THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE A LITERARY & ART JOURNAL VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 3 OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2021
Art • Words • Ideas
Cover art: Susan Jessop, Fallen (2017, paper collage, 4 x 6 inches)
The Purposeful Mayonnaise is intended as an online journal that anyone with an internet connection can access from anywhere in the world. www.thepurposefulmayo.com
@ 2021 The Purposeful Mayonnaise Copyright for all published content is held by the authors/artists. All rights reserved.
WELCOME A short note from the editor
Welcome to our third issue of The Purposeful Mayonnaise Journal! The theme of this issue is "IMPRESSION," and we want to thank everyone who entrusted us with their work. We left this theme entirely open for interpretation, and we were delighted to explore all the different approaches. From painting to collage, sculpture and film photography, poetry and creative prose, Issue 3 presents the works of close to fifty artists from over twenty countries. In the artist interview, Lara Buffard talks to us about what it means to be a performance artist, inspiration, and a typical day in her studio. We delight in images and words from Susan Jessop, Cris Amezcua, Meng Lu, Ofuma Agali, Nathaniel Bek, Luciana Fabiilli, Kelsey Arrington and many more accomplished artists and writers. Our mission is to bring you a new issue overflowing with art, words, ideas. We hope we have succeeded.
Anda Marcu @andamarcuart Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
CONTENTS Art
Words • Ideas
Susan Jessop 6 Meng Lu 8 Artist Interview: Lara Buffard 10 Maité Wagemans 17 Kelsey Arrington 19 Luciana Fabiilli 25 Alice Gautier 26 Besjana Kryeziu 27 Alex Schmaltz 30 Fleur Thesmar 31 RUNA 35 Brut Carniollus 37 Valentina Diena 40 Katie Mollon 41 Cody Norton 43 WIBAA 46 Maisie Cu 51 Allison Moyers 52 Maya Kachra 55 Martin Molloy 57 Cris Amezcua 61 [ART] The Messdeck 65
Nathaniel Bek 21 Ofuma Agali 28 Kathleen Tighe 33 Jenna Fliesen 39 Daryl Curnow 42 Cindy Thompson 45 Elodie Barnes 48 David Hirsh 54 Luke Young 56 Anjana Sen 63
* regular contributor
PAGE 5 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Art & Words Jonathan Rossney 59
ART: SUSAN JESSOP
Walk Way, 2017, collage and gouache, 10 x 12 inches
PAGE 6 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Susan grew up in the UK and spent 20 years balancing her own art practice with a career in museum education. After moving to Vancouver, Canada, in 2005, Susan began to collect and curate paper artifacts that reflected her experiences of object interpretation. An emerging artist Susan creates paper collages as a starting point for her ideas, sometimes working with acrylic paint or digital animation Website: www.susanjessop.com IG: @naturescardigan Above: Green Interloper, 2018, paper collage, 10 x 12 inches Left: Reflect, 2019, paper collage, 10 x 8 inches
PAGE 7 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: MENG LU
My Childhood And Moon "In my childhood, one of my favourite pastimes was staring at the full moon, looking for familiar shapes. I definitely could see a rabbit in there, that was from a very popular Chinese tale. I take this work as a remembrance of my childhood and I all the views I may never see again."
PAGE 8 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Above left: The Death of Mermaid Above right: Blue Horse Left: Blooming
Meng Lu is a Beijing-born artist working in acrylics and painting mainly surrealist landscapes, animals and portraits. I have been studying Chinese Traditional Painting since I was four years old. I completed my Master's degree in Multimedia at the University of Stirling, UK I am attracted mainly by the exploratory nature of painting. Sometimes fantastic elements surface on the canvas during the painting process– they may be an animal or a tree or organized accidentally by colour blocks. These "accidents" map the whole story. Shapes of animals, plants, or people are hiding in my paintings, and the audience could identify them or ignore them since they are at the border of representational and abstract. I get a lot of inspiration from artists like Chagall, Munch, Picasso, Perrotin, David Hockney, Huang Yogyu, as well as facial makeup in traditional Chinese opera and freehand brushwork. IG: @cynthialu92 PAGE 9 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ARTIST INTERVIEW
LARA BUFFARD
persona, born in Paris in Lara Buffard is a French Baroque
1973, based between London and Athens. She is a performance artist who incorporates symbolic and surrealistic visuals within her work. She subverts the darkest aspects of life through striking and colourful images, communicating personal and social ideas in playful and powerful acts, transforming the human body into a Raphaelite creature. Website: www.larabuffard.com IG: @lara_buffard_
Tell us a bit about yourself... I'm originally French-born and grew up in Paris, but I lived in Egypt, Switzerland, Canada, and London for seven years before moving in autumn 2020 between two lockdowns to a small island in Greece.
How did you become a performance artist? I became a performance artist by…chance! I worked for ten years in a museum, but when I moved to London, I applied to a call out for a project called "if Tate Modern was musée de la danse" by Boris Charmatz. I was not a dancer and not a performer, but after two days of selection….they selected me. Someone I worked with wrote a performance and sent it to me, and I answered I'm not a performer. He wrote me back," if you are not a performer, nobody is a performer, come on Monday!" Since then, I've never stopped working. The same year I started my own projects. I never thought to be a performance artist, these came to me, and I feel it's where I must be and where I can share and help people reflect and make their own journey. One day, six months after a performance, I Photo by Luis Hartl received an email, and this man wrote me how he finally talked to his dad and told him for the first PAGE 10 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
time, "I love you, dad." He wanted to thank me for helping him do this step……..my performance was completely silent, but I guess he got some message.
Did you always want to be one? What is your earliest memory of making your art? I was 5 years old. I remember doing puppets with cheese boxes, I always created things, but I never felt I could call myself an artist in the institutional way. I found it to be pretentious, until….. I couldn't hide anymore, I was sweating art!!
Photo by Richard Kaby
How did you choose the medium of performance art? I love the ephemeral presence. Stay an emotion, a feeling. The present moment is the point, being there and now, together. I'm deeply moved by a live human presence.
PAGE 11 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
What themes or ideas do you pursue in your work? It's mainly about women's empowerment and people's empowerment in general. And death! Can you tell us about your process? Each working opportunity is a playground where I dive into it and take the chance to explore. I write and draw a lot, and usually, I have clear images that come to me. I process a lot in my mind via visualization of the space. How I will move and why, which symbols I will use. What does it mean for me? I don't need people to understand literally, but I must be clear myself about what I want to say/do. As a performance artist, your body talk! I read a lot, usually, when I'm in a process. I see symbols and metaphors everywhere. I can even randomly open some books and always find materials for my working process. When I write, at some point I reread and when I see something coming back or saying the same things but in different way. I know it's important for me, and I must work on it.
Photo by Thurianne Le Calvé
Photo by Lara Buffard
Photo by Jenna Callawaert
Do you actively search for inspiration or let inspiration find you? How do you come up with ideas for your projects? Inspiration is everywhere. I feel totally immersed in my practice. I do a lot of series of photos called performing for the camera. I draw every day, it's quite a compulsive practice! PAGE 12 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
I'm listening to podcasts about art in general. Whatever it is, when people are passionate about what they do, it's fascinating. And when I listen, I can draw! As soon as a date for a project is confirmed, I start to work; it's like a flow. I take lots of notes, too and practice automatic writing.
Photo by Mauro Abhül
How did your practice evolve or unfolded over the years? Usually, I'm pretty clear quickly about what I want/need to say in a performance. I work a lot with a kind of costume-installation on my body, and during the making process, it helps me jump into my subject. Recently, I created a burka made out of newspaper, and I totally embroidered it for an International Performance Art festival in Switzerland. All the articles used are about women's situations around the world. Abortion, rights, equal pay, contraception, place in the society…..reading and spending so much time on it because of the embroideries helped me feel and get into the right presence when I performed. PAGE 13 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Tell us about a typical day in the studio. Ideally, and if I don't have to answer emails straight away, I draw for one or two hours. Then I do the administrative stuff, which is a big part of the work, and then I create, and I can do it until the middle of the night. When I'm in the creative part of the work, I don't count my hours. Since I moved to an island in Greece, I use as well materials from nature and things I find on the beach or during my walks.
Photo by Lara Buffard
Photo by Shin Iglesias
How do you draw the line between performance art and personal life? Do they overlap? Is this line blurry or strong? Like most artists, I use my life as material, but I always say I feel I channel people's voices. It's why I cover very often my face, and it's not about Lara but me as a human being. I express on their behalf what most of them can't.
About your project "One Small Step," you say it is "a piece about the experience of being an older woman in our society and the process of being observed and PAGE 14 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
scrutinized." Could you elaborate on that? On what it means to be an older woman in our society?
t s e r r o F ai l u J y b o t o h P
I remember very well when I had this idea after a woman told me how she feels transparent because of her age. I personally don't feel pressure as I have a pretty big character, but I'm sad and tired of hearing women's stories about feeling ignored, judged, even rejected. Old or young, how we are never enough, not right, not having this or being that. Women are full of shame and this is not ok! I'm a mother of three, and my oldest one is a young woman. I stand for them, old and young.
Would you say other artists or art genres have influenced your practice? If yes, how? I admire women artists who dedicated themselves totally to their art, like Nikki de Saint Phalle, who became very ill because of the products she used for her art but didn't stop, Georgia O'Keefe, who was painting for hours in her car despite hot weaves in New Mexico. Sophie Calle for being-making a piece of art with her life without boundaries. Marina Abramovitch for sacrificing and challenging everything for the sake of performance art. And there is the one and only one Alejandro Jodorowky, he is a source of eternal inspiration. When I discovered his books, I thought, "Ok I can live on this planet!
What is your dream project? (let's say, in an ideal world where money, time, space were not a constraint) I would like to collaborate with more people on the same project. I met so many talented people with different backgrounds, dance, visual art, musician, philosopher etc.…. I would like to explore and do a big project with them, together. Living and creating for six weeks without financial and working space issues and performing in different countries.
Tell us a bit about the future (any plans, upcoming projects, news). From October until the end of January 2022, I will be visiting lecturer at the University of Arts of London (UAL) and in charge of MA students through a project I PAGE 15 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
have with Body Intelligence Collective, my team in London. I will be a coach for Dansathon, a contemporary European dance prize, in November. Presenting Digital Umbilical, a virtual stage, in November in Belgium. Working on a project with a neuroscientist who graduated at MIT and a musician for a piece about consent & sexuality. Working on a performance project about empty fountains in Athens. Collaborating on a project for a Greek film-documentary for 2022. Working on my series of masks called Family portraits. Like always, waiting to hear from institutions I applied to!
Lara Buffard, When the silence is noisy; Photo by Lara Buffard
PAGE 16 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: MAITÉ WAGEMANS
Somebody Nobody
PAGE 17 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Peaceful Rest All four images: © Olivier Papegnies
Maité Wagemans (b. 1982) graduated from the Visual Arts Academy of Mol (province of Antwerp, Belgium) and holds a master's degree in International Relations from the Free University of Brussels. After several years of professional life away from the art world, she suffered burnout and depression. She recovered thanks to a return to art and artistic expression, and in particular, thanks to the possibility of exploring the third dimension that clay sculpting offers. Artist statement: Before starting the realization of a sculpture, it is first a precise and well-defined idea in my mind. The first phase is the desire to treat a subject. Then come the symbols, objects or other elements that I will model to address this subject. As I go along, the project takes shape, and the technical aspect is refined. I visualize the sculptural constraints and bring a solution to them. When everything is in place mentally, the work of the clay begins. It happens that the technical reflection pushes the material to its limits. It is the emotions I wish to express that guide me in my work. The subjects I approach are those to which I react with the most sensitivity. My creative process follows a very instinctive dynamic. The invisible plays an important role in my sculptures because it allows me to evoke and suggest, which creates the necessary space for expressing emotions. It is the fundamental complement of the tangible parts of the sculpture. IG: @maite_wagemans_art PAGE 18 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: KELSEY ARRINGTON
Cotton Flowerchild, 2021, 18 x 24 inches archival pigment print, from the series "Pick Me Apart Like Cotton Flowers"
PAGE 19 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Haunted, 2021, 18 x 24 inches, archival pigment print, from the series "Pick Me Apart Like Cotton Flowers"
Kelsey Arrington (American, b. 1992) is an African American Fine Art Photographer. Born and raised in Detroit, MI, Arrington earned her BFA in Photography from the College for Creative Studies in 2015 before moving to Washington DC to work in the arts. She now travels nomadically, creating artwork informed by her exploration of the United States. Through her artwork, Arrington investigates the depths of identity in relation to American sociocultural anthropology. Working through a process of research and photographic manipulation, she aims to excavate personal truths regarding her own Blackness and womanhood in relation to American history. www.kelseyarrington.net IG: @kelseyarrington PAGE 20 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: NATHANIEL BEK Memoir of Clouds I have unmarried my longing marrow From this tethered choir of skin This autumn of molting Gallery of cicada wings Is it time to discard this earthly husk I have littered our conversations enough With parts of my body Given my all to this rustic moon This vengeance of shadowed beds Or all that I have put to rest Your nameNo longer hibernates in my cheeks & isn't this a death worth burying & isn't what we had A type of always A practiced waltz of funerals We made of the night Of our voices How I gave the strongest parts of me To you The first time I abandoned myself I was 10 16 21 27 Is age just a number OrA collection of goodbyes we keep celebrating
PAGE 21 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
The first time I abandoned myself Is a lie I let linger in me now A still reminder Of all the mirrors I have become Shattered returns of an echo A kaleidoscope of bladed selves I remember the first time I clung to anything that Was not my blood & I named it love & what is love if not something We can touch inside us & what is touch If not everything I have opened with my body & what is an opening butThe sky This God of unending sunsets How every day is a sort of death We keep accepting & every morning is a return A stammering palm of lungs These anxious gifts Of fleeting song This orchestra of internals I have known to harden This memorial of muted fauna I keep grieving ***
I hold a photo of a child Palms adrift in question A teddy bear An eternity of permanence Between them The boy The hand The lush abundance of soft welcoming Did I ever touch it
PAGE 22 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
How removed I am from this Doppelganger of benign beginnings Even now in my thirties Hands outstretched in the vastness Of my own learning I am a metropolis of vacant children A chasm of vanishing clouds A still calm of disjointed shadows I wish I could splinter this unloved delicate into me But this photo is no longer a form of ownership & I am no longer a form of this boy In its place My first memory is The tractor The cowboy The knife fight Maybe if I try hard enough This tractor can be a metaphor For growth This cowboy a long noon survival This knife fight a form of severing The long from the dark Maybe I can make a cemetery of failed Beginnings These memoirs of preserved smiles A covenant This poem An oath To avenge all that I have given This skin This blood This ripe meadow of love-me-nots If this poem is a promise Then let it be to myself To you To everyone I have ever buried PAGE 23 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Let it be of a tree I take back from the ground Let this poem be everything that moves A startling of melodies we claim & claim again for ourselves How I want to name this my body How I want this to feel like forever This caged existence we call skin Where everything I have touched Has touched me A night so vast it never stops speaking An answering of wishes we cast out Of the dead & everything leaving Like an un-numbering of stars that Keeps expanding Burning Into this great unknown Of fragile existence
Nathaniel Bek is a writer and artist from Northeast Wisconsin. His work can be found in Phoenix Magazine, Eber & Wien, Narrative Northeast, and was the 2020 recipient of the Three Mile Harbor Press Poetry Book Award for his debut collection Atrophy of the Boy Who Became a Wishing Well (June, 2021). He can be found curating the wind online at NCBEK Poetry. Website: https://linktr.ee/ncbekpoetry IG: @ncbek_poetry PAGE 24 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: LUCIANA FABIILLI
Frozen In Time
The Gaze
Luciana Fabiilli, an Italian-Canadian figurative artist, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Honors Degree from York University. Luciana paints portraits that reveal characters of inner beauty, intelligence and strength in the femininity of what the artist calls "Renaissance of the New Woman." These portraits are muses of inspiration that flow from intuitive, creative energy, and the vibrant colour energy is reminiscent of Matisse. Luciana's Vision is to paint a brighter world, and her Mission is to inspire! Website: www.lucianaart.com IG: @lucccibella PAGE 25 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: ALICE GAUTIER
Hunter's Vision, 2020, hand cut collage, 8.8 x 12.9 cm
Alice Gautier is a former student in art history who makes hand-cut collages with all sorts of papers she finds (magazines, scores, textbooks, newspapers, etc.). She never prints anything; she always works in a "recycling" spirit with all these papers she gathers. She has a passion for puns, poetry that she is using in her collage's titles. She loves to make anachronic compositions and harmonizing colours and tries to denounce through her works sexism, capitalism, cliché and causes that matter to her. This collage aims to make fun of hunters by imagining their perceptions, looks, and impressions when they see a wild animal, like here a doe. They do not see the beauty of the animal, nor the elegance of its jump, but a game, a meal on legs. A bit like in the cartoons Tom & Jerry or Tweety & Silvester where the predatory cat sees the mouse or the bird as a snack. IG: @amour_de_ma_vue PAGE 26 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: BESJANA KRYEZIU
Portrait, 2021, 30 x 40 cm, acrylic on paper,
In my thoughts, 2021, 20 x 30 cm, acrylic on paper
Besjana Kryeziu is a visual artist from Kosovo, living in Belgium. She earned her BFA and Master's degree from the University of Prishtina. She took part in more than 60 local and international exhibitions: two of them as a curator, a winner of 6 prizes and 25 certifications. IG: @artworkbesjana
PAGE 27 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: OFUMA AGALI
Mambilla Plateau After knowing that lush growth overflows through the year, with fruits and veggies doubling their normal sizes, and animals gigantic and royal, the cool abode, far above sea level, wide onto highlands of Bamenda, will be a place to purge old muse and drink new imageries. I will wait long enough to feel those gentle, yet husky, whistles of defiant harmattan breeze; not minding the dry skin and cracking lips, patiently waiting for the feel of deep sleep that Gembu's comforting arms will offer, during those lazy December nights.
PAGE 28 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
An Ode to Anonymous i Multiple faces peered out, but yours was the only one present. The little exchange of words, that feasted in between us, calling my attention to paths of my renewal, lighted the blue flame that burnt softly until I knew I had nowhere else to go. In the fiercer exchanges of words that followed, that virtual festival of encoding and decoding, we did everything people like us could ever do. When you evaporated unannounced, to protect what you already had, us stopped to exist just the same way it was born. The memories are still good to live with, crawling years after, after years of crawling, years of mulish memories.
Ofuma Agali is a Nigerian with literary interests in prose and poetry. His works have appeared in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Praxis, The Kalahari Review, among others. His poems have also been published in anthologies and he has written a collection of poems as well as a collection of short fiction. PAGE 29 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: ALEX SCHMALTZ
Banjee Girl
Alex Schmaltz is a Canadian artist, born in Toronto and now living and working in Hamilton. Her paintings provide a glimpse into her world; she often creates works of her favourite foods, animals and pop culture figures and pieces that celebrate the beauty of womanhood. Website: www.alexschmaltzart.com IG: @allthecoloursofthewind PAGE 30 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: FLEUR THESMAR
PAGE 31 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
All three works: Untitled, watercolour on paper
After graduating from Ecole Polytechnique and Imperial College, Fleur Thesmar worked for 20 years in France in the high-tech industry. Her arrival in the United States in 2015 triggered an ancient passion of hers: painting. She took classes at the MFA with the studio art program. Since then, she has exhibited in international and national juried shows in Boston, Cambridge, Arlington, Newburyport, Norwell, Boylston, Brooklyn NY, Cheyenne, WY, Bourg-LaReine, France, etc. As an emerging artist, she pursues her wish to share her intense emotions and change of perspective due to her migration to the USA. Wesbite: www.FleurTdeFrance.com IG: @FleurTdeFrance PAGE 32 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: KATHLEEN TIGHE
Morning Rain The dog has stopped suddenly Eyes frozen, intent, Every muscle coiled, ready to spring. "What is it?" I ask. I scan the swaying grasses, the whispering trees, the dune sloping to the lake's edge. Then I see: Two fawns faltering, stumbling along Just behind a doe nibbling leaves as she picks a path among the poplars. Rain falls softly, a gentle tapping on the leaves underfoot And a drip, drip, dripping all around, From the edge of my slicker's hood, Even off the end of my nose, Blurring the bright green of the woods. But it is early morning And birds are calling, A red-winged blackbird, the scarlet flash of a cardinal, And a mourning dove coos, lamenting the absence of sun. The dog whuffs, her excitement hardly contained. "Shhh," I say. They are nearly concealed By the tall grass Almost hidden, but not quite, Their dappled spots too bright against reddish umber coats Even in this dull light And a white flash of their little tails As they mimic the warning from their mother
PAGE 33 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
For she has sensed us now Head lifted Sniffing Eyes searching. She sees us -- no, she spies the dog Who has moved into a crouch Trembling, ready to lunge. She freezes And her twins do, too. She watches the dog, the dog stares back. For a moment the wood falls silent. I tug the leash then, just once, And the dog looks up beseeching. "Let's leave them alone," I urge And I turn. The dog follows, Reluctance in her step, her craning neck As she glances back. The rain falls gently And we find our way home.
Kathleen Tighe is a writer and educator based in Michigan. She writes primarily creative nonfiction, flash fiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Still Life, Qua Literary and Fine Arts Magazine, and Writing From the Inside Out. Her passion for traveling has informed her view of our fleeting time on Planet Earth and influences much of her work. PAGE 34 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: RUNA
To Forget, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 80 cm (39 x 31 inches)
PAGE 35 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Cat Hidden in the Attic, 2020, acrylic, oil and oil pastel on paper, 29,5 x 41,6 cm (11,6 x 16,4 inches)
The Island, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 81 x 116 cm (32 x 46 inches)
RUNA Name: Rute Norte (the signature is RUNA - the first syllables of Rute Norte, converted to feminine). Location: Lisbon, Portugal Artist Statement An artist's work is a kind of diary – said Picasso. The pictures reflect passing episodes. Lives and experiences expressed on canvas, with paints and brushes. My paintings can either refer to an episode that took place on a trip – a memory – or they can talk about food or the cat that appeared on the roof. Or be simple ideas and concepts that pass in the moment. I usually use acrylic on the first layer and oil on the following ones. Complement with oil pastel and oil stick. Sometimes I draw in pencil directly on the canvas before starting to paint; other times, I go directly to brush strokes, applying paint - on canvas or paper - with a brush, without any previous sketch. I don't always choose colours. Without looking, I pick up a tube of paint at random from inside the paintbox. The colour that comes is the one that will be used. But the colour that comes defines which point of the picture is painted. Here is an intuitive process. All colours are beautiful, and they understand each other. It is the human eye that gives them more value or not. And there are a lot of human eyes. Website: www.rutenorte.com IG: @rute_norte PAGE 36 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: BRUT CARNIOLLUS
At the Foot of the Hill
Citypark
PAGE 37 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Lights of Santiago
Brut Carniollus is a visual artist and photographer specialized in photographybased digital collage and digital graphics executed as original digital UV prints. His approach tends to be reductional, deconstructional and minimalist. His work is exhibited and awarded worldwide. Since 2012 he also serves as official paparazzi of the renowned international artist symposium Slovenia Open To Art. He is a member of The Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies and represented by Gallery 5'14, 10dence Gallery and Singulart. Lives and works in Radovljica, Slovenia, EU. Website: carniollus.com IG: @carniollus PAGE 38 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: JENNA FLIESEN
facing it i wonder, will my death cause discomfort for those who only kind of know me will they think “why is she incapable of changing her circumstances?” i think ‘they won’t even miss me’ how will my Lord forgive me for taking away his greatest gift? how do i tell them i'm not just writing poetry?
Located in New York City, but born and raised in Las Vegas, Jenna is a 20-year-old poet who has been writing for 5 years. Her poetry tends to take a focus on her experiences as a Tunisian American. Specifically she writes to make sense of the clash between mental health and culture. You can find more of her work at her very own poetry instagram @jennapoemz. PAGE 39 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: VALENTINA DIENA ·Cyberbreath n.3, 2021. coloured pencil on paper, 65 x 50 cm (25.5 x 19.6 inches) It seems now possible to replace every matter of our lives, even the most basic ones, with a digital variation; the technology, versatility and design of industrial products gradually created a different reality in which building our own identities through the virtual connection with others. But is this mutual and virtual connection enough to replace our perception of what's around us? Can Virtual Reality become a part of our organism as a sort of emotional prosthesis, just like electronic cigarettes can gradually become part of our breathing process? Or maybe, just like electronic cigarettes, we are giving up fire, contact, and the natural fugacity of time to settle down in a cold, eternal, safe, artificial and strongly hermetic technology? You Are One of a Kind!, 2021, coloured pencil on paper, 100 x 70 cm (39.3 x 27.5 inches) "You are one of a kind!" is a slogan often used to push young men and women to show their abilities and "gamble on skills no one else has." Thus, we are finding ourselves encouraged to show off our uniqueness to somehow make our way through a crowd of people just as much unique as we are, who are trying their best to reach the goal. The purpose of You Are One of a Kind! is to analyze this tragicomic side of the contemporary era, where everybody is educated and pushed to be "one of a kind"; thus, the title ironically completes the work that depicts a braiding of multicoloured strings all forming the same shape, where individual uniqueness vanishes into the whole excess of colours.
Valentina Diena was born on October 13th, 1996, in Milan, Italy. After graduating with top marks from Alessandro Volta Arts High School in July 2015, she attended the First Level Painting Course at Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where she had a bachelor's degree with honours in July 2019. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Painting at Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Valentina Diena's works mainly focus on identity and self-perception in the modern era, through a path ranging from the body and somatization to the ability of specific objects to represent the bond between us and the world we live in. IG: @valentina__diena PAGE 40 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: KATIE MOLLON
Katie Mollon is a fine art photographer based in Detroit, Michigan. She uses experimental techniques, and plastic film cameras, to create emotional landscapes. Her current body of work focuses on connecting imagery to the physical ingredients that the film was soaked in before development. These negatives were boiled in locally made kombucha. Petoskey (3 - above & 4 - left)) 2021 C-41 12" x 18" each IG: @analoguedreamer PAGE 41 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: DARYL CURNOW
Sip Sip. Exchange casual glances Everyone here is a writer all with laptops taking chances Not quite like a library all well-read, but with dreams Small victories are hard to come by spelling my name right is a good start I wish I was smart everyone here is a writer Sip. I should probably get started Exchange casual glances writer's block setting in I have to get started It's a struggle this writer's life Coffee helps "Here is your coffee and change, sir"
Sip.
Daryl Curnow I'm a 33-year-old content writer, who is desperate to get stuck into poetry. I feel as though my creativity is limited in my field, so writing poetry allows the creative side to flow. I'm from New Zealand, so what better time to get going than during lockdown! PAGE 42 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: CODY NORTON
Please, have a seat. 2021, sculpture, found object, bird spikes, 3’ x 4’
PAGE 43 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Cody Norton is an interdisciplinary artist, he is discovering the ways humankind has disrupted and intervened in ecosystems across North America. With the goal of having the human experience intertwine with nature's experience with humankind’s destruction. As Cody builds this series, he will focus on how individual species and ecosystems are being drastically affected by Humanities' impact throughout the North American region. Cody's goal is to shed some light on issues that have been neglected by the mainstream world we currently live in and plans to go to great lengths to accomplish this. Cody's interpretations of these issues are presented in his numerous styles of artwork. As an interdisciplinary artist, his practice in media is fluid, but all of his works keep the same issues and discussions in mind when presented. He does not like to be bound by professional labels such as painter or sculptor. Cody is himself, and by doing so he doesn't feel bound to one media in his work. Mediums aren't an important issue to him, at the end of the day, he creates art that is confrontational to get the attention of the public and discuss the issues that are being avoided. Our environment deserves justice and acknowledgment, and Cody wants to be the advocate for advancement in public acknowledgment over the dire issues occurring in North America. Artist Statement Impression can mean many different things in our world. It can be something you left when talking with someone, a feeling imprinted into a loved one’s mind about you as a person. It has many means, but to me and my artist practice, it means something a little different. When I think about the word impression, I think about all the things we have done to this world when it comes to leaving our impression in our ecosystems no matter where we have been. For the past 100 years, we have left an everlasting impression on our ecosystems and wildlife around the world. Whether it be through deforestation, oil extraction, mining, sparking wildfires, urbanization, and etc. We as a society have caused so much damage to our own world. As an artist, I want to use my time and resources to raise awareness on these issues that are being swept under the rug by our local and international governments. For far too long we have been on the track of erasure of our native ecosystems, and that all revolves around our global footprint. I have dedicated my entire practice to working with researchers and scientists across North America to raise the alarm on the local environmental issues we are contributing to. Impression can be metaphorically and physically and the road we are currently on we are leaving a large physical footprint on our ecosystems. Website: codynorton.com IG: @cody_paints_sculpts PAGE 44 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: CINDY THOMPSON
Out of Place
Even in my own skin, I’m not at home. Consciously struggling to find a comfortable niche, only I know of the fruitless search. Awkward and tentative even around family who battered me into self-doubt, insecurity. “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me” ... but I draw the line at eating worms to die. Loneliness hangs about me like wispy spider webs whisking across my heart and mind. It’s a reminder of what lies ahead. When nobody’s with me, I’m alone. That’s my most comfortable self.
A coal miner's daughter descended from Italian immigrant grandparents, I love laughter and do poeting at a mile high in Colorado. Though educator/editor/writer describe my career, I aspired to become a baton twirler when I grew up. I succeeded by twirling as fast as I can to keep up with all that life embodies (occasionally getting head bonked by a misguided baton). Website: www.poetrysoup.com/me/CindyThompson PAGE 45 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: WIBAA (WILL I BE AN ARTIST?)
Imperfection, 2020, acrylic on canvas
Wibaa started his artistic journey after he asked himself if he can do something creative. Will I be an artist? Although it seems to be a simple question, it is not because every question has different answers that affect each person differently. One may paint for a more extended period just to realize how little they know about it. He approaches the canvas without prejudices and with an open mind. The goal is not to create pictures and images as it is to resolve, crystallize form, colour, and mark into a cohesive totality of a rich experience. he is often befuddled throughout the painting process, trying to find his way out and feeling very much like a novice until that moment of clarity arrives. For a long time, his work has been resolved via the creation of a blighted landscape. PAGE 46 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Kronos Kairos Aion, 2021, acrylic on canvas
Beneath tectonic plates of hue and shape, spaces of colour and light resembling the mountains and oceans of his journeys open. Sometimes of his soul. Painting has served as a bridge between his drawing, which is based on natural shapes, and his paintings, layered with colour and light. As is customary in his painting technique, these pictures are painting in various colours, their orientation often reversed, and combined with supplementary or repeated colour images to create depth and form interactions. Website: www.wibaa.it IG: @willibeanartist PAGE 47 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: ELODIE BARNES
Flying Lessons by Elodie Barnes
I It’s around 10am, I think. I’m not sure. I’m high above the morning, suspended in the throb of an airplane engine, that strange space where time doesn’t reach. Far below, islands spill like drops of oil on the sea’s surface; shades of turquoise and jade and aquamarine. A tiny cruise ship languishes between two blues. Wisps of cloud drop their shadows onto waves, snatches of white that appear and then vanish. The world seems to stretch out like a sapphire, a luxurious cliché of tropical beauty, and I hang above it alone, with nothing except the rucksack under the seat in front of me. Everything else has been lost, left somewhere between airports, somewhere over the other ocean I crossed yesterday. I don’t know how or where or why. Even my yoga mat has gone. How will I do yoga teacher training with no yoga mat? In the rucksack is stuffed everything useful that the airport had to offer in the two-hour shopping window between flights. Two t-shirts, two pairs of leggings, three pairs of knickers, and as many travel-sized toiletries as I could find. A pair of flipflops, a comb. A pack of tampons. After all, I’m staying where I’m going for a month. I pull my phone from my pocket, look again at the message from my ex-partner back home. Hug emoji after hug emoji. Have you ever heard the saying ‘if you want to fly, you have to let go of everything that weighs you down’? More hugs. I have heard it before. I wonder if whoever said it had ever actually tried it.
II My borrowed yoga mat smells of rubber and sea salt and lavender cleaning spray. The deep breaths I take to try and balance myself swirl all the scents together; when I open my eyes, the waves shift and glimmer as the clouds. It’s my second time
PAGE 48 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
in sirsasana, the headstand, upside down on this wooden platform that has the sea lapping at its feet while my own toes stretch towards the sky. Dark wood, polished only by bare feet and sunlight and the salt of the waves. Breath-soaked wood, whispered mantras held in the grain that curves towards the bay. Citronella wood; the bugs also love a view, and some of the mosquitoes here are as big as a fingernail. Swollen wood, split with the waters of birth. Here is where time loses all meaning, and where it could have been yesterday or the day before that we were taught about vairagya, the concept of non-attachment to the world around us. Attachment causes desire, said the swami, robes ruffling in the breeze, and desire causes pain and suffering. Release yourself from attachment and you will know an element of freedom. If you want to fly, you have to let go of everything that weighs you down. Later, wrapped in a borrowed sweatshirt against the evening chill, I’ll send my ex-partner another message: 'I think you’d do well here.' There’s nothing I can think of in the lost bag that I really miss.
III The ocean swims around my body in shades, not so much of blue but of green: the same turquoise and jade that I saw from the plane, and a deeper green, too, like liquid palm trees. Drops run down my skin, catching on the purple of the borrowed bikini. Bottle-glass in blinding sunlight. The lush ashram gardens seem to be in the water, or even to be the water itself, shifting hues of jasmine and oleander and bougainvillea, flowers glinting on the surface that disappear when I reach for them. The illusion of reality. Only when you stop grasping will you know freedom, the swami said, and sure enough when I hold my body as still as I can, treading water with the current, the tropics overflow around me. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. I think it’s a moment that I’ll remember forever, but then wonder whether memories hold the same weight as things. Will I need to let those go, too? There are other moments too precious to lose: the vibration of the meditation bell on my skin; the warm breeze of the morning when it’s still dark, soft and rustling and tinged with sea salt. But already they have a slight haze to them. Maybe, in the end, they won’t be memories at all, but stories I’ll tell myself over and over again until something resembling a memory has no choice but to form. Maybe the echo won’t weigh as much as the original sound. Later, I’ll send my ex-partner another message: I wish you could see this place. It seems I’m still attached to certain things, certain people, certain ways of being. I haven’t yet learned to fly on my own.
PAGE 49 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
IV I put my rucksack under the seat in front. It’s even emptier now, without all the toiletries I jammed in at this same airport just four weeks ago. I’m going home with almost nothing of what I left with; luggage now is of a different kind, a much more pleasant kind. The remnants of the sea on my skin are warm, the anticipation of what’s ahead so light as to be almost weightless. This is how far I’ve come, and how far I have still to go. True vairagya takes lifetimes to cultivate. Across the aisle, a couple struggles with cases that push the carry-on limit in both size and weight, voices angry and cheeks dripping with sweat. I don’t think they notice the sun glinting off the wing as we take off. They don’t look out of the window, down, watching what they’ve left behind fade to pinpricks on the map.
***
Elodie Barnes is a writer and editor. Her work has been recently published / is forthcoming in Gone Lawn, Wild Roof Journal, and Amethyst Review, and she is Books & Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform. When not travelling, she lives on the edge of a wood in northern England and bakes vast quantities of apple cake. Find her online at elodierosebarnes.weebly.com, and on Instagram @elodierosebarnes. PAGE 50 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: MAISIE CU
Sincerity 2, acrylic on wood, 8 x 12 inches
Absurdity, acrylic on wood, 8 x 12 inches
Maisie Cu is an artist. She currently undergoes training at the Ontario College of Art and Design University as a Drawing and Painting Major and an On Screen Media Minor. She writes, occasionally, acting as a Senior News and World Politics Writer for Fourall Magazine. You can find her photographs, writings, and paintings fragmented in various independent zines and literary magazines such as Pocket Baby Zine, Blue Things Zine, Orange Blush Zine and Intersectional Literary Magazine. Website: Maisiecu.com IG: @Yellow_recordplayer PAGE 51 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: ALLISON MOYERS
There in Your Dreams (an urban lullaby)
PAGE 52 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Forgotten in Lombard Garden
Evelyn the Garden
Allison Moyers is an oil painter and video artist who lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona. She studied fine art and design in France and graduated with honors and a DNAP from ESAD de Valenciennes in 2015. Her work explores western culture's obsession with beauty in film, literature and classic painting that have created idealized versions of reality. My work explores the subjects of stardom, vanity, and excess within society with an emphasis on woman and the feminine. I am fascinated by western culture's obsession with beauty in both film and classic painting that have created idealized versions of reality. The stylized and romanticized are indispensable elements in my work and correspond to the methodic use of color that expresses human emotions through their psychological representations. Much of my inspiration comes from navigating the world as an artist with the knowledge of my womanhood. The artistic translation then being a world in which the feminine and the womanly seem to be enveloping their masculine counterpart. Essentially, I am the women in my paintings and I experience their emotions in a dreamlike environment where my feelings are acceptable. I am always making a voyage in connection to my characters and I am in a way expressing what is inside of me, what is hidden and what is forbidden, and what I would never be able to touch in reality. Website: www.allisonmoyersart.com IG: @thepoetthatpaints PAGE 53 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: DAVID HIRSH
Passion for Flowers How did we get in the trap of exchanging The ephemeral beauty of cut flowers For the passion of everlasting love? I wanted to buy you roses You wanted to keep them in a crystal vase For the single moment of giving and getting A screaming climatic passionate embrace Or the low moan of a moment’s ultimate satisfaction We exchange the circumcised genitals Of a thorny bush And watch it die one unfulfilled petal at a time I wanted to buy you roses To watch you squirm in delight You wanted to put them in a crystal vase To show the bees the colors you could collect We sat in a meadow I wanted to hold you forever You wanted to let go The dandelions surrounded us Entwined You wanted me to buy you roses In an appropriate exchange for an embrace Each petal removed stripped equaled one night You wanted to watch them in a crystal vase I offered you a view of dandelions
My name is David Hirsh. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and now live in Nassau County, NY. I have written a great deal of poetry over the years and self published a book of poems on Amazon called “Oncoming Traffic Through a Rearview Mirror.” PAGE 54 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: MAYA KACHRA
Title: Untitled Medium: Salt, Water Dimensions: 9" x 9" x 12" Year of completion: 2021
Maya Kachra is majoring in Contemporary Art at Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto, Canada. Her artwork has been in multiple publications and exhibitions including Arts Etobicoke, Us Gallery Contemporary, and Loosen Art. Maya currently works in photography, sculpture and mixed media. Artist Statement This sculpture work has been hand-carved and naturally eroded by water through a 63-hour process, as a way to let go from past experiences, reform, and find my own path. This piece is made using salt and water, creating an interesting tension as both are destructive and purifying materials, as well as being crucial for all life to exist. Through this natural erosion process, my artwork also explores our complex relationship with nature and the lasting impacts we have caused to the environment around us. IG: @@mayakachra PAGE 55 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: LUKE YOUNG
Four Snow Geese Four snow geese make their way Midway through the field Filled with chaff and fallen grain The black earth speckled brown Mingled into dried plants with brittle leaves The geese walked slowly Stirring the surface loess Collecting their own hushed harvest To be carried southwards Where arctic winds have never been
My name is Luke Young. I am a proletarian, writer and factotum of Indigenous and European American descent. I grew up in Southeast Asia and moved back to the United States in 2017 after many years of working and traveling all over the world. PAGE 56 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: MARTIN MOLLOY
And they'd be wrong, paper and acrylic paint, 6x6 inches
Remnants, paper collage, 6x6 inches
I am an abstract artist located in Hillsborough, North Carolina. I came to art later in life. Sometime in 2018, I started creating art to help a friend create better posters for their band. First, it was a slow trickle, playing around with photographs, scissors, and tape to make collages on a photocopier. It quickly moved beyond that to include more photos and better tools. Then came the paint. It went from a trickle to an obsession. I am entirely unqualified and untrained, figuring out how images and colours fit together as I go along. I rarely come with a preconceived idea of what a piece will be. Whether I am painting or collaging, I allow fragments to begin speaking for themselves and react to the shapes, images, and colours they present. Trusting my instinct and relying on mood and snapshots of memories, I allow the work to unfold naturally, speaking to me as it builds. . Through various media and materials, I create abstract works focused on colour, imagery, and mood. Often the pieces feel very intimate as I feel myself sharing moods, memories, emotions, and secrets unconsciously. Each piece begins with a movement or image and builds so that the end result is a combination of individual elements and a whole greater than its parts.
PAGE 57 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
My end goal is to share something grand, small, profane, irrelevant, reflecting something human and ordinary. I don't draw from formal training or a specific, predefined style. Instead, I allow a sense of surprise and discovery to fit the pieces of the puzzle together without a clear, set path to produce what I see, feel, and experience in the world around me. Website: www.toiletjackets.com IG: @toiletjackets
Enjoy Your Clean Getaway, paper collage, 6x6 inches
PAGE 58 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART & WORDS: JONATHAN ROSSNEY
The Photograph
1 '[We had] some photographs taken ... I hope that someday we will have enough money to have the pictures developed ... They are in suspension now, like seeds in a package.' (Richard Brautigan) 2 I opened the back of the camera to look inside. It was a very old Kodak folding brownie from sometime before the Second World War, gathering dust on a shelf in an antique shop in a small rural town in Ireland. Curled up on one side of the camera's interior was a roll of film marked 'exposed'. I asked the somewhat bemused proprietor if I could buy the roll for €5. Once home, I developed it as best I could considering its likely age - 60 years at least - and the fact that film deteriorates badly over time if not stored correctly. When I took the roll out of the chemicals and hung it up to dry, it looked completely black, but when I shone a torch through it I could see on one frame the barely visible shape of a person. So I scanned it onto my laptop and used every editing trick in the book to pull a usable PAGE 59 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
image out of the clotted murk of the decades' old negative, which left me with a badly damaged photograph of a woman on a ferry (I think) at some point in the 20th century. 3 It was a beautiful morning. They were both tired, but happy to be on the boat at last. The sea was calm, and they went up on deck to watch the land recede into the hazy distance until it was no longer visible. She lit a cigarette. He took out his camera and asked if he could take her picture. She nodded, and posed while he composed the shot, checking the light and adjusting the shutter speed and aperture to get the best exposure. There was an almost imperceptible click as the shutter opened and closed again. She relaxed and brought the cigarette to her lips, inhaling the smoke while he wound the film on to the next frame. He may have taken other pictures on the same journey, but they are lost forever.
4 She did not know that the film would remain in the camera for well over half a century until 2021, when a strange man who collects old cameras would see it in an antique shop while killing time waiting for an appointment, and develop it because he has an interest in unearthing images of people from unexposed rolls of film when he finds them. Or that her image, captured in a now-distant past of 78s and Bakelite and rationing, would only see the light of day again as a barely recognisable, ghostly monochrome blur in the day-glo plastic image-saturated age of TikTok, self-driving cars, and commercial space travel. Or that she would have the most fleeting, insubstantial connection with another human being who knows nothing about her and may not even have been alive when she was. There is a story there, and potent symbolism too, but I'm sure better minds than mine have already explored that melancholy terrain... 5 '[H]e felt the curious omniscience gained in looking at old photographs where the posing faces and the old-fashioned clothes and the moment itself seem ridiculous ... and unaware of the period quality which is truly there, and the subsequent revelation of waste and failure.' (Delmore Schwartz)
***
Jonathan Rossney Website: https://jonathan-rossney.format.com IG: @jonathanrossney PAGE 60 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: CRIS AMEZCUA
Fresh Tribe, 2021 Next Page: La Encantada, 2021; Morning Road, 2021; Central Tribe, 2021
PAGE 61 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Cristina is a Mexican artist based in Munich, Germany. She grew up in a bicultural family (Colombian mom, Mexican father) and developed a profound love for Latin American indigenous arts and colors. From a very young age, she studied drawing and started painting landscapes using different techniques and styles. She spent the last 17 years traveling and working in different multinational companies, she used this time to collect experiences and learn from other cultures that are now the main inspiration for her work. Cristina found in expressionist and abstract painting a way to release her emotions and interests in a spontaneous and fun way. Website: https://cristina493.wixsite.com/crisamezcua IG: @testigocreativo PAGE 62 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: ANJANA SEN
Wardrobe Malfunction by Anjana Sen
She saw the horror on their faces even before she heard the snap. All at once the loud, pulsating thud of the music in the hall seemed to hush, and it was the only sound that thundered in her ears, the sound of the snap of her bodice strap giving way. She had been striding the ramp with all the élan of someone who knew she was the best. The world’s best cat-walk model and the showstopper for a leading designer at the Paris Fashion Week. The dress she was show casing could possibly pay the down payment for the flat she now rented. Her hair had taken the stylist over three hours to get just right, and she had been asked for more selfies than the designer himself. Back-stage ten minutes ago, she knew she had arrived. She had indeed reached the top rung of the ladder she had climbed so arduously for over three years. The buzz in the dressing room had been all about the Hollywood producer who was here in the audience looking for a new heroine for his next block buster. Annie knew she was in the reckoning and was going for the kill tonight. Her career as a model had peaked and Hollywood was the obvious next step. In the wings waiting to step out into the limelight of an adoring audience, the designer watched in agony as half his creation was now bunched up in his model’s hands. The horror seemed unreal, and he locked eyes with the girl who was in obvious distress. He walked out to her, and with a flamboyant bow to the cameras, he whispered in her ears, ‘Milk it, darling, make it work for you.’ PAGE 63 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
WORDS • IDEAS: ANJANA SEN Annie was nothing if not a professional, she understood immediately what Sebastian was trying to say. Rearranging her expression from distraught to her usual stage face, haughty and amused, she twirled again, bowed with him, and amidst thunderous applause, beckoned to the other models for the well-rehearsed finale. The cameras went mad again. She saw the producer sitting right in front, saw his enchanted expression and winked at him. A naughty sultry acknowledgement of a wink. And she knew all was not lost. Paris newspapers the next day ran the same headline – The Wardrobe Malfunction and a Star is Born!
***
Anjana Sen (1965 - ) Words have started to spill out of me of late, the result, I am sure, of having so passionately devoured them all my life. Hugely encouraged after winning a few awards, I got ambitious for my words, and they have begun to appear in publications, both in print and online. I participated in the International Poetry Marathon (2020 and 2021) and belong to the eclectic tribe of poets worldwide. The best is about to be… PAGE 64 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
ART: THE MESSDECK
Hadi Khani: From the collection of contemporary man
PAGE 65 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Hadi Khani: From the collection of contemporary man
PAGE 66 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Nata Buachidze: Mountain Waves, 2021, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
PAGE 67 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Daniela Perez-Lozada: Pelorus, 2021, acrylic and charcoal on canvas
PAGE 68 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Larry Wolf: Try Not to Stare, 2021, acrylic paint pushed through the back of a silk screen canvas, 19 x 22 inches
Larry Wolf: Windows into My Mind II, 2021, acrylic paint pushed through the back of a silk screen canvas, 19 x 22 inches
Gail Deptford: The excited aftermath of reading a book about the chaotic and colourful history of medieval England.
PAGE 69 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Aristo Vopĕnka: Vanished 01 (above) Vanished 04 (right)
PAGE 70 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Jing Qiu: Disorganized Desire No.7, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 30 × 60cm
Samantha Wood: Swatch Watches I, 2020, acrylic on gallery edge canvas, 6 x 12 inches
PAGE 71 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Mathieu V. Staelens Embodied World Politics, 2021, color pencil & ballpoint on polymer, 8.4 x 7 cm Next page: The Crowning of Self Value, 2021, color pencil on polymer, 11x 8 cm
PAGE 72 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
PAGE 73 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Kristine Narvida: Look How I Move, 2021, oil on canvas
PAGE 74 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Olivier Saint-Gelais: Lana 3
Isabela Castelan: Mole, 2021, oil on canvas, 130 x 195cm
PAGE 75 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Olivier Saint-Gelais: West Coast
Lena Snow: I Am from Neptune
Elise Mendelle: Coffee and Kindness, 2020, oil on canvas
Danté-Danýel: Thifar, mixed media on plywood, 50 x 50 cm
PAGE 76 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Shokoufeh Karimi: mascara on paper
PAGE 77 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Mitra Tashakori: From the Sense and Side collection
PAGE 78 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Mitra Tashakori: From the Sense and Side collection
PAGE 79 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
MESSDECK ARTISTS Nata Buachidze Nata Buachidze is an artist from Tbilisi, Georgia, born in 1967. She grew up in a family of artists and architects, so being an artist is natural. In 1990, Nata graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (Graphic design department), Tbilisi, Georgia. www.natabuachidze.com IG: @nataliabuachi Isabela Castelan I am originally from Brazil, and I now live and work in London. London is an important place for me to spend time in the studio developing work and an exciting place to be immersed in contemporary art culture and the chance to take part in exhibitions. www. Isabelacastelan.com Danté-Danýel Danté-Danýel is a Creole-Brazilian artist and writer based in Germany. Since art has always been important in his family, he was enrolled in art classes and in art school from the age of five till the age of sixteen. He had his first solo exhibition at the age of 13 but, due to trauma, he stopped painting altogether four years later and turned to write essays, poetry and columns instead. In 2021 he started painting and creating objects again to process his childhood trauma and PTSD and his experiences with racism. “Ever since I started painting again, my work changed completely. I used to paint mainly figuratively, with a strong focus on planning my artworks. Now it's all about abstract art, unplanned and intuitive with a focus on surfaces and textures. Thifar I is about a breakup I had during the second lockdown in 2020, and it is the first piece in a minimal art series about loss and self-love and about finding something to replace whatever you lost and to fill that space in your life and in your soul with something meaningful that gives you happiness, and that gives you peace of mind.” IG: @dan_dann_paints
Gail Deptford I am a painter based in deepest rural Lincolnshire, England. www.gaildeptford.com IG:@Deptfordgail
Shokoufeh Karimi www.sheydaeigallery.com IG :@sheydaeigallery
Hadi Khani Born on Earth in 1992, he began his artistic journey in IranZanjan.
PAGE 80 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
He graduated in engineering and started painting in 2007. Hadi Khani has had more than a few group and solo exhibitions. He seeks the depths of silence in the universe. IG: @hadi.khani.13
Elise Mendelle Elise Mendelle is a Canadian painter living and working in London, UK. Her expressive brushstrokes and stripped-back subjects aim to capture a moment in time and ask the viewer, 'what happens next?' Elise is inspired by the simplicity of these everyday moments and how they link to a deeper understanding of what is happening behind a person's outer veneer. Elise has developed her practice and cultivated a loose and rhythmical style. Interest in her work has grown, with her paintings now part of collections worldwide. She has exhibited in Rome, London, Madrid, Luxembourg, and New York. www.impressionsbyelise.co.uk IG: @impressionsbyelise Kristine Narvida Kristine Narvida is an academic visual artist from Latvia, living and producing in Germany in Potsdam and Berlin. She regularly presents her fine artwork throughout Europe or online. She prefers working with models and works with oil on canvas. www.narvida.com IG: @kristine_narvida_art Daniela Perez-Lozada Daniela Perez-Lozada was born in Mexico City, and she is currently based in Orange County, California, where she has been living for over 14 years. As a self-taught artist, she has used her bright use of colours and boldness to express a wide array of emotions tied to her mental health. Lover of animals and lush tropical plants, her work represents a vivid kaleidoscope of her Hispanic heritage. www.shewolfcreative.com IG:@art.shewolf Jing Qiu Jing Qiu (1998, China) is a visual artist who lives and works in GuangDong, China. His works involve media such as video, photography, sculpture, painting, and installation. His artworks have been exhibited in China, UK, USA, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, etc. IG: @xixiaoart Olivier Saint-Gelais Born in 1978 at Chicoutimi. Work and live in Montreal. Studied in cinema, literature and graphism. Undergraduate in Fine art at Concordia. Influenced by photographic art portrait, cinema and some expressionist artists like Bonnard, Munch and Peter Doig. I see my portraits as journeys into dreams and memories sensations.
Lena Snow I am an interdisciplinary artist from Germany, and with my "Identity series," I intend to capture several emotions and character traits in specific. The females I depict show a certain moment in time – compared to a moment captured on camera. The artworks represent the state of mind, attitude, wish, or perception of oneself rather than an accurate illustration of reality. Some artworks are influenced by the atmosphere of famous movies or tv series and convey the impact and lasting impression of strong female characters. Some artworks within this series are also influenced by the relationship with my mother and finding my own identity. My goal with this series is to leave a memorable impression of strong, fascinating, and enigmatic appearing women and give an impetus for dealing with one's own identity. IG: @janagoddessarts Mathieu V. Staelens Belgian artist Mathieu V. Staelens saw the light of day in Ostend, that obscure place where Marvin Gay recorded some songs and James Ensor fooled around with the establishment. After his studies in the visual arts, he stayed in Antwerp. Mathieu V. Staelens uses drawing, painting and sculpture in his quest to emancipate "Beauty." His work originates from a hybrid of visual culture and philosophy. The artistic research focuses on personality industries: Fashion as a proposalmachine of identities, Design as the production-machine of attributes, while contextualizing those fabricated identities. It's the realm where those identities are defined and start pressuring the etiquette of social interactions. His work focuses on the construction of identity rendered by the current status of beauty, the quest for meaning, and the question of happiness from the viewpoint of identity-proposals by the earlier mentioned personality industries. At the heart of Staelens' work, we find meticulously small drawings in a self-developed technique, holding situations of duality, irony and simple beauty. www.mathieuvstaelens.be IG:@mathieuvstaelens_artist Mitra Tashakori She was born in 1975 in a religious city in Iran. After receiving an experimental diploma through the art entrance exam, she entered Dr. Shariati University of Arts in Tehran, and after graduating, she joined the education and teaching system in the conservatory. After a few years, she went to Tehran again and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. She continued teaching in art conservatories and art schools in Mashhad, and at the same time, participated in individual and group exhibitions. In 2018 he graduated with a Master's degree in illustration. Her paintings and drawings are a combination of his interests and work characteristics, which is, in fact, a combination of painting, illustration and graphics. "Sometimes shapes and forms invade our brains, and we want to record them on a piece of paper or a canvas. Our inner senses are very different and sometimes very amazing. I do not have a diary and a good relationship with writing, but I can easily remember my feelings engraved on sheets of paper or canvas. These are my diaries. These are the painting notebooks and canvases I work on." IG: @Mitratashakori1
PAGE 81 | THE PURPOSEFUL MAYONNAISE
Aristo Vopĕnka Aristo Vopĕnka is an artist and film director, born in the , Netherlands and working from Brussels, Belgium. Vopĕnka uses a variety of art forms. In his recent work, Vopĕnka explores the boundaries between photography, illustration, painting and print. Using an experimental attitude towards these different media, new forms of expression take place. The fascination to work with space, light, sound, and visuals is a constant evolution of what we know, questioning the possibilities of today's art. “My art is about finding that equilibrium, in which I capture a moment, a sensation that was in our now and vanished shortly after. Even when life sometimes seems to be an endless hurdle race, my work tries to extract the colourful moments that keep us going. The current practice focuses on the unknown, the mystery of something that we haven't seen yet and finding stories that haven't been told. It is about extending the experience of art beyond the initial medium, finding new ways of expressing myself and questioning the power of art.” aristovopenka.com IG:@ a.vopenka Larry Wolf A criminal defence attorney in Los Angeles for 45 years, Larry Wolf became an artist about ten years ago, merging his profession with his passion into a collection of abstract works he has chosen to call "A Brush with the Law." His work reflects a never-ending search for new alternatives and solutions to problems in art and the courtroom. Larry utilizes an intriguing and unique process whereby he pushes acrylic paint through the back of a silkscreen canvas, resulting in strikingly vibrant abstract compositions layered in eye-catching shapes and textures. www.abrushwiththelaw.com IG:@ _abrushwiththelaw Samantha Wood Samantha began her career as an art teacher and recently left the classroom to focus on her own art fulltime. Samantha works from her home studio in Tennessee, where she alternates painting with acrylics and gouache. She is dedicated to painting varied subject matter and has no interest in limiting her focus. www.samanthawood.art IG:@ samanthawoodart
