think the links of synesthesia in my
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© Zita Vilutyte Sublimation 80 x 60 cm, acrl. canvas, 2020
Š Zita Vilutyte Prussia in my genes... ...we are indeed as mysterious as these old hills, we still have that elder magic in our bones... that old blood still courses through my veins, and perhaps you can feel it, too... 150 x 120 cm, acrl. canvas, 2019
Zita Vilutyte
ART Habens
open up a lot of things to the viewer. When I finish the cycle of my exhibition works, I always experience it as a mysterious moment, because after the exhibition everything seems start to come to life in reality - those exhibitions begin to come true in real life.
brain allow me to do many things without thinking in this too much. It all comes in a natural way. Just I have more tools to navigate in this space. I can hear colour as sound or vibration. Physically it comes through my forearms skin, it is my third ear I can say (by the way, some time ago I did music CD with such title ‘Third Ear’), I can work with colour how I feel it in this moment in this way, and my feelings are like a paper of litmus, I can feel the same thing from a different points of view. I do not do any sketching, but I observe a lot, real objects, photography , I work with photography also, because my eyes see different , photography erase some things, but the view become more clear. When I start painting. my works are coming very spontaneously, of course before this explosion I do big work in my brain about what I was talking before. And then I go with the realization, at this moment I prefer to be alone, because I need to control all this power what is coming to me. Sometimes I can do big format in a very short time. Sometimes I work longer , but just if I need to make few layers of colours which work in a different way. All textures have different sound. All layers have this sound and If I cover it with other colour it is there the same and it works, I can feel this just silently, so these multi-layer pictures has different matrixes of vibration which are in harmony. Possible spectator will not hear or will not see it , but it will work the same, because people can feel many things, and it depends how deep are developed the feelings of spectator, I can say it is possible to feel all and sometimes more what I could expect.
Interdisciplinary educational projects play an important role in the activities of the Holistic Movement Theater "S": when introducing our readers to the holistic nature of your artistic approach, we would like to know how do you consider the impact of Art on communities and how does in your opinion the educative power of art help communities to grow in a more sustainable way. Zita Vilutyte: Holism is the idea that natural systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) and their properties, should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of parts , their functioning cannot be fully understood solely in terms of their component parts. So, a model applying a holistic approach must serve to vision a sense of balance within its structure, processes and outcomes. What is going nowadays in the world? We can see big progress in development of Visceral and Emotional part of human brain, and big regress in Cognitive part. Investigations of lasts years showing how much capacity of Cognitive part of the human brain is diminishing without reference to technology progress. Market, mass media work a lot for to get profit and all the time makes stimulus for the people: take it! Pile in! Eat this! Watch this! Go there! Do this! Buy this! You don’t need to think! We will do this for you!!! And so on. Actions of humans become the same as actions of rats in laboratory. Human don’t need to use Cognitive part of the brain.
The patterns are the results of long contemplation inside me in different layers of thinking and feeling, as I spoke before, the gnostic process and researching allow to make it possible to recount the reality of the universe by perceiving the reality of certain concepts and the full reality and existence in reality. These concepts or signs seem to be able to shape the world and transform it, because, as I can say, pragmatic things are identical to the realism of the universes. And then the role of the narrator and the relationship of the narrator to the told story, which unfolded through the sign or sign system, is revealed. I use codes that
What is going with cognitive part of the brain? Our brain has big abilities for neuroplasticity. These part of brain which we use –increasing and developing. And these parts which we don’t usedisconnecting. Our neurons are going to these parts of the brain which need more power. So our humanity is going back, and generation of humans
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with big speed transforming themselves to the generation of reptiloids.
artists and scientists from social sciences field , to make exhibitions, workshops and conference for to start seeking solutions how to make world artists community and to help each other to realize different projects , to grow and extend possibilities of mobility, realization of different ideas, and to do impact on different social processes.
Holistic impulses of creation are natural impulses of humanity to understand itself and its place in the Universe, it doesn’t need the name- it is simply happening as we come to understand the nature of things.
At the beginning I thought , maybe will be possible to get support from governmental structures or EU foundations and this will help us to realize our ideas. But this idea was big mistake, as all foundations have very clear politics and goals what must be done and in this artist becomes as a tool to realize the ideas of these foundations, but not the own ideas. And it is wrong way, because artists have more things to say than these foundations can imagine.
Holistic art express the things as directly as possible, the whole self and its relationship with all things, from the mundane to the sublime. The more we accept life in its wholeness, the more we realize the wholeness of self. And this is how the wholeness of self is revealed. Wholeness is the same as undivided. The whole art is an art to which the artist gives conscious and undivided attention, and the same engendering in the viewer. By approaching art and all means of creative expression in this way, we are getting a powerful tool for pushing the parameters of human development to clarify our awareness of what our environment is all about. In this way our knowledge has increased, and our use of the brain has grown more complex.
As we can see in social practice art projects – the best examples in the world are these when artists didn’t think what want some foundation or sponsor. These projects had no restrictions and limitations , so we see the result of this. Because of this all our projects till today are made only by our community without any sponsorship from any foundation. Everything is coming in a natural way, the project growing step by step, we build and still building platform where we join different art centres, artists groups, galleries, single people who want to joint this kind of projects. Sometimes we have financial problems as not everyone can support him/herself to come to the project. There are a lot of creative people in all the world and the level of development in different countries is different. So we got idea to open Migrant academy and in this way to let members of our association work there and to earn some money for our projects too. But this idea still stopped because of the situation in the world at this moment. In August we were planed our biennale ‘NO stanART. The Nomads’, and it seems we will need to change the dates because of covid 19. But I hope we will meet a little bit later and will work with this project and it will start its function as soon as possible. The idea of our biennale this year was social practice art and during this meeting we decided to test some art project which will connect business sector. As modern man is experiencing the effects of the process of globalization, which is dramatically
It's important to mention that since 2013 you are the Director of International Art project ANIMA MUNDI www.iaf-animamundi.com, as well as president of International Association IAF ANIMA MUNDI, an association of professionals and innovators from different countries in the fields of culture, art, science and education: would you introduce our readers to this project? Zita Vilutyte: IAF ANIMA MUNDI movement was born to be the platform of a new high culture, longing for transcendence and real meaning. We would like to bring together exponents of all arts, painters, writers, musicians, narators, actors, dancers, as well as inovators of sciences, culture and education. Rooted in eternal values, we transport the eternal spirit against the dissolution of the profound, using different means, old and new, from Folk arts to Avantgarde. Our projects started in 2012. In real from one idea. One morning I got up and understand that I need to start this what is happening now. At the beginning the idea was to organize festival, invite different
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Š Zita Vilutyte Sister Moon - golden blood ...we are preculiar, our roots grow deep, yet we do not know precisely where or who it is that we grew from... 100 x 100 cm, acrl. canvas, 2020
affecting the political, economic and cultural levels, generating conflict and unrest. The influence that globalization has on communities and individuals is one of the most significant factors in the restructuring of social and political relations around
the world. Contemporary art becomes part of the social and political imagery through various forms of representation and engagement. So, however, the present period creates grateful situations, and artists have tremendous opportunities to use their
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Š Zita Vilutyte God's Spark 180 x 180 cm, acrl. canvas, 2020 Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once underlined the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto: your artworks are very dynamic and at the same time convey philosophical aspects. Is important for you to tell
creativity and ideas to turn them into reality and make them function in a positive way. Artists are becoming the nomads, they are emerging at the right places in a right time and have possibilities to change current situations through creative projects.
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Š Zita Vilutyte A MOMENT BEFORE THE SUNRISE 100x100
something that might walk the viewers through their visual experience, enriching the semiotic power of the audience? In particular, how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal interpretations?
Zita Vilutyte: Yes, about this I already said many things before. This trigger and the first thing that can inspire to stop - is the sign. The sign is not a simple object. The characteristics without which it could not be itself constitute the essence and the
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noticeable result of political contradictions – anti justice. Neoliberalism, as a dominant global political ideology, engages in a continuous relationship between the free market and private interests, which leads to overall prosperity. Contemporary art is becoming a part of social and political imagery through various forms of representation and inclusion. Such political environment acts as a deregulation and reconfiguration for socioeconomic groups in relation to the requirements of globalization and post-Fordist growth of the production model, which protects consumeroriented principles of specialization.
whole of the sign. The sign is not some equivalent that can be revealed and completed. A cosmological summand is necessary for every truth, a quality that allows us to create worlds. This can happen during narration. I invite the viewer to join this stream and try to explore the relationship between the sign, its properties, and the narrative. This allows each observer to create or reshape their own concept of truth while remaining in the flow. This frees the truth from the established order that hinders the movement. Semiotic space has its own contradiction, as if it were a space of incompatible heterogeneous views, an unfamiliar labyrinth into which the soul descends. Probably every viewer chooses his own path, but that belongs to this labyrinth, depending on what his nature is. I think so…
So the role of artist in such context can be very multiplex, knotty and sometimes abstruse. The world is indeed very ambiguous. Mass culture tries to provide simplistic explanations of everything, but it can’t provide a whole for this growing world. One reason is often sought to explain the many events, that in real occur for many reasons, in order to simplify the complexity of this world.
You live in Lithuania, a special country that, after the collapse of communism, has transformed itself into an era of extinguishing capitalism, torn by crises, and fierce competition for production and consumption. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under": as an artist particularly involved into Social Practice Art, do you think that your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? Moreover what could be in your opinion the role of artists in our everchanging, globalized and consumerist contemporary age?
I think , when looking for new forms of art, it is very important to consider the relationship between the artist and the community with which the project is being carried out. The question of equivalence and authenticity is very important, which shows the potential of that relationship. When evaluating social art projects, some critics argue for the artist's autonomy and for the project not to be brought into concrete boundaries. Others are in favor of integrating the relationship with the community, where sincere mutual communication is guaranteed. But maybe, the social practice art projects must be valued for their social impact, tradition based on traditional individual authorship and creativity.
Zita Vilutyte: When we talk about this cultural moment , social practice art and my artistic research I can say that all these things together is a big challenge for me. But it arise from natural process of IAF ANIMA MUNDI project. I take it as one more possibility to grow. Of course the space where the act of such kind of art is boning has a big impact. The political reality nowadays is saturated with political images which are created and used in the context of a globalized economy. Contemporary art resonates with specific realities of political conflicts - historical (arising from the consequences of the previous wars), economic (arising from disputes over resources and their location), sectional (arising from conflicts between neighboring communities), and a
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You are an established artist, and over the years your works have been shown in several occasions, and you have aldo organized over 50 solo and group exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art.
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Š Zita Vilutyte Wild soul... (Will you send me an Angel?..), (Interpretation) 215 x 138 cm, acrl. Canvas, 2019
Zita Vilutyte
ART Habens
thoughts, Zita. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
Zita Vilutyte: Thank you too, was nice to live these moments with you, to share the minds and feelings. The projects... Yes, I told about the project of ANIMA MUNDI, it goes its way permanently. My own project - I started the ‘WILD’ last year when I got a very deep emotion when I felt my connection to the historical roots. It happened not through knowledge, but through very deep instinctive feeling. Just being in one place. It’s a river near which the blood in my veins always starts to vibrate differently and this time I felt very strong impulses and gave in to them. It brought me to knowledge. Just a lot of the fragmentary details I knew about myself fell into the big matrix and what I saw and gradually began to realize gave me a lot of strength, I understood where I came from and what connections it had to me with this river. How strong is the DNA code that it can provoke such a reaction with my inner things and through it help reveal many of the secrets that are my own life.
Zita Vilutyte: I do not think I am established artist as you said :) Who am I in this world- just spark of a moment... There are millions of creative people and how much light you have inside this will be seen later. So, now, at this moment, the nature of relationship with audience for me is very important, yes, the direct relationship in a physical context. The space in not important – gallery, street, online realm. The online realm can be also very true and real as a physical contact, because human being can feel emotional or spiritual, telepathic contact. Just we have more tools to reach , to catch, to feel and to live this act. Actually it is important WHO is entering this space. The meeting with a spectator, opening of an exhibition, or birth of performance is a very important ritual with a very deep meaning for me. In this moment the movement of art work goes on in different directions with different spectators. So the act of creation also spreads in all directions. That’s what I feel up to that moment, during it and after it. Everyone coming to the event expects something, usually gets what he expects, but I feel very good when a spectator who expects nothing but is open to the act of receipt and exchange comes, then real miracles, alchemy, a creative act between me and the spectator can born , these are fantastic moments, the exchange of infinite energies, the erasure of boundaries, when the event becomes the mystical space where souls meet, it is very important to me. As my art is just living in such a way the meeting with spectator is also life and for me is important only this. All artificial things are not welcome, my heart recognize them immediately, I do not feel any interest to such things, it is waste of life, this short time what is given to us in this earth.
I am now on that journey, and I feel guided by my inner self. People who are very important to me come into my life, and through them my creation and I change. I feel immersed in a very strong and deep current and am being carried towards some very important goal for me. Therefore, I enjoy every single moment, maintaining vigilance and consciousness, balancing in that wonderful flow of creativity that I am in now. I never predict when a stage will break out and a transformation will take place. Therefore, I organize exhibitions when I feel and there is an opportunity. And each exhibition becomes perhaps like a new chapter in the book of life, and everything goes on, and so it will be until I will breathe ...
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your
An interview by and
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, curator curator
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Live and works in Seoul, South Korea
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
video, 2013
Meditation on Colour, 2019
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
Ye Chan Cheong An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Ye Chan and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit
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https://yechancheong.wixsite.com/yechancheong
and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your BA in Fine Art, that you received from the British Higher School of Art and Design, in Moscow, you nurtured your education with a BA in Fine Art / First Class Honor, that you received from the
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
for me, not just because of having an art education but also having a life lesson that made me find my identity as a God believer, Ye Chan. The cold winter of Moscow was not that cold for me when comparing to my experience from environmental pressure. That time, I just had started the journey to study art in foreign country that I dreamed about. At the beginning of the period, I was full of confidence and passion. I had been waiting for this kind of educational opportunity, and I was sure that I could do everything I wanted to. However, when I joined in the bachelor of art programme, in the second year in Moscow, I was losing my mind and became a totally lost person when I faced the present state of my life. It became an absolute spear that broke my childish dream. I did not know where my life was heading to and what I really want to be. Also, I dreamed about absurd things that even does not exist in my life. I became a very negative person used to think that Contemporary art is a social evil that makes people confused. The reason was that I had no right answer myself about my art and even for my life. Someday, it was between October and November, the time getting cold in Moscow, I lost relationship, artwork, computer, finance‌ And I had no reasons to stay in Moscow any longer, and I got ready to leave the country anytime. I was not sure about if I was in a right place in
University of Hertfordshire: how did those formative years influence your evolution as a visual artist? Ye Chan Cheong: Thanks ART Habens for this opportunity and your communication. Four years of studying fine art in Moscow was a big challenge
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Ye Chan Cheong
right time. I saw myself as a very fragile person. Even, I could not sustain myself as an independent being, but I was trying to deny it. I prayed, prayed and prayed to my God who is the one only perfect. Suddenly, one
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thing came up in my mind – the thing I already knew, “God is perfect.” What if the perfect God has a perfect plan for my life, and if this situation is in His perfect plan, I must take this time as a perfect experience.
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Ye Chan Cheong
My viewpoint and vision on the situations had totally changed. Further, it influenced the way I see objects and people. I started to see my time and life in different way, and then, without any hesitation, I justified
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my artworks, my understanding on the Contemporary art and even my life as a tool of worship. It made me fully focus on my art study as a tool of worship, and I became a new person with a new attitude
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Ye Chan Cheong
toward the Contemporary art. After that, I realized that I am at right place in right time.
for this special edition of ART Habens — 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 it explores the
The body of works that we have selected
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Ye Chan Cheong
symbolic meaning of colour and its relationship with cultural and environmental differences, and we really appreciate the way your artistic research proclaim the love of God in the exhibition
ART Habens
space: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you develop your ideas? In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within
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New Man, 2019
ART Habens
Ye Chan Cheong
your creative process? Ye Chan Cheong: Bible story and Bible meditation are crucial and essential elements for my inspiration. I actually spend time for daily Bible meditation to know God better and get influenced by the word of God. Some stories and lessons of the Bible stay in my mind, and they made me think deeper than any other things. Once it comes to me, I cannot ignore it. I choose one attractive colour and research based on the given commercial name of the colour that includes some histories of manufacture and behind stories. Whenever I focus on applying the colour on magazine, I always not just think the harmony and geometry of colour with the background image, but also try to think how my Bible meditation can be delivered via the story of colours. Let’s think I am casting colours as experienced actor/actress for my script. In the viewpoint of colour, they might easily understand about what I am going to tell to audiences, via their life and experience in the history of art. As stated by Callum Innes, “Sometimes chance is involved, but then it became organized chance under my control. I am controlling in the whole way”, I always try to find an aesthetic strength in every practice and experiment. For example, when I started the oil painting on paper for the first time, I didn’t know how paper reacts to oil paints that release the oil near the paint I applied
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during drying process. It was getting bigger over time and stopped at some moment. For the first time, I was desperate not to show the release; I applied different oil paints on different materials. Later, I got that it was a matter of quality of paper, but I decided to keep it as it is. I started to see it differently, as a growth ring of trees- trace of time flow, an
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
aura or shadow of the square. I think the chance comes unexpected way but finally I made a decision, and it became a small part of visual element.
your Christian background direct your current artistic research? And how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?
We have appreciated the way your Meditation series features such rigorous sense of geometry, to reflect spirituality: how does your cultural substratum due to
Ye Chan Cheong: I was grown up in Christian family and the Presbyterian church until high school that guided me to live in a side of righteousness. I was
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Ye Chan Cheong
dreaming about having more experiences
moved to other countries, I stood there as
in diverse culture outside Korea. My
a Christian and tried to reflect what I’ve
journey of faith started from Switzerland
learnt from Christian community. Perhaps,
and reached Russia, including some
experiences in Moscow became my second
additional short trips in Europe and Africa.
turning point to have a new vision that
It influenced me to bear in mind
leads me to a new direction as a Christian
multicultural way of thought, and it also
artist.
influences people around me. Whenever I
Now I am in Korea with my family after
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
have been collecting ideas and gettingready for future exhibition. For your Meditation series, you have applied each colour in diverse locations in order to find a harmonious space, and we have highly appreciated the way your works highlight such insightful resonance with the idea of freedom: how did you select the specific locations and how do they affect your creative process? Ye Chan Cheong: Before start to paint on magazine, I do spend time for preparation that is cutting magazine and check every single page to find the suit colour, and then I think of how and why paint. Then I choose one colour and apply to the selected paper for it. I chose a location of colour on magazine based on my observation on glossiness, tone, hue and relations with other colours. For example, when I was in the process of ‘Meditation of Petersburg grey’ in Moscow, I gave full play to my imagination, ‘What it would be like if I float the flat grey square at the middle of the room?’, ‘What people will feel if I block this image with grey?’, ‘This jewel image works really well with this grey!’, ‘This cement colour is very similar to this grey but I want to see the difference.’ So, the process is about joyful experience of one chosen colour to know it better.
four years of studying in Moscow, I have my own praying time and attend church service that challenges me to think in diverse viewpoints reflecting my experience in other cultures and spiritual experience in Moscow. I do meditate colours as I do meditate the Bible, and I try to see colours based on my
Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impressed us and that we
experience in the place of multi-culture. So, I
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Ye Chan Cheong
would like to introduce to our readers is entitled Symbolical meaning of Colour, a stimulating series that can be seen as a prayer to worship God. For that purpose,
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you give a role to each colour: how did you come about settling on your colour palette? And how does your own psychological make-up determine the
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Ye Chan Cheong
nuances of tones that you decide to
ART Habens
Colour formatted with combination of two different colours in order to make synergetic impact in delivering what I aim to talk about. Also, it brings a visual
include in your artworks? Ye Chan Cheong: Symbolical meaning of
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Ye Chan Cheong
refreshment when audience get a story behind it. I make layers of two different stories of colours, or do make contrast between two dark colours that are very similar but different, by locating them in parallel, or leave a single colour to declare something new. Taking New Man, one of Symbolical meaning of Colour series, as an example, new and old spaces are generally covered with a white colour which provides the foundation of a space with a new identity. White has been used to symbolize cleanness, pureness and emptiness in art history. The openness of the colour seems to suggest its readiness to adapt to any other thing - like a white wall, a white piece of paper or a white canvas. The space freshly covered with white gives an impression that it has been cleansed for a new potential, new presence and a new foundation. The colour white applied on paper asserts a new space where The Almighty can apply His own colour to create a new life out of one's past, so that he becomes a different man free from his past weaknesses, with an open attitude towards receiving his new identity. He is thus ready to accept his new life. We have really appreciated the allegorical quality that marks out Symbolical meaning of Colour, and it's important to remark that in each painting of the series two colours are used in different ways, following the result of a ‘colour meditation’ and an understanding of each colour’s historic and commercial name: how would you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic production?
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Ye Chan Cheong: Some commercial names of colour internationally promised, and they have their own story behind. I start to research from the question ‘Where the name came from?’ to ‘How people used this colour in the past?’ So I tried to find the connection between my Bible meditation and the behind story of colour. For example, red meant so
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
many different things that represent some colour of emotions, products, foods, traffic signs and so on‌ those recognitions are already in people’s sense.
talking about via my colour abstraction
Among them, I pick one of experience of
backgrounds. Because there are hundreds
red that might easily deliver a symbol. I
of different colours that have international
presume people understand what I am
and historical names, I might use them for
beyond cultural difference. It is kind of proved via my exhibition experience in different cultural
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Ye Chan Cheong
my symbolical meanings in the future
of colour.
works.
With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks seem to invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception: how important is
Moreover, there are some unique colours originated from different entities such as Petersburg grey (Russia) and Grey of grey (Korea). So, I believe there are abundant possibilities for making symbolical meaning
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Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
layers are very subtle to recognise to audiences or very clear to see. Sometimes they come closer or see from far away, everything is up to audience. I’d like to intrigue the curiosity of audiences, make them observe everything I applied on my work and think what the painter meant via this work - ‘what this guy is talking about?’ The next moment, I hope that people see the title of work and confront what the painter meant to speak in the work, comparing to their own understanding. Of course, seeing my works in their own taste, attitude and emotion is totally free. But I would really appreciate if they nod when knowing ‘Oh this Korean guy is talking about God in this exhibition’. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under": as an artist particularly interested in international relationships, manners, cultural diversity and education, does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of artists in our unstable, everchanging contemporary age? Ye Chan Cheong: Considering Gabriel Orozco’s opinion, I would say I am living under the world of faith or belief. Can that be categorised as spiritual world? I mean my works are reacting to spiritual moment rather than cultural and social moment, and they might be a reflection of my
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? Ye Chan Cheong: Some colour matchings and
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Ye Chan Cheong
culture, international relationships, manners, cultural diversity and education.
have to state that I have been an unstable
After the precious experience in Moscow, I want to deliver personal lessons from my Bible meditation via artworks that can be seen as a worshipping and praying to God. Before talking about this age as an artist, I
birth.
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and ever-changing person even from my My mind easily changes and shakes whenever I feel pressure from this age. I would be a lost person again and again having no clear answer from many things,
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Ye Chan Cheong
and I still do don’t know what to do.
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Over the years your artworks have been showcased in several exhibitions, including your recent participation to the group exhibition Squares, at the CICA Museum, in Gimpo, Republic of Korea: how do you consider the participatory nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the
However, only thing that I can do is praying and crying in front of God, perhaps this is a really good age to do that. When I recognised my imperfection and God’s perfection at the same time, my art finally started.
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audience in a physical is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases : how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Ye Chan Cheong: I agree with the relationship between audience and artist is important. Yeah, the time is changing and challenging many artists and artworks. Some works are on online rather than hanging in classic gallery space. I respect artists’ decision either they exhibit on online or offline. As a painter, I have a small experience. When I was a high school student, I saw Picasso’s Guernica (1937) in an art textbook and I felt the painting was interesting, then I moved to next page. Approximately 10 years later, I actually saw Guernica (1937) in Reina Sofia museum, Spain. The painting was a tremendous masterpiece beyond my expectation. It was a dinosaur in the world of paintings. I was staying in the room more than an hour, and then I moved to the next room. However, I was unable to resist the gravity pulling me to the paint again. So, I came back to the room again and stuck to the painting for a while. Online publication is an easy and a convenient way to spread the images and information worldwide, but I think it cannot hold the genuine impression of the artwork. I haven’t seen Newman’s paintings in real, but on online. Specially, I want to see Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1951) which was the biggest painting in that time, and Newman wanted people overwhelmed by the size of the work. But I wasn’t overwhelmed because I saw it on my phone. I believe that physicality and materiality
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gives additional impression rather than seeing artworks over the screen, because artists/art professionals consider the relation between artworks and the exhibition place to be crucial. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with
Ye Chan Cheong
ART Habens
us and for sharing your thoughts, Ye Chan. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
residency programmes where can provide
Ye Chan Cheong: Currently, I am focusing
allows multicultural experiences with
on a category of dark colour that might be
international art professionals.
me a studio large enough to practice more materiality and physicality and solo or group exhibitions. Especially, I am interested in the ones that
a new version of Symbolical meaning of Colour. Also, I have been looking for
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Muyuan He
ART Habens
video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
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Muyuan He An interview by and
, curator
curious person. Thanks to those courses, I am open to all kinds of subject matters when making art. Right now I am taking a novel writing class, to build up more narrative in my visual art work.
curator
Hello Muyuan and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://sherrymuyuanhe.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: after having earnd your BA in Studio Art Major and Music Minor, you nurtured your education with an MFA in Visual Studies, that you received from Minneapolis College of Art and Design: how did those formative years — as well as your job as a professor — influence your evolution as an artist?
Minneapolis College of Art and Design is another amazing school that I cannot praise enough. The small and close community gave me a lot of technical support as well as confidence. I read so many interesting books at the library on the comfy bean bags. In the Master’s program, I narrowed down my research to project-based learning, which is something I am still pursuing after graduation. Since my research is on learning, my teaching experiences at different colleges informed me ways to adjust my pedagogical approach in making art. Meanwhile, seeing how much a student improve within a semester motivates me to make more progress on my own work.
Muyuan He: I am very grateful for both the undergraduate and graduate schools that I attended in Minnesota, a place I call “home”. Macalester College exposed me to students from around the world. By taking classes with people from more than 90 different countries and doing activities with them, I was constantly learning how similar and different we are. This experience enriched my understanding of art making in various national backgrounds. My undergraduate college is a liberal arts college, so I took many classes outside art and music, including Arabic, python, immigration history, economics, sounds of languages. They made me a more
Marked out with such unique visual identity, the body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —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 you use your visual language in a strategic way to counter-balance subjectivity, offering an array of meanings. When walking our readers through your usual setup and process,
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Muyuan He
would you tell us how do you usually develop your initial idea for your artworks? Do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your work as an artist? Muyuan He: It is always a problemsolving process, because for me, art is a language that helps bridge all the other things in our lives. Here is an example. My friend who goes to medical school told me how people, especially people of low income, are unaware of the relationship between diet and their health. Eating more vegetables and fruits, as opposed to their cheaper alternative like coke and burgers, could help people save so much medical bills. After that conversation with friend, I started wondering what I could do to make such information more accessible to people. The end product is a zine that looks like a brown grocery bag. When unfolded, each page holds a temporary tattoo that looks like a healthy vegetable, with cooking instruction. Most of the serendipity of my work comes from my interaction with friends (most of them do not major in art) and books (half of them are not related to art). They helped me break through a lot of blocks. They gave me lenses to see what the world needs. Sometimes, they built a toolbox for me. I had this dream of sleeping on a pizza for a long time.
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Muyuan He
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Muyuan He
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Muyuan He
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When I was having a coffee with a friend, she told me that she had been sewing since she was eight years old. She offered to teach me how to sew by making the pizza bed together. Every Sunday, she came to my studio with her sewing machine, and we made the crust, cheese, pepperoni, tomato, mushroom, pepper and pineapple (the least popular topping options among my studiomates). We have appreciated the way in your Art is Why I Wake Up in the Morning you combined objects from everyday life's experience in such unique and unconventional practice. We’d love to ask you about the qualities of the materials and the objects that you include — or that you plan to include — in your artworks: how important is for you to use materials rich of metaphorical properties in order to create such allegorical artworks? Muyuan He: First, all my materials are super accessible, usually paper, glue and scissors. These are very important because I want people to feel that they could do what I did at their home too. For my solo show, I used the laser cutter to speed up the process. Side note, it still took me a month to laser cut 2000 slices of bread, not including the 200 pieces of egg yolk, and oranges. I smelled like burnt toast every day. But I do want to make it achievable without expensive equipment, to encourage the maker
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Muyuan He
movement. Another reason why paper is so important to me is that paper is such an affordable material to experiment with structures that could be apply for other things. For example, many foldable structures in engineering come from origami. I think of all the other materials as the cousins of paper. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, growing up in an urban city in China, you learned how daily products can make an educational impact: how does this aspect of your cultural substratum — as well as your everyday life's experience — fuel your artistic research? Muyuan He: It makes me pay attention to every single detail in life. For example, I am very short, so if I do not carry a shopping bag on my shoulder, the bag would be dragging on the street. Then I started thinking why the straps of reusable shopping bags have to be that long. With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks provide the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto: as an artist whose work focuses on improving people’s learning experience through fun activities, how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order
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Muyuan He
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to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? Muyuan He: Very important. I want people to understand my work however they want. More importantly, they are allowed to interact with my work however they want. I do not remember any of my work labeled “do not touch.” Many of your work are food-themed, and as you have remarked once, they have the goal of making education accessible for people of various cultural, social and economic backgrounds. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under": do you think that your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? Moreover, as an artist particularly sensitive to ecological issues, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our globalised and everchanging society? Muyuan He: Not to a particular cultural moment, but to the current education systems around the world. Many of my work ask people: why are we teaching the kids the way we do it now? What are the world outside classrooms teaching the next generation?
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Muyuan He
Yes, all artists should, and not on a superficial level. Even if you make a piece about global warming, think about how much the production and transportation your work is contributing to global warming. We have particularly appreciated the way your Sandwich Books series evokes memories and urges the viewers to create new associations of ideas: how do you consider the role of memory playing within your artistic research? Muyuan He: When I was teaching research at a graduate program, my favorite term to use is “bricolage”. In my own words, it’s like cooking stew, you add books, videos, interviews, experiments and your own memory (which I did not consider as part of research before) to the pot, and let it simmer. My work has always evolved from memories, but I also hope it evokes unique memories of the viewers. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic work of arts 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? Muyuan He: The boundary between reality and imagination in my work is very blurry. Through my work, I hope, people
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Muyuan He
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Muyuan He
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believe that their dreams could come true. You are an established artist and over the years your artworks have been internationally exhibited: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Muyuan He: I want my audience to PLAY with my work. Not all my work address light-hearted issues, but I still prefer that the audience get the positive energy out of my work. It still feels nicer if people can interact with my work physically. It does not have to be in a gallery. A published book is another way to reach audience physically. At least something that people can download and print at home to play with, using their hands. Platforms like Instagram make it harder for people to sink into artworks that have profound meanings. Works that are not eye candies get lost during swipes. It makes me sad. We have really appreciated the
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Muyuan He
ART Habens
originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Muyuan. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Muyuan He: In January, I had an exhibition where people assembled a pop-up card that looks like a Bánh Mì. Each ingredient inside the bread (folded card) represents a different paper engineering technique: cucumber for Vfold: fried tofu for parallel fold; jalapeños for moving arm; pickled radishes and carrots for pull-tab; mayo for spiral; cilantro for add-ons. Gallery visitors were provided with the ingredients printed on the paper, scissors and glue. When they finish, they took their pop-up sandwich home. I chose Bánh Mì because that’s the food that my graduate school like to order for us. It brings me curiosity into cuisines in other countries. I am making more popup food tutorials that resemble food from other countries, like Korean soft tofu stew. It makes me hungry whenever I make work, so I need to find something else to balance it. Maybe non-edible plants? An interview by and
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, curator curator
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Muyuan He
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Azeri Aghayeva
ART Habens
video, 2013
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Azeri Aghayeva An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Azeri and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.instagram.com/sarah.azeri and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your Fine Arts Degree, from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, you moved to the United Kingdom to nurture your education with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, that you are currently pursuing at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, at the University College of London: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does you cultural substratum as well as your previous studies in Philosophy and Psychology help you to develop your attitude to experiment?
Azeri Aghayeva
a young age (Class A). As a result there were two parties at the Slade, Class A as described, and the students who didn’t have these advantages, who in turn made their practice about this divide from the standpoint of their economic/cultural/gender difference. I didn’t feel I could identify with either class A, and whilst I respect artists who give light to the hardships of art in correlation to identity, I wanted to escape my ‘economic disadvantage’, ’female disadvantage’, or ‘ethnic
Azeri Aghayeva: Both Vienna and Slade informed me a lot about the demographic of today which has existed for a long time in fine art. When I first attended art school it was pointed out that I was one of the ‘State school ones’ referring to my lack of private education. State school students were outnumbered by privately taught students who had some sort of economic or social advantage which opened the doors of fine art to them at
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disadvantage’ that were always around me in my work. My backgrounds in philosophy and psychology are at the forefront of my work, for instance understanding human behaviour/neurology in response to specific visual stimuli. It is these subjects that blur the lines between the two classes because they open a shared, non-exclusive forum of thought and observation, which, for a moment, can be free from social divisions. Your artistic production combines personal aesthetics with such a unique conceptual approach, and the visual language that marks out your artworks seems to be used in a strategic way to explore the shift between the life and lifeless, providing your artworks with an array of meanings. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —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 you explored the point of convergence between text and image, to invite the viewers to question the evocative power of symbol and patterns: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you develop your initial ideas?
Azeri Aghayeva: Before painting, I materialise the subject(s) of my painting into photographs, often depicting an interaction (either mundane or
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manipulated) between man and object I have seen or conjured up in my mind. Such as the depiction of a man wearing boxing gloves heaped with vegetables; to disable the gloves from their function as something which “enhances” performance, similar to how Oldenburg ‘like(s) to take a subject and deprive it of its function completely’. In doing so, I feel that this gives the inanimate another life or chance at life; for what is utterly useless in life becomes necessary in a painting, and therefore in thinking too. Once I have photographed various interactions, I bring them all together onto one landscape. My painting becomes a bedside table full of random occurrences and objects that make you wonder how they came to fruition in one place, and I, the conductor of this orchestra of ‘stuff’. Light sources manically come from different angles, shadows betray one another, weight is removed from objects and physics is both denied and reinvented. I bring together figures who do not belong in one space. When brought together, they deny what is real yet they are real as I have willed them into existence though my painting. Your artworks often feature such vivacious tones and we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that mark out some of your artworks, and we like the way they create tension and sense of dynamism: how did
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you come about settling on your color palette? And how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to
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include in your artworks?
Azeri Aghayeva: My colour palette used to consist of only 5 colours; black, white,
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burnt sienna, crimson red and Prussian blue. I became too consistent in my palette, and this became apparent to others too.
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One day someone said to me that I use red and black in my painting because they are easy. It works every time, and can never fail, especially when you learn
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how to use them so frequently. Sometimes you can use, study or explore something so much that you lose the crux of itm and this certainly applied to the case of my exhausted palette. The Italians have a word, ‘arzigogolato’, which refers to when something has been so researched it becomes more convoluted and vague rather than understood. This became the case for my colour palette. Whilst the painter works to build his/her own language through a palette, sometimes this language becomes limited and stagnates the artist. It was after this comment that I made a painting consisting of all the colours I thought were ugly, in an attempt to create something the antithesis of this. I purchased those generic acrylic paintsets where you got what you were given, and attempted to create something that was my own language from a set of colours chosen by someone else. We have really appreciated the way your artworks embody an interface between realism and imagination, as well as the way you include elements from ordinary experience. 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 work?
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And how does everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research?
Azeri Aghayeva: My work concerns itself with the mundane, in particular the relationship between the animate and inanimate; I call this the ‘Residue of the
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Unspoken’. All that is unsaid and
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us.
unexpressed is displaced onto the
The ‘Residue of the Unspoken’ became a photographic series recording the intimate moment where objects meet at one point, a bedside table; objects which outside this point hold their own
inanimate, whose unresponsive nature offers a safe space for our expressions. In this way they are “full of life” as they experience the most intimate sides of
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identity but here, and only here, form
When removed from their original setting the relationship between the objects with one another become peculiar, and one begins to wonder how they met, though we know their relationship is merely a result of a man who “drove” them together. Their
the information of a moment, immortalised into a picture, like a ‘visual encyclopaedia of everyday life’ (Marianne Dobner).
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mechanism of art making itself: do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process?
I am attempting to represent a world with reinvented physics-laws and eventualities, so the planning stage of my work is thorough. The photographing and series of sketches I do in preparation, explore the plethora of possibilities of my “unreal reality�, until I have settled on one. What seems random in my work is actually carefully devised, like the bedside table which depicts randomly arranged objects with apparently no causal chain but is the very opposite of this. Your artworks have struck us for the way you sapiently created such unique ambience, manipulating human figure to subvert the relationship between man and object, and stimulating the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. How important is for you to touch the viewers' subconscious inner world?
relationship seems so peculiar yet, for a moment, so genuine.
Azeri Aghayeva: I want to present the viewer with the overlooked silent interactions which embellish our lives, the objects which are discarded as meaningless, and push the viewer to
New York City-based artist Lydia Dona once stated that in order to make art today one has to reevaluate the conceptual language behind the
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notice the unnoticed. Whilst touching their subconscious inner world is a privilege, it is not in my control. To create any emotional response is integral to me, but I cannot dictate what that emotional response is, or how precisely it ‘touches’ the viewer’s subconscious inner world. We ‘rely on the poet/painter to find ways of presenting us with the objects/situations so that they can indeed provoke a strong or precise emotional response in us’ (Butler). Art and in particular Visual Art is about physicalising something which is profoundly immaterial and subjective, such as a thought or a feeling. Observing the viewers’ responses is a pleasure; especially when there is such myriad of emotional responses from one visual stimulant such as a painting, whether the response is desirable or not.
Azeri Aghayeva: The globalised, online audience poses some challenges to the classic relationship between artist and viewer through the artwork. Our virtual imprint has become so redolent with information about ourselves that it threatens the integrity of the work itself.
Over the years, your artworks have been exhibited in several occasions: how do you consider the participatory nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the audience in a physical is definitely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
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Rather than viewing and responding to works of art, the general public now responds to identities and characters on social media, following artists for who they are rather than what they create and whether they ‘dig’ their
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us and for sharing your thoughts, Azeri. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
look/lifestyle choices. Before the socialmedia age, the artist’s identity was not severed from the work, but functioned as an addition to the work and not as the work itself. This gave an open space to the viewer to have a subjective experience of the work which may be informed, but not dictated by the artist’s motivation and identity.
Azeri Aghayeva: Thank you for having me in your biennale edition and it was a pleasure to share with you my practice. My upcoming work will see me return to my home Azerbaijan to reconnect with my heritage, and translate my experiences into my work, after avoiding it during my academic years.
One could look at Van Gogh’s sunflowers and appreciate the artist’s mental turmoil that is apparent in the painting yet simultaneously have their own experience that is momentarily divorced from this. I prefer this classical relationship; however, I must face the challenge that social media poses, and often I do this by creating a caricature of myself through my social media. I am very honest about my own traumas/life experiences.
This caricature that I present in my social media is one that I want to experiment with and use actively in my painting, parodying its misunderstood and complex background; a Middle Eastern country with Persian roots, which identifies as a Turkic, however stripped of its heritage and removed of its cultural atmosphere by the Soviet regime of the 1900s.
I play with them comically and commodify them so that they become two dimensional. The viewer who recognises this is able to detach from them when viewing my work. In doing so, my identity and experiences are still honest and very much redolent in the work, but the work can be free from being dictated by them or the ‘virtual identity’ I present.
Since its independence, Azerbaijan has attempted to create its own identity, despite its divided identity from its former owners. I want to deconstruct and “play” with its multifaceted identities and caricatures, making its cultural background accessible by means of the simplicity I wish to evoke in my paintings.
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with
An interview by and
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Stephen L. Mauldin
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video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
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Stephen L. Mauldin An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Stephen and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://mauldinart.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: after having earned your BA in art from Oklahoma City University, you nurtured your education with an MFA with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking, that you received from the University of Idaho: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum direct your current artistic research? Stephen L. Mauldin: My education was interesting, to say the least. Oklahoma City University, where I received my BA, had only two art instructors in its art department. On the first day of my first painting class, the instructor told us that we’d have to paint four paintings over the semester, all of which had to be at least three feet by four feet, with one being six feet square. Someone inquired, “What are we supposed to paint?” and he replied, “I don’t know, you’re the artists, you figure it out”. That was, probably, the rudest awakening of my art education to that point (subject matter had previously been dictated in most cases) but it was also one of the best things that ever happened to me as an art student. When I got to the University of Idaho to pursue my MFA, I was light years ahead of
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my peers who, for the most part, had come out of programs where subject matter had been assigned by instructors. I had had four years to explore what I wanted to paint and by that time had a rather well-defined idea of what I wanted to express with my work. Two aspects of my life, to that point, had the largest impact on the direction my art would
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take. First, my father had a Master’s of Science degree and took great pains to instill in me a wonder of the world, and a curiosity about it. He did it in an informal way, just by pointing out cool things about the world as we encountered them, so it was always fun. My father’s influence ultimately lead to a deep interest in physics, both sub-atomic particle physics and cosmology (on a layman’s level). The second big influence was the Southern culture I was raised in and its emphasis on God and religion. My family didn’t attend church very often, but in high school I attended a college preparatory boarding school run by Episcopal monks. The experience had a profound impact on me, eliminating all interest in organized religion, while leaving me very interested in all things spiritual. Together, spiritual issues and physics have defined my work for most of my artistic career. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens 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 you use your visual language in a strategic way to explore the liminal area where the conscious mind and imagination find such unexpected point of convergence. When walking our readers through the genesis of your IMP series, would you tell us how do you usually develop your initial idea for your artworks? As an artist who has always worked using unconventional methods, do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes?
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Stephen L. Mauldin: In most cases, the impetus for a new painting is the result of the shortcomings of the previous painting; a
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months. The “IMP” series is the result of along evolution over the span of about fifteen years. It all began one afternoon
continuing effort to “get it right”. By the time a given series is finished, I have usually been mulling over what I want to do next for
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when I taped an ultra-fine straight pin to the end a of a palette knife, dipped it in a little paint, cocked it back, and slung it onto a
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piece of scrap paper. The mark that resulted just blew me away. It was the embodiment of energy, with incredibly fine skeins of paint
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everything is ultimately composed of little knots of energy. I soon began the “String Theory” series to explore the potential of the mark. My intention was to create a “universe of mind and spirit”. I refined that idea in the “Nebula” series, especially the spatial characteristics of the pieces. The “Presence” series was an attempt to refine the idea further. In it, I used Golden Mean divisions and subdivisions of the picture plane to place every element to achieve “ideal” proportions, which seemed logical as I was dealing with things spiritual. Throughout this period (three years), I had wondered about using the mark to mix color optically by layering and overlapping the incredibly fine skeins of paint. The “Poles” series is the result of my initial explorations along these lines. In the first study for the series, I simply marched along a horizontal picture plane with bands of colors defined by a regular curve, but I didn’t find that very satisfying. In the next study, I tried to get a more interesting curve by using one side of one of the stencils I had made for the figures in the “Presence” series. The result was better than the first study, but still didn’t do it for me. For the first piece of the series, I took that curve, flipped it, and created two forms by altering how the two resulting curves related. In effect I created a “positive” shape resembling a figure and a “negative” shape resembling a candlestick. In my mind, they represented spiritual entities and the material world respectively. Once again, I used Golden Mean divisions and subdivisions to define the placement of elements. The series evolved from single panel pieces to two panel pieces to, finally, three panel pieces, due to decisions related to things like proportions, efficient use of
spreading out much like lightning. It struck me immediately as the perfect visual signifier for string theory, which suggests that
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materials, etc. more than subject matter issues. Interestingly, a larger meaning revealed itself through this process. I began to see the long panels as representing
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energy (in addition to the references to spiritual beings and the material world represented by the positive/negative forms), the black panels as space, and the diamond-
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shaped panels as energy condensing into matter. Although the pieces were still, ultimately, explorations of optical color mixing, this larger meaning, a summation of
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the nature of reality, seemed to come from elsewhere. It was a fun ride. The extremely positive response to the diamond-shaped panels in the last several
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pieces of the “Poles” series inspired me to refine them for the “IMP” series. Again, they were meant to be simply the exploration of optical color mixing, but they,
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too seem to address something fundamental about the relationship between matter and energy. The “shock wave” circular element was completely
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unplanned and developed spontaneously as a result of the sequencing of colors and the way they’re built up. These pieces are very much planned and the image is built on a
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two-dimensional armature that guides the application of paint. In many respects, they are simply nominally controlled chaos, since every mark is made by slinging the paint at
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the canvas with as much force a possible with only minimal control. There are twenty four variations on the basic idea and I intend to do all twenty-four.
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Sometimes I do work gesturally and instinctively, but all the work just described was thoroughly planned and executed, allowing for the unexpected (which are
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all cases, the optical mixing of color produces richer color than the physical admixture of color on a palette, since no neutralization occurs.
often the best things that happen in any piece). The problem is, if you have something definite you’re trying to communicate (and I usually do), it’s difficult to be completely spontaneous. I try to allow for accidents and the unexpected, but I generally know from the outset where I’m going and more or less how I’m going to get there.
I don’t think my psychological make-up really influences the process at all. I can be happy, sad, angry, whatever, and I just go into the studio and continue the work at hand. Like Francis Bacon said, “…they naturally think that the painting is an expression of the artist’s mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings”.
Your works feature such effective combination between the refined sense of geometry and thoughtful nuances of tones that communicate alternation of tension and release, providing the paintings with such sense of dynamics. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in an artwork and in particular, how do you develop your textures in order to achieve such brilliant results?
We have really appreciated the allegorical quality that marks out your artworks. As you have remarked in your artist's statement you worked for several years to refine your images, then moved on to a series of radiant "figures" set against a web inspired by the distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters, that looks remarkably like the web of neurons in the brain. Scottish visual artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic works of art 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?
Stephen L. Mauldin: The simple answer to the first part of this question is that I taught basic design, including color theory for over twenty-five years, so I have thoroughly internalized the principles of composition and color relationships. Whatever tension is present, is, no doubt, a result of the intense energy embodied in the mark used to create the pieces. The nuances of tones come from glazing in the “Sting Theory”, “Nebula”, and “Presence” series. In each of those pieces, there are a dozen or more layers of transparent glazes. This technique creates great depth and richness of color. It’s also another form of optical color mixing. The nuances in the “Poles” and “IMP” series come from opaque optical mixing; small bits of color in close proximity to each other. In
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Stephen L. Mauldin: That’s a tough one. Whereas most people see my work as abstract, to me they are very accurate depictions of reality as I conceive it to be. My favorite quote by any artist is the one on my website by Paul Klee who said, “Art does not reproduce the visible, rather, it makes visible”. That’s precisely what I’m trying to do…make what I consider to be real but
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invisible aspects of reality visible. I don’t pretend to know exactly what these aspects of reality look like, but I try to depict a “sense” of their reality. Consequently,
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although the figures in the “Presence” series are completely the product of my imagination, they are, at the same time, an attempt to convey something real about the
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nature of reality (as I conceive it). It may
You draw inspiration from the images of the physical universe produced by the Hubble space telescope, exploring explore the elusive still ubiquitous connection
very well be the great delusion of my life.
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between science and artistic research:
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Stephen L. Mauldin: I think science and art are very similar at heart. They are both a search for meaning. The sciences seek demonstrable facts about the universe,
would you tell us how do you consider the relationship between Science and Art?
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whereas the arts seek the truths behind reality. It might even be suggested that the sciences are the mind of mankind, while the arts are its soul.
someone drew my attention to it. I found that fascinating…that the universe resembles a brain. If that’s not food for thought, nothing is. I just want my work to move people. If something completely different from what I intended moves them, that’s just fine with me.
With their unique multilayered visual quality, your artworks highlight contours of known reality in an unknown world, to invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. 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?
Another project of yours that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is your Poles/Dipoles series, a stimulating body of works that deals with the optical mixing of color. We have been fascinated with the way your new works invites the viewers to extract such unique aesthetic value: is there special state of mind that you need in order to make your aesthetic decisions? Stephen L. Mauldin: I can’t say that there is. My work has always been more a product of the mind, rather than the heart or gut (which is not to say that work that does originate there is any less valuable). Consequently, my work is usually well planned from the beginning and aesthetic decisions in process are limited. I think all artists who work for any length of time soon learn that one can’t wait for inspiration or special states of mind to arrive. One simply goes into the studio every day and continues to work.
Stephen L. Mauldin: I learned long ago that it’s futile to try to convey an exact meaning in a painting. No matter how precise a meaning one tries to create, the viewer will always bring their unique reality to bear on it. In fact, I often find viewer’s interpretations of my work far more interesting than what I was trying to convey. You mentioned earlier the web inspired by the distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the early universe in some of the paintings. It was inspired by two computergenerated images I saw in Science News magazine comparing the distribution of galaxies in the early universe with the distribution of dark matter. Brains never crossed my mind. It was viewers, almost to a person, who saw that web as neurons in the brain. Of course, I saw it too, as soon as
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The really fun part of working with this little mark made by slinging paint at the canvas as hard as I can, is that it takes so much concentration and is so challenging that I achieve the “flow” state very time I paint now. As you probably know, the “flow” state is what psychologists call the frame of mine that occurs when people are working at the peak of their abilities. For athletes it
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The downside is that the viewer can’t converse with the artist as one can in a gallery context. Viewers online rarely engage an artist to the degree you have in this interview.
usually manifests as a slowing of time, of things seeming to be in slow motion. For artists, it usually manifests as a complete suspension of time. That’s what happens for me; I go into the studio, work for what seems like fifteen or twenty minutes, then look at my watch to discover that five hours have passed. It’s just that I have to be so focused that time slips away.
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Stephen. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
You are an established artist and over the years your artworks have been showcased in several occasions, including eleven solo exhibitions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Direct relationship with the viewers in a physical context is definetely the most important one, in order to snatch the spirit of a work of Art. However, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
Stephen L. Mauldin: I would like to thank you, as well, for showing so much interest in my work and asking such probing questions about it. As for where the work is going, the first thing on the agenda is to finish the “IMP” and “PREIMP” series. I have eight more pieces to go in the “IMP” series and thirty-two in the “PREIMP” series. They happen simultaneously and should take about eight months to complete. After that, I intend to do a series or two based on studies I did about twelve years ago dealing with more biological imagery where the energetic little mark functions more like flagella on microorganisms.
Stephen L. Mauldin: Up close and personal is always the best way to experience art, but also the most limiting in terms of how many people can view it. Similarly, being able to interact with viewers face to face is always the most rewarding. However, I must say that the online platforms for viewing art are quite exciting. I’m represented on several of these platforms and it’s really exciting to know that people all over the world are viewing my work and “liking” it. For some reason, I seem to be very popular in Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and China. Go figure. These platforms have allowed me to sell art as far away as Australia, as well, which I doubt I would have done in the old gallery system.
We’ll see. Some new idea may pop up in the meantime.
An interview by and
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, curator curator
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