ART Habens Art Review // Special Edition // September 2015

C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w

by Stephanie Loo-NG

My memories of places are always ephemeral and blurry. What’s left to be with are feelings, colours and shapes. Through my paintings I attempt to catch and preserve at least the impressions of what I want to remember from the places I’ve seen. In my own visual language consisting of shapes instead of words I am trying to convey my close relationship with nature. The forms I create are simplified - scattered between different perspec-tives, shown from different angles, constantly searching the harmony in vast emptiness of the paper

Living, at its base, is expressing unseen energy through form. My work captures that energy, and conveys it to the viewer in such a way that it vibrates to their very core being. My paintings are intentionally raw. All of my emotions, both light and dark, are reflected in my strokes. I allow myself to be exposed so that the viewer will allow themselves to be vulnerable. Art is consciousness, and it is every single person’s prerogative to live. g

My works are inspired by various things from personal views and experience to real world issues. I seek to express my thoughts in my very own style through different artistic forms.

There is so much prejudice to grieve and so much need of justice in this world when every single human being should deserve better, and no one should be judged simply because they make a choice different than most.

Image making is my top priority. The method of conveyance is not important to me.

At the moment I'm working with digital collage artworks involving pattern making fused with multiple images. I hope the work can be read in terms of Andy Warhols multiple images. The computer is very good at reproducing copies and this can be used to it's advantage.

Colour is a powerful communication tool that speaks to me, transmitting through my artworks. I love sand, for it’s natural ruggedness, as well as it’s subtleness. It’s one of the beauty of ‘perfection is in it’s imperfection…’ Trained as a civil engineer, and having worked with the microscopy of concrete, I developed my artworks dwelling both colours and sand together. My current projects involve portraits and abstracts. Ironically, the texture and colours of the background portray the subjects of the painting in the portraits.

My works are inspired by various things from personal views and experience to real world issues. I seek to express my thoughts in my very own style through different artistic forms. There is so much prejudice to grieve and so much need of justice in this world when every single human being should deserve better, and no one should be judged simply because they make a choice different than most.

Gosia Poraj Jeffery RIchards United Kingdom

Stephanie Loo-NG Switzerland

Lee Sydney Malaysia

Casey Chichy USA

United Kingdom

Renata Kopac United Kingdom

I feel it is my view of something so traditional and such a normally classic piece with a modern, abstract twist. The word Modern in society can sometimes trigger images of very minimalist and contemporary pieces. I feel that this piece is a fusion of the two. Classic and contemporary. As a Miami native with a passion for the action packed fictional universe of comic book illustrations my work is typically very colorful and chaotic.

People and situations interest me, I find pleasure in conversations of rare moments of finally being present instead of absent. I feel a freedom with my paintings that I have never found anywhere else. Human emotions are so precious and intriguing, exploring your thoughts and allowing time to listen to yourself is what painting does for me. It’s a time when I can stop and finally focus on anything that in that moment I need to face.

My current source of inspiration is geometry and concepts such as lines, forms, symmetry and asymmetry, radial symmetry, shapes and dimensions.

What fascinates me about it is the use of a single unit, a line or a circle, to create complex compositions. Study the repetition of lines in regular or irregular

Lives and works in Switzerland Mixed media, Painting

Lives and works in Malaysia Painting, Mixed media

Lives and works in London, UK Mixed Media, Painting

Lives and works in London, UK Mixed Media, Painting

Lives and works in UK Painting

Lives and works in USA Mixed Media, Painting

Lives and works in USA Mixed Media, Painting

Lives and works in USA Mixed Media, Painting

Lives and works in Bergen, USA Mixed Media, Video, Installation

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.

Jeffery Richards

Gosia Poraj

Renata Kopac

Lee Sydney

Stephanie Loo-NG

Ruby Goodchild

Melissa Martinez

Lorena Herrero

Ruby Goodchild United Kingdom

Melissa Martinez USA

Lorena Herrero United Kingdom

Stephanie Loo-NG Lo o-NG Loo-NGLoo-NG

Colour is a powerful communication tool that speaks to me, transmitting through my artworks. I love sand, for it’s natural ruggedness, as well as it’s subtleness.

It’s one of the beauty of ‘perfection is in it’s imperfection…’

Trained as a civil engineer, and having worked with the microscopy of concrete, I developed my artworks dwelling both colours and sand together.

My current projects involve portraits and abstracts. Ironically, the texture and colours of the background portray the subjects of the painting in the portraits. For the abstracts, the canvas drives itself.

Stephanie Loo-NG

Cépage, 40 x40 cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic o

Stephanie Loo-NG

ART Habens

video, 2013

n canvas

A .Hepburn – ‘Unspoken accents’

120 x 160 cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

An interview with interview

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

Stephanie Loo-NG' work reveals an incessant search of balance and harmony: her approach explores the expressive potential of colors and abstract composition. Devoting a particular attention to the balance between geometry and emotion, she accomplishes the difficult task of providing the viewers of an Ariadne's thread capapble of unveiling unexpected relations between beauty and conceptualism. Loo-NG's work condenses a an insightful journey in the realm of memory and associations and we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Stephanie and welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, I would pose you a couple of questions about your background. You are trained as a civil engineer and you worked with the microscopy of concrete: how does this experience has influenced the way you relate yourself to art making and to aesthetics? In particular, how does the relationship between your Singaporean roots and living in a multicultural city as Genéve inform the way you conceive your works?

My training as an engineer inevitably affects my artworks. Microscopy works in concrete introduced me to a kaleidoscope of colours that I would never have imagined otherwise. Colour generates excitement and emotions in our lives. Colours know no limitations, a palette of colours is infinite, so is our emotional experience. At times I find myself looking at the world through the lens of the microscope. I see scenes of colour fragments through that lens, and together they contribute to the overall picture and tell us the story. Harmony is essential to me and I search for it to create the aesthetic effect.

Stephanie Loo-NG Loo-NG

Yes, definitely, living in Singapore and then Geneva has greatly influenced my works. Singapore is a modern city, on the move constantly, exciting, and vibrant with little time to rest. While in Geneva, I see calm and serenity. Both however are very international and multi-cultural. In Geneva, I see it as a place extremely rich in history and culture. I see myself as a bridge between modernity and tradition, enjoying very much of their own beauty. My works accentuates this relationship.

Stephanie Loo-NG

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, how did you come up to the concept of perfection is in its imperfection, that you have highlighted in your artist's statement?

The creation process begins by immerging into my canvas from the start freely. There is no form or boundary, nothing is fixed. This element of uncertainty intrigues me and triggers my curiosity to discover what would be able to draw out from it. There after, it goes through a phase whereby I find it totally ‘disagreeable ‘ and ‘senseless’ to me, far from where I would like it to head. However, it is apparent to me that amongst the myriad of confusion, the necessity to seek calm and

rhythm. All these seem at the same time searching for ‘ perfection in its imperfection’.

Forms are sometimes instrumental to create this calm.

Your work appeals to me for the way you investigate about the aesthetic problem in such an unconventional and compelling way. I would consider your paintings as Ariadne's threads that provide the viewers of the capability of unveiling the ambiguous relation with Perception and Experience: in particular, in Diary, you seem to suggest the emergence of significance, a recurrent feature of your approach that urges us to question the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, I'm sort of

Snow in Japan, 50 x 60 cm.

Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

Chinese Story, 50 x 60 cm.

Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

Warhol – “It’s not about….”, 80 x 100cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

No Matter What, 60 x 80cm.

Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Diary evokes the significance routine, mundane events of our day-to-day life. We go through everyday from one event to another, amongst the routine, along the way comes surprises, disappointments, joy and despair.

Everyday is free and fixed. However free and fixed, everyday consists of fragments in a new page. Everything has its place. We question ourselves if we are living in a world of artificial reality.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from no matter what and submerged: while exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, these pieces seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer a key to find personal interpretations to the stories you tell through your portraits... this quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory in a truly engaging way. What was your initial inspiration for these stimulating pieces? And in particular, did you try to achieve a faithful visual translation of your feelings?

I know people who had lived through extremely difficult and extraordinary

Cross Over, 80 x 100cm.

Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

T.Tall, 115 x 90cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

Submerged, 50 x 50 cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

circumstances in their lives. Yet, I know they all remained determined to move on. In ‘No matter what€‘, the two deep coloured lines

highlights their determination and strength. The vibrant coloured underlying in the subdued background shows the longing

hope of moving forward. For€‘Submerged€‘, I feel that we all submerged ourselves in an environment very often have no control

over. Our human nature to move forward, has also introduced many undesirable outcome, one of it is global warming.

Somewhere, 40 x40 cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

’Recognising…, whoever we are, we are bound together on one common ground’ On Common Ground, 80 x 100 cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

Forum

Technological ambivalence that we submerge in, connect and de-connect us in the actual society. The undulating lines reflect the frustrations within the wonderful, efficient urban world we want to create.

Your abstract approach accomplishes the difficult task of creating a coherent unity between imagination a rational gaze on the reality in which we find ourselves: your process of deconstruction reveals a deep interest in how we interpret and make meaning of what we see, and in particular you seem in search of a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I believe that life itself is a process and painting is a part of a journey in our inner mind capturing memories and moments. Therefore my paintings are very much linked to our experience subconsciously. When I

ART Habens Stephanie Loo-NG

, 100x160cm.

Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

La fête , 50 x 60 cm

started Chinese story and Snow in Japan, I had no idea that it would bring me back to my associated roots, in inadvertently brought out something that is related to my past experience.

Your works are particularly colourful and the vibrancy of the tones you choose provides your works of dynamism, as in La Fête and establishes a dialogue between the thoughtful nuances you combine together, speaking of thoughts and emotions. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a texture? Any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

I find that texture, in this case using sand, and colours for me are inseparable tools to convey my emotions in my artworks. Without texture, for me colours would have remained as 2-dimentional. I constantly search for the right nuance like emotions in my palette. In€‘La Fete’, I was able to dictate the mood to be gay, and then texture and colours just came naturally. ‘La fete’ appears looking through a window on the higher floor enjoying the party atmosphere without the physical presence at the party. The lively party mood is felt from looking at the greater picture. I do not think my palette has changed over time, I have a set of colour emotions in my palette. However, over time, I have more colours built-up. It indicates a deeper story.

A recurrent feature of your paintings is the way you juxtapose straight lines that suggest a contrast between a severe geometry and a free approach that urges the viewers to elaborate personal associations: at the same time, you do not reject a gaze on aesthetics, creating a lively combination between conceptualism and beauty. How important is the aesthetic problem for you when you conceive a work?

In the randomness and uncertainty in the colours, very often, I seek for conceptual

security comfort. In many of my paintings, I sometimes choose to re-surface a form which at the same time exhibiting harmony within. Conceptualism and beauty does come hand in hand.

Your approach is intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intellectual interplay with the viewers, so, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular contextI do not control the views perceived by the audience in my paintings.

My painting engages in a personal dialogue with the audience, in respect to their personal experience. I avoid postulating any kind of judgement on the audience, I let the painting relate their own story. Expectation limits our imagination.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Stephanie. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

One of my next projects is similar to my work€Warhol. I look for personage that I can captivate their character, body movement etc. I feel a strong need to know them personally and understanding them before I paint them. This is done through reading their biography watching their interviews and learning their life and stories. I am excited to bring them to life ironically using colours in the background.

ART Habens Stephanie Loo-NG

The Diary , 80 x 100cm. Mixed-media, sand and acrylic on canvas

Lee SydnSydnLeeSydney eyey

My works are inspired by various things from personal views and experience to real world issues. I seek to express my thoughts in my very own style through different artistic forms. There is so much prejudice to grieve and so much need of justice in this world when every single human being should deserve better, and no one should be judged simply because they make a choice different than most.

I aspire to create works that explore issues that most people choose to ignore and/or are afraid to discuss. In “Surveillance of the Border Patrol in the Glass Cage” I intend to point out how the LGBT community is treated in the society especially in conservative countries.

The figurative yet surreal image is completed with the arrangement of colours and composition that would bring a visual tension to the viewers.

Lee Sydney

video, 2013

Lee Sydney Lee Sydney Sydney Sydney An interview with interview

An interview by Josh Ryders, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

Lee Sydney's work aspires to accomplish an exploration about a variety of living matters of the contemporary age that most people choose to ignore or are just afraid to face. While posing questions and urging us to relate ourselves to unexpected relationships between everyday life perceptual parameter and a surrealistic gaze, she does not leave the viewer alone: Sydney's work rather guides us into a surrealistic journey during which she unveils a liminal area in which a rigorous gaze on contemporary issues and a refined aesthetics coexist into a coherent unity. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his refined artistic production.

Hello Lee and welcome to ART Habens: as our readers can get to know visiting http://leesydney.wix.com/home, an hallmark of your work is an organic synergy between several disciplines. Ranging from Painting and Collage to Sculpture and Photography, your approach conveys a wide variety of techniques and styles that gives to your work such a kaledoiscopic feature: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for producing your works? In particular, have you ever happened to realize that multidisciplinarity is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Hello, thanks for the interview! Even though I have been interested in art since I was a kid, I didn't get proper art education (like art history) until I got into art college so it was a bit of a struggle for me to find my personal style even though I have the basic skills eg drawing small details.

Most of the time I think horoscopes predictions are nonsense but I know The way I yearn for freedom and would not want to restrict myself to just one profession is

because of the fact that I'm a Sagittarius which is why my artworks come in different artistic forms.

My latest artworks were completed in different media including oil paintings, printmaking, collage and sculpture which are the media and techniques that I have learnt in art college.

Whereas photography is like my free-time favourite thing to do. I have been into film photography recently and I find it

Lee Sydney

interesting how chemicals and film work and it's definitely one of my favourite ways to express my views and at the moment.

I would pose you a couple of questions about the way your background has impacted on your current practice. First, you have a solid formal training and you hold a Diploma in Fine Art: how do your studies at the Equator Academy of Art and Design influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, I think that our reaers around the world are very curious about the role that the malasyan cultural substratum plays in the way you currently conceive and produce your works: how much living in a place extraordinarily rich on many aspect of tradition and culture informs the way you relate yourself to Art?

The lifestyle and culture diversity in Malaysia definitely affect my works as at one point I got so sick and bored of being stuck in the same place, seeing the same people and things around, being troubled by the same problems and then I realised it could also be a bonus and inspiration to me if I see it in a different perspective.

As I learn to find the beauty instead of thinking everything is boring here (after living here for 22 years), indirectly I also discover the problems some different communities face, that no one has told or taught me. There are a lot of Malaysian art dedicated to her beautiful people, culture and heritage, traditions and scenery but it's safe to say it's a relief that there are also local artists who express their views or inner struggles on social issues like women power through their art.

In my latest artworks I choose gender equality as my concept which mainly focuses on discrimination and judgement towards the LGBT community in this conservative country and I'm proud that I brought up the issue because most Malaysians especially the older generations have not been very open about it and I

would like to influence the society to be a accepting and loving one. I think everyone

ART Habens

Lee Sydney

should realise that every single human being deserve better, that no one should be

judged simply because they make a choice different than what the society expects.

ART Habens

Lee Sydney

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from Surveillance of the Border Patrol in the Glass Cage, an interesting work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What mostly appeals to me of this painting is the way you have combined a representative gaze on reality with a captivating surrealism that pervades the suggestive storytelling around it. In particular, I find truly engaging the way you have subverted the functionality of the objects you have inserted in the canvas, inviting the viewers to recontextualize the perceptual reality. Would you like to walk our readers through your process when you conceived this work and to its final evolution?

Surveillance of the Border Patrol in the Glass Cage is one of my favourites yet in my latest series of work. It's secretly a work dedicated to my fabulous gay and lesbian friends.

The main figure in the painting represents the sinner, who is afraid to come out of the closet because of guilty burden, for he knows he will be judged and condemned for being different and should not be, as believed by the people who are brainwashed by the societal norms.

I personally think it's ok for an individual to not accept something (for example, some people might need time to accept trans/queer people because they're used to the thinking that there are only two genders) but it's never ok to spread hate, make fun and shove your hateful opinions down other's throat.

I'm really satisfied with the composition in this painting. The arrangement of colors and the visual tensions are all created to leave an impact to the viewer, to invite them to feel the inner struggle they might not have experienced before. I attempted to covey the message in a surrealism style and I'm glad it worked.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you aspire to create works that

explore issues that most people choose to ignore and/or are afraid to discuss: and your investigation about the way LGBT community is treated in our modern societies reveal an intense but at same time rational sociopolitical criticism. More and more artists from the contemporary scene, ranging from John Heartfield to Thomas Hirschhorn often use art as a powerful tool to express their personal takes about the major issues that affect contemporary age. As I have been said once, Art caould have a therapeutical effect on society and it should become the vehicle for change: while setting free Art's communicative potential, do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? By the way, what should be in your opinion the role of an artist in our societies?

Since art history, a handful of artists have been known as the voice of major social issues and I aspire to be one of them with the hope that my artwork will be seen and thus raise awareness to the locals and also the world.

Though it never occurred to me that my artworks are political. They were created merely based on social reality and my personal views towards the issues that I think are important and should be discussed more.

I like the way you photographic series shows both spontaneity and a careful attention to composition. German photogrpher ans sculptor Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience and its related cultural substratum is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

As I stated above, I'm trying to not whine and to embrace and appreciate the Malaysian lifestyle and whatever Malaysia

ART Habens

Charles Ligocky

offers, so my photography work might show a touch of Malaysian attitude in them.

So yes, I do believe in my case, direct experience and the culture surrounding me are essential and play a big part as an inspiration to my photography work. Sometimes you get artist's block but eventually the creative process will get going if you think in a positive and innovative way.

The instrinsic evokative nature of your compositions, dued to a functional reference to the universal imagery, as in Mona Lisa and I, shows an attempt to exploit the notions of language itself. When offering us of a set of "fruible" images marked with a surrealistic touch, you remove a part of the historical gaze from the reality you refer to, giving the viewers the chance to relate themselves to the topics in a more absolute form, inviting us to challenge the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

I believe art can be used as more than just one function, mostly in a social and personal way especially in the contemporary age. What I did with Mona Lisa and I is simply an overlap of the past and present, naming Renaissance and contemporary art, using an old poster of Mona Lisa and a fashion shot of myself wearing contemporary fashion garment, so it is like an experimental art to demonstrate the characteristics in women from different periods of time.

While exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, your works seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: I am particularly referring to The Red Sea of the Forsaken, that has reminded me of De Chirico's style and that I have to admit that it's one of my favourite piece form your interesting production. Offering to the viewer a key to shed a light on the concepts

ART Habens

Lee Sydney

you investigate about, you encourage us to find personal interpretations: rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?

Thank you for liking The Red Sea of the Forsaken! It was indeed inspired by De

Chirico, I find the objects and colour of his works really interesting and attracting, so I decided to adapt it in the painting together with my insight of the feminism issue "victim blaming".

Things that act as representations often appear in Surrealism artworks but there's no explanation for every detail and the viewers

ART Habens

Lee Sydney

are most welcomed and encouraged to interpret the works in their own way.

If I had to choose between intuitive and systematic process I would say The Red Sea of the Forsaken is more towards systematic as I already had the idea and concept in mind, of course there're some changes during the process, but I already knew what I wanted it to come out as so I was just completing it step by step.

8) Another interesting work from yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is the sculpture Close to Tears: I definitely loe the way you have juxtaposed two opposite kind of materials, in a way that speak us of a dialogue rather than a contrast. And while a

scultpure is by definition a plastic materialization of an idea, Close to Tears suggests me dynamism, and also an inner struggle. I would like to know something about the progression of your choose of the materials you incorporate in your sculptures Moreover, what is importance of the aesthetic problem for you when you conceive a combination of different materials?

Close to Tears is like my baby. It's my first sculpture (imitations for exercises aside) that I made of resin and represents androgynous beauty. Fashion shots and androgynous models have always fascinated me so I thought of using androgynous

aesthetic as one of the concepts for this gender equality/feminism series, not forgetting those who struggle with the pressures under the binary gender system.

So far I have made only two sculptures (Close to Tears and White Thoughts) and I have just come to realisation that they are both psychological/inner emotions driven works and suggested intimacy.

I wanted to emphasize on the tear dropping on the face of my sculpture, so I asked my flatmate who studied fashion design in the same college as me for a shining bead in a tear shape, and that's the story of why it turned out as a different material than the sculpture itself.

Your approach is based on the chance of establishing a multilayered involvement with the viewers, and over your career you have exhibited in several occasions. So before leaving this conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

As a freshly graduated art student I definitely want my artworks to reach a broader audience, but is it not much of a factor at all when it comes to picking a exhibition venue than my budget.

If you are asking about the content of my artwork, I have never made one artwork just to cater to the audience's taste and I doubt I will ever. I will continue to put the aims/intentions my artworks are meant to reach before any profits I could make out of them. And if there is any commissioned work, I'll just let chances come naturally.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lee. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I must admit I am still in the process of discovering my personal style and I do enjoy trying my hand at different mediums, materials and techniques to represent my artistic sense and at the same time achieving more with what I can already do.

I just started working as an art/retail assistant in Penang and might be planning to get a BFA in Australia if I got enough funds. I would like to gain some experience as a photographer assistant/helper if my current job allows or turns out to be not really art-related.

And of course, I will continue to develop my skills and produce more paintings and prints. Other than social justice issues, I think drawing inspirations from my own subconscious and mind would be a big step for me.

Thank you for your interesting questions, they helped me know myself better!

ART Habens

Lee Sydney

Renata Ko RenataKoRenataKo Kopac pac

You achieve more through working than through pleasure. Full feel your art needs and it emotionally being an artist.

My paintings are abstract and my inspiration comes from everyday life, new experiences, meeting different people, traveling, reading, exploring different cultures, studying the beauty of nature. I am inspired by colour, the medium itself and physical expression of the texture of brushstrokes on the canvas.

My current paintings have a very gestural quality which comes from their spontaneity and energetic brushstrokes. My brushstroke is never repetitive or predictable, its momentum and shape manages to define the organization of the painting while veering between long and short, splatter and scrape, purposeful and hurried. I love to explore new techniques, and I particularly enjoy using broad sweeping brushstrokes and blending a multitude of bold colours to create unique movement and to enrich textures.

I find that the brilliant colour is a celebration of the beauty of life and its ability to reach out to individuals with its unique energy and power. Throughout this process I stand back every so often to check and see what the painting requires next. I may stay with a single canvas for several days, or work on two or three at a time. The closer I come to the finish, the more time I spend looking and the less painting.

Renata Kopac

An interview with interview

Renata Kopac Renata Kopac Renata Renata

An interview

Andrew J. Richards, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

London based painter Renata Kopac accomplishes a suggestive exploration of elusive feminine enigma with a particular care to multiculturalism: her abstract gaze on everyday reality leads her to achieve a suggestive investigation about the liminal area in which a representation cohexists with an insightful gaze on our inner dimension. One of the most convincing aspects of Kopac's work is she conveys a sense of natural spontaneity that gently deletes the frontiers between the artist and the viewers. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production.

Hello Renata and a warm welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You nurtured your passion for passion since your early age and you eventually completed your artistic formation graduating with two Master degrees: one in Fine Art Education and another in Museum and Galleries Management: hos have these experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does a multicultural place as London where you are currently based influence you artistically differently than your native Vilnius, which is however a fascinating city?

Yes, you are right, I have quite solid formal education in art, which I’d say is quite multifaceted – I focused on Fine Arts during my undergraduate studies, and later explored Education and Galleries Management, since I’m passionate about communicating art, be it through teaching it or showcasing it in exhibitions. I have to say that I continue to learn, and recently took a course on Art therapy, which is

something of a great interest to me. Obviously, as far as I can remember myself, I was always drawing something – but perhaps I started calling it a passion as I grew older. I grew up in Vilnius, and in my early works I wanted to capture the beauty of urban landscapes. I love coming back to Vilnius, it’s pretty and cosy and the artistic scene is quite quirky. After graduating, I travelled to many different parts of the world, which made a great impact on me

Renata Kopac

by

and on the things I wanted to express in my works. It was the beginning of the journey where my works were exploration of people, their feelings and relationship. I have finally settled in London 7 years ago, where I feel very at home.There are so many opportunities to see different art platforms, to feel their variety, and also, perhaps, to become part of this art scene. Living in multicultural society, such as London, has inspired me, in a way. Multiculturalism gives us a chance to learn from one another, it helps us to broaden our horizons and open ourselves to the opportunity to learn.

My hometown has always been a city of modernity open to dialogues of different cultures. Both London and Vilnius had an influence on my paintings, but in different ways. It’s interesting to me to think that in the beginning Vilnius with its charming landscapes was the character of my works, but it also reflected the thoughts and feelings of a human being, it was alive. But now it’s the opposite –I reflect history, culture and beauty of distant places in my cultural portraits.

Your works appeal to my eyes because it conveys a refined aesthetics and exploration of cultures in such a compelling unity. One of the feature of Tibetan Gelug Monk and Conversation that I find so thought provoking is concerned with your investigation about the ambiguous relation with Perception and Experience in the contemporary multiculturalism and the way you give to the intrinsic ephemeral natureof human experience a sense of permanence. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Many works are in fact based on the places

which I had the opportunity to visit and the unique cultures I came across. Sometimes I can experience it indirectly - while reading a book, for example, or I just because happened to notice something intriguing in my every day life.

How would you define a “direct experience”? No matter how direct your contact would be with something, the painting is a result of many transformations of that experience within you: imagination, interpretation andfantasy may come into play. You may put a cube in front of 10 people and ask them to paint it – you will see 10 different cubes… I guess direct experience, direct observation may spark your imagination to a greater degree, but this is just a start, and the creative process is everything that follows.

I want to welcome the viewers to celebrate the uniqueness of various cultures, shaped by hundreds of years of independent development and defined by different histories, values and the sense of beauty. In my cultural portraits, I focus on different people’s lives with their heritage, values, festivals and their view of beauty – but I also try to capture human nature. In my painting Gelug Boy I am asking a question: if a life has a purpose, what should it be?

That’s a universal question, which I want to capture in the way this character looks ahead of him, he is wondering – like millions of other people around the globe, regardless of where they come from.

Perhaps I want to express both individuality and commonality of human emotion and the questions we ask ourselves. Despite us being so seemingly different on the outside, we share same fundamental values.This duality has marked the beginning of a whole new development in my paintings.

While communicating a natural spontane-

ART Habens Renata Kopac

ity, your current works seems to be the result of a careful process of observation that lead you to snatch the essential marks of the subject you materialize on your canvas: in particular, the investigation about the elusive feminine enigma is very recurrent in your artistic production and I couldn't do without mentioning Floral Hmong Woman and Caged Soul. Zulu woman. While artist as Elizabeth Peyton use to convey in an explicit way their messages, your works seek to maintain a more neutral approach: rather, and you seem to invite the viewers to a personal, free exploration: what's your point about explanatory strategies in contemporary painting?

As I mentioned before my degree helped me to see a broader picture of the world of art, while travelling to South East Asia and Africa had inspired me in a different way. I had a chance to have a glimpse at local people and their lives and it had the strongest impact on my style of expression and sparked imagination.

If I’d seen something that I found interesting and wanted to express on my canvas, I would usually have started a detailed research. I gather information by reading or by visiting exhibitions, which I found a very useful exercise, – and eventually an idea about the painting develops and solidifies. In a way, my new painting is a new knowledge.

The cultural portraits Inside Looking Out, Floral Hmong Woman, Caged Soul and Zulu Woman are all strong paintings, they are abundant in details and rich in emotive expression. Each captures a unique spiritual moment.

The dialogue established by the straight nuances of tones you combine on you canvas is a crucial aspect of your style, that is capable of conveying a variety of thoughts and emotions: in particular I love the nu-

ance of red you have used in Inside looking Out, that I have to admit is one of my favourite piece of this stimulating series. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the perspective composition and the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece? In particular, how do you develop your composition?

My process of painting is very long and it is never finished in one or two sessions, however intense they may be. I built my paintings layer by layer until it has a texture. On average, it takes me anywhere from 2 to 6 months of work to complete one painting. Usually I work with just two or three brushes, but can also apply paint with my fingers or other materials, depending on the effect I’m trying to achieve. I begin with making a rough drawing on the canvas in thin paint to indicate main shapes and proportions. Then I define the darkest point and the lightest point of the composition to set the tonal dynamics. I think in terms of the tonality.

Essentially I am working with lots of layers. Sometimes I can feel that I am getting lost in detail and almost start to ruin the painting. If it happens, I force myself to stop and come back later and try to approach it differently. I usually have a good feeling if the painting will be successful or not at the initial sketching stage, some works have the energy right from the start. But I also had to walk away from some of my works during the process of painting, if I feel that they are not going anywhere, while it feels that adding more details starts to ruin them instead of improving, and it is always painful to realise it. It is important to know when to stop.

Your are a versatile painter and I would invite our readers to visit http://www.renata-kopac.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted ar-

tistic production: I definitely love the way your works shows a suggestive compenetration between a suggestive exploration of experential concepts as femininity combined to a rational gaze on emotions from everyday life. This provides your works of a dynamic life that stimulates the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. Do you conceive these composition on an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?

I often to approach my work in a spontaneous manner, although I tend to follow the determined structure on some occasions. Having said that, I stick to one main principal an all cases - my colour pallets carry a lot of energy and emotions.

I never approach work with the negative emotions – I don’t touch a pencil or my brushes if I’m in a bad mood. I believe that an artist is a messenger who fills canvas with different emotions and that paintings have energy. Even when I work in dark colours or express sadness or sorrow l do it in a sincere way [not sure what you mean here, as everything would expected to be sincere]. Whenever I tried to work in a bad mood, trying to force the paint do what I wanted it to do and it didn’t work.

In the past, anatomy and the human form as well as its exposure in nude were very prevalent in my works. I have gone from images of dripping skin; highlighting the details of the bodies surface, to exposing the inner of the human body, and its effect on our bodily structure and formation. Through this I have gained appreciation for the body’s delicate and intricate. Main characters of my paintings are women. ‘A woman’ is a link that connects my work with the charm and mystery of women.

ART Habens

Renata Kopac

Women are beautiful, lucid in mind and rich in associative thought, which induce

ART Habens

Renata Kopac

meditation, desire, contemplation and adoration. I don’t just see the female for her physical forms but am inspired by a sense of every woman, that elusive feminine enigma that can change like the wind. Attired or nude, young and luscious or old, fat or thin all contain secrets and individual beauty. For me, women’s bodies are their different way of thinking which is always beautiful from the line of their form to the smoothness of their skin.

Maybe that the following assumption is

stretching the point a little bit, but I think that the abstract qualities that mark out your worksis in a certain sense representative of the unstable relationship between emotion and memory: it communicates me a process of deconstruction and assemblage, that I find truly engaging from a poetic aspect. What is the role of memory in your process? And in particular, do you try to achieve a faithful visual translation of your feelings?

I tend to collect and store memories of my experiences. Memories build up in many

ART Habens

Renata Kopac

layers and can remain dominant for years until they get suddenly extracted under a particular influence…..

Memory is a vital catalyst of the creative process, we selectively captures, collect and preserve information before it becomes a material for the sketch leading to the canvas.

I do not necessary try to translate my feelings onto the canvas. Nonetheless I believe it still happens on a subconscious level: my portraits and landscapes reflect my mood and the state of mind. If I am sad, the characters of my paintings will project it in one way or another. The whole process of interpretation of feelings is happening in an unintentional and very spontaneous way - it is not planned by any means and I don’t mean to set a goal to make a person smile or cry right at the beginning. Its expression is defined throughout the process and it is result of combination of emotions of feelings that are going through my mind during that particular time.

As we have discussed so far, your latest works include cultural portraits, in which you have focused on heritage and values of the multicultural variety of people you had the chance to get connected in London. By the way, I am always intrigued by self-portraits because I find interesting to see how an artist decides to portray herself when in fact she has the power to portray herself as anything at all. Self portraits often reveal a moment captured in time when one had been feeling relaxed but then suddenly something made her alert to danger. So what does a selfportrait show us of an artist?

I have never done a self-portrait, but I often thought about making one. You are right, thereis infinite freedom of how to do

ART Habens Renata Kopac

it, probablybecausethere are many “selves” hidden within each one of us and the perception of ourselves maychange from one moment to another. I find myself being indecisive about how I wouldwant to portraymyself, and the ideasremain in myimagination. Perhaps I’m also very consumed by my works on the current portraits, which express belonging to a particular culture verystrongly. Although my family is Polish, my mother language is Russian, and I was born and brought up in Lithuania… I don’t feel neither Russian, nor Polish, nor Lithuanian. It is actually always tricky to answer a typical question “Where are you from?”. Probablybecause of my background, I don’thave a feeling of belonging to a particular culture or a particular country. Perhaps, I don’tfind the idea of myown self-portrait that exciting. Somehow I associate it with loneliness and emptiness, and I am afraid of loneliness.

Before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

When I begin working on a new painting, I simply want to express a particular idea, I don’t think of how this idea or its execution would be received by the viewers in the beginning of the creative process, a motivation and initial urge to create something comes from within. But when I have something finished I hope that my audience will enjoy and appreciate it, so its acceptance or even popularity is important to me, of course. Although ultimately viewers’ opinion is what determines one’s success, an artists cannot be fixated on it.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Renata. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I will be taking part in a One Million Project which is a global initiative that aims to raise one million pounds for a charity. The project willgather a collection of 1 million artworks by artists and non-artists and then will make this collection available for a download at one pound fee through Amazon. I will produce 4 pieces of paintings based on one of the stories, incollaboration with a writer Jason Greenfield. The project will be on-going for a 12 months period and will be followed by the launch of the book. One of the paintings is going to be featured on the book cover. I am very excited about taking part in this impressive project, as it will be an enormous global effort, that will create something beautiful, and most importantly it is for a good cause.

I am also looking forward totaking part in the art project ‘Lithuanian Now’ which will showcase Lithuanian artists’ works at Debut Contemporary Gallery in London. I am also planning to complete series of Cultural Portraits in the next twelve months and will organize my second solo exhibition. To achieve this I still have to do deep and detailed research on cultures I choosing to explore.

ART Habens Renata Kopac

An interview by Andrew J. Richards, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

My recollections of places are always ephemeral and blurry. What’s left to be with are the impressions and feelings, colours and shapes. Every time I try to remember the same place I have to start over in search for the hints in my head, but they’re not reliable enough. They’re intangible. Sometimes it feels like I had a word on the tip of my tongue. There is no point of chasing it – I have to use the way around it to describe what I mean the best I can. Through my paintings I attempt to catch and preserve at least the impressions of what I want to remember from the places I’ve seen. In my own visual language consisting of shapes instead of words I am trying to convey my close relationship with nature. The forms I create are very simplified and minimal - scattered between different perspectives, shown from different angles, constantly searching the harmony with vast emptiness of the paper.

I feel that my technique of painting was strongly influenced by my way of printmaking. The way of creating layers, shaping the forms and blending colours is very similar to the way I create my multi coloured prints. My paintings are also somewhat planned with the idea of adding layers but painting gives me more freedom of how I am able to develop and finish them.

Gosia Poraj

waterbank

video, 2013

An interview with interview

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

London based artist Gosia Poraj's works are successful attempts to capture the ephemeral quality of everyday experience and to condense impressions into dynamic compositions. Her pieces do not aim to pursue an explanatory strategy: rather, can be considered as a map, that provides the viewers of an inertial system of reference capable of lead us in the liminal area in which memory blends with imagination. One of the most convincing aspect of Poraj's approach is the way it materializes the permanent flow of associations in the realm of experience and memory: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Gosia and welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? After earning your Masters Degree of Fine Arts with a major in Printmaking, that you received from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, you move to London, where you currently work and live: I would like to ask you how formal training has influenced your evolution as an artist. By the way, do you think that moving to a multicultural place as London may have formed the way you conceive your works?

After moving to London I needed a while to settle in in the UK. I needed to become comfortable and rooted in a bit in order to start expressing myself by art again. Because it’s a whole different place to live in, with a mix of cultures, communication and influences, the move made reestablish my relation to the outside world and find different way of creating art. Back in Poland the best way to express myself was through multi-colour block printing, using very dense, heavy paints. Whenever I painted it was mostly with oils and my painting was purely academic in style. It was never

Gosia Poraj Gosia Poraj Gosia Poraj Gosia Poraj

Lives and works in London. In 2006 she graduated from Academy of fine Arts in Katowice (Poland) with Masters Degree in Printmaking. For the following years multicolour relief printing was her technique of choice, but after relocating to London she focused on watercolour painting with an emphasis on coloured inks. She participated in various exhibitions and competitions and has won 2014 Bax Family Award for her work ‘Dawn’.

exciting enough for me to explore it further as I did with printmaking and drawing techniques. In London, however my practice turned to ‘lighter’ mediums such as inks and watercolurs and surprisingly my colour

Gosia Poraj

palette changed to so much brighter and more vivid. I can definetely say that there was a critical role of the environment which influenced the new way of how I approach and create my art nowadays.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production I would like to invite our readers to visit http://gosiaporaj.com in order to get a wide idea of your work: in particular, I noticed that the minimalistic quality of your pieces reveals a vivacious search of an equilibrium between memory and imagination: the recurrent reference to an emotional but at the same time universal imagery of environmental elements seems to remove any historic reference from the reality you refer to, and I daresay that this aspect allows you to go beyond any dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness, and that in the interesting strath establishes a stimulating dialogue between references from contingent era and an absolute approach to Art: do you recognize any contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness? And in particular, what is the role of memory in your process?

People remember things by encoding and storing events in their memory. We filter everything by our attitudes, moods, experience, education and conditioning and those filtered thoughts become our memories. Most of us can recall with quite good accuracy a conversation or a text we read, but impressions of places or feelings connected to some event are too elusive to actually name them and therefore we cannot stop them from some distortion. In our memory they become a compound of what actually happened and thoughts, fantasies that accompanied or came after the event.

The things I want to preserve and express are intangible already in the present moment of their happening. It’s impossible to separate this kind of memories from

imagination later on. What I’m trying to achieve is to find some universal knowledge and a kind of essence of the surrounding world that would help me to describe it with the least amount of visual elements. This decluttering is reflected in my minimal style and my reluctance towards narrativeness.

I would like start to focus on your artistic production beginning from "waterbank" and "mist", a couple of works that our readers have already had the chance to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. I definitively love the way you have recontextualized the idea of landscape from a conceptual level: you seem to challenge the viewers’ perception to go beyond the common way we relate ourselves not only the outside world, but with our inner dimension as well. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this? And in particular why did you focus on landscape?

Focusing on landscape came from my love of nature. Looking at the leaves on the wind or watching a stream or sea horizon are most relaxing activities I can imagine. However, in the act of painting the impressions and images that incite my art may not be all that important anymore. It’s how they translate through my emotions and the process itself that matters. I am often surprised with the effect myself after I finish an artwork.

Despite their vividness, the tones you combine never shows a contrast: rather, your nuances of red and blue, which are quite recurrent in your works, seem to establish a dialogue and balance each other: such dynamic equilibrium allows you to convey a variety of thoughts and emotions: in particular, I have really enjoyed the tones of "grove", that have provided me of such a tactile sensation. How much does your own psychological

ART Habens

Gosia Poraj

make-up determine the perspective composition and the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece? In particular, how do you develop your composition?

My technique of painting strongly derives from my printmaking with the concept of

layering and blending colours. Because inks don’t leave any room for corrections I have to plan ahead next layers and with that in mind I go through the whole process. Like dreams are illogical and scattered, my paintings are also quite surreal in that

grove

sense. Without a distinct perspective the elements seem to be shown from different angles and dimensions a bit collage-like. As in Afar 5 for example I build a whole new landscape, far from usual gravity by combining symbols/marks that in my mind resemble water, hills, trees etc. The color range I use is quite bright and intense. I often use primary colours and prevalently red with blue as they’re the most powerful ones in my belief.

What has at once caught my eyes of "on the wind" is the way you convey an abstract gaze that I would define oniric with a clear reminders to our perceptual reality. As Philippe Dagen once established in his Le Silence des peintres, the coming of a straight realism has caused a progressive retrenchment of painting from the mere representative role of reality. With exception of Hyperrealism movement, Painting is nowadays more and more marked out with a symbolic feature. Do you

ART Habens

Gosia Poraj

think that the dichotomy between Representation and Pastoralism is by now irremediable?

The way I look at it, an artist has always been a creator of his own reality, weather it’s hyperrealism, abstract art or even photography. An artist more or less consciously makes decisions of his object of interest, the format, the medium, the colour pallet he will use, the composition, so I

wouldn’t agree that there is any place for objectiveness in art and the bare ‘representation’ is just an illusion. I would rather say there are different techniques to sneak through what’s really our nature.

My art is on the verge of being purely abstract, but shows the root of inspiration and therefore has the ability to lead the viewer’s way through it. The elements I use are recurrent across my paintings and may

ART Habens Gosia Poraj

distant

work as marks or symbols that translate my thoughts into visual forms. The symbols do not convey any particular meaning and their aim is merely to evoke emotions.

A crucial aspect of your approach concerns the way you capture ephemeral moments and condense the permanent flow of memory: each of the layers that you

juxtapose in your compositions can be considered as a fragment of a narration: I like the way your process stimulates the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. Do you conceive such composition on an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?

It’s both. Basically, how my art develops reflects how I live. I plan, I make room for things, think about the outcome and when later on the circumstances change (which they always do), I adjust and improvise according to the new situation.

As you have remarked, your technique of painting has been influenced by you printmaking style: German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand's works, when he stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". While conceiving Art could be considered an abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you explore. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

As a basic I do think that the need for creativity and art comes from the inside and when it’s sincere it is always somehow connected to our experience, thoughts, ideas etc. It’s not hard for me to imagine, though, that many artists reinvent themselves in in a creative process. And why wouldn’t they? Art is a world on its own with no rules, where you can do whatever you want, so it’s easy to find refuge in it and become someone who you’d like to be through art.

ART Habens Gosia Poraj

Gosia Poraj

In my thinking what Thomas Demand wanted to say in simple words may be that the art is a sort of an outlet for the complexity of human psyche.

Your works are strictly connected to the chance to establish a deep involvement with the viewers and you seem to aiming to build a channel of communication with your audience. So before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

Once, in the beginning of my career I went through a short phase when the viewer’s reactions were a strong factor for me and for a while influenced how I ‘designed’ my art. I can now say how limiting it was to make decisions by thinking of other possible reception. I can only communicate and defend my art if it’s completely honest and build good relation with the audience based on my integrity. Nevertheless I always welcome any opinions of my art and am always interested what people see or feel when they look at it.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Gosia. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I think my art nowadays tends to go towards more abstract and sometimes poster-like compositions. I am trying to focus now on exploring some darker elements to juxtapose with the current palette.

ART Habens

Gosia Poraj

An interview by Josh Ryders, curator with the collaboration of Dario Rutigliano and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

Jeffery Ric JefferyRicJefferyRicRichards har dshards hards

Image making is my top priority. The method of conveyance is not important to me. At the moment I'm working with digital collage artworks involving pattern making fused with multiple images. I hope the work can be read in terms of Andy Warhols multiple images. The computer is very good at reproducing copies and this can be used to it's advantage.

The other thing the computer does well is reproduce images in reflection both in a horizontal and vertical direction. This I have harnessed to produce images with both photographic and abstract content. When I was painting images many years ago, I worked with photographic images overlaid with brickwork patterns these were mottled in shades of grey. This now works well digitally in a very graphic way whether it’s abstract or realistic in content.

At the end of the day I like to experiment and hopefully build on Art History all of which I find very fulfilling.

I have lived and worked in Wandsworth most of my life. Indeed my parents were born locally as well. At one time I was involved in designing offices and shops whilst working for a construction firm in Earlsfield. Art has always been at the forefront of my life and now in my sixty-first year I find I have more time to explore the infinite possibilities of the visual image through new media whilst working with the more traditional paints and pencils.

Jeffery Richards

Jeffery

video, 2013

Jeffery Richards Richards An interview with interview

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

In his recent artistic production, British artist Jeffery Richards has focused on a suggestive combination between a figurative approach and an abstract gaze on the variety of subjects he explore. His works are often marked out with the presence of an almost serial variety of geometric patterns that establish a dialogue with the characters he draws from contemporary imagery. While providing the viewers of a friuble set of subjects, he plays with our perceptual process inviting us to explore the point of convergence between abstraction and representation: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Richards' artistic production.

Hello Jeffery and a warm welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? As you have remarked once, Art has always been at the forefront of your life and in these recent years you are dedicating a particular attention to a free exploration of the expressive potential of the visual image: what are the most remarkable experiences that has impacted on the way you relate yourself to art making? Moreover, do you think that being a self-taught has provided you of a particular kind of freedom in the choice of your materials?

In answer to your question I have had a formal training in the arts by way of an Interior design diploma course at the Polytechnic of North London back in the seventies.

This was a fulltime course for three years.The first year was basically an Art Foundation course and then we specialized in interiors in the second and third years. We

were set projects and expected to express our artistic leanings in our work.

I remember one project was about designing a space for a childrens nursery in a proposed built enviroment and we were expected to work with the architectural department. Most of the students built massive structures but after visiting a nursery in the east end of London I was able to create an enviroment which was more compact and scaled down in size to accomodate the needs of the children. Scale is a very important part of the work I produce now and I never forgot this lesson whilist undertaking this project. What has at once caught our eyes of your approach is the multilayered nature of your

Jeffery Richards

investigation about the psychological nature of the image: in particular, when I first happened to get to know #1 and #2 I tried to relate all the visual information and the presence of primary elements to a single meaning. I later realized I had to fit into the visual rhythm suggested by the work, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?

Most of my work has been about experimenting with the medium. The two images #1 and #2 are photographic in

nature and originally when they were conceived I had been experimenting with abtract shapes in a digital programme on the computer.

At the same time I had produced paintings which were trying to replicate this in paint on canvas. I was never convinced by them. I was also interested in pattern and order. The #1 came about whilist taking digital photographs in Battersea Park London in the Autumn. If you look at the final image you will see it is four images combined. The top left hand quarter is reflected in the top right hand quarter much like in a mirror.

Then the top half is reflected in the bottom half. If you look at it the image maybe viewed in portrait of landscape although I prefer the landscape version.

#2 is a distorted view of Big Ben the iconic landmark in central London. Again I applied the concept outlined above and this time the image works better in portrait mode. The idea behind all of these works was to conceive the idea and then apply these to the work.

We would suggest our readers to visit http://jefferyrolphrichardsart.weebly.com in order to get a wider idea of your current artistic production, which is marked out

with a suggestive combination between a figurative approach and an insightful abstract gaze on the subjects you explore: how did you come to such effective synergy?

In answering this question I first had to look up 'synergy' ( the combined power of a group of things when they are working together that is greater than the total power acheived by each working separately).

I achieved this breakthrough fairly recently whilst experimenting with different source material. I was heavily influenced by Andy Warhol's sixties culture and ideas of repartition. The I introduced the idea that I

ART Habens

Jeffery Richards

could take images of celebrity and photographic imagery and layer in patterns and abtract shapes I had already produced previously. This fusion opened up further experimentation. I believe the public will accept this form of abtraction more readily.

References to environmental elements are quite recurrent in your works: we have appreciate the way you recontextualize the idea of landscape in #3 that is one of our favourite piece from your current production. By superimposing urban views and serial patterns you seem to urge the viewers' perception to challenge the common way to perceive not only the

outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

We are all connected in life and art is a way of verbalizing this connection. I am convinced there is an undercurrent to life that we all search for. In this life we are destined to live in the physical world not the

Jeffery Richards

spritual. To illustrate this connection I believe things happen coincidently for a reason.

When I was putting on my first one man exhibition in 2005 I realized that John Lennon had been shot on the 8th December the date I was offered for my private view. This was the same date that one of my son's was born. These coincidences I believe happen as spiritual markers in our lives.

Your pieces are always pervaded with a sense of geometry featured by recurring rectangular patterns, reminding us of Sarah Morris early works and that provides the viewers' gaze of a multilayered experience. We find important to remark that your patterns do not act as a neutral background, but plays an active role in the narration you develope in your works. Would you like to tell our readers something about the process that lead you to superimpose figurative images with abstract geometrical patterns?

When I was starting out with digital imagery I used abtract shapes and worked with inverse shapes in black and white. I was originally influenced by Bridget Riley's work. Victor Vasarely and M C Escher.

At one point with my painting I was using brickwork patterns and figurative imagery. The work took so long to produce and some of the sponternaty was missing. When computers came along I was finally able to realise my dream.

You often draw from the universal imagery from contemporary culture and manu of your character are popular musician and actors or famous politicians: but while artists as Elizabeth Peyton often choose an explanatory strategy to communicate a variety of feelings especially from the intimate sphere, you rather focus on the ephemeral nature of our perceptual process. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal

experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

No I don't think you can devorce yourself from the work and be cold and clinical. Feeling and emotion are an essential part of the process but the nature of computers is hardedged and you have to work with this strength.

I like to remove myself from the world whilst working and give myself over to the experience of the moment. One of my strongest influences is Vincent Van Gogh who gave himself to his work with every brushstroke.

There's a subtle but effective narrative in your works and although each of your project has an autonmous life, there's always seem to be such a mutual channel of communication. Thomas Demand stated once that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this? And in particular, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?

I don't perceive my work as a story but I like to work with imagery and visit different themes over the years. The visual world is enough for me. In fact I wrote some words back in 2005 to illustrate this.

I've never written before this point in time. Never written words on paper just to make sense of it all. Paint on canvas yes! Words seem uncertain while visual patterns and shapes have meaning. The Mona Lisa smiles for all and all are enthralled by it. Describe a smile in words. It just doesn't work for me. Sensations in paint, marks on canvas. El Greco calls to me down the years. Soaring

ART Habens

Jeffery Richards

masterpieces bathed in light with whirling blue's and crimson colours. Van Gogh where are you now. The walls of the National Gallery speak to me and colour my world in paint. Bring on the Tate. Modern masterpieces for all. Yes words are nothing but letters mixed up and scattered with sentences. Marks of a different kind. Paint makes sense of it all for me. Red,blue and green describe my Autumn this year. As we rush towards the years end nature paints it's own picture on our minds. A photograph in the passage of time. A snapshot to prompt my own imagination. Visually we search our world for meaning. Does the sun have words written all over it! No! It rises above the horizon hovers in the sky and

falls to the ground. A visual splendour for all to enjoy. Van Goghs's sunflowers echo's the sun and calls to us in bold colourful strokes.

While exhibiting a capivating vibrancy and a colorful bouquet, the tones you combine always shows a careful equilibrium. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the perspective composition and the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece? Any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

The 'palette' has always been vibrant with hot and cold colours suggesting a mood. I like strong colours and usually my work is not suttle but very graphic by design.

Before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

I hope the public both enjoy my work and with this publication spread the word and open me up to a wider world of possiblities. I have always been an outsider in the art world and would welcome greater participation in the future.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jeffery. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Recently I have been working with the notion of the number 2 and have produced work based on the notion of duality. Maybe I can mix this concept with the digital work.

ART Habens

Jeffery Richards

Casey Cic CaseyCicCaseyCic Casey Cichy hyhy hy

Living, at its base, is expressing unseen energy through form.

My work captures that energy, and conveys it to the viewer in such a way that it vibrates to their very core being. My paintings are intentionally raw.

All of my emotions, both light and dark, are reflected in my strokes.

I allow myself to be exposed so that the viewer will allow themselves to be vulnerable. Art is consciousness, and it is every single person’s prerogative to live consciously.

I am a self taught artist that began painting in my early 20s as a cathartic release.

I strongly believe that art is meant to heal both the artist and the observer.

I am currently going to school to obtain my degree in art therapy.

I am looking forward to the day that I can begin facilitating healing through art on a grand scale.

KC Cichy

video, 2013

The Space Between Here and Now

Casey Cichy Cichy An interview with interview

KC Cichy's works can be considered as compressed springs, capable of storing an unexpectedly great quantity of energy and that draws the viewers into the crossroad of a variety of emotions, both light and dark that are unveiled by the fluid geometry that pervades Cichy's works. While exhibiting a compelling vibrancy, his paintings are often marked out with symbolism and despite the references to universal imagery, sometimes reject an explanatory strategy to establish a communiaction with the viewers: rather, Cichy invite us to elaborate personal associations, in order to free the energy conveyed in his works, on order to establish a cathartic process in which both the artist and the spectator art active participants to the creative process. We are really pleased to introduce our readers to Cichy's multifaceted artistic production.

Hello KC Cichy and a warm welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? As a self-taught artist are there any experiences that influenced the way you currently conceive and produce your works? In particular, you once stated that you started to paint as a cathartic release: what is the nature of your relationship with art making?

Hello and thank you for including my work in your 5th edition issue. I discovered painting when I was 20. I had been going through a tough year and I was feeling extremely lost. A friend of mine lent me her art supplies to see if I would enjoy painting. I had never tried my hand at art before then, but the first time I painted changed my life. I remember putting on my head phones, losing myself in the process and the unprecedented quiet in my mind. I had

found freedom. From that moment on painting was, and will always be, my therapy. It is a way to channel my energy and emotions into a platform that has the power to vibrate and transcend all barriers.

Being a self taught artist has allowed me to explore techniques and materials without limits. When I first started painting, I rarely thought about the outcome of the painting. It was primarily about me releasing my emotions. Over the last eight years I have refined my approach, but I still let the process take precedence. Some of my work comes from an instant visual flash in my

Casey Cichy

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Katherine C. Wilson, curator arthabens@mail.com

head of the exact painting, while other pieces are not strictly planned out. I am a positive person in my life, but often times my art allows me to liberate the negative side of myself in a healthy way. I don’t try to control the painting. I let the painting take its own course.

A remarkable aspect of your work is an incessant search of a balance between a variery of viewpoints that leads you to a multidisciplinary approach and I would suggest our readers to visit http://www.kcoriginalart.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. Before starting to elaborate specifically about your works, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, have you ever happened to realize that the synergy of viewpoints you pursue is the only way to express the concepts you explore?

Almost all of my work is created late at night. There is a stillness to the night that is critical to me being able to channel myself. I have a series of Moonshine paintings that were inspired by the calmness and peace that comes after dark. I will usually create a writing before or after the painting.

The words create a visual in my head before I begin painting, or the painting will inspire the writing. My process would be impossible without this step. I would not be able to share my true self without a multifacited approach to my art. As I stated before, I never had limits put on what was an acceptable or “proper” technique, and that has given me the abandon to try a plethora of different approaches so that I can find the astetic and process that best articulates the message of the piece.

I would start to focus on your artistic

production beginning from Chaos Proceeds Order and The Space Between

ART Habens

Casey Cichy

Revel in the Chaos

Here and Now that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of the article. These pieces appeal to me for the way they speak

ART Habens

Casey Chichy

of a fluid geometry: the pattern that recurs in your pieces seems to act as compressed springs that store an unexpected quantity of energy: this quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that often represents an equilibrium emotion and memory in a truly engaging way. Do you conveive your works on an istinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?

While some of my work is structured, both of these works were created from an instincutal perspective. Chaos Proceeds Order was forged from a dark place. I had recently come to terms with the fact that I was a transgender man, and it was a very hectic time in my life. I needed this painting to remind me that the chaos would pass, and that the turmoil was neccesary for me to find myself. The structure of the backgroud is meant to contrast the disorder of the foreground.

Most people can relate to this painting due to the universal emotion of not feeling in control of ones life. (If you would like to include to writing I sent in with Chaos Proceeds Order I feel that would help the readers grasp the concept of the piece). The Space Between Here and Now was created around the same time, and it came from the same emotional place. I kept imagining the space between here and now as vast distance, where the two would never merge. I felt such a disconnect between myself and the present moment. These works were a release of pent up negative energy.

Revel in the Chaos is one of my most organic pieces. From start to finish, I really allowed the painting to speak for itself. I used non traditional techniques and was utilizing the creative time as a medatiative exercise. I knew I wanted the astetic to be

ART Habens

Casey Chichy

primarily blue, but aside from that I held no notion of what the final outcome would look like.

Your works exhibit a colorful, vivacious palette: the tones you incorporate in your pieces range from thoughtful nuances of blue as in the interesting Healing to vivid tones or red that in Art is Consciousness seems to speak of an intense struggle. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture? Moreover, any comments on your choice of palette and how it has changed over time?

Art is Consciousness is an extremely personal piece to me. This piece was where I found my process, and, simlar to Revel in the Chaos, was a meditative realse more than a planned painting. I am always aware of the emotions brought forth from certain colors, and I use that to either release my own emotions or to obtain a guided response from the viewer. The intense red was the only way I could deliver my anger and discontent onto the canvas.

Healing came after Chaos Proceeds Order and Space Between Here and Now. I chose to give it a multitude of textures and layers to show the depths of both pain and healing. This was also around the time I created Fall in Love With Yourself (please feel free to include my writing I sent in for Fall in Love With Yourself) , and I needed the visual reminder of what I was going through.

Drawing a lot from reality and in your work you accomplish the difficult task of creating a consistent bond between an imaginary dimension, and a rational reference to reality: the way you recontextualize a variety of symbols as in

ART Habens

Casey Cichy

Art is Consciousness

Beautifully Broken Heart

Beautifully Broken Heart and in True Colors brings a new level of significance to the concepts you investigate about. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience? And in particular, do you try to achieve a faithful visual translation of your feelings?

I do believe that personal experience is completely indespensable when it comes to the creative process. The art that I find most compelling are the works that have energy invested in them.

To create disconnected art would cheat the artist and the viewer out of the vital human aspect that allows art to bring up deep emotions. My work has always relied

heavily on it being an accurate translation of my feelings. Genuine emotion has the power to penetrate deeply into spaces that people generally try to hide. It would have been inpossible to create True Colors or Beautifully Broken Heart without my own personal experience that ties into the pieces.

True Colors was sparked from one sentence; sexuality is as individual as a fingerprint. Everyone falls on the spectrum of sexuality and gender. It is when we assign labels to each other that we lose the freedom to express ourselves and obtain whatever connections fit the unique "us". Love and connection should always be the greatest aim. The head that in this piece was not initially planned. It got added in when I was working on the painting and the light was casting the shadow of my head. In that moment the entire painting came together. This is one of my rare pieces that had a balance of initial concept and in the moment additions. This piece is without a doubt a complete reflection of my personal experience.

Beautifully Broken Heart was derived from a song I wrote with the same title. From the name it is obvious I was going through a pretty deep heartache, and the only way I could work through it was to reasure myself that ones heart needs to be broken to let the light out. One cannot truly love until their heart has been sincerly broken. I found the imagery of that to be beautiful.

While exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, some of your pieces, and I think to the recent ones as Trust Your Power, seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer a key to find personal interpretations to the stories you tell through your brushstrokes...

Would you like to tell our readers about

True Colors

ART Habens

Casey Chichy

the genesis of this stimulating work? Wha was your initial inspiration?

Trust Your Power was concieved through a conversation I was having with a collegue. I was reflecting on how if I were to delve into a deep issue within myself, it would open an emotional can of worms. My collegue then replied that if the worms were let out, they could transform into something greater than the pain. With this statement, the painting flashed into my head and I grabbed a scrap piece of paper and did a quick sketch of what became Trust Your Power. One is ultimately in control of their demons, and its only through trusting in ones strength that those demons can be released. It is important for me to allow the viewer to see an accurate reflection of themselves in my work. That is why I allow for interpretation in my paintings.

The way you find a balance and break it as in Isolated Connection suggests me a process that, altering the functional aspect of a form brings unexpected messages and invites the viewer to elaborate personal interpretations: at the same time, you do not reject a gaze on aesthetics, creating a lively combination between conceptualism and beauty. How important is the aesthetic problem for you when you conceive a work?

Aesthetics are something I consider either before or towards the end of a painting. When I need to release my emotions, I will keep building the painting until I feel like it is balanced. In contrast, when I have a message I want to convey, I will sketch out the idea before hand and overall stay true to my initial sketch. Isolated Connection, like Trust Your Power, was another piece that flashed into my head. This happened

ART Habens Casey Cichy

while I was standing outside my truck on a pitch black dirt road. I knew exactly how to layout the painting in order to convey the quintessential human experience of both infinite connection and absolute isolation.

As you have remarked once, your paintings are intentionally raw: this gives you freedom and seems to allow you to go beyond any dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness, as in the interesting Inextricable, establishing a captivating osmosis between materials and techniques from a contingent era and an absolute approach to Art: do you recognize any contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness?

I find the biggest contrast to be the intent behind the painting. Traditional paintings are focused on capturing a subject at its most accurate.

There was no deviation from what is in front of the artist.

Contemporary art focuses more on how the artist emotionally interprets the situation. On the spectrum I fall more on the contemporary side, but I would not put myself in either of these categories. I have always done what comes naturally to me without any thought to what style it would fit in. I paint in whatever style can most accurately reflect my state at the moment of creation.

Your approach is intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intellectual interplay with the viewers, urging them to relte themselves to Art in a conscious way. So, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making

process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

While I am very grateful that people enjoy my art, I create art first and foremost for myself. The language I use comes from a primal explination of my work. The titles for my pieces are inspired by the writings I create during the process. My titles are meant to give the reader a glimse into my mindset without over divulging what the piece represents to me. My writings are stream of consciousness, and if I were to think about the reaction to my work it would effect the very core of why and how I create. My paintings can only ever be my unfiltered self on a canvas, and it is up to the audience to look into that and see pieces of themself reflected back.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, KC Cichy. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I am constantly trying different approaches while staying present with the process, so it would be hard to say where I specifically see my work going. When I start to limit myself to one direction or style, my work becomes stagnant. I will always aspire to maintain a balance between my art being both therapy for myself and the audience. I would like to take this time to thank you again for including me in your platform.

ART Habens Casey Cichy

dchild

People and situations interest me, I find pleasure in conversations of rare moments of finally being present instead of absent. I feel a freedom with my paintings that I have never found anywhere else.

Human emotions are so precious and intriguing, exploring your thoughts and allowing time to listen to yourself is what painting does for me. It’s a time when I can stop and finally focus on anything that in that moment I need to face.

Painting is the only way I can release and answer difficult questions about life which are almost impossible to resolve in any other way. All my work is created in an almost unconscious motion. I don’t plan any of my paintings. The reason I paint is because I have to. My work tells stories, some too personal to comment on, but I hope that other people find stories in them for themselves.

Ruby Goodchild

video, 2013

Ruby Goodchild Goodchild An interview with interview

An interview by Josh Ryders, curator and Katherine C. Wilson, curator arthabens@mail.com

Ruby Goodchild investigates about the concept of Claustrophobicity in the contemporary age: her gaze on the reality we inhabit in provides the viewers of an Ariadne's thread that reveals the existence of a convergence point between abstraction and experience, subverting the categories of perceptual reality and imagination, walking the viewers into a dream-like dimension. One of the most convincing aspects of Goodchild's approach is the way her brushstrokes convey a variety of emotions into a coherent unity: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production.

Hello Ruby and a warm welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular how has your experience at the Arts University Bournemouth influenced your evolution as an artist? Do you think that it has informed the way you currently conceive and produce your works?

Hello and thank you. At Bournemouth Arts University I studied Film Production, specializing in Production design. It gave me the opportunity to design and build my own sets. My paintings were created along side this work, and have always been more personal than my work as a designer for film. They are both entail very different creative processes.

The paintings are personal reactions to happenings in my life, and each decision on them is mine to make. With the designing for film, I create art that has a purpose for a larger function involving a lot of different people and elements, because it acts as an environment and works with fictional characters. Finding props and building sets

are very different and public - the paintings I create are separate from that. They are more private. However, both allow me to express myself and keep motivating me to find inspiration for my craft.

Painting has always been in my life. Since I was very small I have always drawn and painted. While studying Film Production at the Arts University Bournemouth I continued to paint along with my studies. Nothing has really affected how I produce my work, it just happens when I need it to. The course did not influence my painting but it helped

Ruby Goodchild

me to realize how important the two forms of art are to me, and how it was important to keep my design work separate from my art. I think they both use different parts of my brain but both result in something very expressive…which is good.

Before starting to elaborate about your works I think it's important to highlight the multidisciplinary feature of your approach and I would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.ruby-

goodchild.co.uk in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production: you seem to be in an incessant search of an organic synergy between a conceptual formalism and a reference to the emotional sphere: have you ever happened to realize that a convergence between different approaches is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

Yes but I can’t just make myself paint, painting is very organic for me. I’ve realized

Ruby Goodchild

Ruby Goodchild

that forcing myself to make art never gives good results. It doesn’t mean anything when I force art. When the time is right for me emotionally and artistically I get the best results.

This is entirely different to my practical work outside of art – because it is not an emotional process – I can force myself to design. I personally cannot force myself to make original or truthful art. The main link for me is to come at art with the right approach, then everything else falls into place organically, and the concepts reveal themselves.

Your approach appeals to me for the way your paintings convey figurative representation and such an emotional gaze on reality in such a compelling, coherent unity. I would consider your portraits as

oniric biographies in which your investigate about the ambiguous relation with Perception and Imagination: in particular, in #1 and #2, you seem to walk the viewer into a dream-like dimension, giving to the abstract process of art making a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the emotions you capture. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensible part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Personally I cannot disconnect my paintings from a direct experience, but I have found a way of creating functional art through my design work, which is detached from myself. My design work is to create a visual narrative, and to work in collaboration with

the other crew-members to make one complete work. However, my paintings are my own personal expression, and I cannot detach being personal from my creative process with painting.

Your insightful exploration of Claustrophobia seems to reveal a special kind of empathy with your subjects, and that's incredibly thought-provoking. Your approach seems to stimulate the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. How did you decide to focus on this form of expression?

Subconscious aspects of my work are obviously what comes out at the end of the process for me – because its emotionally

driven, I wont realize what it is until its over and I’ve looked at it in retrospect.

Conscious levels in my work come about before – but because I have my own personal symbolism, what is apparent to me may not be apparent to others. If people have a personal reaction to my work, that is truly great – because I do not make work for others, and to effect someone else with something that is personal and creative is a beautiful thing.

While exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, #3 and #4 seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer a key to find personal interpretations to the stories you tell

through your portraits... this quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory in a truly engaging way. What is the role of memory in your process? And in

particular, do you try to achieve a faithful visual translation of your feelings?

I do try to achieve a faithful translation of my feelings and perspectives to situations. Imagery and expression for everyone is

ART Habens Ruby Goodchild

individual, and so different. The imagery I create is as honest as possible to that moment in time. Feelings and our interpretation of memories and effects feel like they move so often, I paint to allow movement and interpretation. Memory is very important, the work is created usually in an immediate response to something, but the images I use to interpolate this are complicated, as for me, they translate the memory in its correct form.

The dialogue established by strong tones is a crucial mark of your style, that sums up in a lively a combination a variety of thoughts and emotions: in particular, I noticed you use an intense tone of red that I daresay is the hallmark of your palette. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture? Moreover, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

My paints are very old, they have been collected over the years. Red is very important to me as it is a colour that feels very satisfying to paint with. Its such a striking colour and allows statements in the work to feel made. Red feels very human and sometimes can bring the work back to its true meaning that could otherwise be lost in the visuals.

Colours are just something that happen. It has a lot to feel with the present moment and how I need it to feel. This brings out different pallet decisions and creates a strength to the work to push in different direction.

Another piece of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would be pleased to spend some words is #7 and I have to admit it is one of my favourite work

of yours: when I first happened to admire it I have been struck with the way you have captured the uncanny and conveyed it in its unconventional composition. While I was trying to relate all the visual information to a single meaning, I soon realized that I had to fit into the visual unity suggested by the work, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?

When I painted this image I was at a time of life of a lot of changes and uncertainty. Everything kept moving but I wanted to stop and reflect on what was happening. I couldn’t because you have to keep moving on. My process is to work through how I feel about events and sometimes how I apply paint, the speed and finish, represents how I feel at the time. I never plan them but I ‘feel’ what they need to look like.

A sense of subtle but pervading narrative is a hallmark of your approach: although each of your projects has an autonomous life, there's always seem to be such a channel of communication between your works, that springs from the way you juxtapose ideas and media: German Photographer and Sculptor Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this? And in particular, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?

I like to think that all artists have the choice to explore various methods and ideas within their work, whether they’ve initially planned to, or discover the symbolism or narrative in their work, after it is complete. Art and artists can always rely on symbolism, and I believe art has always included elements of

ART Habens

Ruby Goodchild

psychological narrative. Every artist leaves their individual touch on their work, even if they were commissioned. For example, artists who are known for their work with religious subjects from hundreds of years ago still have individual style; the compositions reveal something about their character if you really want to analyze the work and dig deep for the art to say something about the individual that made it.

I only agree with Demand’s statement in that, in art at present, there is such a wealth of history that we, as artists, stand up against. We have to truly be ourselves to stand out and find something new, or a new way of presenting symbolism or narrative. However, I also think that it helps us as modern artists, in that we have such a wealth of inspiration to be influenced by. I believe that as modern artists, we can rely on whatever approach (psychological or technical) that we want, as long as we stay true to ourselves and can get lost in the creative process.

In answer to your questions about narrative in my own work, I do not necessarily think of narrative – strong emotions provoke me to create. I end up camouflaging my emotions by painting as a release. I don’t paint what I need to release in a literal or explicit manner – other people won’t necessarily realize the subject of my paintings

Your approach is intrinsically connected to the chance of establishing a vivid involvement with the viewers, so, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

My paintings are something created through a very private form of expression, I don't consider an audience when making the work. Only once it is finished and has been made with honesty though that private process and when friends and family encounter them then I see how people react to them. That is very exciting and I enjoy how people interpret them so differently. An audience is so important, and when someone reads your work correctly you can feel very close to them and that is an amazing feeling.

Whenever I have tried to make work with the intention for being for someone it become a terrible mess I usually hate. But when I paint with everyone else shut-out, then I can make work that is honest and feels true to what my work does for me.€

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Ruby. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Thank you for taking interest in my work, it’s been a pleasure to discuss these pieces with you. I will continue to paint, and am looking forward to exhibiting my work in the near future.

ART Habens Ruby Goodchild

An interview by Josh Ryder curator and Katherine C. Wilson, curator arthabens@mail.com

Melissa Martinez Mar tinezMartinez

I feel it is my view of something so traditional and such a normally classic piece with a modern, abstract twist. The word Modern in society can sometimes trigger images of very minimalist and contemporary pieces. I feel that this piece is a fusion of the two. Classic and contemporary.

As a Miami native with a passion for the action packed fictional universe of comic book illustrations my work is typically very colorful and chaotic. I try to capture my surroundings and pop culture influences that molded me through childhood and translate them into beautiful pieces that speak to others.

Heavily influenced by artists such as Boris Vallejo, Brian Bolland and Arthur Adams I like to add my own spin to world of fantasy and comic illustration.

Melissa Martinez

Melissa Martinez

ART Habens

video, 2013

An interview with interview

An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com

Miami based artist Melissa Martinez explores the influences of pop culture in the chaotic, unstable contemporary age: when drawing from popular imagery, she recontextualizes the role of memory, to find an unexpected point of convergence between Tradition and Experimentation. In her insteresting work entitled The Last supper through stained glass, she effectively shows how these apparently opposite aspects can be merged in a coherent combination. One of the most convincing aspects of Martinez's work is the way she gives life to a complelling narrative that deletes the frontiers between the artist and the viewers. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production.

Hello Melissa and welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview I would pose you a couple of questions about the way your background has impacted on your current practice. First, do you have a formal training or are you self-taught? Moreover, how does living in Miami impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your work?

I think most artists will tell you that they have been drawn to the arts from a young age. You’re compelled to draw or paint for fun. Other than watching Bob Ross on TV painting happy trees and one sculpture elective class in high school I am completely self taught. I started by copying images off of comics, comic book cards and coloring books. That later progressed to giving portraits a try. Then, I began experimenting with paint and different forms of media. I love playing with different textures and colors. I began attending local festivals, events and galleries as a vendor and live artist. Older, more seasoned artists that you get to know come around and give you advice, tips and tricks

as well as inspiration. You are always learning and growing.

Growing up in Miami has been a blessing. The architecture, skyline, cultural diversity and history of the city in itself is art. I have been surrounded by art deco buildings and cultural art my entire life. In recent days Miami has become an art mecca. I am extremely lucky to be a part of the growing scene here. South Beach, Coral Gables and Coconut Grove have always housed beautiful galleries and art walks. Art Basel is also held here yearly. However, the Wynwood arts

Melissa Martinez Melissa Martinez

Melissa Martinez

district has emerged as a street artist’s playground. Little Havana is also covered in Hispanic and Cultural street art. Art districts are popping up all over the county lately. There is no shortage in inspiration for local artists. This inpiration can be seen in my work through my use of vibrant, contrast colors.

Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production I would focus on a recurret feature of your works: the minimalistic quality that marks out your paintings reveals a vivacious search of an equilibrium between imagination and memory: the recurrent reference to an emotional but at the same time universal imagery from pop culture seems to remove any historic reference from the reality you refer

ART Habens

Melissa Martinez

to, and I daresay that this aspect allows you to go beyond any dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness, and that establishes a stimulating dialogue between references from contingent era and an absolute approach to Art: do you recognize any contrast between Tradition and Contemporariness? And in particular, what is the role of memory in your process?

My work often times consists of pop culture references and the memory of all that is my childhood. I use my nostalgia to produce modern pieces that I feel resonate with everyone. Drawing inspiration from traditional images and childhood heroes and reworking them through my own interpretation. It’s kind of what every artist does. The viewer is seeing the same object or

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Melissa Martinez

person the artist sees but through the artist’s mind’s eye. There is most certainly an equilibrium of imagination and memory infused in each piece. I try to interpret my memories in the most unique and original way in hopes that it will resonate with the person looking at it. Hoping that it dredges up a memory that takes them back to a happy place. I want my work to bring those memories back. The memories of laying in bed watching Saturday cartoons, trading comic book cards with friends or of that painting that hung over your grandmother’s kitchen table growing up. That’s what our life is made up of. Past memories and experiences which I hope resurface when people see my work. Traditional art was typically inspired by tributes to religion and portraiture. Realism was necessary to tell stories that document history. Contemporary art in contrast can be suggestive. We have pictures and cameras and everything is documented. So you are allowed to go in the other direction and be vague or abstract. I think combining the two as I did with The Last supper through stained glass fuses the two contrasting styles. So much has been done and so many concepts have been exhausted that morphing the traditional into contemporary works helps refresh and renew these concepts.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from The Last supper through stained glass, an interesting work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What mostly appeals to me of this piece is the way you have combined a representative gaze on reality with a captivating surrealism that pervades its composition. Would you like to walk our readers through your process when you conceived this work and to its final evolution?

Sure. It was a commissioned piece. I was asked to create an abstract last supper for

someone. I brought up the image online and tried to figure out how I was going to work the piece so that it didnt take away from it’s

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Melissa Martinez

iconic feel. The Last Supper is a masterpiece and reinterpreting it may or may not always work in one’s favor. I remember growing up

seeing these faceless clay doll sculptures. My friend’s mom had a bunch of them growing up and there was a mystery and allure to

Melissa Martinez

them as they seem delicate but somewhat disturbing. I decided I would go that route with Jesus and the Apostles. No one knows what the really looked like so lets leave them faceless and up to the intepretation of the

person looking at it. It was my first oil piece. Once I painted the table and all the apostles I didn’t want to do anything that would take away from that focal point. I just let loose on the canvas and began creating this blurry

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Melissa Martinez

stained glass effect with very delicate colors and the more I did it the more entranced I became until I was finally left with the final product which you see in the image.

The dialogue established by the vivacious nuances of tones you combine is a crucial aspect of your style, that is capable of conveying a variety of thoughts and emotions: in particular, I have really enjoyed the tones of Tardis (Tardis in transit), that have provided me of such a tactile sensation. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the perspective composition and the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece? Any comments about your palette and its evolution over the years?

As you can see in my work I am a big fan of combining mostly vibrant, primary colors. I come from a very colorful, hispanic culture. I love vibrancy, energy and having positive outlook on things and I’m drawn to happy people exuding good energy. The dark, somber feel of pieces such as Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters, Rembran dt’s The Night Watch and even more modern pieces like Lester Johnson’s Three Men in Hats are beautiful and meaningful, but also very joyless and stringent. They touch the parts of the soul that are broken and help us feel the darkness of those eras. With my work I hope to reach the other area of the soul. The childhood happiness, the fond memories, and the light that counters the darkness. I want the colors to represent a happy aura. My composition usually has a focal point. I want to give the effect at times that the focal point is coming out of the canvas. I want it to pop in comparison to the background so this has helped evolve my pallet and my focus to find the colors that compliment the subject that I am painting in the best way. As my technique evolves so will my composition and color choices.

I like the way your pieces shows both spon-

taneity and a careful attention to composition, as the interesting Catwoman. German artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience and its related cultural substratum is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

No, I dont think it can. It shouldnt. Personal experience plays an enormous role in the creative process. That’s the beauty of art. Whether it’s painting, dancing, creating music or acting; each artist produces something that was created due to their unique personal experiences. Several artists can paint the same subject but their looking glass into the canvas is weathered by their individual journey. If you are not using your personal trials to mold your work then you are not fully experiencing the sweet emotional release of creating. I dont think you can disconnect the creative process from direct experience. Direct experience creates a person so it makes sense that it molds their process. Living and financial conditions determine their tools and setting. The geography, time period and education mold their techniques and subjects. In my opinion, there is no way to seperate creative process from the direct experience of an individual.

The instrinsic evokative nature of your compositions shows an attempt to exploit the notions of language itself. When offering us of a set of "fruible" images marked with a surrealistic touch, you give the viewers the chance to challenge the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

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Melissa Martinez

ART Habens

Melissa Martinez

I am ecstatic to be living in a time where street art is making this mainstream rise. The use of art right now to bring attention to real world issues is crucial. Issues like goverment and corporate corruption, wage inequality, equal rights, police brutality, veteran benefits (or lack thereof) and wars that are not in our best interest are all current problems that our generation faces. Artists are using walls as a beautiful method of protest. Artists like Banksy or Egypt’s Ganzeer, photographers like Korea’s Seub, installations like the one in Normandy by Jamie Wardley and Andy Moss are all just a few examples of art being used to shake up society. To help them out of their media induced trance if for even a moment and bring attention to real issues. Art has helped bring cities around the world to life. It’s something beautiful to look at in a time of cynicism and very little empathy. Art programs have brought a safe haven to inner

city children and an escape from their daily realities. The functionality of informing, healing and uplifting is what makes art so important in the contemporary age.

While exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, your works seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy. Offering to the viewer a key to shed a light on the concepts you investigate about, you encourage us to find personal interpretations: rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?

I dont know if I’m the only one who feels this way but it can be either depending on the piece. I have pieces that were created with a more intuitively based process. Those are pieces that aren’t typically planned out. I may get the urge to paint, have nothing in mind, no concept. So I just let go and with the brush in hand breathe life into the canvas. I go in with an idea of what I want and I just let myself go and produce something somewhat abstract that comes from my soul. I have other pieces which I will get ideas for in the middle of the night or during some random hour. I will use a reference picture and plan out my idea. Perhaps a portrait or a concept that came to me. I would say those are created systematically.

Among your influences you have once mentioned Brian Bolland and Arthur Adams: how do their works have informed the way you relate yourself with art making?

Growing up I have always had a huge appreciation for comic book illustrations. Some people may not notice it, but each individual panel is a intricate work of art. It’s so complex. They tell a story, sometimes not chronologically, and to capture it all so perfectly in a small space is amazing to me. I feel like you can literally turn each panel in

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Melissa Martinez

certain comics into amazing pieces of art on a large scale. Arthur Adams created some of the best and most iconic illustrations that I have seen. I am a big X-Men fan and he illustrated some of the most memorable covers for the X-men series. His work is highly detailed and absolutely amazing. Brian Bolland, also a comic book illustrator has a darker style. It’s also highly detailed but it has far more edge than most illustrations. His interpretations of the Batman villain, Joker, are iconic. They were influencial to me because I started learning how to create figures by copying their creations. It helped me with understanding the anatomy of superheroes. I have a goal and a plan to create a comic book one day soon. None of that would be imaginable if not for artists like them.

A crucial aspect of your approach concerns the way you capture ephemeral moments, condensing the permanent flow of memory: each of the layers you combine in your compositions can be considered as a fragment of a narration: I like the way your process stimulates the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. Do you conceive such composition on an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?

I never begin a piece with a specific intention. I may start with one thing and days later the piece has developed a life of it’s own and it’s completely different than what I started off with. There is no real structure. The composition on most pieces develop instinctively.

Your works are strictly connected to the chance to extablish a deep invovement with the viewers and you seem to aim to delete the frontiers between the artist and people. So before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation

with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

Yes! Yes! Yes! I do alot of live art and I vend at art fairs and festivals of the sort. I interact with people at every event. Some people are immediately drawn to my booth. I love to see their reactions and interpretations. It’s hard to gauge your audience when the pieces are hanging at a gallery. There is really nothing like going out and hearing the feedback first hand. I have receieved concept ideas from my audience. I have received praise and inspiration as well as I have inspired others to pursue their artistic ambitions. Pop art is obviously very much based on pop culture. What better way to have your finger on the pulse of popular culture than to ask the people? My material comes from what they want just as much as it comes from what I like. My art appeals to certain people more than others and that appeal has drawn me to individuals whose lifestyles and passions are aligned with my own and who have a true appreciation for my material.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Melissa. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I am starting to plan and put together some ideas that I have. I initially intended to develop them into a literary novel but I have decided they make more sense as a comic book series which I will write and illustrate myself. I also continue to do events all over Miami. You can find me at Lucid gallery in Kendall during their monthly events, doing live art for events like Blend the Femme among others which are organized by artists and do an amazing job at promoting and helping other local artists. I am starting to delve into the graphics design and digital

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Melissa Martinez

arts world in hopes of having more creative input at my 9-5 which is a very creatively driven public relations agency. I also continue to take commission requests and I am all over social media. You can find me on

instagram @b_hiveart1104 where I post all of my latest work and events. I’m not sure what the future has in store but surely my work will live on as a legacy that my family can be proud of.

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Melissa Martinez

Lorena He LorenaHeLorenaHe Lorena Herrero rre rorrero rrero

My first approach to Intaglio, and more specifically Etching, started over five years ago. Fascinated by the scope and the potential of the medium, I was immediately addicted.† At first I was more focused on the learning of the more traditional techniques: hard ground, soft ground, etching, dry point, aquatint. For me knowing the basics was essential to be able to move forward. Etching is the medium that I feel most comfortable with and I love it for the tones, textures and the quietness of it. The influences in my work come from various sources and often represent a mixture between a realistic world and a fantastic dimension where nature and urban spaces come together.

My current source of inspiration is geometry and concepts such as lines, forms, symmetry and asymmetry, radial symmetry, shapes and dimensions. What fascinates me about it is the use of a single unit, a line or a circle, to create complex compositions. Study the repetition of lines in regular or irregular intervals. How to find order, balance and harmony in each composition, how to break the balance, how to play with perspectives and create forms and dimensions. All these ideas are always in my mind when I start a new project, but there is also an element of unpredictability and randomness present in each work which adds flexibility and, to certain extend, loss of control over the composition.

Lorena Herrero

Almost What You Have Wanted, detail

video, 2013

More than you had hoped

An interview with interview

An

Dario Rutigliano, curator

Katherine C. Wilson, curator arthabens@mail.com

Lorena Herrero accomplishes an insightful exploration of the complexity dued to a refined repetion of geometric patterns. Her works reveal an incessant search of balance and harmony, and unveils the way we interpret the translations of the liminal area in which symmetries blend with asymmetries conveying into an unexpected, ambiguous point of convergence. Herrero's work condenses a an insightful journey in the realm of memory and associations and we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating works.

Hello Lorena and a warm welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after graduating at the University of Salamanca with a Bachelor Degree in Journalism and Broadcasting studies you moved to London where you attendedstudied etching at the Working Men’s College: how have these different experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? In particular, do you think that your previous studies may have informed the way you currently conceive and produce your works?

Hello to you too and thank you for inviting me to this interview. Responding to your question, well, I consider myself a bit of multidisciplinary person, I have lots of interests that can go from politics and social issues, to psychology, to philosophy and, of course, to art.

It’s very difficult to compartmentalise and separate what had or hadn’t had an influence in what I do, and potentially everything that surrounds you makes an impact, it’s also a matter of how receptive you are. When it comes to my work, going to

college has been paramount, I was privileged to learn with John Roberts, whose mentoring and guidance has been, and is, still, fundamental in the way I have developed my techniques.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from "Less than you had imagined" and "More than you had hoped" that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductry

Lorena Herrero Lorena Herrero Lorena Herrero Lorena Herrero

Lorena Herrero

interview by

and

pages of the article and while you walk us around the genesis of these piece I would like to recommend to visit http://www.lorenaherrero.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. What was your initial inspiration for these stimulating pieces?

These two pieces represent a kind of new phase, artistically speaking, which in a way already started with the series Lines of Asymmetry. You can see quite a change compare to my previous work.

I took more than a year off from the studio and during that time I didn’t produce anything. These two prints are the first work which came out after the break. I was back to the studio with renovated energy and with a very different approach to the creation process. I wanted to explore concepts such as lines, symmetry, perspective, dimensions, shapes and the endless possibilities they offer to create dialogues and to communicate.

Your work appeals to me for the way you investigate about symmetry and asymmetry in such a compelling way. I would consider your works as maps that provide the viewer of an Ariadne'e thread capable of unveiling the ambiguous relation with Perception and Experience: in particular, in your recent "Light is a Kind of Reassuring", you seem to suggest the presence of an unexpected order that emergence from the straightness that marks out this piece. This is a recurrent feature of your approach that urges us to question the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Ariadne’s thread, I like the way you describe it! I haven’t thought of it like that, but it makes sense, although it this case I’m not clear there is a solution to decipher at all... Light is a kind of reassuring does indeed challenge that common way in which we like to look at things where there is a blurry line between the appearance of a perfect order and what you actually experience which is much more complex and chaotic. It’s a dialogue between order and disorder, which as you said, reveals a lot about my inner nature and that constant search for meaning.

In your work you accomplish the difficult task of creating a coherent unity between a fantastic, almost dream-like dimension, and a rational gaze on the reality in which we find ourselves: your re-contextualization of urban environmental elements reveals a

Almost What You Have Wanted

ART Habens Lorena Herrero

Less than you had imagined

Lorena Herrero

Suppose There is some connection

deep interest in how we interpret and make meaning of what we see, and in particular you seem in search of a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Absolutely not, as I say before I take inspiration from many sources and in some occasions from the most superficial things that you can imagine, it’s about how open you are to see and experience what is out there; how something, good or bad, big or

insignificant can resonate in you and explore why. Everything we experience makes an impact, then is up to you to internalise that, to make it yours and to tap into it to create something personal.

While exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, some of your pieces, and I think to the recent ones as "The Dazzling Flashes of Lightning", seem to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to offer to the viewer a key to find personal interpretations to the stories you tell through your portraits... this quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and

Full of sweet nothing

memory in a truly engaging way. What is the role of memory in your process? And in particular, do you try to achieve a faithful visual translation of your feelings?

Hmm I think I will need a LOT more of tangled lines to translate my feelings! These later works are of course the reflexion of personal changes in my life and memory plays a big part in the way we experience and how we perceive life.

If what I do is a faithful representation of my feeling? Well, I like to question appearances and what I am presented with, things are a lot more complex that what they look like and full of grey tones rather than just black and white, so I guess this complexity, this dialogue between perception and experience, that we discussed before, gets translated, as I’m sure more profound personal issues and thoughts are represented. I’m sure we can psychoanalyse myself through my prints haha

ART Habens Lorena Herrero

Lines of Asymmetry I

The dazzling flashes of lightning

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Lorena Herrero

Some Light Still

The way you find a balance and break it suggests me a process of recontextualization, that altering the functional aspect of a form brings

unexpected messages and invites the viewer to elaborate personal interpretations: at the same time, you do not reject a gaze on aesthetics, creating a lively combination

Lorena Herrero

Light is a Kind of Reassuring

between conceptual and beauty. How important is the aesthetic problem for you when you conceive a work?

Aesthetic plays a big role in my work. It’s something that I always keep in mind when I work on the composition, there has to be some sort of harmony, of balance that its

ART Habens Lorena Herrero

appalling to the eye. It becomes part of the creation process. I think every artist has the concept of beauty in mind when they work on something, no matter how broad that concept can be.

The dialogue established by delicate, thoughtful nuances of tones is a very important aspect of your style, that is

capable of summing up a combination of thoughts and emotions. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture? Moreover, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

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Lorena Herrero

Cool & Dark

There is a quite dramatic difference between my previous work and this one, the first one is much more detailed and the creation process was a lot more precise, my latter work is much more intimate and personal, I’ve moved towards a more conceptual and abstract process that is more flexible, more dynamic and liberating to work with. And I’m sure this change is the response to some psychological changes deep inside.

Your approach is intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intellectual interplay with the viewers, so, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

I wouldn’t say is a crucial component, my work is very personal and beyond everything else satisfies a need for expression. But obviously when you exhibit your work then is open to an audience and is open to criticism or to recognition. We talked about beauty before, well, I hope some people share with me the same concept of beauty and then we can talk not only about expression of the artist but also communication with the audience.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lorena. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I have a couple of exhibitions planned for the summer and I definitely want to continue working with these geometrical ideas, I’m not done with them yet! I also would like to thank Art Habens your interest in me and the kind words about my work, I really appreciate it.

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Lorena Herrero

Lines of asymmetry III