ART Habens Art Review // Special Edition

ART H A B E N S

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

BERNARD HESLIN MACIEJ DURSKI O.YEMI TUBI PHIL MCKAY MARISSA WEATHERHEAD MBENG POUKA MARIA BOLKOWSKA TERI ANDERSON POLY MAX

A r t

R e v i e w

ART

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

Aaron Higgins Bernard Heslin

Malgorzata Oakes Maria Bolkowska

Marissa Weatherhead Wasim Zaid Habashneh Maciej O. YemiDurski Tubi

Mbeng Pouka

Poly Max

USA Kingdom United

Poland Poland

Jordan USA

France

Belarus / Israel

Investigating timeThe figures inhabased media as an biting my paintings artform are not sothrough much lens-based capture actual portraits as methods, digital participants in the compositing recurring events and techniques, and patterns of history, interactivity, involving us allIin the explore abstracting same human source material into experiences, hopes aesthetic and despairs. expressions that Orfocus frommore theiron own, experience than perhaps far off, time representation. they are simply marking their This body work presence as of part of ais composited collective memory. together from It photos is our own and video experiences taken in thebring Tallthem toPrairie life and these grass experiences Preserve ofare, the in their turn, Osage, inare enlivened by them.

Oklahoma.

paintings Inspired by my Euro- My An Artist andpartiAdvocate My my pallette In art, I am Coming fromhave an a point, they pean upbringing, depends from a lot of reference for the world’s Peace. cularly fascinated by architectural from theI’ve personal. the process of aspects like.

Whatlite- stem culture, travels, background born, There is had no set process Nigerian kind of collection of rature, close contact always great creating painting American trained or starting point to any paintings I am with nature, I initiate admiration for art matter. Constant Artist, O. Yemi Tubi making, whatalla the mood work, each painting or in my work working is an act of and the conceptual Ivalues have, what kind ofto piece evolves through residing in United introduced thinking processes purest, artistic Kingdom is an artist subject I paint, its own process. me as ado child. involved in it. expression, which is even what to kind of with creative and I attempt include why I never plan the ItAn begins from aaspect unique music do I listen personal style. important my childhood final appearance of an moment in the present during my work. But that influenced me memories, elements develops or evolves art piece. I can not usually my pallette is and was the multicultural Most of his recent of the past, turning over time but define most of the paintings were very dynamic and background I’ve them new I ultimately has visions transferred influenced by political stronginto because developedtoover the components a point of and ontosocial canvas, only with upheaval of think it is partand of my reference years while living experiences.

I also memory and emotion our time, thanks to and personality. Every world today abroad which address global painting is very con- that gives rise to a ambiguous titles, I enriched my cultural the works of the cerns suchand as finding reaction. subjective Renaissance artists. clarify the message dosage and led me to a way to cope with personalized that is while maintaining the He does not like It is this play between why you can see partI create my own emotional trauma; element of mystery artworks just for memory and emotion fusion of those of painter souldrastic in his speak about anyways. My butcreative to that is the catalyst for decoration work. Youofcan all cultures. changes thesee global work goes towards evoke feelings.

O. an these pieces, for the happyness, warming or slowly Yemi uses his works patch of to As I always say: “an accidental memory evokes sadness and sarrow disappearing trees in emotion, artist is a prisoner to speak colour,passionately which forms and these on canvas it has local areasand that I his imagination, jail about partlythe figurative issues that areas can be big influance on travel to or reside at. disquieting. shapes. with no chains”. touch his heart. paiters pallette.

The diversification of my art enables me to reach out to people’s minds and engage them in better understanding about the world we live in. Much of my work draws on the environmental transformations that are happening in the world and the effect that these changes have on mankind and nature. The vibrant aspect and diversity of each painting brings alive the subject to the viewer. Many people, from young to old, have been captured and amazed by both the content and energy of my paintings in past exhibitions.

Poly has been considered a rising star in the Israeli art world. Today he lives in Tel Aviv with his partner, whom he calls "my guardian angel." She was the one who pushed him toward the painting, and even bought him his first canvas. Poly paints oil and acrylic on canvas, and his paintings are characterized by fantastic worlds that develop while observing them.

Some of his paintings are identified by the red ball that appears as a recurring motif between the paintings.

Poland United Kingdom

In this issue

Poly Max Maciej Durski

Maria Bolkowska Marissa Weatherhead

O. Yemi Tubi (MOYAT)

Mbeng Pouka Teri Anderson

Elise Broadway

United Kingdom

USA / United Kingdom

Teri Anderson creates work that looks into the idea of craft in art, textiles, installation and sculpture to create a linear or surreal environment which the audience have to inhabit. The work links to her heritage and how textiles were key in their family history including sample machinists and pattern cutters.

Building on this Teri proposes an art practise which incorporates a craft based techniques into the art based discipline of installation.

In exploring the concept of "decolonization of the colonizer”, I am interested in examining and reframing idealization of American western expansion throughout the 19th and 20th centuries (eg.

Manifest Destiny, "Winning the West"), illustrating discrepancies between the collective history of the “insider" vs. the exclusionary visual rhetoric employed to alienate the “outsider" experience, and the dangers of romanticizing the dominant group's history.

Elise Broadway Teri Anderson

Bernard Heslin

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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

Dj of colors

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Poly Max

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Poly and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background: as a completely self-taught artist, are there any particular experiences that did influence the evolution of your artistic sensitiveness? Moreover, how does the relationship between your Belarusian roots and your current life in Israel direct the trajectory of your artistic research?

Hello,first of all I am very happy and honored to be selected for your magazine, From a very small age I loved exploring colors and shades such as buildings, trees, leaves, sky, sand clouds and so on, for example when I was staring at a rainbow in the sky, I was fascinated for hours.

I always tried to find out where one shade ends, and another starts, and then I would discover a million different shades. to this day i automatically translate words and phrases that people speak to something picturesque, the same with music - every sound and every song is translated into a visual story and then all that left for me is to find the character and just transfer it on to the canvas, In time I began to create characters to emotions and mental state, or instead of a simple figure to paint the emotion in a different color. There is no specific experience that reflects my artistic sensitivity - art is like a sign language through which one communicates with the world around them. As an autodidact, I communicate with the world in a way that I

Poly Max

have taught myself. One who went to study communicates with the world in a more "acceptable" way, like one who did not learn reading and writing and one who studied literature both can speak but one of them can speak more beautiful or "acceptable" the other will speak Perhaps in a more unique but less "acceptable" way - but both will be able to convey the message. My roots were cut off

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The parallel universe

28 years ago from Belarus and only recently I started to grow them in Israel there is no influence on my art The only influence on my art is people, places and situations that I am in..

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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

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Poly Max

way you sapiently combined delicate tones with abstract feeling: would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? Moreover, do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist?

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We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way your pallette shows that vivacious tones are not strictly indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette?

And how much 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 a texture?

As I said earlier my work can be affected by a number of things, like memories or places or situations that i were in or wanted to be in. I just paint it on canvas, I have great respect for abstract and I had a period when I painted only in that style But I began to feel that it was not enough, that I lacked something and that the observer did not quite understand the meaning of the work. And when someone told me "I would buy it but it does not suit me for the couch" It broke me a bit. But at the same time, it made me think what else I could do for the observer to be simpler to understand my work. Most of the local audience does not really know where and what to look at when they are facing the piece.

As I said, I am a great fan of colors and I very much like to combine shades. Every shade gives me a different feeling. So for every feeling I give her color. My inner world is very extreme. An unshakable peace that is painted in light blue and pale purple. And a storm of emotions painted red and yellow and orange.

Or when I am in period of love for a certain color, for example I had a fairly long period of green color so all the backgrounds were shades of green- anemic and a little gray, for the last two years in my life I have a lot of good things and exciting so I use a lot of bright colors.

Sometimes it is very frustrating. So, I decided to combine figures with abstract. I paint the emotion in the form of a person and in a situation and then paint the energies that the image radiates in colors and random bursts which is the abstract part. I am a great fan of colors and I very much like to combine shades. Every shade gives me a different feeling. So, for every feeling I give its color.

What combines all my creations is that they are a kind of diary I manage. All my desires and thoughts or things I've been through or want to go through. Everything I draw. My desires and thoughts are not much different from other people so there is always someone who connects to this or that piece..

My love for the textures in general began at the same time when I started to paint with a brush after a few works on canvas I began to feel that the work became a little banal, flat and lacking some touch of something interesting, and then I began to experiment with the fabric - with glue and sawdust, cement, Newspapers, molding paste, etc.

Since I also know that the canvas will take everything, I really like works that have some texture that adds to the creation. My contemporary works are also textured, but of a different kind in my work I invest more in the image and not in the background. All my backgrounds are just guidelines without a lot of detail in them. I usually work with a trowel

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building buildings

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welcome to the new studio on the second flor Special Issue

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Do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces?

In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your artistic practice?

Sometimes I have a picture in my head for a few days or even weeks it gets to such levels that it is really bothers me to sleep so I have to get it out of my head, all the time the picture is in the head is already building itself, all the details and shades. And then when I stretch the canvas and I'm ready to paint on it all I have left is to take the picture out of my head and move it on to the canvas. So, it is quite spontaneous - even though if you will think about it, it really is not. But there are such pieces for example, when I want something to come true. Like the work "Welcome to the studio on the second floor" then I start to think how I will see it? Who do I see there, where is this place? And then intuitively I choose the colors and at the end of which I can really know what I really feel about the piece am I happy, sad Or I'm very excited and want this thing to come true or I'm anxious about it or I'm a bit depressed about it. According to the colors that the subconscious chooses, many things can be known.

We like the way Painting my thoughts and The parallel universe reflect the complexity of the inner world: in this sense, we daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim 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 for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

to be someone mind

every time one color. I go over all the lines with the different colors, so the texture is very dependent on the amount of colors on the canvas. On average there are up to 12 colors in the painting, so the thickness of the texture goes out very thick.

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Abstract 1

It is Very important to me; my art is this kind of sign language that means to communicate with the world. It's the same weight as talking about people with all their heart and

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they just do not listen to you and it's very offensive so yes, it's very important for me to invite the viewers to discuss. At the same time, I really like to challenge the viewer. That

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not everything will be understood and perfectly clear. There is always a thin line between clear and less clear. Imagine getting up every morning and seeing exactly the

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same picture, it can boring or even annoying or worst not to be noticed at all. The end of these works is to be in storage and collect dust. I like when a piece speaks and transmits

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to something new every time. All you need is Just to direct a bit the viewer with the figurative part. And then let the imagination do its part with the abstract part that causes the brain to see new things all the time.

creating such an oniric atmosphere: how would you consuder the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

Some of your artworks as Artist and curator and Dj of colors seems seem to draw directly from your experience: would you tell us your sources of inspiration? In particular, how importance does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?

I paint just as I speak. Sometimes it is very difficult for me to explain myself and most people understand me not in a clear way or don’t understand me at all. I invent myself and my language every time so that I will be comfortable talking to others and it will be clearer to understand me. That is why the combination of figurative and abstract work so well for me, I can simply explain beter what is going in my mind.

As I mentioned before, I paint my thoughts, my desires, and my experiences. And here comes the more interesting part. I really wanted my works to be sold at auctions. I did not really believe it, but I really wanted to. So I decided to paint it because at some point it started to bother me. And when the work was finished it did not take long and wonderfully I connected to the owner of an auction house that sells my work and to this day we work together. The same story whit the "d.j. of colors" for a long time I wanted to paint on the same stage with a D.J. that I love very much. He is very famous, and it seemed impossible to get to the point that I will paint with him on the same stage, it really was just a dream. I had no friends or connections who were in the same field with this D.J. and When it happened and I actually painted on the same stage ' during the set - it was the most exciting party I ever had in my life. And if you ask me what's going on here? How it possible? I have no clear answer other than that the universe arranges everything.

Creating a work of art after having conceived it is an intense physical experience that reveals not only the results of the efforts of the artist, but also a state of being. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": how do you consider the physical aspect of your practice?

The physical aspect is less significant in my eyes, it is actually the product of a mental aspect - this is the more significant and difficult part, as an artist after the creation in my mind - Most of the process goes through there, as I mentioned before. After I created the work at the head all the proses goes tru there, and then all that left is to transfer it to the canvas., Usually after the work is ready in the head there will be no physical difficulty in passing it as I imagined and build it on canvas.

I think that Gerhard Richter was accurate in what he said. In my opinion the artists, after we have thought it out in our heads, after seeing it in our minds, the physical process

We like the way you artworks as Inner beauty and Day dream convey such a stimulating combination between figurative elements and captivating abstract feeling,

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will come easily, and it will be inevitable as he said. no creation should be stuck only in the head it has to become a physical creation.

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relatively small piece in my style then I sent the canvas to another artist to Portugal. This artist according to the idea should complete my painting in his style and send the canvas to another artist and so on. The goal is that the canvas will cross around the world and return to me. then the canvas will eventually be starched and displayed in one of the galleries under the name of those artists who participated in the project. The project is nonprofit, what I want is to show that all artists in the world speaks the same language

Over the recent years you have been considered a rising star in the Israeli art world and we have appreciated the way your artworks establish deep involvement with the viewers: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

In my art I talk about everyday things that are understood by each of us, about human desires. And how every minute during our day is beautiful and attractive. I'm just trying to paint these minutes in colors, I'm not just talking about it I draw it and anyone can identify with it. My relationship with my audience is simple, understandable and I feel that the audience understands it and appreciates it. I would very much like people to look at the world, not in black and white, and not in good or bad perspectives, and it is permissible for every dark one to add bleach and to each color to add shade. Our desires and possibilities have no limit, we just have to dare.

And by our art we can understand each other.

The second project I'm working on is a motorcycle ride around Europe. Where I will record the entire journey with cameras. On the journey itself I will visit artists from all corners of Europe. I'm very intrigued to hear what they're talking about how they live and survive on their art (I think a lot of artist are actually just surviving from their art – it is not easy to make a living from it) and what art is for them.

I would very much like to visit old caves and see ancient paintings. Because I'm sure that right there a history of world art begins. Also, lately I have been very preoccupied with documental video art and in the future, I intend to investigate it more deeply.

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

And in addition to everything I try to make a living only from my art. I do not know what is waiting for me on the way and if I ever manage to do it. But that's all the beauty of life it filled with surprises.

An interview by

Not long ago I started an international project called "crossing the world – Poly's art challenge" I toke a large canvas and drew a

and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in Żary, Poland

Maciej Durski – a Polish visual artist and abstract painter. In his art, he examines the formal possibilities of two-dimensional work. He puts the greatest emphasis on its colours, composition and structure. His works are in the collection of the Gallery Quadrillion situated in Warsaw which was founded by Carmen Tarcha. Artistic achievements include both individual and group exhibitions. Creative experiments are significantly influenced by trips to Italy and Norway (eg. the plein-air in Tuscany organized by Carmen Tarcha, 2018) Special Issue

Dust (detail), 2018, oil on canvas, 120 x170x 4,5 cm 021 4

Maciej Durski

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Special Issue Black, 2017, oil on canvas, 72x103 cm

Maciej Durski

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Maciej and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background: are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum due to your studies in Sociology direct the trajectory of your artistic research?

I decided to study sociology because of my curiosity. I never intended to work in this scientific profession. I was rather interested in acquiring knowledge and experience that will bring me closer to the environment in which I live. Studies did not affect my work and never had. They were a separate path in my life. If you're asking about a special moment that had an influence on what I'm doing, I'd rather say it was a mixture of several dozen or even several hundred moments. This may be surprising, but despite appearances, what I do is strongly related to nature and what I see around me. It does not comment the surrounding environment in a narrow and global social sense. What interests me and wonders the most in the outside world is how a coincidence affects the creation of a work. This is very inspiring and I think it is the axis of my research.

A specific starting point for a more sophisticated processes.

Maciej Durski

revealing such a coherent combination between intuition and rigorous: we would like to invite our readers to visit http://maciejdurski.pl in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist.

We have appreciated the way the results of your artistic research explore the relationship between colours, composition and structure,

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Maciej Durski

Szum, 2018, oil on plate, 210 x 74 x 2 cm

I think or actually know, that the meaning of the coincidence and the attempt to use it in the process of image creation is extremely important for me. This is not an expressive approach in which gesture takes the dominant role.

starter from which everything goes into thoughtful and quite meticulous action. It does not appear only at the beginning but continues throughout the creation of the image until its completion.

So after a month of work on the details of a given part of the painting the former layers of painted matter can be revealed.

The randomness of spots and lines is rather a starting point for further work, it is a kind of

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Maciej Durski

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 sapiently combined delicate tones with abstract feeling, as in the interesting The Black one, a captivating artwork that as at once impressed for the way it communicates joyful

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sensation: would you tell us your sources of inspiration? How did you conceive this interesting work?

Black as a large part of my images does not resemble the original project. In the original form, it was created in a completely different composition and had a twice larger format. I know that changing the composition on the

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Maciej Durski

Naked, 2017, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 cm

image is something not typical.

While working on a 140 cm high and 100 wide plate - the composition set vertically led me to

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extreme uncontrollable emotions. With the next approach, I changed the position of the image and my work began to move forward. In

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Maciej Durski

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Raid, 2017, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 cm

the final phase, when the picture was actually finished, I decided to discover some of its underpainted layers. Which led to a change in

the composition and then to the intersection of the image in a half - that's how the Black and Ginger were created.

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Maciej Durski

Game, 2017, oil on canvas,75 x 75 cm

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way Door and Dust show that vivacious tones are not strictly indespensable to create

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tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you

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Ginger, 2017, oil on canvas, 70 Issue 103 cm Special

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Maciej Durski

Special Issue Dust (detail), 2018, oil on canvas, 120 x170x 4,5 cm

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Bazyl, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

decide to include in an artwork and in

I have a strong focus on details, as it creates a

particular, how do you develope a texture?

texture that arises in a very diverse way. There

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Maciej Durski

Door, 2017, oil on canvas, 84 x 194 cm

are fragments applied thickly, built with a glaze and these revealing layers already covered, as I explained before. Actually, at the stage of building details, there are no restrictions on the use of the technique. Problems appear at the stage of the composition, WHICH IS NOT LIKE RULES FOR ME, BUT CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A

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SETTING OF CERTAIN FORMS AND COLORS IN SPECIFIC CANVAS FRAGMENTS. This leads to covering these whole ready-made parts of the painting that I hoped were ready. Let me introduce you to the case of Dust. In the initial phase, the whole image was covered with a very strong texture, which was gradually

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painted over. It was different from Door - the painting was made in another time and another studio, a few years earlier than Dust. Not only has it been finished with a great deal of artistic freedom, knowing that something will stay in the studio forever gives you more slack. What is surprising, it very found a buyer very quickly.

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As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your creative work goes towards an accidental patch of colour, which forms partly figurative shapes: how importance does everyday life's experience ― including your travels in Italy and Norway ― play in your

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Maciej Durski

Aquarium, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm

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creative process? Could mention a work that has been inspired by a particular experience?

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providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. How important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And what do you hope that your audience take away from your artworks?

I am afraid that I will not find such a great dependence between specific events and images that would be directly deriving from them. If I am inspired by what I see or what happens to me, it translates rather into the whole of the expression in many works rather than in any one particular picture. Every situation leads me to formal solutions such as discovering new materials or techniques not always coming from the studio. The image of The Field was created, for example, in Norway, not in the studio but in the mountains in a small hut. I did not intend to paint anything, and that is why I did not bring paints and other materials with me. However, a few weeks without brushes was unbearable. In the utility room, I found a few pieces of plasterboard used for the construction of partition walls and paints and brushes that remained after the renovation of the cottage. It turned out that you do not have to use the best materials to be able to create something. The lack of small brushes provoked me to bring life to other tools, too. And the speed of drying wall paints forced to very fast work based on a gesture. The whole was screwed with black screws to a wooden frame and although it looked quite hard, it was unstable because the plaster after soaking with water practically disintegrates in hands. It has been eight years since I created my work it still looks amazing.

If anyone would like to start looking for the "something really deep" in my work, I am afraid that he would not be able to find anything. My message and idea is simple. I express emotions using not complicated forms and hoping that the means of expression that I use, will allow viewers to feel similarly. That's all.

A few years ago when I was in Norway, I had a great journey with my friend sculptor Sverre Wyller. He received a present - it was a sculpture that looked like a perfectly symmetrical hull of a ship made of steel already covered with red rust. It was maybe 1.5 m long and 40 m high, just as wide and terribly heavy. A beautiful object. We took the sculpture deep into a completely wild forest as far as it was possible to enter and then we took it perhaps a kilometre into a complete wilderness and set it on a small meadow covered with moss. In this environment, this symmetrical object looked very strange. Our action took us all day. When we finished, Sverre said - ,,It was hard but you can imagine the face of who will accidentally find my object here?� We have never come and saw our installation again. I still do not know if anyone got there but I think that in art it's about trying to draw the attention of other people through simple objects, forms, colours and sometimes even content, but not exaggerated - to evoke emotions in them, which is not present in other places.

We like the way Ginger and Black convey the idea of movement: we daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface,

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Maciej Durski

Zaha, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

Windy, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

Some of your paintings have subtle figurative features, as Naked and Aquarium: how would you consuder the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

can not defend myself against it.

It is a balans somehow, right from the definition. Abstract art was always deriving from reality.

Your artworks have often ambiguous titles, that allow you to clarify the message while maintaining the element of mystery: how do you go about naming your work ? In particular, is important for you to tell something that might walk the viewers through their visual experience?

Figurative elements in what I am doing are probably the result of the inability to detach from what is real.

The greater part of the image is created as an abstraction. I work then on the color, texture, composition, etc. but there always comes a moment when the shapes in the image begin to remind me of those from the real world and I

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The titles are the final stage of my work. They are needed but without them the picture would not cease to exist. The title is just an addition, which in some cases does not just guide the

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Pilgrim, oil on canvas, 130 x 95 cm

Tangled, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm

Powoli, 2017, oil on canvas, 2017

Maciej Durski

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right path, but rather does not allow you to choose the wrong one. When I worked on the image of Noise, for example, I did not come to the end with the abstract character of this image.

I enjoy it very much because it allows me to work on the pure form. However, when you are approaching the end, you still have some forms in front of you and it arouses your associations.

Noise evoked in me a picture of the disturbance on the television with an analogue signal. It was always accompanied by noise - that's it. The title Bazyl, for instance, is more personal and anyone who does not know me cannot see the meaning.

Here is the story: in the upper left corner the face of the dog appeared - Dobermann - whom I had then and whose name was Bazyl. Nothing complex.

exhibitions, including your recent solo at the

Artist Lydia Dona once remarked that in order to make paintings today one has to reevaluate the conceptual language behind the mechanism of painting: as an artist who never plan the final appearance of an art piece, are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas?

We have appreciated the originality of your

Gallery Quadrillion, in Warsaw: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

Exhibitions are an important and necessary element of every artist's activity. They allow you to break away from your own perception of what you are working on and confronting the recipient. Of course, there are theories or attitudes about the lack of meaning of the recipient but they seem insincere. Thus, meetings with the recipient provide new information and incentives, some of them are positive, some not exactly, but both are undoubtedly necessary and valuable.

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

My works do not change overnight, which is why

If I use a gesture, then it is never an end in itself, and certainly, there is no ideological meaning in it. It is a way to apply a layer of paint that gives a graphic effect. Sometimes you need to take sandpaper and a contact sander in your hand to make it a little more precise or to reveal previous layers of paint. Thanks to such actions, I lead to the final effect - I decide what remains and what disappears in the final image.

I've also quite recently taken up sculptures. I hope to show this part of my work along with the pictures at the earliest opportunity.

Thank you for the conversation.

Translation: Paulina Brelińska , curator

An interview by

Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of group and individuale

and

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curator

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Lives and works in Częstochowa and Krakow,Poland

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Maria Bolkowska

ART Habens

video, 2013

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Maria Bolkowska

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Maria and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background: you have a solid formal trainng and you studied at the Jan Długosz University in Czestochowa: how did these formative years influence your evolution as an artist?

Moreover, do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist?

From my young age I was connected with art. My favorite technique was drawing but I was also interested in photography, paintings and sculpture.

It started as an hobby and I was making it for fun for my friends and family. I was selling it for 1 penny (because in Poland it is custom that you can not give your work for free, because it bring bad luck so you have to take any symbolic money for it).

Maria Bolkowska

little bit force me to do it. I was 12 back then. I was not planinng to go to art school so I went to general high school but I did not forget about art and I tested my skills in anothesr contest and I won, again. Wich was very suprising for me. After graduation I had 1 year breack. In

Then I won my first art contest with distinction by accident. Because I was not even planing to participate in it but my mum took me on place and a

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Maria Bolkowska

London I was working as baby sitter because I wanted to learn english more and then start my studys in linguistic field. But in last days I change my mind and I took my documents and try to get to Art University. After 5 step exams I pass. It was shock for me because competition was very strong. Studys gave me great opportunety to try my artistic abillitys on deferent level. I practice drawing, anathomy, painting, photography, wall painting, graphics, sculpture, ceramic and many many more. After a while me (and my teachers) notice that I had predisposition in oil paintings especially humans and portraits. What is central idea of my work? It is hard to say to be honest. I would just say:” it is emotionthe feeling”. Inspiration In one hand could be crying child and the other blooming tree or shadow on the evening building. I would be very glad if my work make any influence on the person who will be looking at them.

Someone said that „picture is worth a thousand words” and I think I agree with that. Even our times prove that theory, because we are living in world of pictures- Internet, Facebook, Instagram it is all digital pictures but it should not replace our connection with art in

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special place like – gallery.

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 sapiently combined delicate tones with abstract feeling: would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? How do you usually conceive your artworks?

My art process? First I have to come up with an idea (inspiration), what kind of collection I would like to make (what kind of topic, techniuqe, colours, what kind of format etc.). Then I have to (if that is a portrait) find models and then I start to sketch. It could be someone I know, like friend and family or someone strange. I am skatching everywhere I can, at my work, in coffee shop or at house party. When I have a sketch and concept then I am starting to make sketch on bigger format on canvas by oil.

Sometimes the idea on paper is good enought to make it on canvas but somtimes final painting is completely deferent from the sketch because concept on paper look good but on bigger format on canvas, not so much.

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Maria Bolkowska

ART Habens

happyness, sadness and sarrow on canvas and it has big influance on paiters pallette.

So basically it look like: idea-->sketch on paper-->oil sketch on canvas--> final painting. With other subjects it look exacly the same (landscape, still nature...).

Do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your artistic practice?

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way your pallette shows that vivacious tones are not strictly indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much 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 a texture?

I think, I do A LOT instictively but back ground for it is practicing, practicing and practicing. In my case I had to make a lot of mistake to make something right but it is process of learning, am I right? And as I mention before instinctively you know what king of technique you should use. And only from your mood depends what kind of colours and expression you will need on canvas.

About my pallette it depends from a lot of aspects like. What kind of collection of paintings I am making, what a mood I have, what kind of subject do I paint, even what kind of music do I listen during my work. But usually my pallette is very dynamic and strong because I think it is part of my personality. Every painting is very subjective and personalized that is why you can see part of painter soul in his work. You can see all the

Would you tell us your sources of inspiration? In particular, how importance does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?

My inspiration? It is people, interesting places, music....It could be everything. For my bigest collection the topic is masks. I was always interested in Venice's Masks (how to

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Maria Bolkowska

make it and techniques) but not only.

My clowns where inspired by Stańczyk.

It is Polish historicial clown on Polish royal court. He was very wise, intelligent and brave figure.

He was daring to put against the will even to Polish kings and show them the week spots of decisions for Polish nation. His figure was inspiration for other great paiter Jan Matejko and his paintings was inspiration for me.

But during painting this collection „Masks” one of my great idols past away – Michael Jackson. So my idea was to make a memorial of him and make a few paintings dedicate to him. I thought that he was wearing few „masks” as well. So as you can see my isnpiration is very deferent. My models are somtimes my friends and family. I take inspiration from my life. I love people and they are my biggest motivation to work.

We daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim 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 for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular,

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how open would you like your works to be understood?

I think that paitings in general are very subjective. So my paintings for me have different meaning than for somebody else. I would like that my painting has any kind of influence on people lives. Good or bad, the worst opinion for me is no reaction at all.

We like the way you artworks convey such a stimulating combination between figurative elements and captivating abstract feeling, creating such an oniric atmosphere: how would you consuder the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

As you know I have the knowlegde of history of art from prehistory to our time. But influence in abstract and figurative style in my work was more instinctivley than calculation creation process. I was more focused on expression of my artistic idea. I was trying to combine abstract emotion with showing beatiful of human face and body.

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Maria Bolkowska

Your artworks often include

symbols and reminders to the dream-

elements rich of symbolic elements

like dimension in your imagery?

and references to the realm of

Yes, symbolism is very important to

imagination: would you tell us

me. Jan Matejko and Zdzisław

something about the importance of

Beksiński they were 2 of my top Polish

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and different for everyone and that makes it so unique and priceless.

painters and I must confest that I was inspared by them. I am using a lot of symbols. F.e. I am using clown – figure which suppose to be happy as an oxymoron. My clowns are sad, nostalgic and full of pain but calm and accepting their fate.

Every opinion is wery important for me and it giving me different point of view and motivation to paint.

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

We have appreciated the way your artworks establish deep involvement with the viewers: over the years your hand-painted stopmotion videos have been installed at several locations and your recent solo exhibitions include your participation to the group show "Portraits”, at The Brick Lane Gallery, in London. How do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

Recently, I was working with adviceing my friends about wall painting in theirs club. But it was only helping with projects and advicing.

About my future I have idea for a few paitings under the titule:”Kings&Queens”. It will be collection of paintings dedicated big stars of movie and music. Such as: Elvis Presley, Merylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Michael Jackson but in new unusual and modern way.

Of course the viewers are very important for me and exhibitions give me oportunety to speak with them.

The most interesting thing for me (when I am speaking with them) is that they are seeing something deferent that I did. F.e. For somone one painting is very cheerful when for me is hard and depressing. But as I mention before Art is very subjective

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Only the Birds Sing 24x30 cm

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Marissa Weatherhead

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video, 2013

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Marissa Weatherhead

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Marissa and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background.

You have a solid formal training and after having earned your BA (Hons) in Painting from The Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham, you nurtured your education with a MA in Painting and Fine Art, that you received from the prestigious Royal College of Art, in London: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does you multifaceted cultural substratum due to your residences in Italy and in Spain direct the trajectory of your current artistic research?

Hello ART Habens.

My years at Art College were hugely influential in my development as an artist and gave me access to art history, a self questioning and discovery that I still experience today.

I believe a quote by Philip Guston has particular relevance for me “When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you-your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics…and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you’re really painting YOU walk out” For many years I did feel as if I was in the studio painting with ‘a lot of people’. I was finding it difficult to focus on my own language. I was looking around me, absorbing, taking things in without listening to myself or directing my own creativity in a positive way.

Marissa Weatherhead

tiny memory slice of Art College days. The luxury of time to create was foremost at college and by taking up a residency it enabled me space to consider my practise and explore varied ideas and application in response to my timed geographical situation.

My final residence in Spain last year produced an outpouring of work and I made over 130 paintings and drawings.It was a time of total

A few years ago I decided to apply for an art residency I went on four separate residencies in Spain and Italy over two years which gave me a

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indulgence and I am still working through the declarations that took shape in Spain.

We have appreciated the way the results of your artistic inquiry convey such a coherent combination between intuition and a rigorous aesthetics, and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.marissaweatherhead.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all your works.

Yes absolutely there is a central idea. I have days and months when I struggle to find resolution and similarly have moments when I feel as if I can’t paint fast enough.

You mention walking and I think the easiest analogy is to say its like following a path that has no final destination , its all about the journey and the moment on that path. There is the history left behind from the direction you take take which sometimes deviates, fades or struggles uphill.

Sometimes its comparable to stopping to examine the pebbles on the path or the bushes beside it, to take in the surrounding landscape, sit on a bench and do nothing but then the urge to travel overtakes everything and movement resumes. The past plays an important part of the present for me.

My own relationships and experiences are core to my working process, they are the catalyst. It is the essence of emotion triggered by memory that creates an evaluation.. For example; I am walking along my path carrying a rucksack full of objects, stuff , memories that I have collected through time, my life and something falls out of that rucksack to trigger an emotional response that I try to overlay onto a piece of work.

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

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The Wind Blows 15x20cm 21 4 06

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We Three 60x80cm Special Issue

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introductory pages of this article has captured our attention for the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of you sapiently combined, and in particular we have appreciated the way Look Away Now shows that vivacius tones are not indespensable in order to create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in particular, how do you develop a texture?

There is a direct link with mood and colour association which I automatically respond to.

The palette I use is spontaneous and works best without too much analysis, as a result some of the paintings go through dramatic colour changes as an image is changed moved or eradicated. These pieces can become so textured through image overworking that I abandon or discard them. There is no doubt that certain colours have a sense of familiarity and others I find much harder to work with. You mentioned the painting “Look away now’ which has yellow in it and yellow is one of those colours that exists in my world of creativity as a positive but doesn't hold the same values in my living space.

Each of your paintings have a specific and distinct genesis, that lead each artwork to evolves through its own process. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your process has reference to a point of memory and emotion that gives rise to a reaction. How do you consider the role of memory, as a crystallization of everyday life's experience playing within your process and how does your daily life fuel your work as an artist?

Emotion is central to my creativity, it is intangible like a memory or reflection but not invisible and has the ability to create a virtual reality that can distort the truth with fragments

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The View From Here 18x24cm

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Woman, Unrecognisable to Myself 100x90 cm

Woman Alone 120x100 cm

and layering. It takes threads and weaves them together to form a fabric as in a dream or nightmare. Some of which can seem so real upon wakening but are mere imaginings, a reaction to memory and emotion. We all have a past and can find overlapping emotions and situations, but mine can only relate to my perspective and experience in the world as a woman. this is not to say that I can only create a dialogue with the feminine, far from it.

create repeats itself over the years and shifts in emphasis. The emotion is real and the situation once was however these memories are currently manipulated and exaggerated, they exist in another reality like a reflection in a pool of water. It is this pool my creativity swims in.

The theme of female naked body is particularly recurrent in your imagery and far from being a mere representation, it reflects such an indepht exploration of the realm of emotions: how do you consider the role of symbolically charged images and evokative figures playing within

The male is always present, he has to be., we can all laugh cry, give pain or succour. The dialogue I

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Cocoon 160x100 cm

I said Nothing 40x30 cm

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My Eve 160x100 cm

Weave Woman 40x30 cm

your creative process? In particular, how do you consider the relationship between the evokative power of symbols and memory?

candid presentation. However I prefer to relate my process to association rather than symbolism. To me symbolism implies a staged, or planned view, while association talks about variants and is more open to chance..“Francis Bacon recalled of the painting Soldier, Spectre, Shaman: The Figure of the second World War that he initially set out to make a painting depicting a bird of prey landing on

I think the process of expressing the invisible by means of visible or sensuous representations as a creative process is key.The naked female has references to a vulnerable, unmasked and

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Like a Bird amongst the Branches 24x30 cm

a field, but that chance and a few stray marks led him down an unintended path�

element of an unintended union or misplaced marks that can give rise to a powerful expression that if often the most exciting.

Of course direct associations give an immediate conclusion for example does red imply tomato ketchup, jam or blood? Put it beside a piece of toast a plate of chips or a figure the association has a different conclusions. But it is the chance

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With their powerful narrative drive, you artworks convey such a stimulating combination between figurative elements and captivating abstract feeling, whose background

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creates such an oniric atmosphere: how would you consuder the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

These pieces can often start with a very figurative element and evolve over time into more abstracted pieces depending on various parameters and components. A painting can be in the studio worked up to a certain state and then one day I will look at it and realise that it doesn't have the coherency or value that I feel it needs, it is an intuitive response and requires a visceral application, either tightening its format or cutting lose to enable a sense of possibilities rather than actualities.

It's important to remark that you work in series: is there a channel of communication between each of your paintings? Do you think that a series could be considered as a storyboard of a more universal artistic discourse that goes beyond the nature of the single artwork?

The process of working in a series allows a group of ideas and images to flourish at the same time, interacting with each other as in a discussion. It gives me the freedom to push paintings and ideas in different directions allowing new thoughts to flourish.

Each series is easily identified as if the pieces within it belong to the same thread or family, its almost as if they grow up together and therefore have a greater presence as a group.

The repetition of images acknowledges the repeat and associative imagery of a memory which becomes embellished along the way. In this respect it helps remove the overpainting of a single unit and allows the discourse more movement.

You also produce short video, that further develop the idea of variants in order to create associative

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The Beautiful Garden 100x120 cm 21 4 14

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Summer's End 100x120 cm Special Issue

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patterns. In this sense, we daresay that you artistic research responds to German photographer Andreas Gursky when he underlined that Art should not be delivering a report on reality, but should be looking at what's behind: in particular, you seem to urge your spectatorship to challenge their cultural categories: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters in order to address them to elaborate personal associations? And in particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

The video images adhere more to a common sense reality than the paintings because they are filmed in a recognisable domestic environment.They create associative patterns as you mentioned by repetition and placement to enhance the dialogue and in a way, they possess more of a story board that you mentioned earlier than the paintings because each video has a beginning and an end. To a certain extent these need more ‘looking behind’ than the paintings because the paintings inhabit their own reality.

The sequences that take place in the videos are short clips of movement and noise, which are often in their entirety just a minute long, they are the antithesis to the paintings.

You are an estalished artist: your works are in public and private collections, over the years you have exhibited internationally and you are going to participate to the 2019 edition of the Biennale of Venice. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research, and especially the way your artworks break the emotional barrier with the audience: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

The artists I admire create pieces that I respond to in a succinct and direct manner, there is an immediate connection which is sometimes hard to extrapolate.

It is an understanding and reaction to a single image through the language of paint which can be uplifting, inspiring or dysphoric .. I hope my audience responds

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Reflection 160x100 cm

to my work with an emotional connection that creates a sense of affinity without any sense of pretension whilst opening new perspectives of emotional response.

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

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Crying Inside 120x100 cm

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Woman 160x100 cm

The Couple 160x100cm

sharing your thoughts, Marissa. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

the genesis is always there, swirling around like like leaves in the wind. The secret is to catch one and nurture it into art.

Thank you Art Habens , I have really enjoyed our conversation.

I am currently working towards a solo show in London which will take place in September. My videos will be showing at the Venice Biennale and at the beginning of March I have some paintings on show as part of a group exhibition in Madrid. As for exploratory ideas in the future,

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An interview by and

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Towards Acceptance 60x40 cm

Lives and works in Dagenham, Essex, United Kingdom

The Glamour And The Sexual Abuse In Hollywood

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O. Yemi Tubi

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O. Yemi Tubi

Special Issueof Norway; 2019; Oil on canvas; 24" x 36"403 Lady Merete

An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello O. Yemi (MOYAT) and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit www.oyemi-tubi.pixels.com in order to get a wider idea about your artworks and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts, that you received from Valdosta State University, in the United States: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist?

In particular, would you tell us how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?

O. Yemi: Thank you for this great opportunity and it is a really great honour for me to be interviewed and have my works published in this prestigious art magazine – ART Habens Magazine. Talking about my background, I was brought up in in Nigeria, West Africa. I spent the first 26 years of my life in Nigeria. I have always wanted to be an artist even though I never knew any professional artist; I just like to draw. At high school, I did not have the opportunity to study art so I could not gain admission to any university to study art in Nigeria. I got admissions to two universities in America by sending slides of my artworks. I thank God that I had the opportunity study arts in Valdosta State University, Georgia, USA. I learnt about Renaissance old masters and their works in

O. Yemi Tubi

art history class. I was enchanted by the works of these Renaissance artists; As a Christians I was happy to see Michelangelo’s illustration of the Holy Bible books from Genesis to Revelation. I love Goya, French Revolution’s painting by Eugène Delacroix and many other artists that used their works to speak about social and political upheavals of their time. Here in United Kingdom, I spent my first 25

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years making my priceless first four master pieces in collaboration with my wife; of course, I was referring to my four children now grown up. During those years I was doing Freelance photography and graphic design to try to make a living because painting is expensive, it does not bring in steady income for upcoming artists.

At the wake of Arab Spring around 2011/2012, I picked up my brushes and start painting. My first political painting was influenced by the uprising in the Arab world and the works of French artist Eugène Delacroix –“1830 – Liberty Leading the People.” As in this Delacroix’s painting of French revolution in which a woman was leading the revolution with the French flag in her hand, contrary to Arab culture, I put a lady in the centre of the painting leading the Arab Revolution with her hand raised high clenching a Blackberry mobile phone the most powerful weapon used for this Arab revolution. Since then I have been using my works to provoke emotions about some of the social and political issues around the world.

For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Lady Merete of Norway and African't (Africans cannot say no to exploitation), a couple of interesting artworks that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your style it's the way it unveils the tension between the emotional sphere and the intellectual one, to create a multi-layered involvement: when walking our readers through the genesis of these

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O. Yemi putting finishing touch to his painting "Domestic Abuse" 2017 21 4 06

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SENSUALITY 2 : The Abuse of Swazi's Queens; 2018; Oil on canvas; 18" x 24" Special Issue

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O. Yemi Tubi

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stimulating artworks, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?

O. YEMI: “Lady Merete of Norway” is the portrait painting of a young Norwegian lady I met at an Art Award and Exhibition in New York April 2018. I chose the portrait painting of the Queen of France, Elizabeth of Austria painted in 1571 by the French Renaissance artist – Clouet Francois as the reference for the “Lady Merete of Norway” portrait project because of my love for Renaissance artists’ works. In all my works, I don’t like to copy nature but use nature as references for my works. When I work on portrait paintings, I desire my portrait paintings to be uniquely creative. This is the reason why I did the portrait of a young lady of 2018 with apparel of the medieval year 1571.

Europeans countries colonized African countries for many years until the end of World War II when African nations started to get independence from their colonial masters. These ex-colonial masters are still controlling the economy and politics of some of these African nations through corrupt African leaders. In recent years, China has joined Western nations in the exploitation of African people. Many corrupt African leaders aid wanton exploitation of mineral resources of their countries for selfish personal gains, receiving also kickbacks to award highly over-priced infrastructure development project contracts to Chinese and European companies. Chinese companies often bring in all categories of workers from China to work on

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Aj Omo Oduduwa The World Champion

AJ: Omo Oduduwa, the World Champion; 2017; Oil on canvas; 48" x 30"

AFRICAN'T ( Africans cannot say no to Exploitation); Oil on canvas; 44" x 55"

O. Yemi Tubi

construction projects while well qualified Africans including overseas trained professionals remain unemployed. It is literally taking food out of the mouth of Africans.

These are what made me to create this painting – “African’t (Africans cannot say no to exploitation).”

ART Habens

trajectory of your artistic research?

O. YEMI: I have been living outside Nigeria in the past 36 years. I lived in USA for about 4 years and I have been living in United Kingdom since 1986. While I have happily embraced aspects of western culture, I can never totally abandon my African culture. I am a Yoruba man; I often wear my Yoruba outfit at Art exhibitions and awards ceremonies to exhibit my Yoruba cultural heritage. Black people and Africans often have negative publicities in western media; this is why I like to use my works to spotlight the achievement of Africans and Black people around the world.

The boxer Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, known in the boxing world as Anthony Joshua (AJ), is equally proud of his British and Yoruba heritages. He used to be a bad boy, after many rounds he knockout his bad boy image and became the Champion of the world. This great transformation of his life is what I illustrated in this painting – “AJ Omo Oduduwa the World Champion” which mean “AJ a descendant of Oduduwa the World Champion” (Oduduwa is the patriarch of Yoruba people).

Marked out with such a unique style, your multifaceted artistic production reflects your genuine relationship with creativity that goes beyond any standard classification: how did you develop your unique style and how did you re-elaborate the influence of the masters of Renaissance, in order to achieve such brilliant results?

O. YEMI: As graphic artist, I developed my unique style by initially developing the concept of any work on my laptop like a still life. I will arrange many pictures references to create the idea I have for each painting before I start the task of sketching the idea created on a canvas. Unlike the old master artists that often use sketch books to develop their works, I use modern tools like – camera and laptop to develop my works. Re-elaboration of the influence of the Renaissance can be seen in my paintings – “Lady Merete of Norway” and in many of my political statements like “The Eagle has Landed”

The sensational American artistic gymnast Simone Biles is a black star that shone brightly in a predominately white-dominated sport at 2016 Olympic game in Rio, Brazil. I did research about this American Blooming Rose to give insight into her life.

She overcame many negativities to become the dancing queen with shoes of blade. In my painting “Simone Biles - The Golden Rose” I depicted her success as

Your paintings are often rich of symbols and reminders to black culture, as the interesting AJ Omo Oduduwa The World Champion and Simone Biles The Golden Rose, how does your cultural substratum due to your Nigerian roots and your current life in the United Kingdom direct the

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O. Yemi Tubi

rose and the negativities of her life as thorns.

I will not like to be tagged as a black activist or artist because I was born in Africa and because I spotlighted some few black people with my paintings. I did the portrait of a Norwegian young lady – “Lady Merete of Norway” for this reason. I am not an Arab but the plight of Arab people living under the oppressive leaders moved me to create my first political painting “Arab Revolution.” I am not a Ukrainian but the tearing apart of Ukraine by the so-called“world super power” provoked me to paint “Ukraine – The Unfortunate Bride.”

As French artist Georges Seurat used Pointillism and American artist Georgia O'keeffe used flowers as her subject matter, you used Flowers and thorns form most of your works as Facts of life. In this sense, we daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim 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 for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meanings?

O. YEMI: French artist Georges Seurat and American artist Georgia O’keeffe used Pointillism and flowers to create distinct identity for themselves in the art world and that is exactly what I am doing with my style of using flowers and thorns in many of my paintings. Yes, you can say that my artistic practice aims to look inside of what appears to be seen, rather than its surface.

The viewers are free to have their own per-

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The Rosy Seasons of Life; 2018; Oil on canvas; 48" x 36" 21 4 12

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O. Yemi Tubi

Oil: Africans Wealth and woe; 2015; Oil on canvas; 59" x 59"

ception and to elaborate their personal

my own creation. I like to show creativity

meanings. I said earlier that I don’t like just

and imagination in many of my works.

to copy nature, but rather to use nature for

In my paintings “The Rosy Seasons of Life”

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Sensuality 1: Pain and Pleasure; 2018; Oil on canvas; 18" x 24"

Simone Biles: The Golden Rose; 2017; Oil on canvas; 36" x 24"

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O. Yemi Tubi

and “Domestic Abuse”, I created other images in these two paintings as true to nature as much as possible but create the main objects in the two paintings – the women – as roses and thorns.

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way the vivacious tones of The Rosy Seasons of Life and The Ray of Georgia (Unchained My Hands) create tension and dynamics. How did 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 include in a specific artwork and in particular, how do you develop a texture?

O. YEMI: The choice of vibrant colours in my works are sometimes deliberate and sometimes unintentional; the choice of colour depends on the message I intend to put across to my audience. In my painting – “The Rosy Seasons of Life”, the choice of vibrant colour was deliberate because I intended to paint OPTIMISM, SANGUINITY, BUOYANCY parts of life. I don’t want my works to be all about the doom and gloom events of the world which will not give a complete picture of life. The life of African America singer Ray Charles was colourful.

From his poor background to becoming a super star he battled with his drug addiction. These circumstances influenced the choice of vibrant colours in the painting “The Ray of Georgia (Unchained My Hands)”

The Ray of Georgia; On Chained my Hands; 2018; Oil on

the Land of Plenty: most of the artworks from your recent production weaves together a story about contemporary socio political issues, including the exploitations of African nations and the horror of refu-

We like the powerful narrative drive that marks out Fishers Of Men and Hunger in

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canvas; 48" x 30"

gees drowning in Mediterranean Sea: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists' role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they are living under":

how could in your opinion Art help young generation to face the wide variety of issues that affect our ever changing societies? In particular, how do you consider the role of artists in our media driven and

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O. Yemi Tubi

The Fishers of Men; 2016 Oil on canvas; 40" x 30"

globalised contemporary age?

by the part of the world I am in and the information I am being fed with. I grew up

O. YEMI: Yes, I agree with Gabriel Orozco;

with the news of horror of the Soweto

my political art activism may be influenced

massacre of black people in South Africa

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O. Yemi Tubi

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emotion even now as I talk about it. In my teenage years, listened and danced to music of revolution singers like Nigeria singer Sunny Okosun – “Fire in Soweto burning all my people” and Bob Marley “Get up, stand up, stand up for your Right” When I was growing up in Nigeria in early 1960s, I had limited information about life and the world. Adults often referred to World War II as Hitler’s war and I never knew it was about the horror of holocaust. The younger generation of today are getting information overload with real news and fake news, they are not limited to newspaper, radio and television but they are overwhelmed with information from the internet particularly social media. As I was influenced by the political paintings of the Renaissance artists, I want to use my works to influence the younger generation, to promote peace and positive changes in the world. The message in my painting “AJ Omo Oduduwa, the World champion” to young people engaging in gang culture is to look at how Anthony Joshua transformed his life by deviating from the world of crime. The role of artists should be to campaign and promote positive change in our world.

You are a versatile artist and you practice involves lots of techniques and mediums, including pencil, water colour, acrylic and oil paints: what does attract you of such a wide variety of mediums? And how do you select a particular medium in order to express the idea that you explore in your artistic research?

during the minority rule of the Apartheid government. I was often filled with rage when ever heard the news of mass killing of black South Africans. I am engulfed with

O. YEMI: I like to try my hands on many

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Hunger in the Land of plenty; 2015; Oil on canvas; 24" x 36"

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O. Yemi Tubi

Portrait of an Artist: Jim Meaders 1984; 2014 Oil on canvas; 30" x 40" SOYINKA: African Literary Icon; 2016

mediums; obviously, to me pencil is for sketching even though some artists used colour pencils to create some breath-taking hyper-real artworks. I use watercolour for some of my small projects; acrylic dries up so quickly this makes me use it less. Oil paints are what I use often because of the freedom and flexibility in blending the colours. I often work on large canvases; the slow dry of this medium makes it easy for me to work for a long time and I can make changes on my works at any time without ruining it which I cannot do with watercolour.

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Oil on canvas; 2014; 24: x 36"

Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of occasions and you currently exhibit widely in museums and galleries in solo and group shows, including your recent participation to Artexpo Summer 2018, at the prestigious location of Domus Romana Art Gallery, in Rome: what kind of feedback did you receive in this occasions and how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? In particular, what do

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O. Yemi Tubi

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The Bleeding Roses; 2014; Oil on canvas; 60" x 48" 21 4 20

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The Violinist; 2016; Oil on canvas; 18" x 24"

O. Yemi Tubi

you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

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God for having this opportunity to showcase my works with ART Habens. I travel all over the world to exhibit and promote my arts. Without these opportunities, my works would not get the necessary exposure to art collectors or get my works sold which is my goal.

O. YEMI: The feedback I am receiving from my exhibitions across the world are great.

I have received many “WOWs; this is great, emotional and thought provoking” from the audience. Art clubs have invited me to join them because they like my works. In 2016 I was inducted into the “AERA – The Association Embracing Realistic Arts.”

Since then the co-founder of this Association – Pat Harrison has been doing a great job promoting each member online and on the television. Two weeks ago, I was featured on a TV channel in Germany. I have received many recognitions and won awards on my works. In 2017, my painting

Like Ray Charles’ song “Georgia on my mind”, even though I have been out of Africa for the past 36 years, Africa will always be on my mind. The project I am currently working on is “GELE: Vintage and Modern.”

Gele is the Yoruba word for lady’s head wrap. I am using Gele as metaphor to investigate effect of modern gadget and social media on Africa culture and fashion. I have developed few ideas for my future paintings like “Kofi Anna: A Dove of Peace, Pride of Africa.”; “Riding the waves”; “sHe bites the Fruit” etc.

– “Domestic Abuse” won 1st place in political commentary category in American Art Awards competition. Many art lovers have liked my works online and on social media.

My painting – “African’t (Africans cannot say no to exploitation” has been liked and pinned on Pinterest by some art lovers.

What I hope my audience will take away from my artworks are feelings of enlightenment about world politics, a positive look of Africa and of the African people.

Please pardon me, I will like to finish with a message to the “so-called-super-powers.”

For God’s sake and for the sake of PEACE, they should stop their politics of “Divide and Rule.” They destroyed Iraqi, and Libya; they ruined Syria and now they are cooking up another HORROR in Venezuela by going on the opposite sides in the Venezuelan crisis. One of Bob Marley’s songs says, “One love, one heart; Let's get together and feel all right”. Yes, there is diversity in belief, culture and colour skins; my believe is there is only one race that matters – that is the human race. ONE LOVE, ONE HEART, ONE HUMAN RACE.

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

An interview by and

, curator curator

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Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

Comet 120x90 cm

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Mbeng Pouka

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video, 2013

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The Agony of Human Intelligence 120 x 171 cm Special Issue

Mbeng Pouka

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Mbeng and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background: you have studied the technique of the Old Masters for 2 years in Southwark Art College and graphic design as well as Art and Finance at Sotheby’s:how did these formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum due to your previous career as an engineer direct the trajectory of your current artistic research?

My family line is traceable from the Bassa tribe who are found in most of the parts in Africa, coming down from Egypt, Sudan, Bassari, Nigeria, Cameroon, down to Liberia. In the Litoral part of Cameroon, the city of Edea, a place called Khan; my grandfather, a physician, son of a physician; vulgarly called traditional practitioners, moved from Sigmandeng to Khan after losing all of his children with my grandmother. My grandmother, who was found young in the forest, was bought to him as a physician and later on as an adult, became his wife. His uncle sent him news that she will have a child and to name him Pouga as ‘he will live’.

My father was born and given to the Germans around the age of 10 after they converted his father to Christianity. He became an interpreter, then after seminary, became a teacher of Latin and English and a writer in the local news. He joined the French after the Germans lost the first world war, he had his degree and Droit at a University in Marseille and later on he had his certificate in Science Penal in Bordeaux. He was also a Laurette of the French Autre Mer and Member of the French Academy.

He also was the Chief of the Cabinet of the first

Mbeng Pouka

government of Cameroon – after the first prime minister of Cameroon there was a Vice Prime Minister, Ahidjo, who later on became Cameroon’s first president and then there was my father, as the Chief of the Cabinet. He resigned from his position but remained a national judge, then a temporary vice president of the national court in Yaoundé and a poet. He founded APEC – the Association of Poets and Writers of Cameroon and the Poetry Prize of Cameroon is named after him – Louis Marie

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Mbeng Pouka

Mothers meeting 205x100 cm

Pouka Mbague. I was born in the 70s and in college I was surrounded by my sisters who were also painters; and spent my time designing and selling greeting cards. I spent some time with the Italian Art College in

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YaoundĂŠ, and later on worked with artists in the Cameroon National Museum where I participated in the first national exhibition and then the first Cameroon FENAC in Doula. After that, I started travelling and learning other

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Mbeng Pouka

trades, construction, interior design and building maintenance. But my passion for art took over and I decided to become a full time artist, more than a decade ago.

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The technique of the Old Masters was an evening course, which helped me feel more confident and taught me patience as we used to paint layers on layers and could have come back months later to touch up the same

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Mbeng Pouka

painting, whilst todays artist haven’t got that level of patience – once it is done, next it’s sold.

You are a particularly prolific artist and your multidisciplinary practice encompasses a wide variety of styles and disciplines, including painting, sculpture, art installations, crafts and jewellery, and we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.poukart.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select an artistic discipline in order to explore a particular aspect of your artistic inquiry?

I believe the difference between humans is ignorance. What ones knows, that the other does not. This always pushes me to learn what I do not know for me to accomplish certain tasks. I have studied silversmithing in Greenwich for my jewellery and Adobe for the projection and 3D projects of some of my paintings. Within the same belief system, I used to help for a couple of years in the evening after school with carpenters and wood joiners. Up to date, I’m designing my chairs and tables. I spent a lot of time in construction and many other trades. When it comes to realise a painting, I spend a lot of time working on the idea, so once I picture in my mind how the image should be then I can elaborate a technique and a medium which will bring out the best expression of the idea in my mind. I’m always ready to compromise the style or to search which one will be the best to match the message.

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 sapiently combined delicate tones with abstract feeling, as in the interesting The Agony of Human Intelligence: how did you conceived this interesting work? Moreover, do you think that

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Above expectations 96x76 cm 21 4 08

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Enlightenment 115 x 170 cm Special Issue

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there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist? call ourselves humans, and have a self-description of our environment and the world we live in; and that has created the way we think and act towards everything around us. We even claim to be able to protect the earth, while it’s the only place assigned to us to live, meaning it’s this world which gives us life. We did not create the air, the water, the fire and the earth which are the four natural elements found in what we see, including ourselves – what we eat, drink and are composed of. We depend on the earth for our survival – the earth does not depend on us.

We are one with our universe. ‘The Agony of Human Intelligence’ is to think we own what we depend on.

Since humans walked on the earth, none has remained – we are a passing breath who for long has disclaimed any other form of higher intelligence apart from our own ability to destroy ourselves by transforming by ignorance everything around us: the forests, which are our source of oxygen and food, only the birds we cannot take captive above us as we are unable to fly to impose a complete ban around our cities. We have made it legal to kill and eat any of the living creatures we have described as animals, while none of them see us as humans and sometimes we are devoured by the ferocious ones.

Dying is a natural phenomenon awaiting all of us, but with no lesson to learn our entire species is more determined to destroy each other by spending most of their revenue in armament - something no other living creature can think of. ‘The Agony of Human Intelligence’ is portraying the chaotic world we are ending up with while we claim to be more advanced than those before us and call them ancient – but end up struggling in every area of life.

Your colors are often bold and saturated, as the interesting Above Expectation. However, we have appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way Mothers Meeting and show that vivacious tones are not strictly indespensable to create tension and dynamics. How

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Mbeng Pouka

these changes have on mankind and nature: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? And what are some of your main sources of inspiration?

did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much 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 a texture?

For every problem there is a solution and to every solution there is a painting. If life was to go on forever, I could remain an artist until the last problem was solved. Life is a gift, an experience to discover, to share, to learn. To embrace other cultures is like to be born again; to study the ant is like writing a book. To observe a tree is like to renew your breath. Our nature is filled with beauty and knowledge, spending time with strangers or being on holiday in a house or asleep. Everywhere there is always something to learn, the human mind never relaxes. Knowledge is one of the only things that when it’s shared it grows in value.

Many years ago when my wife and I were dating we went to the fireworks display in Greenwich, London. At that time I used to work as an engineer and had my studio in most of our building basements and I used to spend my spare time painting on paper, then once dry, bringing them home. At one stage, she is the one who found out that the paintings I bought home were just like the fireworks display we had seen. I was moved with the similarity I was not aware of when I was painting. The human mind is the most sophisticated machine that exists. In my view, the eyes do not see by their own, but are the windows of the mind to interpret what is registered in the mind. Colours are very powerful, so the wrong application or interpretation of these can cause a huge damage and a chaotic atmosphere. No human is white, neither black, the wrong interpretation for the human skin which is extending from dark brown to pale yellow, if humans were describing themselves according to that reality, our world could become a better place in a day.

Your paintings are marked out with a powerful narrative drive: we like the symbiotic balance between the real and the abstract, as in the interesting Consciousness vs Subconsciousness. How do you consider the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

I’m always amazed in documentaries concerning artists. In their absence, the curators, art critics, art dealers or art advisers have an attractive way of describing the artwork they have not painted, even to get into the mind of the artist to bring out what the artist was thinking when realising his masterpiece. Of course, there is nothing as good as selling the work of a dead artist, but even when they are alive, to me they are dead.

In the old times, painting was the most prolific form of expression. Artists were well respected and found in the courts as advisers to kings.

Today, for their work to be sold they need to be represented; to express themselves, they need

Visualisation has more power than studying. It’s easy to forget what we have studied after a while but a witness of an accident or event mostly always remembers it. Once the title of the painting is conceived; then starts the most powerful job – to picture it. But everything is often synchronised out of my own ability. Every idea has its own mechanism to be manifested. I just hold the brushes.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you draw inspiration from the environmental transformations that are happening in the world and the effect that

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From within 88 x 120 cm 21 4 12

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The World Seeking Peace 2.5 m x 1.8 m

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Mbeng Pouka

to be assisted by curators. To exhibit their work, they need an opportunity from a gallery or to apply for an art fair. They are powerless and dependent. Just like these wonderful questions I’m answering, surely I won’t turn in my grave listening to a curator describing my artwork from his own mind as it is impossible to accurately repeat the words of another by not taking his place.

I’m separating work in my website to make it easier for people to choose a category, but in my mind what I want to express - if there is a need to mix abstract with surrealism to make it happen – I never hesitate. I am not the generation who before drinking the wine on the table have to wipe his mouth with a napkin or use the knife with one hand and the fork with another. The free mind has no limitations.

Your artworks are carefully composed and you often geometrical patterns with organic elements, to create such a coherent combination between intuition and rigorous aesthetics: do you conceive you works instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your work?

One of the most important stages before the realisation after the conception of the idea, is to let it grow in the mind. When the inspiration first appears it’s just as a title. The more I think of it, the more it grows and after a while I can picture the image. The large canvases like ‘A Place Called Heaven’ (5.4 m x 4.2 m), ‘The Rapture’ (3.9 x 1.95 m), ‘The Crucifixion’ (7.5 x 4.5 m) or ‘I AM’ (18 m x 2.1 m) could not have been completed in one canvas, viewing their size compared to my small studio at that time. ‘I AM’ is 18 metres long x 2.10 m high whilst in that time, almost 10 years ago, my studio was 3.5 m x 2.5 m. I designed it in 12 different panels of 1.5 x 2.1 m and worked progressively with 2 panels, when the first one was complete adding

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Women pirogue 165x92 cm

the third onto the second and so on. I spent time buying books, watching documentaries and searching information to complete the knowledge and the drawings before deciding how to elaborate the entire painting. ‘The Crucifixion’ I spent more than a year to have the

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complete visualisation of what was supposed to be done – the colour coordination, the number coordination of 7 panels in the form of a cross, the 7 colours of the Chakra which are found in the rainbow, the seven notes of the music, the 7 days of the week etc.

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It also depends on the complexity of the work as I’m not an artist that wipes out his canvas when he is not pleased with it – I can correct what I’m not happy with and that is more easier. When it comes to complex paintings – I

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Mbeng Pouka

Layers 156x88 cm

no longer draw on paper before, as with years of experience, now everything is done directly on the canvas and the better the concentration the stronger the painting. Above all is the level of knowledge, input or challenging facts that brings the joy as ideas are the core of creativity.

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Your paintings walk the viewers to such an hybrid dimension, providing the spectatorship with a multilayered visual experience and challenging their perceptual parameters: how important is for you to invite the viewers to

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Mbeng Pouka

ART Habens

monkey, then Adam and Eve, sins and forgiveness, heaven and hell, Ying and Yang and many others. But our world is not in peace.

Humans are divided because of such philosophies. The thinkers of today will shape the future. Every day I have a choice, to please my ego or to do what is right. To please those around me or to follow my inspiration. To make money or to make art. To live forever or to count for a moment. I have made the hardest of these choices. I’m sovereign of my humanity and carry in me great genes from my ancestors like every living creature. It may seem like we are in control but before any human appears on earth there was a creator and there are natural laws that are set in the universe. They are working perfectly and dwell in harmony. My aim is for those who will come to discover my work, to understand the true meaning of life.

What is reality is the most difficult and hidden truth for a spirit in a body to experience. Most humans are not in touch with reality. They are living in the subconscious created through education, media and all sorts of philosophies which keep them blindsided from reality. One human thinks he’s an inferior, the other superior, one thinks he’s rich and the other that he is poor. While the real gap is ignorance, what one knows the other does not. Something the animals do not acknowledge, neither do they bow down in front of their own kind to listen and obey them. They dwell and live in harmony with nature, but the self-called human who is supposed to know it all is missing it all. Humans are the only living creatures that pay for every natural thing to live on earth, while the earth has been given freely to all living creatures. If that were not enough, they are also the only creatures who are killing their own kind in masses and find life difficult on earth, then commit suicide, by not being able to cope with the place assigned to them; then hope for another place called heaven where they will have peace. I’m a spirit, my body is my vessel, I

elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

Today’s society is shaped by the past philosophy like a human deriving from the

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consciousness vs subconciescness 170 x 150 cm

live forever. If I was born into this vessel before being here I’m coming from somewhere. After finishing my work here my spirit will depart to carry on in the other horizon of the universe.

Some people think we are on earth down below and find it strange to have other living

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creatures in other places of the universe. But what they don’t find strange is for them to be part of this place for a moment, speak, eat, sleep and then die.

Your artworks often include elements rich of symbolic elements and references to the realm

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The Prophecy of Dry Bones 200 x 180 cm

of imagination: would you tell us something about the importance of symbols and reminders to the dream-like dimension in your imagery?

the word. A person can look beautiful on the outside, until we discover the inside - his spirit through his word; no-one can really describe him. Behind every symbol is a meaning.

Knowledge is for the learned as one has to seek it. The truth hurts; therefore, shouldn’t be

Life is energy. The smallest atom. The spirit. We are the sound, in other words, speaking spirits,

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Mbeng Pouka

exposed to anyone. Symbols and signs are real expressions, sometimes of hidden things. Although we are all called to be enlightened there are stages and processes. The inner engineering of who we are – a spirit living in a body – is the unexplored part of our activities.

We are studying to accomplish a task to be enslaved by others, like becoming an engineer, a pilot or any other job for a salary while in every human there is everything he is supposed to discover and to become. Just like in a seed there is a tree. We all dwell in a parallel universe simultaneously but a few are really aware of it. It is easy to realise the different characters we can portray, depending on situations. Our body is subject of good health to survive and needs to relax during the night as it functions during the day, needing to be fed to gain strength and to be maintained. Our spirit is not subject to time. Even if the body is asleep, our spirit will still be functioning in other realms of life – we can be conscious of it through dreams – or not. I have had people telling me many things ahead of time because there is no time in the spirit world, in our realm or reality we think before acting. In the spirit realm of reality, things are done before starting. From which derived the saying the creator started from the end to the beginning.

Your work is held in many collections and over the years your paintings have been exhibited in galleries, including the International Salon d’Art Contemporain, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

Before painting on canvas, for years I was selling greeting cards and making portraits, while I was doing haircuts as well and I have built my confidence since. Up to date, my hand-made greeting cards have been collected and framed by hundreds of people. I have more than 25,000 followers in social media and I’m adding them daily. The themes of my work are surely not matching the criteria of the main

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Construction 76x61 cm

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Depraved mind 100x95 cm

in the end of year graduation exhibition with the students from the Chelsea Art College and the painting they chose for the exhibition was 5.40 metres x 4.20 m called ‘A Place Called Heaven’.

We were more than 15 people to lift the canvases up, using some on a step ladder and others down

media. So many times, once in the underground, after all the stages, the government body refused for my painting to be exposed – even in social media there is no boost available for more than half of them as our world is determined to keep humanity in ignorance. Once I participated

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– once the painting was up there was a total silence. The students were so amazed and stunned and asked me the question if it was the first time I’m seeing the painting together, I said yes, and they asked why such pieces of art are not found in the Tate or any bigger gallery in the world, and my response was that I spent more than 9 months daily working on the painting and hoped that one day it will be in the place it deserves. During the London Olympics in 2012, I was representing Cameroon in the Olympic African Village with one of the largest stands where I managed to display my 18 metre by 2.10 m long painting called ‘I AM’. Thousands of people visited the stand and the most appreciated conversation I had was an elderly man who stated that since the era of da Vinci he has never seen so much input in an artwork. In most of the discussions or group artist exhibitions I’m involved in, sometimes artists are wondering where do I come from with such a level of inspiration and capacity to involve so much in one painting.

ART Habens

I have been for years the main artist for the Cameroon Embassy in London where I organised the exhibition at the Africa Day celebration in Kensington, London, where most of the African Ambassadors were present and where I explained the paintings to the British Minister for Africa and I have been involved in many similar events.

I have hundreds of works on large canvases which are in need of a huge space to be appreciated. Artists opportunities are mostly by reputation, not the quality of work and neither the content.

I always receive feedback from my followers. A couple of years ago I started posting short writings in the form of proverbs – branded as ‘Poukamania’ – then ‘The First and Last Philosophy’. Today there are hundreds of them doing the same thing and many other online channels are motivating artists to make videos explaining their own artwork. These are steps for more visualisation.

I have worked with the British Science Museum on a two-year project for a permanent exhibition in the ‘Information Age’ which was officially opened by the Queen of England where she made her first Tweet. Cameroon is the country representing Africa in that exhibition. We have had a huge intellectual exchange with the Science Museum with which I participated in the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM), to share our knowledge and I have also attended the formal meeting with the governing body and the Science Museum for the final review of our input. We have been gratefully appreciated as we were the only participants personally greeted by the Queen before going to the stage. Since, interactions have been more introduced in most of the museums and galleries around the country and elsewhere.

Most people are amazed at the uniqueness of my artwork and in the same time sceptical to the message just like the human tongue when it is tasting a different kind of food. At most of the exhibitions I move myself away from the stand to permit people to explore and express themselves. It will be mind-blowing to see even ¼ of my work exhibited in one of the biggest museums.

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

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Big Brother 88 x120cm

Mbeng Pouka

ART Habens

thing should be fulfilled while on earth, but instead the human ego has tamed every other living thing including their fellow humans through a chaotic world filled with fear where humans are not only called immigrants but have to be enslaved from the age of 3 into education then working for others all their life to survive through to their retirement – where there is no more strength, neither revenue to enjoy life, just enduring until departure from the earth.

I’m the one who should say thanks, not only for the opportunity but for the quality of the questions as it takes time, experience, knowledge and passion to capture the spirit to ask such pertinent questions and not to lean into war, politics, religion and race all of which are destroying our humanity and are heavily portrayed in my paintings!

I have hundreds of work titles written down, the more the days are coming, the worst our world is becoming and the more inspiration flows. A couple of years ago I started doing 10 metre x 1.8 metre paintings. I was supposed to complete 10 and I have done 3 so far. I started a world war project – painting on the canvas of antique world war army camping beds. I have done 6 and I’m short of 44 which I have to collect first and then paint on the canvases. I have a series on the human spirit. I have done the spirit of gluttony, the spirit of hypocrisy, the spirit of disorder, the ugly spirit, the deceiving spirit of evolution, the biting spirit, the travelling spirit, the spirit of death, the world spirit – that project also extends into hundreds.

It’s natural and normal to help a struggling animal. It takes an unconscious person to pass by. We are more than what we know and deserve better treatment and happiness for all.

It’s unbalanced to have ¾ of the world’s population to live in lack while they are the ones educated and working and creating the wealth, the buildings, the road and everything, but being manipulated by a few.

We are all co-creators and the beauty found in us is unlimited. Humans are so well designed, more than everything we are admiring around us like computers, planes and cars. To discover ourselves is like exploring an entire universe.

Everything around us has been transformed by us and every philosophy we share has been written by us.

I have also started a project on colour, including human colour and another project in our universe which is ongoing. At the moment I’m working on ‘The Secret of Survival’ which is based in the two faculties that makes life to be sustainable for eternity – the body and the spirit.

By observing other living creatures in the nature they have passed not only their body but also their way of life to their offspring, the next generation – while humanity has completely lost that capacity by replacing it with a virtual world and technology – even the body is modified.

We have the capacity to align ourselves with the natural laws which before us have been working harmoniously throughout the universe and still at work to maintain harmony. Every human heart searches for love and justice to dwell in harmony as through it we have eternity. Everything I do in art is themed to that philosophy, hoping to set free the minds of the captive.

The synchronisation of my work is to fight ignorance which is the cause of fear and most of the trouble in our humanity. I believe love is the basis on which everything has been created.

There are natural laws that regulate everything in existence. Life is a precious gift. Every living

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Elise Broadway

ART Habens

video, 2013

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Elise Broadway

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Elise and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background.

You have a solid formal training and after having earned your BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and the Certificate Degree in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, you moved to the United Kingdom, to nurture your education with a MA in Painting, hat you are currently pursuing at the Royal College of Art, in London: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your previous artist residencies direct the trajectory of your current artistic research?

Hello ART Habens, thank you for taking interest in my work and asking me about my work process. My formative years in traditional Western atelier-style training weigh heavily on my current practice; in my recent work I have utilized a conglomeration of highly detailed painting techniques, free-flowing painterly marks and childlike, ‘outsider’ drawing to build narratives. This amalgamation of mark-making seeks to describe personal experiences that have built a collective psychological narrative over the course of time.

Elise Broadway

within a white conservative environment that leaves little room for the ‘outsider’ identity and conversation about mental illness.

Growing up within a conservative home that placed great importance on academia and European-American historical learning, I was always immersed within art history and had little access or understanding about contemporary art. In my current practice, I use these skills to create a dialogue between structural Western perceptions of art-making and illustrating a personal struggle growing up

The artist residencies I participated in in Japan were in many ways an extension of my undergraduate studies in Japanese/East Asian cultures and histories. The cultural immersion I was lucky to experience within Japan allowed me to create a body of work that could be shared with an audience I had not encountered

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ART Habens

Elise Broadway

in the past. This experience gave me further understanding into how an artist might construct their work to speak with a large, inclusive audience and how the artist personally relates their story to the individual viewer. My current research is comprised of public mental health issues within the domestic and public spheres and investigation into how the white conservative mindset often present in the segregated environments within the American South operates in contemporary context.

Experience buried in academic tradition and the access to learn about the art and histories on non-Western societies has greatly effected the trajectory of my practice; if I had not had firsthand experience within such polarized (yet in many ways similar) social environments, I do not believe I would be so invested in my current research today.

You are a versatile artist and your practice includes painting, sculpture and performance: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit https://cargocollective.com/elisebroadwayarti st in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select an artistic discipline in order to explore a particular aspect of your artistic inquiry?

The versatile artistic approaches and mediums I utilize in my work always work in conjunction with the the conceptual framework in which I need to communicate an emotional experience.

I believe that the selection of artistic discipline for a single work comes naturally when contemplating the psychological experience I want to share with the audience. For example, my smaller detailed drawings come from a sense of controlled urgency and a more deeply private narrative. In contrast, a large work like

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Elise Broadway

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Elise Broadway

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Elise Broadway

ART Habens

‘Texas Thanksgiving’ describing domestic tumult and childlike fantasy is painted in a theatrical manner that can adapt to almost any indoor space due to its non-rigid, flexible nature. Often times a concept requires a mixture of techniques and materials to express and this might be best exhibited by a piece like ‘Scarecrow Boy’ that integrates traditional painting, hand-sewing, and free hanging sculptural instillation. He is intended to express the inner confusion when conflicting identities are imposed upon a child. I am often inspired by the ‘mundane’ and domestic. Materials often come to me through simple everyday life experience, such as when conducting household chores or purchasing groceries.

Therefore, objects such as yellow dusters, tea towels, and nails are integral to building the conceptual structure of any piece I make.

For this special edition, we have selected Texas Thanksgiving and Scarecrow Boy, a couple of stimulating artworks that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, and that have at once captured our attention for the way they reveal such a coherent combination between intuition and a rigorous aesthetics.

When walking our readers through the genesis of these interesting artworks, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?

When initially conceiving of a piece that features representational imagery, I begin by collecting photos through digital format that can be viewed on a laptop or phone screen. My works often feature a mixture of personal photography, internet-based stock images, and fabricated representational imagery from memory. Photography, particularly digitized imagery from media sources and advertisements, has greatly informed my recent work. For example, the figure and face

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ART Habens

Elise Broadway

of ‘Scarecrow Boy’ is drawn from a mixture of advertisements on American costume websites aimed at children. This selection of imagery is connected with personal experience growing up during the dawn of the internet during the shift from relatively ‘slow’ media intake to the immediate, distinctly marketed visual information we receive today. Through warping, re- organizing, and distillation of photographic images into a specific simplified language, I attempt to relate how a callous surreality is built up in our collective experience when encountering media on a daily basis. Even if I never utilize each of them directly, every photo I collect informs how I address a specific subject and I often spend extended time in the studio contemplating and narrowing down photos to precisely fit a narrative aesthetic.

Over the past few years, I have broken away from traditional painting surfaces; I first collected packaging from food, household items, etc., but then moved on to collecting multiples of specific types of fabrics: most recently yellow household cotton dusters and commercially-aimed British tea-towels. I have always been attracted to the visual characteristics and tactility of objects, specifically those that can be seen and touched in the home or in a grocery store setting. All of the materials I utilize in my current work have either come from within my residence or local corner-stores, supermarkets, and hardware stores. Lately, I have been sewing these fabrics together to make a large matrixes and fashioning them into stuffed sculptural paintings. This movement away from the blank stretched canvas is essential to my narratives: a desire to break away from Western structures while still confined within a traditional identity.

The materiality of the work, particularly the initial process of of collecting and using materials in unconventional ways, is a crucial

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Elise Broadway

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Elise Broadway

step in the conceptualization of a painted, drawn, or performed narrative.

ART Habens

much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in particular, how do you develop a texture?

We have really appreciated the way the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how

I believe the vibrant colors I use in my pieces comes from an inherent desire to express a

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Elise Broadway

Compulsive Disorder or frenzied movements related to anxiety to strengthen the narrative details within a work. The process of gathering and utilizing specific materials is an integral aspect of my process. Over the course of 2017 and the majority of 2018 when I became ill, I became invested in the physicality of specific mass-produced textiles (eg. commercial teatowels and yellow household dusters) and the action of sewing when I could not paint. The process of falling ill, treatment and recovery allowed me to discover a facet of artisticproduction that is now essential to the narrative of my multi-media practice. As my practice grows both physically and conceptually in size, I want to build more immersive instillations with my sculptural painting to allow the viewer access into the often hidden neurological processes of those effected by mental illness.

sense of personal visual ‘realism’: a mixture of observable, objective structure and the subjective emotional lens I cannot help but view my subjects with. In other words, the emotional investment I have with the narrative I am creating (be it sadness, joy, anger, or a mixture of various emotions) is often described through my use of color. I have received this question from others in the past and was often at a loss for words as to how to respond; while I understand that the color combinations, like bright pastels and neons when describing skin tone, are unconventional, the colors I use always make sense to me from a ‘realistic’, observed standpoint.

My color choices might also come from viewing photographs of my subjects and their details for extended amounts of time; in contemplating their implied physical structures and color values, I make inferences about how they might successfully be visually convincing within the plane of my painting. However, this does not necessarily bring the painted subject into a collective ‘reality’. It instead is a personally-inhabitable reality that I want to invite viewers to also experience. Once I have selected a color, texture, or degree of detail that ‘fits’ within a work I rarely ever return to alter it. In a way, I do not want to disturb the subconscious, fast-paced selection I make as I believe they can often end up being the most genuine to my motive. This process allows me to make peace with what I might perceive as ‘mistakes’ and use them learn and build upon the conceptual framework of my practice.

Your current body of work aims to confront and explore your identity as a woman from the American South in relationship to the increasingly relevant contemporary societal issues that you experience as an expatriate living within a foreign environment. With society in such a state of flux and uncertainty at the moment, how do you think your works respond to it in finding hidden, crystallised moments in the everyday? And how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? How does working from observation play within your work?

Flux and uncertainty are integral aspects of my work. All of the stories I create are built as the pieces are created, often lending to their nonlinear and sometimes non- sensical visual narrative. Patch-working characters in the form of representations (eg. the cowboy lasso motif) onto a metaphorical ‘stage’ within a painting, drawing or sculptural installation allows for interactions to occur. While there is a great deal

As previously mentioned, I want to express personal experience with mental illness and dysfunction in my childhood developmental environment within my work. When developing a project, I try to use characteristics of problems I have dealt with such as the cyclical thinking processes associated with Obsessive

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Elise Broadway

ART Habens

building on a background in observational painting and drawing, I want to critique, yet not ignore, a past buried in exclusively Western/European artistic tradition. I want to question the identity of an individual (myself) who had/has access to an exclusive history to describe the tumultuous inner struggle with identity politics.

of importance placed on a specific experience and psychological idea established during a work’s initial conception, my cognitive processes, particularly fast-paced visual association, dictates how images are chosen and composed within a piece. Somewhat like a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario, the works’ implied narrative occurs despite conscious implementation, similar to how real narratives play out in the world; a conglomeration of details that initially appear disparate come to exist together on the same plane to present a story to the viewer. Despite this, the images are specific and controlled (‘crystalised’ as you have aptly put).

We have particularly appreciate the way your work engages the viewers, inviting them to question contemporary issues as the Western concepts of patriotism and loyalty, as well as on the theme of mental health conditions.

Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they are living under": how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and media driven contemporary age?

While I am very interested in building fantasy narratives, all of my work stems from personal memory, be it from childhood or recent experience, and thus almost exclusively describes everyday activities. In my recent work, I have explored the idea of illustrating the ideas of ‘pain/trauma’, ‘confusion’, and ‘sexual desire’, particularly through descriptions of childhood interactions within my family that highlight generational struggles with mental illness. Activities that occur within the domestic space are of high interest me and, while they might seem mundane, private experiences within the home can often be secretive and mysterious.

I believe that the role of the artist has transformed and continues to become more inclusive of positions and identities that go beyond the traditional textbook model.

Throughout the global history of art, we can recognize artists taking on roles as activists, philosophers, etc. that, for better or worse, introduced and revolutionized modes of societal metamorphosis. The vast term of ‘globalize/ation’ when applied to the concept of instantaneously shared media has introduced further developments in the definition of the ‘artist’ today. As we now have the ability to share information and ideas across international and socio-political borders, inclusivity and recognition of both shared and unfamiliar artistic philosophies is integral to further evolve our understanding of art-making.

The concept of ‘working from observation’ can be defined in different ways: while traditionally this notion has applied to ‘working from life’, my practice is based on the mixture of memorized observed visuals and photography.

Being able to visualize my subjects has always been of great importance to me. From early childhood, I always drew objects and people in multiples with a near-obsessive fervor. This lead to my investment in traditional atelier-style representational painting. In my present work I seek to draw on that personal history. While

So, as we increase access to engagement with contemporary and historical artists and the

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Elise Broadway

in this sense, we daresay that your artistic practice seems to urge 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 for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your artworks to be understood?

movements they are/were involved with, we have a responsibility to pay attention to and make sure our participation with others’ ideas can contribute to a global dialogue.

Contemporary socio-politics has increased the push for partisanship and ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’ modes of thinking and I am convinced that, in response, the promotion of communal empathy can be readily expressed by the artist when they speak to the public through their work. Through my practice, I strive to build and use development of self and communal-awareness to talk about often disputed subjects such as domestic violence, mental health issues, and the identity and psyche of the colonizer from a personal perspective. I try to engage in different facets of societal/occupational roles and have recently focused particularly on the practice of healthcare/medicine regarding psychiatry and perceptions of mental illness. This endeavor has stemmed directly from personal experience and is comprised of specifically autobiographical information.

In my previous work, I wanted to have full control over the works’ message as understood by the audience and have since realized that this is not possible. The stories I tell are personal yet address a collective experience and therefore will inherently provide a variety of meanings to each individual who sees them.

Some of the narratives are deeply personal and describe trauma, illness, and other hardships that apply to everyone in different ways.

Metaphor and symbolism are important to the visual construction of my work, and I often use them (eg. the cowboy hat and lasso) as a mode of layered communication specific to my experiences. However, I expect that these motifs will inherently speak to each individual differently and the freedom to associate images and experience within one’s mind is an intrinsic human characteristic. Therefore, I personally believe that a desire to fully control the reading of my work is a somewhat frivolous intention. My main objective is to connect to the individual through shared experience and not solely communicate with a set model audience. I do however aim my work in part towards those individuals who have dealt/are currently dealing with short term and lifetime mental health conditions similar to mine. I believe if i can communicate personal anecdotes to these individuals, we can further the current dialogue around de-stigmatization of mental illness. As far back as I can remember I have enjoyed expressing dark humor through utilization of visual, cultural tropes. I hope that

In the future, I want to create more public works that can speak to a wide range of individuals in the public to disrupt the exclusivity of galleries and higher academic spaces. As exhibited in the ideas I am developing my current work, I’d like to use my platform as a publicly-engaged artist to call out a culture of silence that promotes racism, classism, and bigotry towards the LGBTQ+ community and/or those experiencing mental illness. These are loaded subjects to explore and question, but I am looking forward to further developing a practice that can lead to constructive development within myself and speak directly with those that want to listen.

With its intimate still powerful narrative drive, we like the way you artworks often convey such a stimulating captivating abstract feeling:

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Elise Broadway

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Elise Broadway

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and visual form to depict several of these motifs at once. For example, in ‘Scarecrow Boy’ the long tube-like structure of his arm can become a lasso, phallic structure, intestines, or even an umbilical cord. In the future I’d like to use the symbolic forms and images I am familiar in more abstract ways (both visually and conceptually). For example in the public work I am currently creating to be shown in London, I use the yellow dusters I have been working with over the past year to create a metaphorical skin that can be stretched over and protect other surfaces. While these multifaceted tropes might not always be expressed in full to each audience member, I enjoy that they can remain open to interpretation.

this method of communication can speak to a subject that is often loaded with solemnity and morose expectations with a degree of lightness.

I want the works to be open to any viewer; exclusivity of experience promotes structural boundaries and might only allow a select number of viewers to ‘enter’ the work. And, as I am interested in promoting the concept of intersectionality, I want the pieces to be able to speak to a wide audience, not just those familiar with concepts unique to the art world and/or exclusive academia. I don’t want to limit my practice to a dialogue between art practices alone but speak to the role of artist as activist that can bring about

I am interested in how the concepts of ‘reappropriation’, transformation, and/or evolution can effect meaning of a term or object within the current context of our global society. Politicians and activists often do this in an attempt to reconstruct how we might think of an established concept. With my own work, I want to play with this; the established image of the cowboy in the ‘Old West’ is often used in media to promote a sense of colonial destiny and pride to the white Western audience and is rarely used as a symbol of self-destruction and the loss of power. I want to encourage audience members to challenge definitions attached to these symbols within group-based collective memory. In my future work I’d like to further utilize symbols as non-static, fluctuating conceptual mechanisms to explore and question how stereotyped concepts and motifs are used to give power to some and harm others.

Your approach deviates from traditional art making to provide the viewers with such a heightened visual experience, to subvert the clichéd techniques, developing the expressive potential of the symbols that you included in your work: how importance do symbolically charged images play in your work?

‘Cliché’ is a concept I like to play with. I love how symbols that almost everyone is familiar with can provide vastly different meanings to each individual. And of course my work often includes clichéd motifs expressed through both highly academic and non- traditional ‘outsider’ techniques. Symbols have always been used within art on a global level and I enjoy ‘collecting’ and using those that are beneficial to describing my unique narratives. I believe that integration of motifs within otherwise somewhat alien storytelling might be the most successful way to utilize representational imagery when trying to relate deeply personal experiences to a diverse audience. Over the course of the last few years of artistic production, I have tried to use these symbols in a variety of ways, oftentimes merging shape

You usually create large artworks, that provide the viewers with such an immersive visual experience: how do the dimensions of your artworks affect your workflow?

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My work has grown exponentially within the last few years. Access to more studio space and the ‘loudness’ of my ideas is likely a large factor in why I have begun creating more immersive instillation works. My painting style has evolved with the size of the work as well; I have moved from only using controlled atelier-style technique to more expressive bodily gestures

Summer 2015 Special Issue

within my painting that bring out the physical characteristics of the water-based paint I use: gouache. I enjoy the how the motion to largescale and ‘life-size’ work has encouraged me to become more physically involved in the labor of art-making. This relates directly to how I have begun questioning the concept of labor roles within society in the messages expressed by my

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Elise Broadway

work, specifically the manual work responsibilities regulated to different genders, ethnicities, and those of different socioeconomic status. In integrating large, fastpaced painterly/sculptural production with fine-detailed, controlled work I want to express the push and pull between socially dictated positions in the current global

ART Habens

context. I also love to continue to work on smaller scale drawn and fabric pieces. This work creates an entirely different yet related visual and emotional experience for me and the audience. They feel more private but also invite viewers to enter a specific visual world. I believe that the sizes of my works has not effected my workflow to a noticeably large

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Elise Broadway

degree; in both my smaller and larger pieces I need to work very quickly to express a full emotional experience within the narrative.

sharing your thoughts, Elise. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?

Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of occasions, including your recent participation to the group show If Van Gogh... at the Chelsea College of Art, in London: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

Thank you so much for taking the time to interview and feature my work within ART Habens and look forward to sharing my art again with you in the future! I am currently developing a large-scale commissioned piece that will be exhibited outdoors on the hoarding at the Royal College of Art Battersea campus in London. It is an approximately 2 by 10 meter sewn fabric work entirely made from the yellow household dusters that have become so important to my practice over the past year. The work will seek to address the experience of mental illness through a personal lens and promote de- stigmatization of the more ‘hidden’ severe mental health conditions. Through the concepts of ‘construction’ and ‘deconstruction’ attached to hoarding, I want to talk about self-therapeutic, constructive mechanisms used through the act of sewing within the domestic space. In the future, I hope to expand on my current research concerning my relationship with mental health and how different demographics within the public perceive and are effected by these conditions. I would also like to possibly further explore how symbols can be utilized and transformed within the artistic plane to share more intimate personal experiences. In the near future, I am excited to create more immersive instillations, paintings, sculptures, and performances that invite public interaction and commentary. Again, thank you so very much for conducting this interview and allowing me to be a part of ART Habens’ publication.

I want to continue showing in international contexts to a variety of audiences including at schools, in public spaces, and other easily accessible venues. While I originate from a Western traditional environment and academic landscape, and inhabit an ethnic identity that lies within the European-American ‘majority’, my work may hold a degree of ‘foreign-ness’ to those unfamiliar with the conservative American South. I am very interested in seeing how my work will be engaged with by viewers of multifaceted backgrounds constructed differently from mine. I do not want to alienate or have my work function as imposing, one-sided, and didactic for the unfamiliar audience. Instead, I’d like to introduce them to a world that, while possibly alien, can communicate a shared emotional experience. I’d like the audience to leave the work with a sense of inner contemplation. Whether or not they feel satisfied with the work’s message, or even possibly dissatisfied by the more controversial conversations expressed in the work, I still value this reaction. If all these aspects are to be fully achieved (or not) depends on how the work develops in the future.

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

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An interview by and

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, curator curator

Elise Broadway

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ART Habens

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Lives and works in Essex, United Kingdom

formist 1 drawing app 2018

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

video, 2013

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ART Habens

Teri Anderson

4 03 Special Issue emmeline cotton thread on aida fabric backed on carboard with wooden stick 15cm x 6cm 2018

An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Teri and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions.

Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist and help you to develop your attitude to experiment with different media?

Teri Anderson

multidisciplinary practice encompasses textiles, installation and sculpture, to question the idea of craft: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select an artistic discipline in order to explore a particular aspect of your artistic inquiry?

I feel that growing up with a lot of old fabrics and tins full of sewing materials had a large impact on me as an artist, they were part of my Grandfather and Grandmothers collection from work in the garment trade, which just became part of who I am and eventually my practise, through my use of cross stitch and embroidery.

You are a versatile artist and your

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indefinite doubt cotton thread on canvas in wood embroidery hoop 20cm x21 cm 2017

ART Habens

Teri Anderson

When working, I usually stumble upon an idea often referencing the movement of modernism, Arte Povera and abstract Italian art and try to build on this.

I normally create some sketches to try to focus my thoughts and general ideas, this would then be pushed further in the 3D realms of sculpture and installation, but as most of my ideas relate to drawing I find drawing in the expanded field and making lines in space a good grounding for my work.

I would then explore within textiles and sculpture to see which best conveys the initial idea.

What has at once captured our attention of your unconventional style it's the way it allows you to condense in a single work of art such a coherent combination between intuition and aesthetics: when walking our readers through your usual workflow and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all your works.

The central idea that connects my

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Teri Anderson

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forms duo pen on postcard 25cm x 15cm 2018 21 4 06

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Teri Anderson

glass triptych pen and watercolour on postcard 40cm x 15cm 2017 Special Issue

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

work is the idea of line and materiality, I look into Paul Klee’s use of taking the line for a walk, and how Alberto Burri used whatever materials he had to create amazing works of art.

I try to combine the materiality of Burri and the linearity of Klee, whilst using craft in an art based setting.

For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Still life with Bottle, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article.

What has at once impressed us of the results of your artistic research around the idea of craft is the way it unveils the point of convergence between personal history and collective memory, providing the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience. Would you tell us something about the genesis of Still life with Bottle? In particular, how did you develop the initial idea?

The initial idea was a way of 21 4 08

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icons duo cotton thread and embroidery floss on canvas in wood embroidery hoop 60cm x 25cm 2018

ART Habens

Teri Anderson

broken line plastic tubes with metal wire skeleton 160cm x 50cm 2015

bridging the gap between abstraction and realism, and how work is perceived, whether the

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abstract components that make up the bottle are the first one sees or whether the bottle is the key to

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

primary cotton thread on card 5cm x 5cm 2015

arranging the piece. The reason for the bottle was the generic everyday nature of the object

You create environments which the audience have to inhabit, inviting the viewers to evolve from the role

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pure abstract duo cotton thread on aida fabric in plastic frames 50cm x 25cm 2017

ART Habens

Teri Anderson

of mere spectatorship: in this sense, we daresay that your artistic practice seems to invite to question the idea of perception: to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, urging them to see beyond the surface of the work of art. How do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience and how important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meanings? And in particular, how open would you like your artworks to be understood?

It is very important for the audience to explore as in life in order to learn we must inhabit our surroundings and explore, I would like my works to be very open to be looked at on a material and abstract level as well as a craft and feminist level. I feel that craft is important in my work as its unconventional in an art environment, and it links back to the work of Burri as he used unorthodox materials to engage with the audience.

It's important to remark that your work links to your personal

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

be better cotton thread on aida fabric backed on denim 30cm x 20cm 2018 21 4 12

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ART Habens

Teri Anderson

forms duo pen on postcard 25cm x 15cm 2018 Special Issue

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

heritage and to how textiles were key in your family history including sample machinists and pattern cutters: how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? And in particular, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?

My family has always been an influence to me, and will always be, as there is always the historical context at the times in which they lived.

The fact that a lot of my work is hand stitched rather than using a sewing machine is due to the personal nature of my work.

I also feel that the idea of craft is symbolic to my work as it is engraved through my heritage.

The fact that it’s seen as a female hobby also interests me too as it’s a way of crossing the boundary of arts and crafts in a medium for women.

As you have remarked in the ending lines of your artist's statement, you propose an art

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construct duo cotton thread on aida fabric 25cm 15cm 2017

ART Habens

Teri Anderson

practise which incorporates a craft based techniques into the art based discipline of installation. We sometimes tend to ignore the fact that a work of art is a threedimensional, physical, artefact: how do you how do you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the concepts that you explore in your artistic research and the physical aspect of your daily practice as an artist?

I feel that all art is somewhat abstract, to all, apart from the artist as it’s their personal journey which the viewer becomes a part of.

I therefore try to bridge another gap in abstraction, by making installations, as the audience can have their own personal reaction to the work.

My work always relates back to geometry and the line, which can be interpreted through a variety of media.

5 balls of string 2 5 balls of string and metal nails 14ft x 1

occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century artists have been discouraged from producing

We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

0ft 2016

something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional

artist? And what's your view on the future of interdisciplinary art?

I think art is changing through the media, as with social media

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ART Habens

Teri Anderson

5 balls of string 5 balls of string and metal nails 14ft x 10ft 2016

everyone is an artist but creating something original becomes more difficult.

the only way of being original and fresh.

My personal experience of being an unconventional artist is that it’s hard to get noticed, and whether a

I believe the ‘uncommon’ is truly

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Teri Anderson

ART Habens

be the future of art as it allows the artist to have more freedom within the genre of art and many more methods of creating new work.

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

My current work looks at the work of Bruno Munari’s ‘Useless Machines’ which I feel has a new context in the current climate of a world full of machines.

I like to explore how abstraction can be transformed through the materials used.

lot of what is created can be seen as art, that is why I am trying to bridge the gap in art and craft.

An interview by and

, curator curator

However, interdisciplinary art will

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Lives and works in the United Kingdom

Farewells, oil on canvas, 190 x 160 cm

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

video, 2013

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ART Habens

Special Issue A Lost Page from History oil on canvas 153 x 112

Bernard Heslin

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello Bernard and welcome to ART Habens.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would invite our readers to visit http://www.bernardheslin.com in order to get a wider idea about your work and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background: you have a solid formal training and after having spent some time in the shipyard you studied painting at Christ’s College of Education Liverpool and then you nurtured your education in the field of drawing and printmaking at the prestigious St. Martin’s School of Art, in London: how did these formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural background direct the trajectory of your artistic research?

I had drifted a bit, I was coming from a background which relied on heavy engineering and shipbuilding.

Bernard Heslin I had worked in the shipyards and knew I did not have the mindset or manual skills to achieve the high quality precision work that was required. I had always painted and drawn. There then appeared a way to study art. I had the exam passes that were necessary. It was fortuitous for me because the approach at college did not rely on previous experience and I could start almost from scratch.

I was directed to Christ's College, Liverpool, a new and radical teacher training college which, a week away from the start of the new academic year, offered me a place as a mature student.

The course covered much of the same ground as a college of art. We were expected to concern ourselves with volume, with notions

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ART Habens

Bernard Heslin

A Far Sea Moves in my Ear (no1) oil on linen 190 x 160 cm

of colour, rhythm and space, to get on with

much as the method by which a painting is

our own work and be able to demonstrate

created. There was a lot of painter’s works to

how we were thinking.

look at and learn from, also to do studies of their work to better understand them and

The aim of the teaching was that the students

incorporate this research into our own work. I

should understand the nature of painting as

wrote my thesis on George Rouault and I feel

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

A Far Sea Moves in my Ear (no5) oil on linen 190 x 160 cm

his influence, especially in his drawing, is still

stay on in New York twice, visiting the

present in my work.

galleries and museums there.

After college I taught in school and then in

While at college I spent two summers working

adult education. I took a trip to Scandinavia to

on summer camps in America and was able to

follow an interest in Viking Art. This was with

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ART Habens

Bernard Heslin

Face oil on linen 76 x 122 cm

my wife - we were pretty hard up and did the

Quite soon it felt necessary to move to

whole thing on a tandem, with some camping

London to benefit from all the resources that

and staying at Youth Hostels.

were there.

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

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 questioned how human experience resonates with collective memory: would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? How does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Moreover, do you think that there is a central idea that connects all of your work as an artist?

For me painting is an activity; it is quite physical and relies on an instinctive touch and a certain degree of commitment. I would describe it as a non verbal language just as, say, music is, where marks on the page describe sounds. The nature of this language or what results from this activity is akin to the sort of marks and images that have been there since earliest Humans. I think there is a possibility that the many experiences that are held within these images are at some subconscious level able to resonate with us today.

The act of painting is what directs the work and how works evolve; this is organized by starting on say 12 new canvases and some previous starts that were deemed to be no longer going anywhere. So a group of canvases are started on, clean or with paint on already, they may reference drawings or studies but do not need to. All this is generally linked to the same motif and becomes a series.

Here I was able to print at Putney School of Art and also studied etching and drawing at St Martin’s.

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Bernard Heslin

We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like the way the strong tones that mark out your palette create tension and dynamics.

How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much 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 a texture?

I move from work to work as a way of trying to keep the flow of ideas working, but from a practical viewpoint it is necessary to let the paint dry instead of just working wet into wet which can muddy the colour and in cold unheated studios getting the paint to dry is difficult (especially with reds). Progress on one piece can then be transferred with slight changes, more vigour or with different colour combinations etc, it is important to keep opening up rather than making the motif obvious until the last moment as this gives life to the painting rather than it be just the sum of its parts.

The colours I use now rely less on earth colours; also, transparent paints are nowadays avoided. I want the paint to sit on top of the colour underneath, a sort of colour chord, where the colours combine but are separate. A few earth colours are used to mute colours or give a neutral link in certain passages of the painting; they do not aim to conjure landscape and as I do not want to transcribe a surface, tonal gradations are not used so white and black are used as colours.

Mind you, any work can fail at any time - and be turned upside down or sideways to try to break into something else. I think there is a central theme running through my work and it sometimes feels like there is only one painting, for example A far sea Moves in my Ear is a title used more than once. Firstly it was an edition of 12 colour etchings which had coloured Japanese paper collage on them; they were part of a group of similar etchings and a few B&W lithographs which were a body of work produced at a residency. I had been looking for inspiration and was struck by the ‘Ariel’ poems of Sylvia Plath, which together with mixture of the Icarus myth and dead birds that I drew on the beach were the basis for these works. Today, much later - it has a different slant, that of arrivals, departures and farewells. This is not just a particular series of events, but applies to aspirations of exploration, personal quests as in myth as well as expulsions and oppression.

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I feel moving away from the landscape and any inherent story produces works that focus on a voice trying to reach out and touch our imagination. There are still elements of tone by diluting the paint more and this is how canvases are started, but the way one colour sits next to another is to give a resonance or vibration. This can be low or high key depending on how terse or strident it emerges. This is just not a choice imposed on the work but something that develops as a result of the painting. Texture just develops as the paint gets thicker as the painting progresses or as a result of build up with a full brush, to give coverage - and the paint coming

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

Oracle for Weeping Songs oil on canvas 190 x 170 cm 21 4 10

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Bernard Heslin

Transit of Venus, oil on linen, 137 x112 cm Special Issue

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Bernard Heslin

off the side of the brush etc. Quite often, a face is just a symbol or a pictogram or is part 'see through', but once it has reached a point where it exists by itself then no matter how unfinished it looks it is there, though quite often it may later be changed and ruined and then re-emerge almost the same but with more presence and more texture. 'Face 1' has a very limited picture space because partly it is half of a much overworked failure. This was a canvas that was put onto board because that part of the earlier one seemed to have something. Also sometimes working over earlier failures can put you back in the groove.

For example Face 1 is cut from a previous canvas, completely changed to try and pick up something of the previous vibe. Now the figure is possibly a photo stuck on a wall or a person constrained in a very condensed sense of space.

ART Habens

I am not trying to be spontaneous. I do not throw paint about to get effect, nor do I spend time on thinking about the process of making marks, as this later approach leaves you dealing across the surface of the picture space rather than establishing space for the figure to inhabit.

Finding somewhere to start can be a problem sometimes works on paper are torn up and then reassembled and painted over. and at other times canvases are turned upside down or even cut up. It is hard to leave the present and move on. In a sense spontaneity is too polite a word; there can be a struggle in which anything goes.

Would you tell us your sources of inspiration?

In particular, how importance does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?

My everyday life experiences are pretty normal apart from rare occasions. It is people I know or have met; relationships and observations and moments where things come together that matter most. Poetry and sometimes artefacts, also ancient sites and marks can also set off a different train of thought. When in Scotland I visit the Pictish stones when possible and elsewhere stone circles and burial sites, and many cathedrals.

In France l visit Lascaux II and Carnac, and in Scandinavia Viking Runes and ship burials among others sites . Other influences came from books in particular The Masks of God, The White Goddess , The Goddesses of Old Europe , The Myth of the Machine and The Mind in the Cave. This gives a sense of a

Do you conceive you artworks instinctively or do you methodically elaborate your pieces? In particular, how importance does spontaneity play in your artistic practice?

I paint instinctively with no ending in mind, although there are lots of ideas or approaches in my head. When I start painting it is just instinct; there are of course drawings and studies in black and white and colour, some of these can be exploring ideas or re-evaluating a part of a painting seeing alternatives or trying to fix problems so these are less spontaneous - but later these are often are reworked until they stand by themselves as being part of the finished series.

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Bernard Heslin

The titles are not always a guide to the work or something to be realised as the work progresses. A lot the time titles are applied after the painting is finished; I try to choose titles that complement the work, as the poetry I read seems to be in sync with what I paint about.

connection with the past but it is the feeling of standing in front a Megalith that I try to recreate to give presence to my own figures.

There is one painting I visited that made a real impression, like many other artists ‘The Issenheim Altar’ by Grunewald stands out.

When I had a studio in central London close to The National Gallery and British Museum, frequent short trips to see something in particular were every other day. ..

We daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim 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 for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your works to be understood?

All this though is just background - as is all the media stories that we are inundated by every day. Whilst it is important to know what is happening, on reflection nothing is new; I make no attempt to relate too closely to the new story of the day.

I paint for myself without the viewer in mind and see the works as openings – something to promote a response. There is little reliance on story or a particular place for the viewer to grasp onto and I try not to imply or to impose a particular message or any meaning in to the work. I feel the work will be viewed completely differently by everybody because of the different experiences they bring. Initial responses can change with a second visit or with a discussion with friends or just over time.

In the studio I set out paints and try to pick up from where I left off with the works already in progress. Sometimes by drawing or working in acrylics, which allows faster times, so several ideas can be worked at the same time.

Treading what is sometimes a fine line between not redoing earlier work or turning out pastiches of other peoples work, I put paint over anywhere it seems to matter, repainting one small area like an eye can actually lead to most of the canvas being modified. There are no rules except possibly to have an empty mind and try to be in touch.

Some days there is progress, and some days not very much - and, occasionally moments of insights which are very welcome as these take the work to another dimension.

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At best I hope there is a joint common meeting place in a poetic sense so that there is some transfer of a positive outlook between the work and the viewer; that they have met somebody or something new.

We like the way you artworks convey such a stimulating combination between figurative

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Seer, oil on canvas, 190 x 150 cm

ART Habens

Bernard Heslin

Night of the Forgotten, oil on canvas, 190 x 160 cm Special Issue

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

A Far Sea Moves in my Ear (no1), oil on canvas, 190 x 160 cm

elements and captivating abstract feeling, creating such an oniric atmosphere: how

would you consider the relationship between abstraction and figurative in your practice? In

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Bernard Heslin

particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

I feel that any discussion that deals with what the painting looks like or dealing with ideas that are to do with the design on the surface of a work are not relevant to my way of thinking.

I think of my work, as a poem, or perhaps poetic in intent. The whole of the canvas is worked on all the time with the aim of creating a space in which things can emerge from. Painting is thought of as a non verbal language that is abstract in nature and my overall approach could be described as gestural or calligraphic. I aim for the figure to inhabit a space that contributes to its psychological impact.

So getting the painting to get to a state where it has a life of its own is the important thing; what it looks like is not an issue, except technically the paint has to sit right with the texture and the feel of the surface being right for that painting. If the figures become too realistic or too worked this can be a problem because it begins to emphasise the surface of the figure, which then can distract the viewer into assessing the quality of the representation and putting it into a space where there is a story rather than the possibility of entering a dialogue with the figure.

Rather than be set in a dream world I would see it as a space in that part of the mind, which music as well as exercise and meditation etc, can also engender.

Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "artists's role differs depending on which part of

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Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

Scorched in memory,oil on canvas, 170 x 185 cm 21 4 18

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Totemic Instants, oil on canvas, 190 x 170 cm Special Issue

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Bernard Heslin

the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they are living under": does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? As an artist particularly concerned with the themes of liberation from suffering and oppression as well as consciousness and liberation of the spirit, how do you consider the role of artists to tackle sensitive cultural in order to trigger social change in our globalised contemporary age?

ART Habens

Art of course can be used as propaganda for repression as well as against it, I think as a painter it is important to be honest in portraying whatever the driving force is behind the work but I hope fixed in a human scale, not an ideology.

You usually paint large canvas as Oracle for weeping Songs and Totemic instance (previouslyStifled by darkness): how do the dimensions of your canvass affect your workflow?

As a person I have participated in marches, vigils and protests for several well known organisations and also for political and educational issues. As an artist this may colour my outlook but to deal with just one issue even though it is very pertinent at the time reduces the possibilities inherent in a painting.

I think I would find dealing with the here and now limiting and would be polemical or caricature. I do not think painting is the best medium to make a point or raise awareness to support a particular viewpoint. I do not think painting can change very much what happens in the real world. However, art can be very much involved in the here and now by using forms such as posters and graffiti as better vehicles to broadcast the issues and elicit a response.

The size of a canvas is not proportional to the amount of time a painting takes to complete or even how much paint is used. Sometimes I choose a larger canvas just to be able to make bigger gestures and unrestrained marks almost as a limbering up and freeing the mind to be more liberal. On larger sizes the gestures are more natural and the figure in more proportion to the viewer and so are possibly more natural to interact with.

The act of painting is what directs the work and how works evolve, this is organised by starting on say 12 canvases, some new and some previously painted canvases that were subsequently deemed as no longer going anywhere. So a group of canvases are started on, either clean or with paint on already, they may reference drawings or studies but do not need to. When a painting is completed depends on chance; if things are going well then a short time, if not longer - or not at all.

Having said that I have one painting and three studies that were a response to the gas bombings in Aleppo, “Totemic Instance� is a symbolic marker to highlight one sort of atrocity in a history littered with repression and injustice.

I move from work to work as a way of trying to keep the flow of ideas working, which from

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Bernard Heslin

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

a practical viewpoint is necessary to let the paint between applications. Progress on one piece than be transferred with slight changes, more vigour or different colour combinations etc, it is important to keep opening up rather than making the motif obvious until the last moment as this gives life to the painting rather than it be just the sum of its parts.

However, any work can fail at any time and be turned upside down or sideways to try to break into something else.

As for the future I want to continue painting in a free and arbitrary manner. I try to be open to fresh ways of seeing. At the moment I am moving away from the “Faces� series so spending time destroying the images on the canvases that were not resolved, taking them back to chaos but trying to preserve the space and possibilities that would allow a new motif to inhabit.

Over the years your artworks have been exhibited both nationally and internationally: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks?

I am also spending more time drawing and studies in ink and acrylics because that allows ideas or notions to be quickly produced and assessed then changed or taken further immediately.

So ups and downs - until a new direction appears to be taking over.

I think my work may not fit in many people’s preconceptions and feedback has been mixed. Of course with friends and other artists there is a mutual respect and discussion but generally there is some interest in the work.

References: The Masks of God, Creative Mythology Joseph Cambell

I hope the viewer will stop and take a little time to look, then to be able to feel the presence of the person I have created and at a subconscious level understand and empathise with them.

The White Goddess Rupert Graves The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe Mariga Gimbutaas The Myth of the machine Lewis Mumford

We have appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Bernard. What projects are you currently working on, and

SummerIssue 2015 Special

The Mind in the cave David Lewis Williams.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

Bernard Heslin

ART Habens

Separations, oil on canvas, 140 x 120 cm

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