Artist Talk Magazine issue 11 by Artist Talk Magazine

ARTIST TALK MAGAZINE

January 2020 www.artisttalkmagazine.com

DISCOVER MORE www.jhancockart.com

FEATURED ARTISTS JENNIFER JEAN COSTELLO

4-9 CHAOS AND THREAD

10-15 VILEN KÜNNAPU

16-21 TIM BENSON

22-27 AASE BIRKHAUG MY SKETCH OF THE SUBWAY, 1950 BY GEORGE TOOKER

M IL NE Milne Publishing is proud to present Artist Talk Magazine issue 11. Once again, I am pleased to showcase more incredible artists from around the globe. All of the artists featured within this issue have given interesting, in-depth, honest accounts about themselves, their work, views and ideas. In addition to the amazing images of the work they produce, which I know you the reader will enjoy and be inspired by. We have lots of incredible talent within this issue, with a wide range of subject matter for you to explore and enjoy. The cover of this issue is a painting by Anna Mikheeva. Some of the

work produced by Anna is done in black, succinctly minimalistic. Only at an angle are details showing the inner drama visible … The black answer, is capable of reflecting millions of colours and incredibly revealing in different angles of view, like that of life. Thanks for reading. Grant Milne, Founder of Artist Talk Magazine

28-33 Mj Tom LosOtros

34-39 CAROLE SCHILBACH

40-45 ELIZABETH LANA

46-51 ANNA MIKHEEVA

52-57 WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

58-65

artisttalkmagazine ArtistTalkMag artisttalkmagazine

PAOLA BONI

66-71 DISCOVER MORE www.artisttalkmagazine.com

JENNIFER JEAN COSTELLO

Armor room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition, I sketched anyone who would let me and sometimes people I saw at a distance (I still remember the glares and fingers of unwilling subjects), adding conflict, balance, and harmony to shape my work’s form and energy in my constant search for new noise and passion.

GIRL IN THE TREES

THINKING OUT LOUD, MASSACHUSETTS STATE SENATE (HANGING IN STATE SENATOR WILL BROWNSBERGER OFFICE)

Optimistic, In the NOW, provocative in a decorous way these terms characterize me as an artist. Art and its ability to elevate people inspire me every day. On some level, art is life - my life. Artists stand on the shoulders of our predecessors, capturing the moment of today while embracing the past. As practicing artists, we are in tune with the activity of those, both past and present, who push the envelope to the maximum of what is defined as art. With that said, I love this poem by Jorge Luis Borges (from “Dreamtigers”), especially the line “Art must be like that mirror, that reveals to us this face of ours.” I hope my works reveal this essence. A hapa who grew up in

Philadelphia and has been creating art for over 15 years, I attended Syracuse University and received my MFA from Boston University. Art and being an artist are therapy for me, not just physically but psychologically and spiritually. My NOW reflects my dual BuddhistCatholic heritage. In my work, I am frequently exploring the relationship among humans, nature, and objects. I think of art as an objective homage to my Eastern and Western traditions and to the raw architecture and sounds of the city - many hours exploring the 1300 Chestnut Street murals, sketching at the Rodin Museum, and sitting/drawing in the Arms and

“Provocative in a decorous way” is a reflection of what is beautiful and sometimes misconceived in our cultures. With no end in sight, my 2-D and 3-D images are an intimate moment between the viewer and artist in captivating intrigue. My newest series ‘Knots of the mind’ explores the ongoing melee between the heart and the mind, complicated by love, hunger, power, doubt. Knots bind - like an embrace? As a restraint? Twisted strands of thought and feeling in our souls. Should we leap or remain motionless?

BRISE DE MER

As long as I am able to create art, write, and experience the joys of life - an optimistic outlook- then I have achieved that balance. My life’s journey consists of always learning, experiencing, and pushing myself to reach for more. It is an ongoing painterly narrative where I hope to always be surrounded by honest critics, and people who are inspiring and stimulated in their own lives. Balance to me is laughing often, and being loved and respected by intelligent people. I want to be mind-blown and leave this world a little better. A true artist is distinguished by a unique ability to take his or her moment in time and distill its essence so that resulting work becomes timeless. Here, I hope to stand on the shoulders of our predecessors including, among others, Mary Cassatt, Euan Uglow, Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel, Kiki Smith, and Tim Okamura. No fear, floating dreams with no end in sight. DISCOVER MORE www.jenniferjeanart.com Instagram: @jennyjean25

INHALE / EXHALE

KNOTS OF THE MIND

CHAOS AND THREAD

INSIDE AWAKE

Throughout my life, I have been creating and exploring my artistic side. From illustration, design, abstract painting and stitching, I have always undertaken to explore a variety of mediums. My love of fine art has always been the constant in my life. Although my background was originally illustration, I have now evolved my practice into pure abstraction, driving my need for self-expression without the

constraints of reality. I create out of my studio in Waihi, New Zealand and am fortunate enough to also work from a studio in The Netherlands for a number months every year. Moving between the southern and northern hemisphere, helps me embrace both cultural and social aspects of these very diverse countries. I have been fortunate enough to show works in both New Zealand, Europe and England and

I am currently working on a solo show for New York. Apart from creating artistic expressions, I enjoy spending time outdoors, reading, walking and meditating. An eclectic range of music plays an important part in my creative process. It can evoke moods and emotions that can impact the development of my artwork and the direction it is going.

SO THIS IS LIVING DETAIL

Through my abstract practice, I am striving to methodise visual material in way that enchants and captivates. I endeavour to understand and be open to the unconscious mind; the myriad

of feelings that often present themselves conjunctly, sometimes presenting as confusion, sometimes with clearness. Emotional interruptions that intercept each other and the cross-pollenating

of every feeling at one moment in time, is explored as a whole rather than considered on an individual basis. A â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;snap-shotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; illustrating an unabbreviated moment in time.

“Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious” - (Carl Jung), is a statement which I find thought-provoking and often at the forefront of my initial exploration. This investigation into unlocking the all-inclusive hidden parts of oneself and exploring how to communicate these visually, leads me on a personal journey to understand the essence of self.

SUNLIGHT ON THE SEA DETAIL

SUNLIGHT-AND-THE-SEA

In most recent times I have begun working on a new body of abstract landscapes which are challenging me to observe and interpret vistas not only on an emotional level, but to also give the viewer, through descriptive titles and imagery, something they can clasp and hold onto even though they remain in abstract form. While still using shape, line and colour familiar to previous collections, artworks are easily identified as one body of work. Appealing to both the need for limitless spontaneity coupled with the need for some semblance of order, my process is my enabler to freedom. The uninhibited self and the esoteric self are represented by loose and free paintwork controlled by meditative threadwork. The simple square as a visual reference to the esoteric

shadow self, is often found in my work. Whether it appears as a solid form, covered by thread or boarded by thread; or whether it appears purely as thread-work in a net-like construction, a feeling of safety and security are mentally and visually felt as the esoteric is protected. The uninhibited is left exposed and the esoteric hidden away. As a process driven artist, I enjoy experimenting with a combination of paint, ink, graphite, charcoal and thread. My paintwork often embodies a fabric like quality as it is removed from one surface to another and hand-stitched and/or adhered into place. This rather slow aspect to my process, enables me to settle into a piece; quietly and methodically stitching calmness back into chaos. Placed on either a solid background or an expressive, loose background, my solid paint ‘fabric’ offers an original application of mediums. As light bounces off foil and metallic thread, I am

attempting to draw the viewers eye back, causing them to pause, reflect and re-examine the artwork. I endeavour to walk a fine line between art and craft, negating a division between these two practices. The Vienna Secession has been a relevant movement to my practice. By giving applied art equal standing and value to purely painted works, it has given me the freedom to experiment combining both processes and not to undervalue my own discipline. Balancing both the pure paint element of my works and the almost handcraft element of my thread-work, I have endeavoured to give each component equal merit and meaning without one dominating the other. I believe this ‘Decorative Function’ draws the viewer in. It is not for its own sake. It is to move the observer deeper; to attempt to engage them with the very essence of the work. DISCOVER MORE www.chaosandthread.com

VILEN KÜNNAPU

MINA

Vilen KĂźnnapu is an architect and an artist, born in Tallinn in 1948. He graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 1971. KĂźnnapu is the author of many fascinating buildings. Together with his partner Ain Padrik he has won several awards at international architectural competitions and published articles in various journals. He has displayed his installations at the Venice Biennale and at Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture festival. He has been visiting professor at Scandinavian, British and Swiss universities, also at the University of Tartu and the Tallinn University of Applied Sciences. In 2013 he opened his first exhibition of paintings. When I design houses I feel like an artist, and when I paint I feel like an architect. I very much enjoy both, although painting is probably

the centre of everything. My aim is a feeling that lies behind houses and paintings. I am painting this feeling, not exactly knowing what it is. Maybe I paint strength or perhaps energy. I like the mystical, but in my art I try to manage without too much esoteric. I would like to carry on the timeless journey of classical painting.

PLAZA

I am fond of such artists as Fra Angelico, Gauguin, Bonnard, de Chirico, Matisse, Clemente, Thibault and others. I like the art of people who are close to nature (after all, Estonians are like that as well) and icons. I believe in the healing power of art and architecture. I also believe that by giving shape to your thoughts you can create whatever, and I believe that the thoughts must be pure.

TIGUTORN

SANTORINI 2

Why do I value painting above all? In my view, painting is the best way to connect the hand, the heart and the sky. Painting is magic. It is a link with heavenly powers. It was thus in the Stone Age, and it is the same today. In 2009 my wife and I flew to the island of Santorini where we rented a flat in Oia village. For some time I had felt a pull towards that mystical island. In front of the house with cylindrical arches was a kidneyshaped pool. Its terrace offered views of a cubist village in the south and a large empty field behind the building, with gentle slopes towards the north until the sea.

The pool terrace became the focus of our trip. We sunbathed, read, my drawings and watercolours were born there. We took long walks from there, and I made quick sketches. Ten Santorini watercolours saw the light of day by the pool. These, in turn, developed into acrylic paintings, and this is how I became a painter. It was probably the remarkable spirit of Atlantis that evoke an artist in me. Colours, composition and style just emerged from somewhere. True, already 40 years ago I could do watercolours, and also dabbled in installations as a supplement of the architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job. On Santorini I clearly felt that some sort of hidden information inside me was trying to find an output. And it burst out in painting, on that magical island. I have developed the style established on Santorini in motifs of Tallinnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old town, Manhattan, Morocco, Andalusia, Sicily and Malta, although Santorini will always be the foundation where I keep returning in my search for new motifs.

SANTORINI 3

SANTORINI 4

I painted the ensembles I saw to suit myself. It means that an architect has his own dreams, and he is lucky to realise 10 per cent at best. When I paint historical buildings, I imagine I am an ancient architect who once built them. I never paint exactly what I see. Instead, I provide the generalised structures with their own style by means of colours, new windows and doors, and something else. Painting can therefore also be a project, more precisely an ideal project. DISCOVER MORE www.vilenkunnapu.pri.ee

TIM BENSON

SELFIE, ARMS BEHIND BACK

My journey really began in 2001. I had been discouraged from representational painting whilst at art school, so it came as a surprise to me when a gallery wanted to show my large oil sky scrapes soon after I graduated. It was that experience that set the ball rolling

for me and to be honest, I’ve never looked back since. These days I mainly paint people, although I can’t resist the occasional landscape. There is something infinitely captivating about the human head, that

keeps me coming back for more as a painter; there is absolutely nowhere to hide. We are all hard wired to read human faces, so we know whether a painted head is ‘correct’ or not, even if we’ve never encountered the subject.

engage the viewer on an emotive level then it really isn’t doing its job. So over the last few years I have painted portraits of people who’s stories and personal journeys are undeniably worth telling, stories of unspeakable hardship and suffering. In 2015 I travelled to Sierra Leone towards the end of the Ebola outbreak that decimated communities in 3 West African countries. I met, interviewed and painted 40 people who had either survived the disease or been involved with containing it. They ranged from doctors, street sweepers and ambulance drivers to laboratory technicians, nurses and grave diggers.

WAITING

Of course the ‘correct’ that I’m talking about transcends the necessity for an accurately rendered painting, it requires something more than that; it demands an authenticity and humanity that is often lacking in painted portraits. This could manifest itself in the characteristic tilt of a head or the gleam of an eye. In other words, I try to add a small degree of caricature to my portraits, not so much as to change the fundamental nature of the sitter but just enough to bring to prominence what I find immediately engaging about a face when I first see it. I use the same 6 oil colours for any painting. These are Cadmium Red, Lemon Yellow, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White. From these I can mix nearly all of the other

colours that I see in the world around me. I would always rather find the apposite colour from mixing rather than directly from a tube of paint.

It was an often brutal and humbling experience that allowed me to paint the portraits of individuals that had endured the unimaginable. The dignity and bravery that these people displayed, is something that I can only hope the portraits that I painted managed to capture. It was this feeling of endurance and ultimately hope that provided the common thread through the 40 portraits, a commentary on the power of humanity in the face of disaster.

I use only 1 brush for any painting, this is typically a wide, flat bristle brush that allows me to ‘sculpt’ in thick paint. I try to break the head down into its requisite facets and planes. Further to this the large brush stops me from adding too much detail to the portrait rather, it forces me to reconcile complex areas such as eyes into the simplest of terms; 2 or 3 marks of accurately placed paint can say just as much as 30 small marks. There is so much more to a meaningful portrait than the visual aesthetic. For me there needs to be a message that’s being conveyed. If the painting doesn’t

CLIFFORD, OUTREACH WORKER, TOTTENHAM

MOHAMMED, EBOLA SURVIVOR, SIERRA LEONE

I’ve been extremely lucky throughout my career. I’ve been able to paint the things that matter to me and by and large sell them. I made a decision about 10 years ago to move away from landscape painting into the world of portraiture. This didn’t sit too well with the galleries that I was exhibiting with at the time, as

they didn’t think that they would be able to sell portraits to their clients. I had a choice to make; either continue on the path that I was already on, or break loose and paint what I really cared about, I chose the latter option. Of course this wasn’t without its risks. Thankfully however, people bought my portraits. I’m not saying that

they were jumping off the walls but there was enough interest to generate an income. For me the main satisfaction was that people were buying my portraits, not because they were commissioned pieces or that they knew the sitter but because they liked the paintings in their own right. This really validated my feeling that

LUCILLE, TOTTENHAM RESIDENT

a good portrait should first and foremost be an interesting painting, with an emotive quality rather than just a painted record of an individual. In 2018 I was elected the President of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters. This, as well as my membership of both the Royal

Society of Portrait Painters and the New English Art Club, allows me to mix with other painters. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the perfect foil for what can often be a solitary existence in the studio. Beyond this though, it enables me to see whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on in the world of contemporary figurative painting and to help encourage and bring through the next generation

of painters, something that gives me as much pleasure as the production of my own work. DISCOVER MORE www.timbenson.co.uk

AASE BIRKHAUG

uses are tastefully and delicately fused, to make a motif that can be described as very soothing to the eye. She discovered several years ago that roses have a positive effect on her, almost like healing and the combination of the smell and the sight feels like a meditation, bringing about a certain calmness, this is something she try’s to reflect in her paintings. AASE BIRKHAUG

Believing that surroundings can influence one’s health and mind, painter and physiotherapist Aase Birkhaug has combined her two passions, by painting roses for a soothing effect on humans. Having fallen in love with flowers, nature and painting from early age, it was only natural to merge these factors together at some point and by combining the aesthetic beauty of botany with her skills as a painter. It is documented that colours have an effect on the sensory system and some years ago she made the waiting room in her physiotherapy office into an exhibition for her paintings, as she discovered that it influenced the patients mental state.

Several international Art Curators have drawn parallels between the internationally known Mexican artist and painter Frida Kahlo, she said “I paint Flowers so that they shall not die” and I say “I paint Roses so that I shall not die”. The English national healing associations quote “Healing is gentle, simple and effective” We often search for the answers to our questions and believe the complicated answer to be the solution of the complicated question. It is not always that way, if we use the words of the English Association of Healers: Healing is gentle, simple and effective. Nature Heals. During a recent Solo exhibition in Bergen Norway where Aase lives. Titled THE ROSE GARDEN, which was for 3 weeks from 31.08.2019 – 20.09.2019. This

was a very successful exhibition The opening ceremony was attended by 100 people. They got to see 62 incredible paintings on the walls and around 68 paintings in passpartout. Fana Kulturhus said that it was the largest solo exhibition they had had ever and it was the most visited exhibition they had had ever during the 10 years they have been a culture house. During the exhibition several visitors came to Aase and asked, wondered by the magic feeling, the magic energy and magic light they saw in the paintings and the magic energy they felt in the exhibition room. They tried to catch up with the windows, the lamps but understood that it didn’t have anything to do with the lamps or the windows. Every night when not sleeping Aase “travels” by spirit up in the universe, catching the white light the healing light and then embeds this into the painting, so that the work shines this magic light which is a healing light to humans, to the planet earth, to all living creatures on the planet earth, animals birds and flowers botanics.

PRINCESS OF HEALING ROSES

Her paintings are regularly described as very soft and mild. The colour combinations she

ROSE IN UNIVERSE II

PRINCESS OF HEALING ROSES

ROSE IN UNIVERSE III

Timothy Warrington who is from the International Confederation of Art Critics, recently said the following: “With the organic remedies of the natural world at the heart of her works, Aase Birkhaug specialises in drawing and painting magnificent roses as the virtuous reticence of nature, continuously provides her with a wealth of creative and spiritual inspiration. The wonderfully skilled rose painter from Bergen, Norway applies a wide variety of mediums to her canvases ranging from oil, watercolour, acrylic and tempera and has been exhibiting around the world, her breathtaking still life paintings that possess the unequivocal ability to transform any setting into a surrounding, that is saturated with an abundance of

tranquility.

graceful exploration of flowers.

This has lead to Birkhaug’s acquisition of many international awards.

Birkhaug’s art has the intent and intrinsic capability of ameliorating the spectator, whilst simultaneously radiating the most extreme and captivating beauty. Her expressive creations are so sophisticatedly absolute in their execution, that the observer can almost sense the sweet scent of the flora, which enables them to transcend their surroundings and enter a personal place in their mind full of serenity.

Birkhaug has a true affinity with the organic world and invokes through each of her pieces, the belief that roses and their vibrant hues have a healing power, that can contribute to our well being and state of mind. Subtly integrating shades of pink that cascade into blushing reds fill Birkhaug’s audience with a joyfully calm sense, as her delightful compositions emanate a cerebrally engaging positive aura. Birkhaug’s compositional elements present an academic understanding of nature’s ornate nuances, reflective of Frederick Judd Waugh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s

Aase Birkhaug’s passion for painting flowers conjures similarities to the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, as both artists remarkably succeed in conveying the impeccable detail of each petal in their floral compositions. Birkhaug attentively examines

PRINCESS OF ROSES

the flower in every aspect and captures the various perspectives of the subject by exhibiting the uniqueness of every rose; the characteristics of each of its petals are fully explored, which allows the viewer to wholly appreciate and absorb the individual delicate components of the blossoming flora. Birkhaug has the unique ability to stimulate the observer, to view the roses that she depicts with a fresh perspective. Indeed, her flawless technique and exquisite brushwork evoke great emotion in anyone who experiences her extraordinary creations, as a peaceful wave of energy washes over the spectator, as they gaze upon these glorious artworks. It is possible to detect the influence of Vincent Van Gogh

in Birkhaugâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works, as their floral paintings share an expressive process in which shapes and forms are soft and full of movement whilst possessing a vigorous use of colour. Their diaphanous and mild portrayals are pleasing to the eye and emit a soothing energy to their environment, whilst displaying an erudite synergy with the Impressionists. Roses symbolise passion, purity and beauty, all of which are elements that Birkhaug tastefully and eloquently conveys through her artwork, by communicating to the viewer in a language that transmits universal human emotions. Birkhaug intelligently connects those observing her art through a mutual sensation, that mirrors the romantic connection between man and nature.â&#x20AC;?

Aase has now received 77 international art prizes in 3.5 years and 80 international Biennales and Exhibitions - and 2 Book publications The Rose Garden and Artistic Visions of Aase Birkhaug. DISCOVER MORE www.aasebirkhaugart.com Facebook Aase Birkhaug

www.facebook.com/aasebirkhaugart/

Instagram page:

www.instagram.com/aasebirkhaug/

ROSE DE L ARBORETE IV

Mj Tom LosOtros

to be known “about me”. I am not trying to be elusive as some people might say. I just think what is important is the artwork, not the artist. I want you to have my work on your …wall, not based on who I am, where I have studied or where I have exhibited my work. I don’t want to get between “You” and the “Artwork”. I want to live in silence behind it… and pass away sometime softly...”

To Whom That May Concern. European Visual Artist Mj Tom chooses not to share any personal information. Since 2003 he established the Visual Poetry | Urban Art Group LosOtros with his alter ego Andrea Nada. He lives between Berlin, Barcelona and Paris. His current body of work includes mixed media, collage, installations and digital printing. His work has been exhibited at

London, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Barcelona. Irreverent and fleeting, able to define himself as a copy machine of art, sarcastic and deliberately anonymous, he questions almost every probable fact. The veneer of normality, the history as written, the common way of understanding nature and oneself, as a part of it. As he remarks “I don’t want much

As he remarks “LosOtros is not an Artist or a group of Artists... LosOtros is a state of mind that engages a number of individuals.. Not only those that create the Art Works, but also those that they try to understand them... We believe that Art is not important because there is an artist behind, but because there is a viewer in front. The meaning behind an Art Work is the meaning that the viewer builds around it. The artist explanation has a very limited value. We don´t want to promote any manifest, nor to convince anybody about anything... We are not in Art to promote ourselves... Art is simply our lifestyle.”

[Curriculum Vitae on My Own Words] There is no Reality Until You Create One. Art is my way to conciliate with reality. In some cases, I can bring it closer to my standards. And psychoanalysis too. Both of them are hopeless. It is a try to put an order in the hectic world around and inside me. To value better what had happened and possibly what is happening, at least a part of it. It is a lost war. Before I can understand what had happened in reality, or at least what I perceive as reality, the latter flips

and turns to something else. I am a witness, an eye witness. I meticulously revise what it is around me. I examine, select, collect, put in order emotions. Stating what is important and what is not, what could be regarded as beautiful or ugly, what would be funny or sad. If I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t change it, I can barely transform it, good enough in order to compromise with it. Sometimes the attempt is successful, sometimes it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. I am urban. I like nature, but I feel comfortable only in the city. It

is my battlefield. Especially, the After-hours, when everybody sleeps so I can walk quietly in the streets and hear the sounds. My paints they are done for me, but in reality, they refer to others. It is an attempt; to speak enough for me, but not in a verbal way. What is entitled inside the frame, presupposes my aesthetic viewpoint. But what they produce is beyond my control. I exist in both of them. It is a miracle, when it happens. Unfortunately, is not an everyday experience. Or, I believe so.

My Reality In Halftones. My work is an exploration of paradoxes and contrasts which are torturous and utopian, wild and serene but definitely resilient. As my reality is in halftones, I capture fragments of life often ignored or forgotten. My art echo’s the unease and mixes it with the uncomfortable reality of continuous transformations of the urban environment in which I live. Faces, pseudo familiar situations, characters belonging to various walks of life… they all inject emotions with such a warm

identity to characterize the experience of ordinary people, those people who would say and tell through the eyes their own existence. I represent ordinary people; those actors unaware of being protagonists of present days and to represent them in spite of a reality in half-tone that essentially results a kind of summary, which, in the end, is life! An arrested motion in time.

more real than reality, so I don’t arrest motion in time. I make it. I love my subjects, although I don’t know them. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met any of them or I don’t know them at all, yet I live through them, or I can’t live without them. They constitute my curriculum vitae. DISCOVER MORE www.losotros.eu

In arresting motion there is a reality so subtle that it becomes

CAROLE SCHILBACH

MOSAIC THE FISH, (165 x 45cm)

CAROLE SCHILBACH

Carole’s life has been one of interest and curiosity for landscapes, cultures and their different colours and shades around the world. Born in Amman, Jordan in 1965 she has initially been a fond and proud observer of her native Middle Eastern landscapes and architecture, a seemingly immovable still life of mostly natural stone formations and sand colours. The sun, however, provides these colours with a wealth of different tones during daytime, and at night, the moon and stars over the desert offer a sheer endless range of blues and greys. The Jordanian Wadis of Rum or Mujib remain her definition for the beauty of Earth and inspiration for her creativity. Already during her childhood and studies, Carole has travelled and opened her mind for other, mainly European cultures. She has visited most of the famous museums and cultural landmarks of the continent. But that should be only the beginning of her journey around the world. At the age of 26 she married a diplomat and, thus, booked a lifetime travel privilege – not as a tourist, but as long-term visitor and observer of cultures and colours in the Caucasus region, the Caribbean and Mexico.

Her first piece of art is a mosaic, created during her stay in Beirut and from earlier impressions in her home country Jordan. She cautiously used light grey tones of glass and some blue and turquoise. Although she has done only few more mosaic works, a pattern of squares remained the basis of all her later acrylic paintings. Beside the move from mosaic to painting, Carole started using more colours – mostly primary colours. Although inspired by

the rich natures of islands in the Caribbean and later in Mexico, she wanted her paintings to be fresh, joyous but clearly stayed away from going into the styles of local artists or handicraft whose mix of tones often is very daring. Nature very often provided Carole with materials to use for her artwork: sand, pebble, acorn, cork, pieces of wood, grass – her creativity of what you can do in art is wide open.

RISE, (90 x 90cm)

AT THE FISH MARKET, (70 x 70cm)

HUNGRY, (140 x 75cm)

JOLLY BIRDS, (80cm x 100cm)

As to the objects of her works, they often depended on her mood and mostly were depicted in an abstract manner. She painted people, repeatedly her own family, or animals â&#x20AC;&#x201C; here again she preferred her cats as motifs, which have always been present in her childhood home or at her grandmotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in pre-war Beirut. Occasionally, she did paintings by order or for friends and followed their wishes for colours, but always remained loyal to her own motifs, style and technique. DISCOVER MORE Instagram: @caroleschilbach_art

FAMILY PORTRAIT, (90cm x 90cm)

ELIZABETH LANA

BROKEN SWASTIKA 60x48 INCHES

I am Elizabeth Lana, I was born in Los Angels and attended college at the University of San Francisco and the Academy of Art. Currently I am living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. How would you describe your work for the first time? Arresting. Bold images, whether black and white or vibrant colors, my work commands attention and its up to the viewer to interpret what they see.

AFTER PARTY 30x30 INCHES

How has my place of birth affected my work? Born in Los Angeles in the late 1960’s, I grew up in a world of sunshine, crisp whites and bright colors. My family was enthusiastic patrons of fine art. We spent many days at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and the Getty in Malibu. What artists influence your work? Mark Rothko. As a child I stood spellbound in front of one of his paintings, amazed colors could vibrate.

ALONE TOGETHER 48x48 INCHES

What materials do you use to create your art? Mostly acrylic but recently I’ve been exploring mixing oil and acrylic to see what the two reactionary mediums create

work that is from my soul. If you could have a conversation with an artist who would you choose? Van Gogh, without a doubt. I would want to let him know that his work is beloved and celebrated around the world and commands the highest prices at auction. I’m a sucker for an underdog and I hate to think he died not knowing the huge impact his work would have on painting as a whole.

On Instagram my favorite artists for inspiration are Trine Panum and William McClure. How do you learn to take criticism of your work? I look to take it constructively. But, I do find that listening to myself, in spite of what criticism I hear, has been an asset. I create

AUTUMN SMOKE 24x24 INCHES

UNSHACKLED 1 & 2 24x48 INCHES

How has social media affected your work? I love Instagram. I find the artistic community is incredibly important for feedback and encouragement. I have also found opportunities through it. I have been awarded The Denis Diderot [A-i-R] Grant and will be attending an artist in residence program at the Chateau d’Orquevaux in France for the month of March. Favorite piece and why?

Broken Swastika. I live in Pittsburgh blocks from the Tree of Life Synagogue and the massacre that took place on October 27, 2018 greatly affected me and my community. I wanted to create something different to express my disgust with anti-Semitism. This piece can be seen on page 46 and 47. What is your biggest success to date? My biggest success to date was the sale of large works to a law firm in

Chicago. What’s the future of my art? I’m looking forward to my residency in France to have a month to do nothing but paint. I have an idea incubating about a series of abstracts based on the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Keep watching! DISCOVER MORE Instagram: @elizabethlanafinearts

BLUE EYES 1 60x30 INCHES

RED SUN RISING 24x48 INCHES

BLUE EYES 2 60x30 INCHES

AFTER PARTY 30x30 INCHES

ANNA MIKHEEVA

INSIDE

How would you describe your work to our readers? Rethinking reality and reflecting the world and man in this world. I create because it is my natural reaction to how I feel. This is a reflection of events taking place in the world in my life. What subjects are you inspired by and how does this influence your work? Having given up unnecessary

details, I am driven by the desire to convey in my works primarily feelings and emotions. The desire to convey feelings and thoughts through colour, which are sometimes so chaotic that they can hardly get a clear form. Colourâ&#x20AC;Ś. Yes, colour inspires me. I can spend hours mixing colours to find the right shade... I think at this moment I am moving away from reality and enjoying the process itself. Colour and emotions it seems to me, I can portray the sound.

How do you create your art and what material do you use? Some of my work is done in black, succinctly minimalistic. Only at an angle are details showing the inner drama visible â&#x20AC;Ś The black answer, is capable of reflecting millions of colours and incredibly revealing in different angles of view, like that of life. In moments of inspiration, I immerse myself in work and do not notice how it flies for several days.

communicate.

SILENCE

Who are your artistic influences and why?

It happened. Maybe later I can explain it. I felt bad then …

Rational and irrational at the same time. I create, but everyone sees their own. Feelings caused by the pictures are a reflection of the inner world of the beholder and their individual reasons, goals, circumstances. This is an abstract moment in time and it is revealed from different angles, depending on the circumstances. Each has its own truth of what is happening and so is changeable depending on personal circumstances and time, which can bring about reasons for changing the truth. We are forever changing, what was important yesterday no longer matters today. What you don’t notice yesterday will be decisive today. Your best motives can be a fatal mistake, just like your wicked stingy joke is the beginning of the beautiful ...

How do you deal with criticism of your work?

Criticism? A source to begin the beautiful …

This is a reflection of my vision of life. I do not know if this can be criticised. This is my vision of life at a given moment in this context.

Has social media affected your work?

People, feelings and emotions ... By their randomness and rationality, sometimes simultaneously. What is the favourite emotional piece that you have created and why? My most emotional work was the result of fatal events that took place in my life. As a direct result of this, the art work was the first piece produced after a long break. It is shooted? What happened?

I am an introvert so it helps me to

Social media is primarily an exchange of information on a global scale, depending not so much on the Internet as on the quality of the information that the user is interested in. In the best situation, the subject of interest is science, art, and the opportunity to learn something. In a social network there are limitless opportunities for communication. People who later become friends or family can initially be thousands of kilometres apart. It is thanks to such unifying resources that the world’s space has become much narrower and has enabled everyone to choose with whom, when and how to communicate with them. There are also disadvantages, sometimes a person uses this opportunity incorrectly. So, instead of a useful pastime, the user can choose endless reading of gossip, quarrels with opponents, reading any unnecessary and useless information that can safely be called information garbage. In addition, an active virtual life has a bad effect on the fragile psyche, exacerbating the problems that already exist. This may be the inability to communicate or a wrong assessment of oneself as an individual and much more. It’s impossible to unequivocally advocate for or against social networks, because a lot depends on the person himself and his choice.

THE PAWN

How long does a piece take to create? My most emotional work was the result of 10 years of life. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the future for your art? Now I am working on a series of paintings, each of which will become a reflection of human life with its goals, causes, mistakes with its love, hatred, despair, vice, desire and passion. This part of the work is absolutely

not about form, this is my subjective irrational vision of the world of emotions and repressed feelings. Probably, from the point of view of psychology, this should be considered a possible attempt to escape from reality but on the other hand, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a way to accept, relive and heal something that hurts inside the mind. Some of them are maximally laconic - no extra details, no extra movements ... Others are chaotic and irrational having no structure, no logic and no clear sequence and still others are algebraic codes.

UNBORN

Human lives in every picture. We can find ourselves in one of them, or in several at the same moment or in different at different points in time. What are your dreams? To find that place of unity and peace. DISCOVER MORE Instagram: @_mishka_m.ma

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

As the preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States, the Whitney Museum of American Art presents the full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists. The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection— arguably the finest holdings of twentieth-century American art in the world—is the Museum’s key resource. The Museum’s flagship exhibition, the Biennial, is the country’s leading survey of the most recent developments in American art. Innovation has been a hallmark of the Whitney since its beginnings. It was the first museum dedicated to the work of living American artists and the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist (Nam June Paik, in 1982). Such important figures as Jasper Johns, Jay DeFeo, Glenn Ligon, Cindy Sherman, and Paul Thek were given their first comprehensive museum surveys at the Whitney. The Museum has consistently purchased works within the year they were created, often well before the artists who created them became broadly recognized.

ROBERT HENRI (1865-1929), GERTRUDE VANDERBILT WHITNEY, WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK; GIFT OF FLORA WHITNEY MILLER 86.70.3

FOUNDING At the beginning of the twentieth century, sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney saw that

American artists with new ideas had trouble exhibiting or selling their work. She began purchasing and showing their artwork, eventually becoming the leading patron of American art from 1907 until her death in 1942. In 1914, Mrs. Whitney established the Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village, where she presented exhibitions by living American artists whose work had been disregarded by the traditional academies. She had assembled a collection of more than five hundred pieces by 1929. After her offer of this gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was declined, she set up her own institution, one with a distinctive mandate: to focus exclusively on the art and artists of this country. The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1930, and opened in 1931 on West Eighth Street near Fifth Avenue. Following a move in 1954 to an expanded site on West 54th Street, the Whitney opened the Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue at 75th Street in 1963. The iconic building housed the Museum from 1966 through October 20, 2014. The Whitney’s current building at 99 Gansevoort Street opened on May 1, 2015. The Whitney was an innovator in taking its exhibitions and programming beyond its own walls, opening branch museums in other parts of New York City and the surrounding area. These freeof-charge, corporate-sponsored branches operated as standalone spaces with their own staffs, serving as training grounds for curators including Thelma Golden, Shamim Momin, Lisa Phillips, and Debra Singer. The exhibitions and programming at these locations not only allowed the public more access to the Whitney’s collection, but also met the needs of experimental artists by providing large spaces and performance

opportunities. The last of the branches closed in 2008. PERMANENT COLLECTION The Whitney’s collection includes over 24,000 works created by more than 3,500 artists in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At its core are Museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s personal holdings, totaling some six hundred works when the Museum opened in 1931. These works served as the basis for the founding collection, which Mrs. Whitney continued to add to throughout her lifetime. The founding collection reflects Mrs. Whitney’s ardent support of living American artists of the time, particularly younger or emerging ones, including Peggy Bacon, George Bellows, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Mabel Dwight, Edward Hopper, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, and John Sloan. This focus on the contemporary, along with a deep respect for artists’ creative processes and visions, has guided the Museum’s collecting ever since.

EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967), (SELF-PORTRAIT), 1925-30 OIL ON CANVAS,

JASPER JOHNS (B. 1930), THREE FLAGS, 1958. ENCAUSTIC ON CANVAS. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK; PURCHASE WITH FUNDS FROM THE GILMAN FOUNDATION, INC., THE LAUDER FOUNDATION, A. ALFRED TAUBMAN, LAURA-LEE WHITTIER WOODS, HOWARD LIPMAN, AND ED DOWNE IN HONOR OF THE MUSEUM’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY 80.32. © 2019 JASPER JOHNS / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

GEORGE TOOKER (1920-2011), THE SUBWAY, 1950. TEMPERA ON COMPOSITION BOARD.

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK ; PURCHASE WITH FUNDS FROM THE JULIANA FORCE PURCHASE AWARD 50.23. © ESTATE OF GEORGE TOOKER. COURTESY DC MOORE GALLERY, N.Y.

The collection begins with Ashcan School painting and follows the major movements of the twentieth century in America, with strengths in modernism and Social Realism, Precisionism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, art centered on identity and politics that came to the fore in the 1980s and 1990s, and contemporary work. The Museum’s flagship exhibition is its biennial survey of contemporary art, which has always kept the focus on the present in the spirit of its founder. The highlights of the collection are definitive examples of their type, but there is also much variety and originality in works by less well-known figures. The collection includes all mediums; over eighty percent is works on paper. The Whitney has deep holdings of the work of certain key artists, spanning their careers and the mediums in which they worked, including Alexander Calder, Mabel Dwight, Nicole Eisenman, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Glenn Ligon, Brice Marden, Reginald Marsh, Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Laura Owens, Ed Ruscha, and Cindy Sherman.

ROSALYN DREXLER (B. 1926), MARILYN PURSUED BY DEATH, 1963. ACRYLIC AND SILVER GELATIN PHOTOGRAPH ON CANVAS.

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK; PURCHASE WITH FUNDS FROM THE PAINTING AND SCULPTURE COMMITTEE 2016.16. © 2019 ROSALYN DREXLER / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK AND GARTH GREENAN GALLERY, NEW YORK

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE (1887-1986), MUSIC, PINK AND BLUE NO. 2, 1918. OIL ON CANVAS.

For many vanguard artists in the early twentieth century, music offered a model for expressing nonverbal emotional states and sensations. Georgia O’Keeffe was fascinated with what she called “the idea that

music could be translated into something for the eye,” but her references to music in the titles of her paintings derived equally from her belief that visual art, like music, could convey powerful emotions independent of representational subject matter.

In Music—Pink and Blue II, the swelling, undulating forms imply a connection between the visual and the aural, while also suggesting the rhythms and harmonies that O’Keeffe perceived in nature.

EXHIBITIONS Since its inception in 1931, the Whitney has championed American art and artists by assembling a rich permanent collection and featuring a rigorous and varied schedule of exhibition programs. Emphasizing seminal artists and artworks from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Museum organizes important exhibitions both from its holdings and from the collections of individuals and institutions worldwide. Exhibitions range from historical surveys and in-depth retrospectives of major twentiethcentury and contemporary artists to group shows introducing young or relatively unknown artists to a larger public. The Biennial, an invitational show of work produced in the preceding two years, was introduced by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932. It is the longestrunning series of exhibitions to survey recent developments in American art. The Whitney also has presented acclaimed exhibitions of film and video, architecture, photography, and new media. ROY LICHTENSTEIN, SHIPBOARD GIRL © ESTATE OF ROY LICHTENSTEIN

ROY LICHTENSTEIN STUDY COLLECTION June 2018 The Whitney Museum of American Art made the announcement that they had received a remarkable promised gift of over 400 works by Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997). The Museum and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation have forged an agreement that will bring the two organizations into a close and ongoing partnership and will make the Whitney a locus for Lichtenstein scholarship with the creation of the Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection. Through this gift, and an expanded relationship with the Foundation, the Whitney will hold the world’s largest study collection of Lichtenstein’s work,

opening up exceptional possibilities for the Museum in terms of exhibition, scholarship, and conservation.

MUSEUM DIRECTORS Upon the founding of the Museum, Juliana Force, a close associate of Mrs. Whitney, was named director. Her curatorial staff was composed of three artists: Edmund Archer, Karl Free, and Hermon More. After Force’s retirement in 1948, Hermon More was appointed director and served until his retirement in 1958, when Lloyd Goodrich assumed the position. John I. H. Baur was appointed director in 1968, following Goodrich, and upon the former’s retirement in 1974, Thomas N. Armstrong III became director. David A. Ross was director from 1991 to 1998, and Maxwell L. Anderson assumed the role from 1998 to 2003. Adam D. Weinberg is the current Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum.

by renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group. Mr. Piano’s design takes a strong and strikingly asymmetrical form— one that responds to the industrial character of the neighboring loft buildings and overhead railway while asserting a contemporary, sculptural presence. The upper stories of the building overlook the Hudson River on its west, and step back gracefully from the elevated High Line Park to its east. ABOUT RENZO PIANO

THE BUILDING Designed by architect Renzo Piano, the Whitney’s building in the Meatpacking District includes approximately 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space and terraces facing the High Line. An expansive gallery for special exhibitions is approximately 18,000 square feet in area, making it the largest columnfree museum gallery in New York City. Additional exhibition space includes a lobby gallery (accessible free of charge), two floors for the permanent collection, and a special exhibitions gallery on the top floor. Mr. Piano remarked in 2011, “The design for the new museum emerges equally from a close study of the Whitney’s needs and from a response to this remarkable site. We wanted to draw on its vitality and at the same time enhance its rich character. The first big gesture, then, is the cantilevered entrance, which transforms the area outside the building into a large, sheltered public space. At this gathering place beneath the

High Line, visitors will see through the building entrance and the large windows on the west side to the Hudson River beyond. Here, all at once, you have the water, the park, the powerful industrial structures and the exciting mix of people, brought together and focused by this new building and the experience of art.” The dramatically cantilevered entrance along Gansevoort Street shelters an 8,500-square-foot outdoor plaza or “largo,” a public gathering space steps away from the southern entrance to the High Line. The building also includes an education center offering stateof-the-art classrooms; a multi-use black box theater for film, video, and performance with an adjacent outdoor gallery; a 170-seat theater with stunning views of the Hudson River; and a Works on Paper Study Center, Conservation Lab, and Library Reading Room. A retail shop on the ground-floor level contributes to the busy street life of the area. A ground-floor restaurant, Untitled, and the topfloor Studio Cafe are operated

Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937, into a family of builders. In his home city he has strong roots, sentimental and cultural, with its historic center, the port, the sea, and with his father’s trade. During his time at university, the Milan Polytechnic, he worked in the studio of Franco Albini. He graduated in 1964 and then began to work with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters. Between 1965 and 1970 he traveled extensively in America and Britain. In 1971, he founded the studio Piano & Rogers with Richard Rogers, and together they won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the city where he now lives. From the early 70s until the 90s, he collaborated with the engineer Peter Rice, forming Atelier Piano & Rice, between 1977 and 1981. Finally, in 1981, he established Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with a hundred people working in Paris, Genoa, and New York. DISCOVER MORE https://whitney.org/ Whitney Museum of American Art 99 Gansevoort Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 570-3600

PAOLA BONI

My name is Paola Boni and I am a hyper realistic artist. I was born in Colorno (Parma), where I live and work. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Commerce, and for years I worked in the family business. I was in charge of the administration, but I felt like I was trapped. I was very unhappy. Until I decided to follow my strongest desire: to work every day with colors. Now when I paint or draw, I feel like I am catapulted into another dimension. Time simply evaporates.

I started my artistic career in 2005. I am very active on the international art scene; I have exhibited in solo and group exhibitions as well as in national and international exhibitions in various Italian and foreign cities. I express in my art the passion for detail using different techniques. My passion for drawing has been part of my life since I was a child, and thanks to Lesley Harrison’s book “Painting Animals That Touch the Heart”, I fell in love with pastel painting. Being very meticulous in

reproducing details, I have thus discovered oil and acrylic painting as a mean to satisfy my requirements, even if I am constantly looking for new techniques to make my subjects ever more realistic, by experimenting with new two and three-dimensional possibilities. I think I’ve always had a passion for art and Hyperrealism. To help you understand why I say this, I’ll tell you about an incident that happened to me when I was at school. I can remember it as if were yesterday.

DIABOLIK

POPEYE

One day, my teacher gave me a picture of a bas-relief to be copied at home. When she looked at my drawing, she angrily told me that I had traced it. On hearing that, my best friend came to my defence, telling her that it was not true. Then she tested me, giving me another photo to copy, in class. I set about my task and once I had finished, the teacher loocked at it in disbelief, apologized and complimented me. My work comes from the observation of the reality that surrounds me. I am a curious observer and I paint what

intrigues me. My characteristic is the meticulous rendering of details. I love painting with oil, acrylic and graphite pencil.

CONFUSION

I am a hyper realistic painter attracted by used world and abandoned objects that become my subjects like, for example, candy cards, crushed cansâ&#x20AC;Ś or crumpled page of books, newspaper or comic books. You can see in many of my works the presence of comic book. These subjects are close to my life since I was a child. Even today I read comics because they help me to escape from reality and bad thoughts. One day I realized that while I was painting candy cards, I did not feel enthusiastic, and thought I had to change or add something to my canvas. I tried to include the

comics, and I noticed that not only did my enthusiasm return, but there was something else… Sometimes, I’m inspired to create by simple reflection on a common object or a crumpled or torn piece of paper, and my inspiration comes from there I was having fun whilst painting. When I see people who look at my works with admiration, who are photographed next to a comic book of Tex Willer, or buy a work with satisfaction, it fills me with joy. It makes me very happy to be able to glimpse the smile of a child, a teenager or an adult.

Art, because they are the two artistic currents that I love most. The piece I’m most fond of is hanging on my bedroom wall. It’s a portrait of Wile E. Coyote riding a Red Bull chasing the Road Runner. I really love it. It manages to make me smile, even when I’m angry. I think Instagram is the social media that has been most useful for my art. It helped me to become known outside Italy. My dream project is to be able to exhibit my work in some important galleries in the United States and be able to pave my way into the large American market. In Italy

Hyperrealism is well known, but art galleries find it hard to open their doors to hyper-realistic artists for two reasons: in the first place is that most of them are focused on historicized artists, and the second is the amount of time it takes for a work to be created. I hope my work will be exhibited all over the world in future. It is probably a risky dream, but if we stop dreaming, we also stop living. Dreams help us to move forward, even in the face of looming defeat. DISCOVER MORE www.paolaboni.eu

TEX WILLER

I had a difficult adolescence and I found, in painting, the possibility of feeling alive. Painting and creating another reality allowed me to overcome very serious health problems. I suffered from eating disorders (anorexia). When I paint, like when I’m with my dogs, I am in a different world made of immediacy, happiness, spontaneity when all the superstructures collapse and I can be in contact with that part of myself that has been hidden for a while and can now come out in the form of color, details and harmony. Roy Lichtenstein is one artist who inspired me greatly. I love all his works. When I have the chance to admire his works, I am always fascinated. You can observe in some of my paintings aspects of Hyperrealism and aspects of Pop

HULK’S CHRISTMAS

DISCOVER MORE www.matthewtaylorcreative.com

772515

658007

Artist Talk Magazine issue 11

Articles inside

Paola Boni

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

Anna Mikheeva

Elizabeth Lana

Carole Schilbach

Mj Tom LosOtros

AASE BIRKHAUG

Tim Benson

VILEN KÜNNAPU

Chaos and Thread

Jennifer Jean Costello