ART Habens Art Review // Special Issue

ART

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

A r t

R e v i e w

KRESIMIR CUK NANCE DAVIES JJ D’ONOFRIO WESTON URAM HEGE HARALDSEN BILJANA BAKALUCA DRAGAN DJORDJEVIC JUNSUNG PARK IVAN KASHLAKOV

ART

ART

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

A r t

R e v i e w

Ivan Kashlakov

Hege Haraldsen

Dragan Djordjevic

Biljana Bakaluca

Nance Davies

Bulgaria

Norway

United Kingdom

Serbia

USA

USA

One of the main things which every man searches in his life is his own identity. I don’t know if it’s accidental or fate, like some people like to say, but selfexpressing became my way of living. At the current moment I’m studying my Master’s program in the speciality Visual communication in the National Art Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria. Everything is always evolving. Each work shows a different side of me and only the manner of thinking is my guide. For me there is no limit for the the way to express myself and that is why I travel all the time somewhere in the river of imagination... I search in the intimate and poetic corners of my mind. I get inspired from the small, ordinary things in life.

Through my art I seal a moment in eternity. So my sour rests in the connection between nature and object.

My way of showing things is with classical influence and a lot of expressive motion. The main goal is seeing the truth of life which we breed every day but forget from time to time…

My work is heavily driven by purpose and meaning. It’s important for me to have a personal connection with the content, it’s meaning as a message, transmit my energy into the piece and give it authencity. I’m passionate about inspiring to be more compassionate and connected, with ourself and others. In some work I address the relationship between the external environment and the internal self, and in others I address the relationship between the internal self across individuals. The aim is to evoke a feeling of a connection to something or someone beyond oneself, to switch your mind into a different mode of engagement. I seek to leverage on the encoded meaning while at the same time build a new understanding og the significant through association.

In my landscape work I capture a sense of freemdom, grace and elegance with refined colour palette and a poetic sensibility.

The way I interact and capture the landscape is the portal for my investigation into my inner nature. In my portrait work it’s important to be honest. I achieve this with simple compositions, intimate and raw insight into the subjects thoughts and emotions.

My work is very close to the renewed modernism and has a strong conceptual content in very reduced form while my creativity is influenced by frequent changes of residence and the necessity to adapt to each new environment and its conditions. Thus my way of thinking has many interpretations depending on the situation and the environment in which I find myself. Installations, objects and videos talk about the rapid and dramatic transformations in our society. I react to impulses of the world in which we live in by my intuition, my precision and artistic thoughts. I try through my work to examine the ethical, cultural, social, political and even existential aspect of reality and animate and provoke discussion about mass phenomena in the contemporary world.

I was born in Serbia in 1971.

Finished the Master Studies, University of Fine Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. Exhibited in all over the world (Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Cyprus, USA, Mexico, Cuba, Taiwan, China, Canada, Oman, Dubai, Poland, Montenegro, BIH).

Member of SULUV, ULUS in Serbia and Society of Fine Arts Salalah in Oman. Got a few prizes and awards for objects and drawings and my professional art works. Working as the Art Teacher between different destinations: Serbia - Germany - Dubai.

I am an interdisciplinary and mixed media artist. My work explores the condition of empathy and interrelationship and interdependence of all life forms. I map the spaces where public and private experiences collide – by constructing a matrix of surreal juxtaposition through the poetics of hybrid imagery. I do this by allowing my senses, intellect and intuition to flow freely and create new fusions. I am especially drawn to the spaces where site, audience and the process of making intersect. Recently, I have been exploring the concept and structure of the musical form ‘fugue’ a polyphonic composition based upon multiple themes, enunciated by several voices in turn. Fugue is also a term used in Psychiatry to describe a period during which a person suffers memory loss. I am investigating the condition of contemporary consciousness and identity – as it maneuvers, morphs, and sometimes forgets itself in our constantly shifting and unstable world.

This phenomenon intensifies at the interface between our private and public lives - now located at the digital screen through which we slip back and forth – shedding the body for virtual echoes in repeating cycles. Authentic encounters recede as the performance becomes increasingly isolated, superficial and hollow. Who performs?

Who witnesses? What is lost when we lose the wisdom of the contingent body-mind? How does the music of the universe become the noise in the ‘airlock’? My work occurs across this complex terrain - geographical place, virtual space, psychological space, and the movement in-between. My original media - painting and drawing – influence my voice in video (moving image) development.

I utilize material and sensory experience as a means to explore meaning. Material is worked until there is a shift into another realm: fabric becomes flesh, a sack, or an embryo, pins become candy, paint becomes a skin of strawberry icecream or bubble gum, a pom pom becomes a microorganism or disease. My work strives to have a visceral presence by virtue of formal aesthetics, often riding the line between what is beautiful, grotesque and delicious. This speaks to various dichotomies I often reference in my work, such as light and dark, spirit and flesh.

Working on muscle cars was a large part of my adolescence, so I often reference this aesthetic in the form of flame jobs, pin striping designs, and metal flakelike glitter paint. While alluding to the idea of “eye candy” and the obsessive customization and adornment often associated with car culture, these visually ornamental aspects of the work also carry spiritual meaning. At times they may point to things in life that are fleeting and carnal, the lusts of the eye and impure motives of the heart. However, flames can also symbolize the idea of inner refinement, as in the burning away of impurities by the Holy Spirit. Ornamental hood decals and sparkly paint can speak to the visual softening of something hard and made of steel as metaphor for the softening of the heart.

I put down,on paper, ideas which I like to do. I have, full notebook of ideas. Some of them are outdated, some of them I don't want to do anymore. But I have ideas, for next few years and every day, brings them more and more, to me. Also, I have some things, which I have to do, because I am hunted by them.

Anyway, I do conceive my works, more instinctively. And my works are more thing of inspiration. I am lucky, that my inspiration, is long lasting one. I almost, never give up, of my piece of work. I have, great admiration towards abstraction, and great need to do abstract works. I am trying, to make it different. I am trying, to give it some third,fourth, fifth dimension. And i have, to take out some hidden colors. To play, with light, is important for my work, like in photography. Digital approach, gives me, enormous opportunity. Interesting thing, is that my abstraction, so many times, find their way to figurative work. They starts like abstract, but it finished like figurative. You, was asking me, about my evolution of my style. I see, evolution of my style, like taking more and more freedom, and becoming more and more, self confident.I believe, in strength of my expression. I believe, with all my heart in that, what I am doing, That is, evolution of my style.

Weston Uram

In this issue

Biljana Bakaluca

Nance Davies Jungsun Park Hege Haraldsen Weston Uram

JJ D'Onofrio JJ D’Onofrio

Kresimir Cuk

Jungsun Park

USA

Croatia

South Korea

I once attended, decades ago, a I am digital artist from rather large celebration marking Zagreb - Croatia. After 13 the end of another school year, at years of working as a graphic a lovely, bucolic farm a few miles designer I made transition to outside my hometown of Middleton, Wisconsin. While I had art in 2015. My artworks are indulged in nothing more dramatic combination of digital than cheap beer, I was especially collages and vector graphics intoxicated by the dawn of another intertwined together, driven summer vacation. At some point by aesthetic of old engravings during the evening while standing and crosshatches. Digital alone in the midst of congregants medium gives me freedom to of the Church of the End of the School Year, I turned and noticed have high dynamic range a rather tall man in a long, black between micro elements and macro composition. For the coat, a wide brimmed hat and clutching a narrow cigarette moment i mostly do between his lips. He seemed monochromatic motives. incongruous. There, but not really.

Contrasts are big aspect of I momentarily turned away and back again. He was gone. Real. this series of artworks. The Imagined. Somewhere in between. most obvious one is between It wasn't until years later I would darkness and light. Second see him again in a piece I did one is between old aesthetics called, "Looking For Lost Souls". and new ideas and concepts Memories and emotions seek that are woven in it. Next one resurrection and physical form, is between complexity of respectively, and the land offers itself as a canvas in the cosmic micro elements - patterns and endeavor of artistic creation. I simplicity of monochrome. grew up in the same place I now And finally most subtle one is live. Over more than fifty years I between analog feel of old have witnessed the subtle changes photographs used for and the brazen hammer of progress in pounding the past into collages and digital mathematics based patterns. new forms.

Not different from other matters in its environment, ‘A’ is an object, or a thing, that exists within given surroundings in which it affects and is affected by other things. Depending on circumstances under which ‘A’ meets objects or spaces, object or thing ‘A’changes endlessly and also influences other matters.

Through this encounter, ‘A’ and ‘the other objects’ lead each other into transformed states. Because such invisible circumstances of change occur within relations that are relative, these series of moments exist not in definitive shapes or forms but only as parts of a process. ‘A,’ here, refers to me, the artist. By importing moments of emotion, along with physical sensations that the body experiences, to coexisting objects, I aim to visually represent the situations of such processes.

Kresimir Cuk Ivan Kashlakov Dragan Djordjevic

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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seegers, 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.

Lives and works in Novi Sad, Serbia

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Deca Torres

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Biljana Bakaluca

the art in the previously known Yugoslavia tried to preserve their own dignity. This situation inspired me to explore the different media which was reflected in my creative work.

My first art experience was gained as a student and my work has been strongly influenced by work at the academy but even then I felt that I was somebody who was looking for my own expression in my own world. I learned a lot from my teacher Poznanović Bogdanka, one important figure in the so-called new artistic practice of the seventies. Her lectures refreshed my thinking and introduced me to something new. At that time, in very dramatic terms,

I had been researching in the field of painting but at the same time I was directed by new media: installation, object or video work. I felt painting as something very personal but some other media (installation, video works) directed me to cooperate with

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some other people, for example I collaborated with fellow artists. Audiences were increasingly directly or indirectly involved in our work. It was an improvement.

I often traveled and met new challenges in the field of art. However, whenever I would go back to my country I was met with the problems that are there and always existed. I tried to react through my artwork and hoped that something would change.

I became more aware of the society we are living in, the sociological changes, the impact of media and other factors on our consciousness and tried to connect with a field of my creativity. My artworks were directly addressing the audience because that was my response to the events in the society. I realized that an artist should respond to the society in which he lives.

Nowadays I do my artworks in a similar way.

My artworks arise from concept and have metaphorical and psychological meanings.

There is also a connection between all of them, in a way one derives from another.

They were created in different periods and have numerous interpretations depending on the situation and the environment in which I find myself.

In the beginning I dealt with the problems of modernity but later I adopted the principle of construction. I use a variety of materials, such

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as plexiglas or glass because they have multiple meanings. They talk about the transparent world we live in or the fragility and volatility of the system. So I try to find numerous opportunities about the passage of time. Very often there was an issue in the implementation of some works: limited financial resources, lack of space, impossibility of realization of the large- format. These difficulties are part of the process. But I never give up, I always persist to finish my work.

"Give Me A Sign" is my last project created during the last two years. In that time my attention was drawn to tattoos that are increasingly present among young people and I wondered if this was just a fashion trend or the desire to send a message. Some people allowed me to photograph parts of their bodies where their most important tattoos are.

We then discussed their meaning. After this my conclusion was that they want to stand out in some way or they desire to send an important message to someone. Of the resulting photos I made the light box, actually my artwork named "Give Me A Sign".

At the same time I investigated the presence of the people in the social networks and noticed the reason is a need for communication or dating. I attached my photos on one of the most popular dating sites with personal data which initiated unknown men to offer me travel, gifts and a variety of services, all for the sake of friendship and

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instant common time. This mode of communication I used for my project, too.

My photos used for “self-presentation� by members of the dating site were printed on

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glass, so that their monitor origin has been preserved, which implies that the entire communication is actualised only in the domain of virtuality and a kind of surrogate

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reality – which actually is the essential result of all these desired, implied but unrealised relationships.

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I have already mentioned the role of the artist in the modern world. A true example is

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my artwork "Spying" where the spyhole

For me, the spyhole became a small

represents a tool for measuring the value in

reflection of the membrane that protects the

the society. This work testifies to the rapid

established forms of life. This view is also

and dramatic trans-formations in the world.

held in my other works.

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Therefore I fully would agree with the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco when he says "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in". Artist can't ignore developments in politics, society or system. He must react and thereby show his attitude, anger or pain. In this way he contributes to the art and the world.

I was fascinated when I discovered the possibilities of digital art. When I first scanned my drawings I saw that finishing in the computer program Photoshop was unlimited. It was a long time nineties and today the possibilities are even greater.

To understand the relationship between Art and Technology we must understand the difference between the two. Art can be everything around us and may have a message to a viewer but technology is often thought to make peoples lives easier. But at the same time the phenomenon of technology is considered the highest form of consciousness. An artists task is to use it in his work.

If we have a good connection between art ideas and technological capabilities, there are great opportunities for the realization of a good artistic project.

In my artworks I often use this combination.

Today artists try to create new art forms with this technology and fight for their right

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to be seen as art. For me it opens up new doors to ponder through in my world. In my artwork Give Me A Sign I considered from another point of view. I talk about specific and completely contemporary social phenomena. These phenomena necessitate changes in the traditional moral and social norms.

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Give Me a Sign is my observation and perception of changes in the society. We live in an age of unemotionalness because the advanced capitalism sees man less and less as a wholesome personality with his own human needs; instead, it is interested only

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Biljana Bakaluca

in human work function. My artwork consists of photographs of the body details with tattoo motives in a light box, deliberately not displaying a portrait or a complete figure but presenting only the signs used by the tattooed person to try to promote oneself in reality. Each tattoo carries a certain meaning and a message. It gives an impression of belonging to the spirit of the world and time.

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Another artwork with the same name Give Me a Sign is where I posted on one of the most popular dating sites my photos with sketchy personal details – which inspired a number of men to offer me travel, different gifts, services and actions for the sake of instant friendship and shared entertainment.

It is obvious that this is an absolutely contemporary sociological phenomenon –

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my artistic action speaks about modern man’s alienation, about his loneliness.

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Very interesting question. First, you are right when you say that there is a central idea that connects all of my artworks which is the exploration of the nature and prospects of self and other.

Today people are present on various social networks, constantly communicating or chatting. It's almost inconceivable that one day passes without communication via the Internet or phones. Regardless, modern man is very lonely and more and more isolated.

This way of communication is just an illusion of real socializing and developing intimacy and emotion. My artworks Spying and Give Me A Sign talk about this. Yes, I hope that my art can make people more aware of this situation. I want to warn them of the dangers that exist especially among the younger generation. Until we start to think seriously about the problem we will not face it.

I don't think that the role of the artist has reduced due to the presence of new media.

For me the new media today helps in enhancing globalization, facilitating cultural exchange and multiple flows of information and image between people and countries.

When the artist is involved in all of this, he can act in a very positive way. As an artist I'm part of virtual reality and I express my opinion. In some way it is a challenge for me. I use a computer in my work but also try to highlight my sensitivity. The computer is just a tool, everything else is me.

I am very proud that I participated in the Art Container Festival Kaoshiung in Taiwan. The first time was in 2001 and this work marked the beginning of my career. Once again I participated at the same Festival in 2007.

Both times the audience was directly involved in the work. First of all, the

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exhibition was such that the audience goes through the containers and become part of the work. I think that it is very important and this is more than just addressing the audience. Sometimes space allows the audience to be part of the work but very often the message of the artwork is enough to involve the audience itself.

The language that I am talking to the audience is very simple. I order them to certain phenomena in society, often negative ones: phenomena that alienated people, the isolation, fears, suspiciousness.

At the same time my audience witnessed the emergence or disappearance of my work.

Those are mostly themes of my works and I consider it essential that a dialogue between the audience and me should indirectly take place through the works that I expose.

I believe that my work will develop continuously. The time in which we are living provides unlimited inspiration. Sometimes there will be criticism, sometimes observation, and sometimes enthusiasm but the dialogue will always be there. The only phenomenon in this world that would never leave me is the art. Perhaps the only thing I believe in is Art. An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in Boston, Massachussets, USA

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Nance Davies

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My childhood by the Pacific Ocean in central California – shaped my non-verbal sense of interconnection and embodiment. I remember a gentle climate with light, sand, water, and infinite sky…..a dynamic conversation in seamless space. At the same time – my conceptual framing of this space was shaped by religious instruction. Simple examples drawn from physics - mapped the spiritual concepts of infinity and omnipresence – mixing wonder and bliss.

Years later - all of this collided with grim religious mythology, and social/political

dissonance. My interdisciplinary thinking and creative practice seemed inevitable.

Studies in art, music, theatre, science, culture, psychology and philosophy help me give flesh to the invisible and shape new forms. I chose Mills College for graduate study as it was a community ‘living and demonstrating’ it’s values – especially those addressing gender, social, and racial justice.

It is also the home of the earliest ElectronicExperimental Music research and education

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with some of the original musicians and former students on faculty. Mills’ milieu is one of sharing, support and a belief in interdisciplinary creative practice. I was allowed to flow and research across the college. Exploring one of the only remaining Moog Synthesizers - I generated sound for EveryWhereAllAtOnce an immersive installation as well as other moving-image works. It was also a tender return to my childhood world. Today I find I can recreate the beach experience of these early days when I find myself in places of rhythmic motion and exchange - like the tide and the shore.

I see space as a site of potential - we can fill or empty out. We give it importance – either with permanent intentions or as a contingent temporary site. A voice I find helpful on this subject is art historian and theorist Miwon Kwon. In her book ‘One Place After Another’ (phrase later changed to ‘one place next to another’) - while discussing ‘site specificity’ she suggests a “new logic of belonging that is not bound to any specific location but to a system of movement; an unmooring of place and self that can be both shattering and liberating.” I am interested in how such a ‘placeless-ness’ may actually open up new possibilities for understanding placerelationship and identity. Perhaps this condition of ‘in-betweeness’ is a long, slow process of shifting from a sense of suspension and longing for remembered geographical place to a space that is, at once, no place and everyplace – a new understanding of the ‘layered place’ of embodied consciousness (more on this below in BetweenHome&Elsewhere).

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I haven’t questioned my multidisciplinary approach - at least up until now. It evolved naturally over time. Even if I don’t use

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iteration. I’ve watched my concepts coalesce by weaving perspectives found in nondualistic spirituality (Buddhism) and disciplines exploring interconnectedness.

Those early days by the ocean – lead me to certain media and processes. The juxtaposition and layering I experienced in my physical environment - now prompt conversations between my senses, intellect, and intuition. I find the paradoxical tension between conceptual density and material ephemerality (moving images and sound) unsettling but at the same time transformative. This dissonant mixing refuses easy interpretation asking the participant to work harder towards ‘making’ meaning. So – the work’s meaning has lasting power – continuing to reverberate. Each exhibition of my work - in galleries, museums, and public projection in outdoor spaces - teaches me new things about how the contingencies impact the experience of the work.

Fugue, my current project evolved slowly through earlier work exploring co-occurring movement of the body and consciousness through space. I continuously read, and write as ongoing research. My constant process is the practice of Empathy – in every phase of my work. As I identify sites to gather movingimage footage and sound samples – I begin to record and gather materials – questioning the origins, contexts, and producers of the images and sounds. I walk and I ride (bus, train, car).

multiple media in a final iteration of a project, media that may be useful during development may not end up in the final

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This is an ongoing and overlapping process.

Empathy for the diversity of players in these public spaces has often prompted the project ideas. Much time is spent editing, reshooting, more editing – processes that draw on my experiences with painting, drawing, photography and collaging. Practicing Empathy allows me to let go of my own biases and assumptions – and get closer to the truth of whatever I am witnessing. I pace myself.

Empathy is hard work.

Fugue’s experimental moving-image and sound pieces investigate our contemporary condition.

The collective mind maneuvers, morphs, and forgets itself in our constantly shifting and unstable world. The movement of bodies in the urban-scape corresponds with the movement of mind – often aimless and repetitive. Time and space shift, overlap, and expose multiple realities at once - both in our everyday lived experience in the physical world – as well as across the digital wall.

The immersive space in these moving-image works is psychological. An interface between our private and public lives is – now, for many located at the digital screen where we slip virtually – in and out again. We know this – but it is difficult to curb as it has become a dominant cultural method of working and communicating. It seems we shed out bodies for virtual echoes in endlessly repeating cycles.

What is ‘authentic encounter’ today – now that these digital meet-ups are so often scripted, public, performances and have become isolated, superficial and hollow. In Fugue I ask: ‘who performs? who witnesses? what is missing when we lose the wisdom of the contingent body-mind? how does the music of the universe become the noise in the ‘airlock’?

Storm Blowing From Paradise

In the featured moving-image and sound works in Fugue – audience immersive

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experience is dependent on imagination and personal memory - paired - with my experience of actual immersion in the

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various spaces I recorded. The ‘environment’ – in my work – is both ‘context’ and ‘concept’ - in which all life forms are inextricably

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Storm Blowing From Paradise

connected and interdependent. In this dynamic field, if one of these forms collapses – multiple - and eventually all - forms will

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likely collapse. The sense of ‘separation’ so many people feel – is actually a constructed idea to serve the self and self-interest. My

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ground, between apathy and empathy. I find myself struggling to unmake and then remake the world again.

I’ve been inspired by the many writers and theorists trying to make sense of all of this.

One in particular – is Donna Haraway (described as a ‘multispecies feminist theorist’). Her recent work speaks of the devastation of our many ecologies and it’s connection to the so-called Anthropocene epoch thinking and behavior - one in which ‘human and nonhuman’ are inextricably linked in ‘tentacular’ practices (capitalist attitudes that are destroying the planet). In a recent eflux essay - she suggests we shift from those practices to one of ‘making-with’ in our hopes of sustaining life systems, recognizing our coexistent condition . In certain earlier projects immersive space is literal. I explored the phenomenon of ‘crowd’ experience in public space – where the contingencies of relationship are implicit but usually unspoken. For instance, the installation BetweenHOMEandELSEWHERE is the result of a project that required me to literally and figuratively revisit my former habitats. This installation - of suspended elements and sound – as discussed earlier echoes memory of place and relationship.

Tactile elements are made from bits of hair collected from friends, family and students over several years. The elements are hung from the ceiling with geographical correspondence to places I’ve lived. A layered recording of cricket song collected from multiple sites creates a concentrated transposition of sound memory. Participants are invited to move through the space – to immerse in this densely, woven environment.

work is focused on the space between all things I perceive - somewhere between the word and the gesture, the figure and the

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Yes…and for ‘shifts to occur’ – many elements must be in place: 1) an art that is open to responses over time; 2) a public that is curious and ready to engage in ‘co-creating’ or ‘co-evolving’ new meaning; 3) and methods of offering feedback to the artists help in this regard. The ubiquity, immediacy, and access through social media and the Internet in general - are already contributing to ‘shifts’.

Both still and moving-image works have the capacity to create new image worlds by combining elements that do not typically coexist – but, when juxtaposed, reveal new relationships.

It is important to me that I do my best to share my intentions in my work. I am interested learning if this helps the spectator to have a more multi-faceted understanding of my work. I am not at all disappointed if the viewer walks away with a completely new interpretation. The terrain of nuanced response is often surprising but always enlightening to my own process. In RUPTURE (TRAiNSposition) multiple instances of time and space perception are experienced during a subway ride. My intent was to fuse the rider and train into a hybrid, neural pathway –

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Who Takes Who Gives

sharing a collective nervous system - firing sensory signals and intermittent synaptic spasms. The reality I present is accelerated,

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elaborated and transposed as it shifts between the 'everywhere-all-at-once' and the 'right-here-now'.

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Who Takes Who Gives

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nomad - and this works better if I am transparent to myself. There is a longing for home - that can never be returned to because it is no longer in one place. It is a compressed space with all the pieces of the many places I long for. In all of those long ago places there is beneath the surface - a common consciousness that is held in my body – a constant intimate knowledge of self – that both remains in place and evolves with me – perhaps like cycling tides? I agree with Auge’s observation: we artists are restless ‘probers’.

In RUPTURE (TRAiNSposition) the train – initially produced ‘original’ sound (screeching brakes, hissing, signal sounds etc.). I recorded, processed and transposed those sounds –with others produced by my breath and passenger chatter, laughter, shuffling etc. I composed the visuals with the sounds to integrate the two – as though they were both ensuing from a common source with the intent of them being received (seen and heard) simultaneously.

I have excavated much of my own innernature as I have moved from home to home.

Living in multiple places I often feel a bit of a

In an earlier project - I explored the phenomenon of ‘crowd’ experience in public space where the contingencies of relationship are implicit but usually unspoken. RIDERS on the TRAIN - a project I curated - was inspired by RUPTURE (TRAiNSposition). I posted a ‘Call’ for participation and submissions - to an international community of artists, musicians and writers who were also mass-transit riders. A ‘rider’ myself – I noticed how navigating the slippery boundaries between private and public space – we tend to swarm and flow – as an atypical community is shaped by our shared,

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social contingency. Artists and writers within this group often function, simultaneously, as listeners, audience, and participants in their own narratives. All capacities are collapsed into one in the layered time and space of the subway ride. I encouraged these artist/riders to coax the poetics from the personal as they sketched, examined, recorded, collaborated, and - some of them - interacted with fellow riders. They used new technologies of mobile and geo-communication mingling high and low technology. In short - they ‘sampled’ their ride.

From an aggregate experience of mass transit – a coalescence of alternative neural pathways emerged. ‘RIDERS’ explored a diversity of lenses and media (video, sound art, photography, web-based interactivity, performance, installation, and writing) – and clusters of interest: surveillance & loss of privacy, swarming and flocking, daydreaming, sensory immersion, and alternative paths. As stated before - I notice how we ‘public humans’ so easily adapt to movement echoing the processes of other species as we swarm, flock or (sometimes) stampede our way through complicated public spaces. The aggregate flow of shape, rhythm and dynamics becomes a fusion of art and science – that, although usually unacknowledged amongst us as ‘we go along’, produces a ‘group mind’ - intelligence linked to survival – often beautifully. This, to me, is a natural co-arising of form in public space. It is spontaneous, contingent, and it disperses just as quickly. It goes mostly unnoticed – but when it works – it seems to grow our ability to work with and for each other.

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of the ‘spectacularized’ society - are also a part of the chorus of voices who have shaped my practice. Some of these early

Guy Dubord and the many other activist / artist / theorists who have critiqued the rise

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voices were predictive as we have seen the warnings materialize and metastasize into reality. Many of the younger voices continue

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to warn us of this phenomenon undoing citizen agency and participatory democracy.

The ‘spectacle’ ubiquitously distracts from

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debilitated human – no longer a human ‘being’ in the world capable of independent thought, engaging meaningfully with others, and able to be enlightened and transformed by art. We are now struggling with millions of people who are hollow representations of former human beings – incessantly consuming, incapable of discerning truth from fiction, and taking the earth down in their own death spiral.

Large screens in public outdoor spaces are critical sites for flipping Hollywood’s empty repetition and sensation. Through such venues - I consciously connect with diverse and far-reaching audiences and communities. My work speaks visually through images of overlapping, fluid, ecosystems – with the senses as a portal to the mind and heart. I present imagery built on paradox – making it difficult to ‘name’ or to feel ‘settled’. My intent is to draw in a hungry mind, to keep it open and surprised – long enough to engage in the work, to be restless and curious, but not be seduced by it. These moving images are not dependent on written language (visually or sonically).

My images –ideally - encourage empathetic response and active questioning. What spectators do with their experience of the imagery is, of course, beyond my control.

I plan to create more avenues for public ‘culture jamming’ the spectacle. I am also experimenting with new approaches to site, more socially engaged work, more curating, more reading, and….always…..more empathizing.

An interview by

the ‘real’ through confusion and megaconsumerism channeled through the fragility of identity. In the end – producing a

and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in South Korea

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Jungsun Park

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Deca Torres

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Visual artist Jungsun Park's work a channel of communication between the inner Self and the outside world: her hybrid and unconventional practice accomplishes the difficult task of challenging the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations, offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Brannvall's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to inquire into hybridity, inbetween spaces and underrepresented perspectives, waliking the viewers through a journey towards the liminal are between the real and the imagined. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Jungsun Park

Hello Jungsun and welcome to ART Habens: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid background and after having earned your B.F.A. of Sculpture from the Hong Ik University, Seoul, you moved to the United States to nurture your education with a M.F.A. of Fine Arts that you received from the prestigious School of Visual Arts, New York City.

How do these experience influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your mixed ethnic heritage inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

degree brought many changes to my work as well as to myself. If my viewpoint in Seoul involved looking at my surroundings from the inside out, having to adjust to a new environment in New York led me to perceive myself as an object. Recognizing myself as an object means to view my existence as I do other things, such as desks, buildings, coffee, plants, and so on.

Ultimately, this sort of shift in perspective helped me to realize that the flow within the art world and various aesthetic issues are ultimately influenced by small changes that occur within individuals.

Physically moving from one place to another (from Seoul to New York) for my MFA

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My drawings, which start in a somewhat intuitive way, emerge as momentary scenes that depict my surroundings and experiences as they mingle in my head.

By "intuitive," I mean things that already exist in my mind. (As I will mention again later), I'm trying to create a balance in the real world, because I feel that I'm constantly making adjustments so as to avoid losing the balance between what's psychological and physical. This sort of understanding, which occurs through a structural process, is visible in my work, especially starting from the drawing stage.

Many of my works, which are referred to as "A" and "B" or "an object," show the structural relationship between them.

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Jungsun Park

When object "A" enters a space, a relationship between "A" and that space is formed. This relationship is established by visible elements, such as A's mass and volume, as well as the invisible arrangement and atmosphere surrounding A. Two of my artworks - "In An Elegant Manner" and "She Is Elegant" - touch on points that are more sensitive than those involved in my previous projects. Polycarbonate, which is a colorless and transparent material, is an "adaptable" object that can unfold and constrict depending on the space it's in. It's also an "invisible" object that becomes part of the space. The way I arrange my artworks generally changes according to the atmosphere or the aura that I feel from the space I come across, and "In an elegant manner" and "She is elegant" are the epitome of that sort of installation process.

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I don't think memories should be exposed right away but should rather be layered inside the work. Repeated memories that become layered from a new reality produce a whole new color. Just as multiple layers of colorful glass overlap, my work is about how an individual's fraction passes through a layer of memories.

I believe that the role and location of artworks in public spheres and public spaces need to be seen as objects as well, just like other things around us. That's why my artworks start out by perceiving the body as an object, and I also take into account whether others will be able to experience this idea during the production process and while they're viewing my work. My hope is that the audience can see both my artwork and themselves in one space and look at the piece and their body as two objects

I don't try to deliberately create balance in my work. Rather, I try to focus on the memories and emotions that emerge from the production process and my experience.

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Jungsun Park

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Jungsun Park

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Personal experience is an essential part of the production process of all artistic projects, not just in the field of fine art.

What differs is how much of that experience is expressed in your work and to what extent, depending on the purpose of the work.

When I view other artworks as an observer, not as an artist, I sometimes encounter works that push me too hard in the direction that the artist intended. I think that an excessively coercive and forceful strategy like that could disrupt viewers and prevent them from really understanding the piece. An open

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Jungsun Park

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reading frame allows viewers to immerse themselves into the work. For instance, the meaning behind my work "Without a Response" is formed by combining the water droplets on the surface of the mirror with the image of the person looking the work.

My work and my audience co-exist in the space where my artwork is placed, and

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bodies, lines of movement, and the size of the artwork become important considerations during the production and installation processes. The purpose of this is to avoid a situation where the viewers and the artwork become separated.

I hope that my work and I will continue to become more vulnerable and more ephemeral.

Thank you.

An interview by and

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Lives and works in Norway

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Hege Haraldsen

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Deca Torres

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My work is heavily driven by purpose and meaning By adressing the relationship between the external external environment and the internal self. Now it’s more important for me that the work is meaningful and original than to get praised.

Hege Haraldsen

Seek to leverage on the encoded meaning while at the same time building a new understanding of the significant through assosiation

The assimilation of art into society is of a greater value to me than seeing it grow as a commodity.

It’s necessary for me to have a personal connection with the content and it’s meaning as a message.

The way we interact wth our environment is the portal for my investigation into our inner nature.

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Hege Haraldsen

Hello, and thank you for having me. I’m flattered. I wouldn’t say that I have any singular experiences that’s shaped my way of working; however your second question got me questioning, thinking and debating on how much ones environment shapes the person one become. There’s no doubt, I am my art and my art is me. I think most conceptual art is shaped by the reflections of ones environment and culture. Some say that this always makes art political. My work has developed through the acceptance of my own flaws. I am an introvert individual who also suffers from anxiety.

This means that I frequently experience fatigue and I need time for myself to recharge. Nature and the sea have always been where I can find my peace, luckily for me my childhood home in Norway is 300 meteres from the ocean.

I also realise more and more that the less items I’m surrounded by, the better I feel. Simplicity seems to be the way to go for me.

I believe that the current culture is a straight road towards stress, anxiety and mental health issues. No one wants it but our behaviours are contradicting this very notion. release stress by adding more elements into their lifes, shopping, activities, bills, people; When in fact the best way to avoid stress is to remove elements in your life, Simplicity.

I belive these elements have played a vital part in how my work is today. It

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wasn’t enough for me to just capture a beautiful landscape, anyone can do that. It had to be an escape within the landscape, and it’s important for me to add my personal energy into the image.

I studied Commercial Photography in Melbourne, Australia and actually found my artistic style during my University years, however it would take me years to realise it. I’ve played around with adding energy into my images through a variety of techniques and subjects.

I’ve always been on a mission of finding the right way that will make someone connect to image with pure emotions and feelings. This is of course a notion that’s frowned upon in the Commercial world of Photography at least where I was,it was all about selling a product.

And here was I, an individual that’s heavily driven by purpose and meaning.

I’ve learned that it’s more important to be true to oneself rather than someone else. I am the person behind the work, I am the creator, and it’s my estetics and values that’s embodied in the final piece. In retrospect I believe I’ve spent unneccesary time battling against myself in an attempt to please others.

Now it’s more important for me that the work is meaningful and original than to get praised. My set up is less than complicated; as long as I have a view then all I need is myself, my camera and the tripod. A little clean up

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postproduction work is required, however it’s pretty much as captured.

For this particular series it’s the nature that inspired me in my creative expression. Being in nature you feel small and humble, and it can make your troubles and worries feel small. The water can inspire us to be more compassionate and connected. It’s also common to experience feelings of awe which invokes feelings of a connection to something beyond oneself, a sense of the vastness of nature and an attempt to make sense of the experience.

When you are surrounded with simplified and quiet blue your mind switches into a different mode of engagement — the brain network associated with daydreaming, imagination, consolidation of memories, self-referential thought, insight and introspection. Water symbolizes rebirth, spiritual cleansing and salvation. Being near water can calm and connect us, increase innovation and insight, even heal what’s broken.

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Hege Haraldsen

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My blue series is about balancing a chaotic soul and put a troubled mind to ease through the simplicity, and the calmness. To find peace and perspective, breathe and relax.

In all my personal work the central idea is harmony; Harmony within oneself or in a broader sense as humanbeings.

The BLÂ AWE series is very much about self harmony, being in touch with yourself and finding calmness and serenity within. Adressing the relationship between the external environment and the internal self. I have other projects that’s targeting the harmony between us as humans.Adressing the relationship between your internal self with others internal self. And in all of the series it’s necessary for me to have a personal connection with the content and it’s meaning as a message, and if it strikes a cord with others, it’s a bonus.

Art is for the people, so it’s goes without saying that I belive it’s important to continuously push the boundaries of art in public spaces. Art should be a conversation starter, an aspect that have the possibility to connect strangers. It’s important that art is

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placed where it can serve a meaningsful purpose, wherever that may be. Viweing art can heal a soul.

Oh definetly! Without a doubt! Art can contribute to creating a balance within ourself, heal, trigger creativity and solutions. Art has the power to move and motivate, to shake the earth and rattle the heavens.

We live in a world where psychiatry is in high demand.

All individuals have a need to express their feelings and emotions but not everyone’s capable to to that, verbally or visually. Thers’s no time where artists are more in need than now, we need artists to put our feelings into visuals.

Art is a powerful form of expression not only for the artists who create it, but also for those who own it. Art allows people to express their individuality and to represent their beliefs, feelings, hopes, convictions and philosophies in socially (and visually) acceptable and redeeming ways. It is a way to extend and display an idea or an emotion, trough the effects of color as in visual arts. Color can have a huge multiplicity of effects on the psyche.

Also, through inspirations and diversity of the mixed mediums, art becomes an alternative language and tool for communicating a message to the world.

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Hege Haraldsen

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Hege Haraldsen

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Hege Haraldsen

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Fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression.

Through my observations I think there are at least three categories art can be places under; commercial art, political art and conceptual fine art. None of them are better than the other. One is created for beauty, one for making political statements/changes either through knowledge or personal experience, and one is highly conceptual based on personal experiences to evoke a similar emotion in others. I see myself as the latter. A visual communicator of feelings and emotions though experiences.

Where the concept, the idea can not come from anything else than experience. In this category, in order to create something that others can relate to I believe one needs to distance oneself to a certain degree so one doesn’t become too literal of their own experience.

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Hege Haraldsen

Photography is an interesting subject to talk about in relation to art. Today everybody has a camera therefore I think it’s even more important for photographers to achieve their look by exploring techniques and angles where others won’t go, do it with tremendous soul, and keep it conceptual. Also in a documenting style, photography is of upper most importance, it’s the only medium that can capture a single moment with feelings and emotions accurately.

With the BLÂ AWE series it’s purely for my own satisfaction, and I’m not concerned about the viewers, it’s first and foremost for myself, and if someone can find themselves in it, it’s a humble bonus for me. But the other series which

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Hege Haraldsen

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I’m working on called ‘I am also you’ where the objective is to open peoples mind and hearts to accept those who might not appear to have any similarities to you, but it fact do. This series I’m yet to exhibit, I hope I will get the opportunity to do so one day, cause it’ll be very interesting indeed to observe the viewers. A reaction is important with this series.

Next I’d like to explore and extend BLÂ AWE to other landscapes. Then I’ve made a pinhole camera that I haven’t had the opportunity to use yet. I’m a tad apprehensive about shipping my film across Europe in order to get it developed. I guess I just need to get over it and give it a go. With the pinhole images I would like to play around with drawing on the pieces. Otherwise I’m involved in ‘The artthou Show’ which is a talk show on wheels where we talk with visual artists to get an insight in who they are, what they do and how they do it. The main purpose of the show is to share knowledge and showcase all the wonderful artists on this planet. if anyone is interested they can head to to see all the great content

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Weston Uram

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Deca Torres

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Weston Uram

or worked on her own art. I have been playing with cameras and Photoshop since elementary school. My dad worked with computers in the Air Force, so for my entire life I’ve had a computer and he’s always encouraged me to tinker with the technology. Also, growing up I spent the majority of my free time on the internet.

Many of my friends in high school I knew only virtually, and I think the communities I was a part of online were greatly formative for the art practice I have today.

My mother is an art professor and practicing artist, so I grew up surrounded by art. From a young age I was engaged with critical language about visual media and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to go to so many galleries and museums during my youth. My mom teaches photography, so after school I would go to her classroom and mess around on the computers while she taught

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Technology mesmerizes with a utopic selfpresence, promising flawlessness and repeatable results. Then technology fails-not only does it break, but its perfection is exposed as exploitable, and it becomes an operative of the culture and identity industry. I’ve always admired an artist like Wade Guyton, whose works seem to be about the failure of technology, the battle between perfection and reality, a glorification of technology’s sub-abilities.

In that same vein, my style has developed to push the limits of technology and to harness its errors. I also have dedicated much of my practice to digital art because of its accessibility and ease of distribution.

It can break from the typical modes of display that necessitate an institution with physical space to display it. It also has the potential for a more diverse viewership, some who will engage with the work online would not feel comfortable walking into a gallery or museum. I think a lot of these are false ideals—digital art is still limited to a privileged audience both in accessibility to web media, and education in an art historical narrative. However, I think because the digital realm was such an influential space for me growing up and still is where I spend the majority of my time, I find it important to make work that reflects that.

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Weston Uram

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advertisement, article title, or a social interaction will jolt me out of my normal apathetic scrolling. I want to recreate that moment of shock, I aim to take something that has been normalized and recontextualize it in order have the viewer relate to it but consider it differently.

Working with the language already found within pop culture is important for reflecting the society I live in. The digital pieces shown in Art Habens are repaintings done through Photoshop. A piece begins with a found image, and then is cut up into layers based on colors. Once those areas are isolated, I digitally paint, with varying brush styles, on top of the image.

Afterwards, I go in with a blending tool to fill in all the little holes that are left over.

Finally, the image is merged into one layer, a few more brushstrokes are added to tie the separate sections of the image together, and then the whole image is enhanced with adjustment curves until the color approaches excess.

With the physical work, right now I am experimenting with three things: image transfers, 3D printing, and laser burning.

The image transfers can be seen in Micky or True Love, where the image is broken up in Photoshop, printed onto transfer paper (commonly used to iron photos onto shirts) and then placed onto the canvas.

These images are then painted over, attempting to replicate the original image precisely but inherently revealing the artists hand and breaking the image, dislocating it from the typical way of viewing the imagery. For 3D printing, found in Where Does One, I am doing 3D scans of my body, and then warping them in Blender (a 3D graphics and animation software). I want to speak to how dissociated I feel from my body at times, but also draw a parallel to the idealized

Most of my pieces are born from surreal moments that happen to me online. An

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male body of Greek sculpture. My poses are meant to capture an emotion while also situating the work within an art

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historical canon of body depiction. The third and most prevalent practice in my work right now is laser cutting. The tool is

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typically used to cut cardboard or acrylic for topographical architecture models, but if run on a very high speed and low power

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one can singe the canvas without burning through it. The range of tone recalls drawing-based practices, and when

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perfected the laser cutter can recreate a near picture perfect image onto canvas while also revealing the fragility of the material.

As far as colors, I basically have a winning combination from the start! The ads are predesigned to be eye catching and psychologically griping for the viewer. As far as texture, I’m really particular about the brushes I use. I manipulate the length, how thick the application is, and orientation of the bristles. Even though the image is inherently flat, the brushstrokes and layers allude to surface and depth.

With the laser cutter, I’m really happy about the subdued gold color of the charred canvas, reminiscent of sepia photographs. On thicker canvas the images are embossed into the fabric, where the darker areas are cut more deeply into the material. This impression gives the flat canvas a sculptural component, and on the deepest areas of the burn the canvas is held together by only a few remaining strands or has been completely cut through.

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Art’s ability to genuinely create social change is a concept I frequently wrestle with. On one hand, I do not think art is an effective way of helping the disadvantaged or causing an ethical awakening, especially because of the inherently privileged and exclusionary group that makes up the art world elite. However, I think recognizing one’s own role within that culture and using that platform to reflect its complicated nature can be powerful. I wouldn’t say that my work is a moralistic endeavor, but my best pieces have something to say, a dialogue to be had between artwork and viewer. I want to instigate that dialogue with the observer.

I’m not trying to outright criticize the culture I see, but rather speak to the reality I live in in order to destabilize its proscriptive nature. I want to cause a stutter within the viewer, but I would not call it political as there is no singular emotion I want to invoke from the audience.

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Weston Uram

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merge the two, and the kind of engagement and dialogue that can stem from that.

Many digital artists who make ephemeral works struggle to be legitimized in today’s art world. Although there is a growing interest in the medium, some denounce it as unskilled or not qualifying as real art.

Of course these same critiques were lobbied against photography, so it’s only a matter of time until digital art becomes normalized into the realm of fine art. What that idea in mind, as digital art becomes more accepted it will be interesting to see how it collected, shown, and engaged with. Previously I worked for the artist Amalia Ulman, who is most well known for her Instagram series where she posed as an affluent young girl with sugar daddies and a party lifestyle. The images were all faked, and drew into question curation of digital identity and how we legitimize each other’s virtual presence. Following the popularity of that work, many collectors and museums wanted to somehow purchase the piece. It ultimately was printed on large canvas and sold in editions, but in a way this is more of a documentation than a replication. The act of standing in a museum looking at a large canvas print is a very different experience than laying in your bed, scrolling through Instagram and reading the comments. I think the best digital artists right now are inventing interesting ways to convert their practice into a physical medium, such as Petra Cortright, Jon Rafman, and Hito Steyerl. I think that there are clear divides between the digital and physical realms, but what I’m most excited about is how to

I’m obsessed with slogans. These abstract declarations sound authoritative, they roll off the tongue, they are memorable, but they rarely state what the product is or its actual benefits. I keep a running list of slogans that I find jarring, and I frequently look back at them when coming up with the text for my pieces. Statements such as “Champions aren’t born – They’re made,” “If nothing else, be like nothing else,” and “Act now, feel good later,” are all examples. When forced to think about them, they seem so hollow and alienating.

In Where Does One, the text “Where Does One Learn to Love” at first sounds like something one would find in a hallmark card, but quickly it becomes more eerie, the joke gets sour and the longer one spends with the words the more disturbing they become. I use typical strategies of marketing, but as the fragmentary words unravel the viewer experiences another set of tensions and implications of the work. Using the analogy of the iceberg, I grab the viewer’s attention with the shiny tip, but then through both embodied and social connections, contexts, and implications, they realize the massive structure that is underneath.

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More than anything, I want my work to be memorable for the viewer. In this way, I try hard not to privilege one form of engagement. I grew up with social media and the constant stream of visual imagery.

Therefore, I recognize that many people will not look at an image for longer than 10 seconds. Even in the art world, especially at art fairs, so much weight is put on being seen as opposed to seeing the work. I don’t think that’s an inherently bad thing, and I also think it’s becoming an undeniable form of viewership within the art world. I want my work to respond to that reality, and function in a way that is powerful even when viewed for only a few seconds. That being said, my art cannot exist solely on a superficial level, there must be something more to sink your teeth into for those that want to spend more time with the piece. Whether that be a reveal of internal struggles, art historical references (Watching was strongly influenced by Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha) or an intricate play with the materials, the work must be meaningful to those who want to more actively participate with the piece.

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Audience reception is constantly something I think about through the creation of my work, especially the audience’s ability to relate to the subject.

In the past I have done performance pieces (basic tasks such as eating, folding clothes, or painting) streamed live on a sex cam website. I was interested in exposing the way my body could be objectified from viewers protected by anonymity, but was frustrated by the dialogue that occurred within my audience. So much of it was

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Charles Ligocky

ART Habens

ever spent” or “look at his butt!” I ended up making $15 in total, which was more than I spent on the Vodka so it was wonderful to actually make a profit on my art! Joking aside, I want to make my viewer become more than just a spectator. Ideally, regardless of how or how long the audience engages with my work, I want to make sure it is not passive.

Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to show my work and talk to you!

The projects that I’m working on right now consist of creating aluminum and bronze sculptures out of my 3D printed objects. I’m developing a procedure where I can scan objects or design them within Blender, manipulate their size and proportions, and 3D print them. With this positive mold I can then cast it and burn out the resin, leaving a negative mold for different metals. The goal is to further enhance the eye-catching quality of the work as well as the references to classical sculpture. I also have been experimenting with different colored layers of paint on top of canvas, and perfecting the laser cutter to burn only through a certain amount of layers, varying at different spots, in order to expose multiple colors for the artwork. I’m only 20 so my process is still evolving and changing pretty rapidly, but I’m focusing on honing these skills so my future works can be a seamless melding of the multiple materials and tools.

disgust or humor at what the viewers were saying to me, but the physical audience never seemed to recognize the similarities between them and the cam watchers or admit to having the same thoughts and actions of the users being put on display. In response, I created a piece that attempted to implicate the viewer within the work. Only wearing underwear, I sat in a glass box in the middle of the gallery while live streaming myself to a masturbation website.

Those watching could message me, as well as pay me $1.50 to drink a shot of vodka. A computer was set up nearby, so the physical audience could witness the comments of the online viewers, as well as Venmo me money to take a shot. The physical audience quickly became complicit in the objectification, and many paid me to take a shot. Even more videotaped it or snapchatted it to their friends, captioning it as “HAHA best 1.50 I

An interview by and

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Lives and works in

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JJ D'Onofrio

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bit of time searching for quiet and stillness in an effort to steady my soul. I was fortunate to live near a nature preserve; “The Crick”, we kids called it. To this day I use it as a background – and often foreground - of my photography. I suppose I am still trying to reach the quiet and stillness and I hope that any viewer of my work who is looking for the same thing can find it in my art.

I enjoy photography because it combines for me layers of consciousness. Waking life, dream layers, memory, can all be evoked through composition and subject in a way I wasn’t successful with in other media. I can imagine a painting, as brush connects to canvas, unfolding in a subtle epiphany of shape, texture and color.

Instead of canvas I have that same process taking place in my mind as I move through my day. I’m simply trying to make sense of events one frame at a

Having studied graphic design and the various artistic disciplines involved in that training, I ultimately immersed myself in photography because of the immediacy of the initial process. I am an impulsive person by nature and that seems to translate well in my current medium.

I was the youngest child of five growing up in a loud, chaotic and often very unpleasant environment. I spent quite a

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I create my art for myself. It’s as much as I can handle. I am always thinking of the next shot. I don’t have the luxury of time as I launch myself through the window of middle age head first. I attempt to find the right balance between careful consideration of what I want to do next and wanting to get out of the way intellectually and just wallow in spontaneity. Once I do have a general idea where I want to go I move on it at that moment. I have learned to trust the moment and the moment trusts me. We have an understanding.

time. There have been times in my life of complete blackness. Nothingness. Selfinduced and accidental. I start my artistic form from that blackness and then I begin to scrape it from my heart revealing who I am and where I stand in this world.

An example of this process is, “Prairie Gothic”. Thinking about the shot for months, I waited for the right time of day, the right season, even the clouds had to be what I saw in my mind. We went to meet the moment, it welcomed us and we became, “Prairie Gothic”. It’s a very mystical process to me and one I never attempt to refine in any way.

I am operating on two different levels as I live my life. Navigating the mundane tasks of bill paying, shopping, the minutiae of days we all experience. But I am also constantly looking at how objects are framed in their natural environment. How light falls upon them revealing texture and patterns. How do we fit in? Are our textures and patterns revealed? What is hidden in our shadow? I began in this discipline focusing mostly on objects in the world as I found them. I hoped to tell a story or provide enough ambiguity to allow the viewer to fill in the empty spaces and the unanswered questions. I then wanted to explore the human experience in incongruous environments. Using models, typically one or both of my children, I wanted to explore the idea of human experience as intrusion on these locations, or perhaps as seamless accompaniment.

How does our presence disturb the vibration of place? Or, perhaps it serves to provide a nuanced emotional dynamic. I felt it to be a worthy exploration.

Serendipidty has an important influence on my work. I am an avid cyclist, pedaling thousands of miles every year. It gives me an amazing opportunity to travel by a mode of transportation that allows me to see things a passing car would miss. The

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world is full of the odd and quirky, strange and sublime. Sometimes I feel as though instead of choosing subjects to photograph, they are choosing me. There is an invisible line we walk along between waking and dreaming, life and death. We leave our imprint everywhere we go.

Either spiritually or physically. We stumble upon these things attuned consciously or not. For example, in, “Broken”, the image was taken on the grounds of a one room school house, perhaps 150 years old. The figure in the foreground is my then four year old son. He is looking at a broken swing installed probably decades earlier.

It is this convergence of present and past – a convergence with no apparent future – I find so fascinating. To me it’s more the idea and the image arrives secondary to that. In, “A Very Still Life”, I discovered a furniture grouping on a frozen lake. No doubt done on a whim by cheeky imps, and yet a powerful symbol of how we straddle different layers of experience.

There is dream consciousness intertwined with the literal cold, hard reality of winter ice and biting wind. It seems to beckon the viewer to take a seat, to cross a threshold and consider nature of being alive in such an environment.

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The role of landscape plays an integral part in my work. I strive to achieve an interplay between the exterior landscape my subjects are found in and the interior landscape of emotions and ideas that hopefully the viewer finds themselves inhabiting through the portal of my images. I feel some of the venues I utilize in my work provoke a sense of vulnerability. Again, I invoke “Prairie Gothic” as an example. The two figures, backs to the viewer, are engulfed by the tall grass of the prairie. They gaze across to a hill they may or may not want to reach. Initially, we see ourselves as quiet spirits in the figures’ introspection. But who is indeed lost, here? There are moments when I study this piece I realize I am not watching them – they are watching me. I am the one lost. I am the figure alone and vulnerable unable to reach the horizon.

In contrast, “Moon of the Tall Grass”, an image taken in the same area but five years earlier, the child is again in the tall grass but wrapped in a blanket, standing behind barbed wire. The vast expanse of land is erased and we instead have a narrower field of vision. There is a vulnerability, to be sure. He stands on the other side represented by the barbed wire. Alone. The separation plays at our comforting nature. There is a yearning for something more. An intimacy of proximity and position, and yet, a stubborn distance from the viewer to subject. Perhaps the objective here is to actively search the rooms of the spirit in an effort to bridge that distance.

Two of my pieces, “Space Junk,” and “Last Call From Springfield”, while similar in spirit; objects randomly strewn about a

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rural setting, evoke two very different emotional responses within me in regard to the execution of the photographs.

“Space Junk”, was taken in a rather remote location acres of which no longer grow crops but instead serve as a graveyard to trucks, tractors, assorted other farm implements and even playground equipment. Like many graveyards, it is a rather somber and in some ways, frightening location. I have, to be honest, trespassed in the name of the shot. It felt safer than going up to the door asking for permission to take pictures.

The cold indifference of this place is a quality I was determined to capture. One needn’t even step on the property to feel the remorselessness of whomever tends to this land. Giant metal skeletons of silent machines dot the landscape in a twisted, sculpture park kind of way. I want the viewer to get lost in this place and consider what it says about our collective past as the objects of that past erode from the elements, year after year.

What’s worth remembering? What’s worth saving? What is anything worth?

“Last Call from Springfield”, on the other hand, was a situation somewhat less ominous. Next to a well - traveled county highway, on what was later to become an organic farm, it stood as a symbol of all things quirky. How did a phone booth end up in a farm field? I felt comfortable enough to go to the door. Nobody was home but I still felt it was fine to hang out and shoot. It was important to me to give it context by including the farm in the distance in the shot. The fact the booth was also tilted to one side provided a sense of unease. Again, I wanted to explore tense in our lives. I look for places and things where a collision occurs

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between the trappings of what we once valued in our culture, and a present which seems to have no use for them. It is a constant recalibrating of our emotional and intellectual compasses in an effort to navigate the world.

My aim is not necessarily to use the environment as a mere backdrop but instead to give it a voice in the composition. It informs my work by providing texture and color and mystery.

Life is a series of moments strung together over the course of our time here on Earth. We are experiencing those moments in a parade of different places, each with its own emotional content and energy. Trying to convey that message is something I work at as diligently as I can.

Photography, unlike other artistic media is a form readily accessible to anyone. Most of us literally walk around with the tool required to create a work of art: our phone. But it requires a sensibility to move beyond the utilitarian nature of the machine. More than paintings or music, for example, the photographic image allows the viewer to contemplate familiaror indeed, unfamiliar – places or objects in an unhurried and thoughtful way. I think it can be therapeutic to have a place to consider the varied elements which populate the world, our lives, and our place amongst those elements. And that place is in the photograph, I believe. What greater power than to freeze time‌ All

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the while outside our body it carries on unceasingly. Photography is a bridge connecting travels through time with an artistic inventory of experience and emotional responses.

When I conceive of an image I want to commit to it is foremost an exploration of the nature of my experience and my place on the world. Thoughts, feelings and emotions, like clouds, skitter across the sky of my inner world and bring with them ideas I could never consciously forecast. If the world doesn’t provide the symbols and visual drama to describe what I want to convey then I create a set of my own.

It’s only later that I think about the viewers’ role in it. In many of my pieces I provide room for the viewer to place themselves. For example, in, “No Compass”, the viewer is afforded an omniscient point of view with which to approach or retreat. There is an emotional freedom in the piece with which to react.

“By the Light of Day”, on the other hand is a study of something vaguely ominous. It was important to me to have the perspective be one of immediacy and

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sense of gloom hovering over the landscape. In terms of composition I am always wondering where the eye is going to wander and in this piece, the path next to the truck provides a way out. But to where?

Ultimately, my starting point is based on the question: “Where do I want to go?� It is especially gratifying to have fellow travelers. I think art of any form is a shared endeavor amongst the artists and the people who experience it. There is a wonderful exchange of energy which fuels the process and hopefully allows us to learn something about each other and the world in general. I feel like art provides a spark and those taking it in fan the flames into a fire which lights up their heart and keeps them warm when nothing else can.

I suppose I am ultimately looking to trigger something in the viewer.

Otherwise we are all just looking for something that matches the couch. I often learn more about my work from others than what I think I know about it myself.

There are underlying themes going on which even I sometimes would just as soon disregard, but when someone sees it and gives voice to it then I know we have both done something interesting which propels us forward. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an epiphany but can be an interpretation of our world and our self which moves the status quo in one way or another. The beauty of art is not so much in the colors, the textures, or subject matter, but in what all those creative tools mixed together tell us about ourselves as human beings.

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I find the contrast between digital and traditional analogue techniques to be a fascinating juxtaposition. I spent countless hours in the darkroom watching my images magically appear through a series of steps I found very ritualistic. It was an immersive experience in a physical sense, from being blanketed by darkness to the pungent aromas of the chemicals, an alchemy seemingly from the ancients. In many respects, it felt like a solemn undertaking. The patience involved in the creation, the anticipation steeped process, and then watching my artistic vision quietly appear. I always felt intimately involved in the process, much more than in a digital form.

Logistically, though, digital provides a more suitable platform with which to accomplish my goals. While not as organic as analogue, it is just as interesting to me to see what I can coax out of an image that may be hiding just beneath the surface waiting to be unearthed. I try to infuse my images with some kind of aspect of form or light or in the subject matter to soften the hard edge of pure technology. In the image, “Tea Party�, I spied in a storefront window a suitcase populated by various dolls. While a strange image on its’ own, I still felt it needed more to convey the idea I was attempting to convey. It looks like a mixed media piece with ghostly figures populating areas of the image. It looks much like a mixed media but really, I just took advantage of reflections in the window and a computer program to gain the attention of particular figures while relegating others to the background.

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In, “Into the Fire”, the computer allowed me to search out the mood I wanted for the piece. It is all attitude. Like slamming power chords on the guitar, I needed to find the mood quickly, powerfully and punctuated. I was able to achieve the transition in mood from upper left to lower right and the enigmatic form of the subject with the precision I needed through the lens of the computer that I may not have enjoyed with another process. In some situations, one technique may be more appropriate than the other. Each is equally satisfying. I enjoy going back and forth between the two disciplines. They each have so much to offer and add their own unique visual and emotional flavor to my work.

I am fortunate to have as my friends many artists in versed in varied media. It is incredibly enjoyable to me to discover their techniques, their vision and processes and then apply parts to my art.

This is what I do. I make these pictures. I can’t come up with anything else to do in my life that makes as much sense. I love creating art. I have since I was a little kid drawing pictures of Formula 1 race cars.

Every piece I do is a song in my head.

Some loud and dissonant. Some acoustic and soothing. I will always do this. Each picture moves me farther from where I started while bringing me closer to myself.

Living in America in 2017, I can’t help but to purge my angst at what has become of this country and the dangers not only Americans face with Donald Trump as president, but indeed, all the world. My work will undoubtedly embrace a more political tone. I don’t know what else to do. I try to convey in my work a quiet spot from the turmoil in my heart and the turmoil in the world. I hope people looking at my work find those places and for a moment, find solace and some measure of hope.

Summer 2015

An interview by and

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Zagreb, Croatia

Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia

"Balance" 2015 - detail

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Kresimir Cuk

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video, 2013

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"Overstructure" 2015 Special Issue

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An interview by and

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Kresimir Cuk

there was not enough space in my life for free expression just for the sake of it.

That reflected into all aspects of my life, and I reached a point where I decided to change my life views, and to re-evaluate my priorities. I quit my job with a goal to shoot a short art film. It was self-funded project, and I was enjoying venturing into new challenges. It explored the theme of subjectivity of experiences.

After that was finished I realized that shorter projects are better suited for my

Hello and thank You for having me :) As a result of a strict upbringing and the choice of education (math high school), I developed a very intense rigid personality with many self-imposed rules which made my life experience rather limited and miserable. I was trapped in my identity of rationality, and

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personality. I started doing these compositions which instantly felt very natural for me, since I was already well versed in digital tools for creation. The rational part of me is very useful in execution and production, as I am selftaught in mostly everything I do. It just needs to be balanced with other parts of me - intuition and imagination. My art was also influenced by Dan Hillier and Jake Fried, two contemporary visual artists that had direct impact on me.

completed concept in the whole (it is usually connected with some kind of internal realization about self and mechanics of it), and then I start looking for suitable images to create it. First I create black and white photo collage which can have big range of bits and pieces of different photos used in it.

After I am satisfied with composition and narrative, I go on with post processing to introduce vector patterns, blending it all together. I usually make offset prints on paper, and hand-transfers on wood out of them.

First I'd like to say that all my work is digitally created, and there is no hand drawing involved. So, there are no direct gestural hand-to-canvas transfers. But on the concept side, I would say that there is some instinctiveness.

Sometimes I start to create without predetermined goal, browse through image galleries, experiment with them, and usually get somewhere - concept is born in fluidity of creation. Other times I get very clear "flash" or "vision" of

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It is very important! Openness is what I am aiming for. I get the feeling of expansion and freedom from it. In strictly defining a thing, we destroy all its possibilities to be more. All the art I enjoy has a large degree of openness in it. Starting with some of my favorite film directors: Tarkovsky, BĂŠla Tarr, and Bergman. Music that I listen to while working and get stimulated by is mostly instrumental, and has large degree of

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"The Navigator" 2015

"Collapsing the Wave" 2015

"Into the Deep" 2016

Kresimir Cuk

ART Habens

"Balance" 2015

"River of Experience" 2015

abstraction in it, Tim Hecker, Ben Frost and Abul Mogard are just a few of the artists that instantly come into my mind.

Openness also adds value of revisiting.

Every next reviewing adds something new, depending on inner state of the viewer. Associative possibilities add mental playfulness in searching for many meanings. It is also a way of nonviolent communication. Artist offers something, the viewer chooses what he takes from it. It is in pure contrast to what I was doing all my life in design and marketing, which felt like forcing

predetermined one-dimensional messages to people.

I realized that most of our time we spend living in our inner worlds. Events happen in outer world. We take them in

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"Sanctuary" 2016

"Bloom" 2016

and process them, put our own meanings and interpretations on them.

We feel sensations based on our interpretations, and spend more time in reviewing them and looking at them from many different angles. This process lasts much longer then the time it took for the events to happen. So, most of it happens inside. Whatever you can imagine is real for you, because you are experiencing it in your inner world. I tend to blur the strict line of outer and inner worlds, giving inner worlds equally deserving attention.

I would say that exploration of our identity and mechanics behind it is a central idea of it all. Intertwining of conscious and subconscious mind and their roles in creating identity. What we choose to focus on at a specific moment and how we interpret it defines our identity, but it is always in flux constantly changing as soon as we adopt new concept about ourselves. So

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"With Each New Perspective, New Me" 2016

"Reunion" 2016

Kresimir Cuk

"Intimacy" 2016

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"Burden" 2015

instead of trying to hold on to some static concept of the past, trying to fit into certain boxes, I believe that embracing the constant change instead seems like being more in line with natural flow of the world. And as I discovered in my case, that is a very liberating thing :).

I embrace narrative because it adds more depth to the whole. I think that my love for film as a medium has a big role in it. I would rather sacrifice a bit on the

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"Intimacy" 2016 - detail

aesthetic side than compromise on narrative, as piece feels flat without it to me. Memories are basis for identity. Our

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inner world is outside of boundaries of time. We have freedom to time travel to events of the past or imagine future

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"Always Plenty" 2016 - detail

possibilities. We revisit them every so often to see how our interpretation of certain events has or hasn't changed.

This gives us the insight into our current state of identity. You can find photos from various different timeframes in my

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"River of Experiences" 2015 - detail

collages, and they are always in the role of describing some part of identity that I have tryed on, or is still part of me,

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never in their original context.

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"Burden" 2015 - detail

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"Explorer" 2016 - hand-transfer on wood

"River of Experiences" 2015 - hand-transfer on wood

In a great degree. I focus into certain part of identity, get into those sensations, and try to describe them.

When you watch piece from a far, you just see black & white composition. Like looking at a crowd of people from distance. They all have same features and seem to be "the same". But when you come close enough, you start getting different bits and pieces of their personalities, insights into their inner

For now, it is symbiosis in my case, but I don't feel like it is static thing, and do not feel any obligation towards it. I might take totally different stance in the future.

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"Sanctuary" 2016 - paper print on rustical frame

"Reunion" 2016 - paper print on rustical frame

Kresimir Cuk

world. And suddenly, they are not same at all but very rich complex mix of ideas, concepts, feelings etc. And those are not of material nature. Trying to convey those intricate subtleties with different pattern choices is both challenging and fun. I cannot rationalize fully the choices I make and why I make them, because intuition plays a big role in it. Something just feels right. When I discovered this pattern language in my work, I took some time solely on them and made as much different pattern variations as I could (like 150). Having my own predone database of choices makes it easier to connect them with specific states and feelings suitable for piece. Every now and then I am in need to create new specific one, if narrative asks for it.

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I think of it as non-invasive relationship in which viewers have total freedom of choice to do with it as they want. I do not require any personal interpretations from my viewers, but if they offer it, I always love to hear them. I translated my inner world into material object and it acts as an active portal into viewers own inner worlds, if they choose to follow it or get triggered by it and explore it.

You are very welcome. I am grateful for your interest in my work and for taking active part in spreading it! I have no strict plans regarding art itself. Plan is to let it take me where it wants to take me, on moment by moment basis, as this attitude worked best for me so far.

When the time comes, and I feel need for a change with this language, I will incorporate new elements in it or take totally new direction. Visually I am attracted to "glitch art" movement, and I might experiment with some aspect of it. Last half of the year I was rather busy with building social media presence so I did not yet get into that.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Ivan Kashlakov

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video, 2013

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An interview by and

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Ivan Kashlakov

important part in my life. It’s a place in which the air which we breed is filled with inspiration and atmosphere.

The freedom of the thought in self expression is the most important thing that I learned there. At highschool I learned the basics although that was only the begining.

Here the space, authencity and the collegues are essential moments

Hello, ART Habens! The National Academy of Arts in Sofia played an

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which shape the personal culture of the individual. My teachers in a big way influenced and enrich my view of life. In it’s fundamental art is a thinking process which is materialized visually. The stages of thinking are very important, they prepare a certain accumulation which exalts in an artistic charge. Over time this charge gets more and more impulsive in me.

The artistic rationalization, contemplation and insight of the problem. The poster-idea approach is very substantial also to my approach, it gives me a guidance landmark to a level of conceptual search. Definition – this is the answer, riddle and mistery.

There is an interesting moment in the preparation before I start to create an artwork. I rearrange and imagine in my head everything – the composition, light, generalization.

After that I grab the brush and forget everything, indulging to the urge, emotion and feeling leading to artistic insanity. Immersion, afterwards I go out on the surface for a quick breath – to distance from the work and analyze it. Definition – that is the problem. I definitely want not to be stated only as a painter or only as a designer.

That is why I do both. Artist must be universal. I think limits exist only in our mind. With me aesthetics is always in a process of change. The main core is the same but the layers which are surrounding it are different.

The extension of the outlook and openness to all art events and movements is of an importance for me. I step on the base of established experience before me in order to define myself.

In realation to the combination between painting and design, I will say those two processes help each other mutually. Scrutinizing/Looking into details the feelling and emotional deployment are part of the picturesque handling. The aesthetics of colour and subconscious perception. In addition in the design there is a simplifying of the form, minimalization, transformation. In combination those two types of thinking form a circle of easthetic search.

Associative philosophy which in me became a conditioned reflex. The personal interpretation is always on first place in in the process of creation. Art is primarily an experience. What we see is due to art.

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I persue in order to get away from the routine.

My metodology of the process in creation is connected always with the information. Most of the time I search for inspiration on the library. Research and watching every day new works/ as much as possible/. Always I tend to find the meaning. Sometimes the easthetical attraction towards an object leads me to it’s significance.

The attention combined with the intuition help me a lot. In my opinion a work is a reasult of the complexity of the perception and logic.In a lot of cases my works are developed by the gesture of the brush movement which increases the emotional impact. Quite often I’m driven by the inner engine.

In this way I feel I’m closer to the nature – the spontaneity and spirit, wind and charge. Something like a domesticated action painting, but not exactly. I don’t use geometrical schemes. I believe that painting is not mathematics. It’s created in the moment and in this way the impulse and life is preserved in the work. The climax is always on the top of the brush. Many times I use the pallet which is also one of my fovourite tools. Most of my work is inspired from my home. There I see the whole universe. The enviroment around me is something that I review everyday.

It’s amazing how I can discover always new details which I haven’t noticed before. Improvization is someting that

Burnout is a project which started as an assignment for the semester and it had to be created only with photography. Unliteral and metaphorical search as a push towards the intellectual and subconscious in the viewer – that is what I was going for. A hyperbole of objectivity, conceptual search which grew in a series. A condition of fundamentally staging and although directed must not loose it’s natural look. Until I got to those concrete works I went through that condition so it’s experienced. The origin of this way of work goes from the poster idea also known as “joke whim” and from the poster as a genre.

In today’s hurriedly daily routine, the time needed for a viewer to experiece a work of art is maximum of one minute. That is why the idea has to grab the attention. If the viewer stays longer the better. In this series the

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boundaries are blurred because in certain way there is more conceptuality here.

Direct experience is very important.

As on of my teachers used to say who I respect very much: “The nature – that is the truth”. I always start from her. Nature is starting point for everything. I don’t think that the creative process can be disconnected from reality. Exactly the everyday activity and events gives us a reason to think and recreate our experience in a different way. Probably at some subsequent stage of one artwork there is a certain disconnection but it is at the summarization of the whole work. Creativity starts from experience. Privacy and isolation are needed for concentration of the internal perception.

I have a personal philosophy – wherever I go I always bring with me scoth tape. It’s very practical and as lately established – useful in the context of art. My first time that I used it was in the poster “Life” which was one of the approved to take part in The 11th International Poster Triennial in Toyama 2015 and it was part of the exhibition in the museum of modern art there. The poster was only made from scotch tape – the life as it is, immediate and sometimes quickly made-up. Leaving the trail, the round form reminds me of circle of life and it has a lot of symbolic in it.

Often I search in my works the most suitable material to enhance the idea.

Usually I sketch or jot it down and after that finish digitally and sometimes the additional rework is only a little bit. I like to experiment with the materials whenever I can.

Generally they are very affordable and easy to find so there is nothing specific or special about them. It’s only important how you use them.

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The artwork “Artistic chaos” was one of the first works I made after a productive plein-air. I remember how stayed for hours in my basement dedicated to the joy of painting isolated from the outside world.

Another example was when I was making the “Archive” – it resulted

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Ivan Kashlakov

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the sensory perceptions of the audience to be integrated. In my artwork I forge one idea and emotion.

After that additional interpretations happen and there is nothing bad about that. It’s completely normal.

That is how different opinions are formed. More substantiall is the artwork to have honesty and pureness. These are the things that grab the viewer’s attention. For the artist to touch the people through their art is their gift. Definitely I try to engage with my work. I search for the euphoricall effect. The pure strive as a result of the truth, development of the form and light. Art is made from people for people. Towards really worthiest works nobody is neutral.

while I was walking around in the academy and I saw some clustered documents. There are certain moments in which I see an extract from reality and already know it’s a painting. Like a inner instinct of meditation viewing. I see it and it’s there. /I like the place for those two works/

The role of the viewer is of an importance. There is a specific impact that I suppose every artist wants to send through his work. Art must be seen. That is how it lives in the world.

With it the vision is changed and the worldview. To call an object a view it has to be contemplated/ seen deeply.

Between the work and the viewer happens the art. Quite naturally before that everything is started from the artist. In other’s opinion art only happens in the creation, and the painting which we see is only a result.

In my own thought it is important that

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The absorbing nature of perception is the first part of analyze and creation.

The space is the introductory part that shows the road we have to walk in an artwork. One viewing trip to the sandwich space of layers of nuances/ tones. Levels of deep perception.

Where will it lead us? I can’t tell you.

It’s intuitive knowledge. I put my energy in my artworks. While I work I feel a flux, charge that I’m sending.

The impulse that gives life. What is the role of art in public space? Much bigger than we assume. The public sphere is the vision of what we created. In other words the visual is a product of imagination. All cities once have been only an idea which became reality a though that is materialized.

The community is very important for the spread of art. We see and understand the world 80% with our vision. We look at the world until we get used to it and then try to find the exotic, the different. There the art pops up and shows points of view that we can’t see in the surrounding world.

Even in facebook we seek pictures just another proof for our need of the visual...

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Ivan Kashlakov

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The colour range, palette – that is the indivudality but not a principle all the time. In other case there would be a pattern way and this is what most people difne as a style. The color is a way of thinking and sending a message. I always try to find the richness of the complex tones. Most of the time the tonality depends on my mood. While I work I devote myself in the process.The texture is the scream of matter. An emotional amassment through which the work gets to it’s completeness. It depends a lot on the tool you use. In my case that is the pallet. To reach certaint effect I use different colour ranges. More often I prefer sitting infront of the canvas or cardboard and to supprise myself.

The boundaries between real and imagination is a lot thin in my work.

That is due to a over perception search. In most of the works I express the inner voice. I merge my

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Ivan Kashlakov

perception with reality. That is how my artwork becomes more compelling. My starting point is the nature from which I transform in my own manner. The movement of the brush in the artworks is something that I insist upon because it shows my urge and intention. The daily experinces play a big part, inspiration can be found everywhere – if you have the vision for it. Interpretation of the surrounding enviroment gives a reason for my work to be born.

This is a factor that I don’t think about during the working process. If I start to think how the other will react to my art I stop creating art. The import part is the direct message. In other case the artist works only for a specific audience but the work must be seen by everybody not only a few. The language or the context is always pointing towards something more than we are. Through it I uncover. The

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Ivan Kashlakov

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Ivan Kashlakov

ART Habens

context is lead by the personal demand.

The works which I create I don’t think in a very distant plan. Definitely I want to make large project and showcase my work troughout the world. It all developes during the process. As my professor used to say: „to paint kilometers of canvas“ and to be seen by more of people. At the present I have an exhibition at the International Art Bansko in Bulgaria of 48 paintings. The more I paint and design ideas the more everything clarifies. I want to develop more in the area of Web and Graphic Design.

Through my work to get closer to the essence – whatever that means… I’m always on the lookout for new opportunities. Thank you for the attention and great questions! I wish you all the best and it was a pleasure for me!

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Dragan Djordjevic

ART Habens

video, 2013

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Deca Torres

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Dragan Djordjevic Hello, and thank you, for this interview and for your interest in my work. Once, before thirty years ago, my colleague Mrs. Branka [She was clairvoyant], was looking in to my future, in our office. She was predicting to me, good things, bad things , suddenly she sad to others in office : “you,don't know, with whom we are sitting here, he is so creative.....”

“You'll see, that thing, that you gonna be creative with, is not yet invented or in use.”.....

My art name, is Djoi Nije Za Svakoga. My born name is Dragan Djordjevic. I was born, in communist Yugoslavia, in town of Smederevo, forty six kilometers, from capital city, Belgrade. One part of my family, was made of dissidents, other one from communists. Although, Yugoslavia

“I don't know, about other things, but that thing with creativity, you are wrong Mrs. Branka. All creativity have my brother, I just enjoy art.”

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was communist country, it was more liberal, then any other eastern Europe country. Me, my brother and my friends, we were oriented, to west and capitalism.

We, listen rock,in some dark places, had first touch with jazz and blues. We, went to cinema, watching art and documentary movies,theater. And every week, we went to Belgrade, for new exhibitions. Art, was more important in that time, then now.

Even today, I am caring with me, that colors,ideas and passion, from that time. It was, big influence on me. For few years, I was making copy's of African masks and my visions of African art. Their lines, are magic, their relationship with aesthetics, was great experience for me. African, understanding, of face and figure is marvelous..Next few years, I was sculpting in wood and gypsum, wire and other materials. That helped me, to better understood third dimension, and to use digital work like sculpture.Later,I was working with black and white photography and i still do.It is very expressive, I like its possibilities. Then, I found digital medium.

Thank you, for that invitation. Thanks to, everyone, who read this interview and who visit my page. It is, a way, for better

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understanding, what I do, and how it looks like. I put down,on paper, ideas which I like to do. I have, full notebook of ideas. Some of them are outdated, some of them I don't want to do anymore. But I have ideas, for next few years and every day, brings them more and more, to me. Also, I have some things, which I have to do, because I am hunted by them. Anyway, I do conceive my works, more instinctively. And my works are more thing of inspiration. I am lucky, that my inspiration, is long lasting one. I almost, never give up, of my piece of work.

I have, great admiration towards abstraction, and great need to do abstract works. I am trying, to make it different. I am trying, to give it some third,fourth, fifth dimension. And i have, to take out some hidden colors. To play, with light, is important for my work, like in photography. Digital approach, gives me, enormous opportunity. Interesting thing, is that my abstraction, so many times, find their way to figurative work. They starts like abstract, but it finished like figurative.

You, was asking me, about my evolution of my style. I see, evolution of my style, like taking more and more freedom, and becoming more and more, self confident.I believe, in strength of my expression. I believe, with all my heart in that, what I am doing, That is, evolution of my style.

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ART Habens

I make list of things in my dark, and they are appearing very slowly. When, you come to certain age, that black color is deeper, your darkness is bigger and they contain more things. All the work, goes towards catharsis, catharsis is not achievable, but is desirable. Balance, between colors, is on lots of my works intuitive. And, colors are one way of my self exploration. Other side of my colors is light. I have light, like independent entity on my works. Something, like, when you finished work, put near window. With shadows, I am making depth. Sometimes, I even draw with that light and shadows, and I consider them like colors. Sometimes , I recognized some faces, some figures, or situations, in bark of tree, in shadows, in plastic, in water, on the walls.... After that I draw, paint, make intensive colors or shadows, to bring what I see to others.

When, i am planing my works, I have some ruff sketch, in my head, what I like to do. And from beginning, to the end, that must be my own work. If I begin with photograph, it must be photographed by me, if I start from blank “paper�, to last move it must be my. I am, using different software, but I almost never , use plug ins.

Rarely, I am using graphic pen tablet. I am, using layers a lott, and software graphic tools.

Hidden pain and Down deep are for me very close to art therapy of somebody else. Hidden pain, appeared from abstract and on the end was real pain. I was afraid that it was obvious, who it was. At least for that person. On the end, it was obvious only for me. Many times, picture have big message from subconscious. I am always, in self exploration and in exploration of inner worlds of others.

For me, digital medium is next step, for traditional techniques. I don't think, that we have to create art from beginning, or that we will reinvent thing, called art.

Digital art is next step, and they will exist parallel. Like paintings and photographs.

Like TV and radio. I don't think that digital work is for comics or fantasy worlds only.

Digital art, is upgrade for analog art and only important thing, is message you like to say. Digital medium is not used enough What is style, in traditional art, in digital is repetition. In digital art, you have to explore all the time, software, hardware, your inner world, to give your best, to watch everybody else works, analog and digital, and to be in touch with all other artists. Digital art, is not using plug- ins

Colors,are products of my feelings and situation in the moment of creation.,My emotions, are mainly strong,my passion is strong. When I love, that is with all my heart, when I hate, I hate with all my heart. I am using strong colors, and I like it. From black color, some things are appearing or disappearing, black color is I believe, my subconsciousness. Very often,

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and to be self content, because you made some effect. It needs much, much, more....

On many pieces, of my work, you can recognize echo of traditional techniques.

But it is always challenge, to do some things different or braver, because you can.

Answer is maybe strange, but my computer is average, my photo camera is less than average, I am not using smart phone, and I am not watching TV. Technologies are important for digital art, but it is like chisel. With chisel, you can make doors, just simple like that, or you can make beautiful statue. What you gonna do, is on you. Equipment, which I have must reliable, but not high end. So, I am not technological freak.

Why, am I became, digital artist ? Hard question. Because, my inner world wants to go out. And, digital art, is easiest way, for me, to express that images from inside.

For me, it is logical, what I am doing, how I am doing that, and why. It gives me, freedom. It gives to me opportunity, with many stages of working process. To save them, and later to decide, in which direction to go. It gives me, best qualities of photography, and best of painting.

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Failure in the desert. was made, when my mother was in hospital, and we were confronted, with possible loss. In that time, her life, for me was like desert without oasis. It is story, about confrontation, with failures and their acceptance. Our life's, on the final end are sometimes, like failures in the desert.My work, started like abstract.

Little by little, horse head appear , and emptiness was natural, there it was. I made, little homage, to imperfection of the world. My works are almost never perfect; sterile...they are protest, against imperfections of the world, on my way.

For my works, most important thing is my inner world. My, inner world landscapes are more important, then surrounding landscapes. Also, I am urban guy. In my youth, I wanted to be, part of never sleeping cities. That way of living and my stories, are much more urban stories.

Today, I need peaceful environment, I need to be in contact, with my inner peace and nature. Fast, stressful life is not ideal, for me, now. So, that is one strange mixture and confrontation.

My, nick name is Djoi. ”Nije za Svakoga” on Serbian means “Not For Everybody”. It came, from my conviction, that art is not for everyone and that is natural thing. No meter, if we can accept that, or not. Some people, need only one look, or one word, to understand what you like to say. Other people, maybe need more time and more

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words. They will understand or maybe, they will think that they understand. But, final group will think that you are strange, and that you don't know, what are you talking about. I am, working, for first two groups and for myself. Who, is searching, maybe will find.

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art. My stories, are more conversation.

After conversation, both sides don't have to agree , but they have, much more understandable picture. Viewers perception is in that sense, very important for my story and it is one of references. I, have to go,to viewers side, to see, if they can see same thing as I. And, am I saying, too much or not Enough. Very often, I am, going back, to some my older works and contemplate them , without any wish to change them..

In the beginning, I was making mistake. I was explaining everything in detail, what do I like to say with my work and how I did it. Result was, like when Magician, explain his trick. Magic disappears.

On, first place, I am working, for myself ,and I have to be satisfied with my work.

Sometimes, people like some works more than others, which I like more, and that is time for thinking, not enjoying.

My, intention is to capture viewers, sometimes with million details inside, sometimes with simplicity, sometimes with name of work, sometimes with story. My works, are not made for hurry. Because viewers, can miss some little tiny thing and that little thing, can be highest point of that work. Viewers, can miss blend of colors or miss some tiny feeling.Sometimes, I am telling jokes, sometimes I am telling secrets, sometimes I am sad. But nothing of that is on the silver plate. All pices are parts of big puzzle, story of my, or somebody's life.

Thank you. Beauty is in eye of beholder. I am, trying to be honest. When, my eight old year daughter, say: “Ah, life is so difficult....” I ask “When, we go to vacation, Is it hard ?” She sad, “No, it is beautiful...”

We, had to agree “It is hard and beautiful....” I, don't lie to my daughter. I am , not gonna lie to anybody else. Life is difficult and beautiful, with many shades and layers inside. I am,not making digest

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Thank You, for understanding and right questions. Future is uncertain,and that is best thing and worst thing, about future. I have in mind and in my planner, some new exhibitions. But, I don't like to talk about them, until they happens. I have to make, bunch of portraits, lots of abstract works, tons of figurative work, some digital sculpting....And to work, work, work.... How do I see, my work evolving ? I am planing, to live fifty years more. And, that is plenty of time. Can you imagine, how technology will evolve in that fifty years. Can you imagine all that possibilities. I am gonna print your dreams in 3d.......I am kidding.[Or am I not?] In My work, I don't like to loose that youthful spark, which I think that I have. I will try, not to be so cynical, like old people.,I will try, to avoid stories, like when I was young.....And I will try to catch impossible. On the end of this interview, if you don't mind. I like to say my gratitude, to my daughter Mici, to my wife Biljana, to my brother Goran and my friends, for their understanding and support.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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