Focus magazine 8 by Focus Magazine

FOCUS FROM ARTIST TO ARTIST

ISSUE 8 Anna Tea 多 Clinton Van Inman 多 Cyriaco Lopes Harrys Picot 多 Christian Gastaldi 多 Achraf Baznani

ISSUE no. 8 Contributors: Anna Tea, Clinton Van Inman, Cyriaco Lopes, Harrys Picot, Christian Gastaldi Cover photo: Achraf Baznani Face of Battle

Edited & Published by Achraf Baznani baznani.com | achraf@baznani.com

FOCUS

Independent & Readers-Supported Magazine of Photography and Art

Call For Work, Next Issues

OIL- ACRYLIC - WATERCOLOR

NO THEME

MIXED MEDIA - PHOTOGRAPHY DIGITAL ART - SCULPTURE - GLASS

Subject matter is OPEN Send up to 12 images for consideration

All rights to art, words, photos, design and copyrights are the property of the Artist. All work in this publication may not be used without the Artist’s consent.

Clinton Van Inman England

I am submitting some pictures of my newest paintings that I hope you will like. These are originals and hand painted by me. My paintings have appeared in many magazines and are often featured on magazine covers as well as publications. This year I am having arts shows in downtown Tampa and city hall in Brooksville. My biggest accomplishment as an artist is having a large watercolor painting hanging in the new library of the Huntington

6 : FOCUS : no. 8

Library and Museum in San Marino albeit two buildings away from my hero Gainsborough but at least Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m close. As a realistic painter I try to blend classical themes with modern. I was born in Walton-on-Thames, England, graduated from San Diego State University, and have been an teacher all my life having recently retired from the Tampa Bay area where I live with my wife, Elba.

ÂŠ Clinton Van Inman

Christian Gastaldi france

Christian Gastaldi is a French artist born along the shores of the Mediterranean. He started travelling the world andliving abroad. In 2005, art became an absolute necessity.He kept travelling, moving his studios around (France, Angola, Azerbaijan, Spain, Canada…) Gastaldi conceives his creation as a painter, though he hardly use paints. His preferred materials arethosethat can be found in the streets, having suffered the passing of timeor those, whose mundane functions do not spontaneously elect them as arty material. He aims to bring out the ‘humanity’ and the fragility perceived in this simplematerial, worth for him of an artistic redemption.

12 : FOCUS : no. 8

Through hand-made tears, involving deeply the body in the creation process - he builds rhythm, key element of his creations. Working like a novelist focusing on the melody of the sentences, his tears find a place in the canvas space, to create the graphic equivalent of a writer’s style. Broken letters, faint color touches or dust covered elements, hang on along the tear generated cliffs, raising the awareness of the beauty and the fragility of present. He dreams to be a visual poet.

ÂŠ Christian Gastaldi

Anna Tea

My name is Anna. I am a photographer based between Ukraine and Poland. I would describe my own work as an intensive mixture or various elements such as psychology, geography, environment, inter-cultural aspects etc. which, I believe, make it quite diverse yet still ascribe it my own unique perspectives based on different backgrounds and experiences I have gone through until today as being a young, curious traveler who is in a constant move catching glimpses of unusual moments, people and everything that is in connection with their inner and outer contents. Traveling certainly plays an important role in developing my own style and characteristic and it greatly contributes in reaching towards fulfillment of my artistic ambitions. I enjoy myself discovering the world because new places are

22 : FOCUS : no. 8

truly efficient sources of further inspiration and they extend my capacities as they broaden knowledge about oneself in influenced by various environments, cultures, people, situations and circumstances. In brief, in my photography one can find broad spectrum of emotions merged with functional/dysfunctional characteristics emphasizing individual and his/her various functions in the society and world. However, I think intrapersonal issues are the ones that attract me the most as I am particularly interested in psychology. I like to explore different characters and personalities, even the ones who are considered to be â&#x20AC;&#x17E;out of normâ&#x20AC;?. I am curious about how body and mind connects within an individual and also try to express this through my photography as I believe that this is a topic which can never be fully discovered and hides great potentials within it.

Cyriaco Lopes Cyriaco Lopes is a New York based Brazilian artist whose work has been seen in the United States (at the Contemporary Art Museums in Baltimore and Saint Louis and at El Museo del Barrio, NYC, etc.); in Brazil (at the Museums of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, the Museum of Art of São Paulo, the National Museum of Fine Arts, etc.); in Germany (at Artforum 3, Freiburg), in Belgium (at Art Cinema OffOff, Gent), in France (at Mire/Lieu Unique, Nantes, at Centre D’Art Contemporain Faux Mouvement, Metz, and at Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, Paris); and in Italy (at Casa Degli Artist, Milan), among other countries and venues. His work has been curated by such artists as Lygia Pape, Janine Antoni, Ryan Trecartin and Luciano Fabro, as well as by art critics such as Paulo Herkenhoff. In 2013 he exhib-

32 : FOCUS : no. 8

ited at Kabine Nadire, Istanbul, Turkey, and the Armenian Centre for Contemporary and Experimental Art in Yerevan. Lopes won Stetson University Hand Award for Faculty Achievement (2007), The Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis Project Award (2003), the World Studio Foundation Award (2001), the Phillips Prize of trip to Europe (1997). The artist holds two MFAs: one in Imaging and Digital Arts, UMBC, Baltimore (2002), and the other in Visual Languages, UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro (1999). He also attended artist’s residencies such as Skowhegan (2002), Parque Lage (1995) and the London Project (1994). He is a professor at John Jay College/City University of New York.

ÂŠ Cyriaco Lopes

HARRYS HARRYS is a member of these contemporary painters who are one foot in the current art and an other one in the decadent pop art. And although the subjects chosen in his representational painting are clearly recognizable, everything seems to be only fragment, that immediate agrees you to enter the universe of the artist. The paint of HARRYS confides slowly, very slowly it appears as a set of parts to look with accuracy, offering then an iconography which sparkles with fresh rudeness and seems to urge you to come to share a game . The tools of HARRYS sculpture flesh and shadows, impertinent and free beings which look at you, scrutinize you, grimace and sometimes gesture up to the big-farcical caricature as if they laughed at themselves.The characters go

42 : FOCUS : no. 8

out of their frames and enjoy parodying the spectator. The paint of HARRYS makes then bitter-sweet, it concerns an ironic eye the existence, the company and its mechanisms, on these ceaseless waves of collective frenzy in which our contemporary world is self-mutilating . Virtual decline of a blazing chromatic universe, HARRYSâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s work, not deprived of humor, is an invitation for a journey of flesh at the heart of the human being!

Magnus Bilal TASHAAT Art collector and critic

Achraf Baznani

Moroccan artist photographer Achraf Baznani (pronounced: Ashraf Baznani) carries on the traditions of Surrealism with his wild, imaginative, and wholly impractical imagery. Among his inventive scenarios, small human figures—often the artist himself—appear trapped within glass jars or the size of a camera lens; in other works, Baznani more or less dissects his body, as for example, in one, he cleanly removes his brain from his cranium, or

50 : FOCUS : no. 8

in another, twists off his hand, much as if it were a light bulb. Imparted throughout such works are strong senses of humor and wonder, and as such, Baznani’s art offers a Surrealistic take on life experience in the digital age. A self-taught artist, Baznani has no formal photography education.

ÂŠ Achraf Baznani

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

If you have any questions, please email us at achraf@baznani.com Please read all requirements below prior to making your submission.

Inside My Dreams Available at Amazon or Baznani.com

Next Issue

CALL FOR WORK NO THEME Subject matter is OPEN

You are the copyright holder to the image(s) being submitted, or you have permission from the copyright holder to submit the image(s) on his/her behalf. A 200-300 words biography describing you as an artist, your field of work, your process, and your style of work. Include a professionally taken headshot. Texts should be submitted as an attachment in Microsoft Word or a file format we can open with Word.

Send up to 12 images for consideration

Image(s) should not contain any watermark/text/graphic overlays. PROMOTE YOUR PROJECT Do you have a body of work or current project you would like more people to see? You can have one page in our magazine. In exchange we ask for a donation to our no profit cause of putting out the magazine. Send an email with your name and a description/artist statement of your project and a link to the work letting us know you are interested in promoting the project. We will review each submission and send you the details of what to do next. If you have questions email: achraf@baznani.com

Image(s) are provided as individual high-qualify JPEG files in the RGB color space. 10 Image(s) are at least 1200 pixels on its longest side; resolution is set at 72dpi.

For more informations: www.baznani.com/focus-magazine www.facebook.com/FocusPhotographyMagazine

FOCUS