Anniversary Issue 25 by artmazemag

E ersary dition 25 niv ,2 n 0 A

Featured image: Diane Chappalley Saint.e Sébastien.ne, the Lilies & the Snake oil on flax 60 x 70 cm more on p. 48-49

ArtMaze Magazine is an independent artist-run and ad-free international print and online publication dedicated to showcasing and promoting experimental and progressive contemporary art, which reflects modern society and its environment, provokes conversation and action; and fosters innovation and diversity of mediums which make today’s art scene so intriguing and versatile.

HOW WE WORK

Artists or any art organisations on behalf of artists from all countries are welcome to submit.

ArtMaze Magazine is published five times per year and announces a competition-based curated call for art for each issue every 2-3 months. We invite guest curators from internationally renowned galleries as well as independent art professionals and artists to select works for each issue’s curated section of works.

We accept works to be sent to us for consideration only via our annual competition-based calls for art for print publications. Please visit our website for more details: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art or see p. 11

ArtMaze print editions offer its readers a continuous art experience which includes interviews with our guest curators and featured artists from recently published issues; as well as our carefully curated selections of artworks which offer an insight to the inspiring progress and success of an extraordinary amount of emerging contemporary artists from all over the world who have been applying to our competition-based curated calls.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WORK Artists are welcome to submit works in any medium: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, digital, film, performance, any mixed media etc.

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Each individual submitting work to ArtMaze Magazine opportunities is provided with a fair and equal chance. Incoming submissions are following a very specific and unique process via Submittable platform, therefore each competition-based call for art has a transparent policy.

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FRONT COVER:

Business information:

Sung Hwa Kim Shed your body, reveal itself. It’s with and within us. acrylic, flashe and gouache on canvas 30 x 24 inches more on p. 14-27

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online ISSN No. 2399-8938

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Josh Raz View of Skaters on Thin Ice oil on canvas 100 x 140cm more on p. 54-55

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interviewed

call for art

In pu rs uit of t he t ru t h of exi ste nce : In c onve rs at ion w it h Su ng Hwa K i m .................................. ..................14

Edition 27 ...............................................................................................11

Ex plor ing t he s ubte r rane an lands cap e s of t he u ncon s cious mind i n Is ab el Cave ne c ia’s draw i ng s ...........................................................28

Contents

curated selection of works

editorial selection of works

Kat ri ne B ob ek .........................................................................44 He n r y C u rchod ........................................................ ................46 D iane Ch a pp alley ....................................................................48 Cat he r ine Repko .....................................................................50 Nat h anaëlle He r beli n .............................................. ................52 Josh Raz . . . . . . . . . ..........................................................................54 Rachel G re gor ......................................................... ................56 Chloe We st . . . . . .......................................................... ................58 Théo Viardin ............................................................................60 Morte z a Kh ak shoor ................................................................62 S h ab nam Jan ne s ar i ................................................. ................64 Fe rgal St yle s ........................................................... ................66 Cai Z eb i n .................................................................................68 J i Woo Ki m . . . . .......................................................... ................70 S arah D avid s o n .......................................................................72 Joche n Mühle nbr i nk ...............................................................74 E d in Z e nu n . . . ..........................................................................76

E l i de Haas ............................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 B arr y McGlash an ................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Oleg Tsy ba ............................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 S el ine B u rn ............................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Maya Weishof ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Marcelo Canevari .................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 0 Grace Kenniso n ..................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2 Kieren Jeane .......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4 Lind sey B ull ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6 Yue Li ..................................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8 Manuel B isso n ........................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 0 Kamil Kukla ........................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 E mma Ro se Kennedy .............................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Zach ar y Lank ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Marc Librizzi ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Will iam Grob ........................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 10 Grace B ro mley ....................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 Diego Lo zano ......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 14 Yuko S o i ................................................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 16 Inbal N issim .......................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 8 Cecily Wal ti ............................................................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 0 Arisa Yo sh ioka ...................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 2

Featured image: Eli de Haas Untitled oil on linen 50 x 40 cm more on p. 80-81

from the founder Dear Reader, welcome to our Anniversary Edition 25, the first of 2022! We start this year with yet another marvellous group of artists highlighted through our Curated and Editorial sections. Many talented and hardworking contemporary artists from all over the world have applied for the opportunity to be part of this special issue and we are so pleased to have teamed up with Danny Lamb, founder of exhibition-based platform @painterspaintingpaintings and his new ADZ gallery, based in Lisbon, to work on the list of finalists for this edition. We thank Danny for his dedication, enthusiasm and passion for the recognition of so many emerging and developing talents. We would like to thank everyone for their interest in this opportunity – it is a great honour to be receiving so many quality and thoughtful applications. This issue’s Interviewed section (p.14-41) highlights the work of two previously published artists, Sung Hwa Kim and Isabel Cavenecia. We have enjoyed following Sung and Isabel in their developing career journeys since their first appearances on our publication’s pages. Sung’s work changed course during the pandemic when nocturnal scenes have provided much needed awe and inspiration in the time of uncertainty and fear for the world. His research and gathered influences are based on motifs of many distinguished expressionists of modern art, such as van Gogh, Monet, and Bonnard. The fine works of these acclaimed makers emboldened Sung’s interest and consequent leaning towards concepts of Romanticism which, he mentions, people need to see and connect with the most these days. Coming from a background of performance, installation and video work, Isabel Cavenecia’s path to finding her medium and artistic voice has been complex and exceptional. After lessened interest in architectural studies due to a wish for more creative freedom, she developed a passion for fantastical graphite drawings of buildings and structures which cannot exist in reality, inspired by the life journey and ideas of her late uncle; and progressing towards a feminine expression. Her drawings, full of mystery, unique creatures and hazy quality due to her choice of medium have an irresistible pull for the viewer. Our 27th edition’s call for art will be running through to March 3rd, and is guest-curated by the founder and curator of the New York-based gallery—Hesse Flatow (previously Crush Curatorial)—Karen Hesse Flatow. We have been inspired by Karen’s journey of supporting so many notable emerging voices and her 2019 transition into a New York gallery space as well as maintaining an exhibition space and residency program in Amagansett, Long Island. Hesse Flatow gallery also contributes to public programming by organizing special events such as artist conversations and performances in the hope of bringing the gallery’s programme to a wider audience. If you are interested in submitting your work to be seen and considered by our guest curators and the editorial team of ArtMaze, and would like a chance for your work to be published in our print editions and promoted online, please feel free to check out our website for more information www.artmazemag.com and hopefully we’ll be able to work together in the near future. We would love to have you as part of our community! Yours truly, Founder, curator and publisher Masha Zemtsova

p.42-77 curated selection of works

p.78-123 editorial selection of works

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Edition 27

call for art DEADLINE: March 3rd, 2022 Guest Curator: Karen Hesse Flatow founder and curator of Hesse Flatow gallery and residency program (previously Crush Curatorial), New York

Submit your work for a chance to be published in print and digital issues, as well as online. ELIGIBILITY: This competition is open to all artists, both national and international, working in all visual mediums: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, digital, performance, film, any mixed media etc. DISTRIBUTION: ArtMaze Magazine is an independent international publication which is distributed worldwide via select book shops, and via our online store: www.artmazemag.com/shop HOW TO APPLY: Please visit our website for more details and fill in the online form via the following link: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art You are welcome to read more information on our website: www.artmazemag.com or contact us at info@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Morteza Khakshoor Morning acrylic on panel 10 x 12 inches more on p. 62-63

inte

erviewed:

Sung Hwa Kim Isabel Cavenecia

www.sunghwakim.com

In pursuit of the truth of existence: In conversation with Sung Hwa Kim How to locate oneself within an artistic tradition, to find an authentic artistic voice, to make honest work—these are some of the big questions Sung Hwa Kim is grappling with in his art. “I’ve always been concerned with meaning and trying to understand our being and existence,” the South Korean born, New York based artist says. Cycling has become an unlikely but important way for the artist to contemplate and process these existential concerns. Traversing the city by bike late at night, this mundane activity gained a new resonance for Sung during the lockdown. Gliding fluidly between built and natural environments and seeing the world in a blur of motion punctuated by fleeting frozen details: the feeling of being in perpetual transience at once located him within the broader historic moment and yielded a singular new perspective that resonates through his current work. Nocturne is an ongoing body of work that Sung began during the pandemic. The subjects of these contemplative night-time paintings—flowers, weeds, butterflies, bare branches, the moon—are symbols of impermanence, reminders of our mortality and the ephemeral nature of existence. But bleak these paintings are not. Rather, Sung finds a tender beauty in this transience: in the quiet poetry of the compositions and the soft light that breaks through the darkness. Tonal and resonant, the paintings are traces of fleeting scenes, mementos of time and place. In the making-permanent, none of the original magic is lost. The surface of Sung’s paintings seem to glow as if brushed with phosphorescence. And like a moth to a flame, they draw the viewer in to share in the evanescent moment. Sung received his BFA from the Art Institute of Boston and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012. He has participated in numerous national group exhibitions over the past decade. His Nocturne body of work was shown at M+B in Los Angeles earlier this year.

interview by Layla Leiman

Featured image: Sung Hwa Kim It’s alright. We’ve all been born for the first time on this planet acrylic and flashe on canvas 24 x 18 inches

AMM: Hi Sung! To start us off, can you share a few milestones—good or bad—that have shaped you as an artist over the years? SHK: Hi Layla! Thanks for having me. I would say moving to New York City was a huge milestone for me. I’ve been here for about eight years now and I still love everything about the city. It wasn’t easy at first, I took a break from producing art for about a year and just absorbed the new environment. The energy, passion, and love that I felt from people and the city truly inspired me. I felt that people came and stayed here for a reason. This city offers you everything you desire if you are willing to grind and hustle. Also being here always kept me in check, you are surrounded by all these talented bright minds from all over the world who make wonderful works. It helped me to stay aware of where I was as an artist and kept me motivated. What can I say, even to this day whenever I see the NYC skyline, I hear Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” and my heart starts to pound hahaha. AMM: As an artist, developing one’s unique artistic voice is a daunting and ever-evolving process. Can you tell us a little about what this process has been like for you, and any mentors that might have played a hand guiding you along the way? SHK: Yeah, trying to find my artistic voice is an ongoing process for me. There was a time when I focused on it too much, and hesitated to create anything. This was right after graduate school. I guess I drank too much of what I call “Grad school Kool-aid”. I had to get that shit out of my system and search for my own meanings. But now I’m at a point where I’m more comfortable with who and where I am. I’m not too concerned about whether the work looks good or not. I’m more interested in the honesty of the work. When you accept your vulnerabilities and let them be what they are, things find their own ways. This state of mind naturally showed up in the work. Joan Waltemath, who’s been my mentor since 2010, played a huge part in how I think and who I am today. She changed my perception, not only of art, but of life too. She taught me what it means to be an artist, and how to maintain a healthy work-life balance and helped me realize that art is only one part of life. AMM: Over the years the style of your work has changed considerably. Can you tell us about the different phases of your artistic output, and, despite the apparent differences, trace any underlying threads that link them all together? SHK: With my installation work, I was focusing more on the process of making art than the results. I would set up a situational proposition by placing both ready-mades and found objects together without intentionally

“We can always learn something from the past. As an artist, I am very aware of my place in a long lineage of people trying to make sense of their experiences using physical forms and materials. I’ve always been drawn to works with an emotional resonance. For example, looking at someone like van Gogh, I see the freedom of expression in modern art for the first time. This might have been caused by the invention of the camera or of tube oil paints, but nonetheless, starting with van Gogh artists were no longer beholden to painting the likeness of a landscape. They could go outside with their materials and paint what they truly saw and felt. When I look at the artists from this time period (Monet, Bonnard, van Gogh, Vuillard… too many) I really feel that I am experiencing their perception of the world and that’s profoundly Romantic. And in a way, I think what we need as a society now is a little bit of Romanticism and time to heal.” - Sung Hwa Kim

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25, Interviewed: Sung Hwa Kim

considering aesthetics. With my abstract works, I was questioning my perception of reality, trying to define the truth of actual being. I would create multiple layers of dimensions and let the subconscious wonder. Looking back now I can see that what I’ve been trying to do over and over, throughout the years, is capture individual moments, my physical and emotional experience of them, and preserve them in paint or otherwise. Whether the work was abstract, installation, or landscape, they were all the result of this pursuit of the truth of existence. AMM: Let’s chat about your visual language, which currently seems to borrow from various art history movements such as symbolism and Romanticism. In what ways do you resonate with the ideals and ideas of these aesthetic movements? How do you interpret this in your own work? SHK: We can always learn something from the past. As an artist, I am very aware of my place in a long lineage of people trying to make sense of their experiences using physical forms and materials. I’ve always been drawn to works with an emotional resonance. For example, looking at someone like van Gogh, I see the freedom of expression in modern art for the first time. This might have been caused by the invention of the camera or of tube oil paints, but nonetheless, starting with van Gogh artists were no longer beholden to painting the likeness of a landscape. They could go outside with their materials and paint what they truly saw and felt. When I look at the artists from this time period (Monet, Bonnard, van Gogh, Vuillard… too many) I really feel that I am experiencing their perception of the world and that’s profoundly Romantic. And in a way, I think what we need as a society now is a little bit of Romanticism and time to heal. How I enact this in my own work is by not just mimicking the look or style of a particularly Romantic artist but by trying to understand their approach to painting and reason. I still believe that art has the power, the capacity, to narrow the at times vast expanse between one person and another, and function as a catalyst for connection, understanding, and empathy. AMM: You share a lot of reference images on Instagram. Evidently art history is a great source of inspiration for you. Where else do you look for inspiration and references for your art? SHK: Besides art history, I look for inspirations from poetry. How poetry transpires is similar to how I want my paintings to unfold. Just like the words in a poem, the images that I invoke in a painting serve as a shared language, a set of symbols, for the viewer to recognize and engage with. I am interested in the space between the painting and the viewer, the space where the viewer’s experience and understanding of the art changes the art itself. The moment someone recognizes the painting as something more than just an object, and then

photo by Daniel Greer

internalizes it, and sees her/himself reflected back in some way, the act of looking because of the creative process. AMM: What is your process of researching and working? Do you start with an idea and plan and make preparatory sketches, or do you just begin and trust that the process will guide you somewhere interesting? Do you work from head or heart, or maybe a combination of both? SHK: I would say both. It usually starts with certain scenes or moments I’ve experienced while I go around the city. I don’t like to force things but rather listen to my instinct and intuition, if a particular moment sticks out or stays with me throughout the day then I try to pay attention to that. It’s essential to my practice to be actively attentive and open and receptive to the world around me. Sometimes I will record the moment with video or sometimes with sound so I don’t forget the feeling it invoked or the air of the space. Certain paintings I sketch first just to see the composition but there are other paintings I just dive right in to. I’m always trying to strike a balance between knowing and not knowing, this requires a bit of faith and trust in the process, and a relinquishing of control. The beauty of painting is that sometimes during the process of making it, the work itself reveals something to you, something you never expected to see. I love these moments because they always surprise you. AMM: If we stepped inside your studio today, what would we see? What are some of the physical and sensory things that are important for you to surround yourself with? SHK: I have this wooden Virgin Mary statue that was given to me 12-13 years ago. For some reason this statue has followed me everywhere. The funny thing is, I’m not even religious, yet I still have this and it’s been in every studio space I’ve had. Now I put it by the window with all the plants I have and every time I look at that corner it gives me comfort. It’s not really about what that statue symbolizes, but what it’s come to mean for me. AMM: What are you busy working on right now? What’s working, and what’s posing a challenge? SHK: Actually, at this very moment, I’m trying to figure out what the next painting will be. I always have somewhat of a difficult time deciding what I want to paint. I have to feel something internally in order to start the painting and sometimes it takes a while for anything to arise. There are many days where I just stare at the blank canvas and wait for it. I truly believe the work itself has a life of its own, its own desires and concerns. I realize it’s not something I can dictate or take control of, so I learn to live with it. If I force it and paint something that I don’t feel strongly about then the viewer won’t feel anything either. Trying to be in tune with my sentient being and constantly questioning the honesty of my work has been the most challenging part of the process.

“The “Nocturne” series is related to my feelings about and experience of the pandemic. Like most artists, at the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t make anything because there was so much uncertainty about the future. Also, there was a shameful feeling for me when it came to being in the studio while all over the world people were suffering. Art and art making sort of lost its meaning. I needed hope. I think we all did. During this time, I went on long late-night bike rides across the city to escape from both my thoughts and worries, and one night I was struck by the way the moonlight shone through the cover of darkness. This somehow comforted me and I understood it to mean that this wasn’t the end. That’s when this new body of work appeared in my studio. It’s something that happened in my studio without any intention. It was the only thing that brought me peace and comfort. I wanted to make something that showed my empathy towards that which we’d lost and captured a sense of hope capable of easing some of our collective fear and worry.” - Sung Hwa Kim

AMM: Your work seems to engage with broad philosophical and existential themes. In what ways is your art an expression of your own experiences and interior landscape? SHK: I’ve always loved the image that was sent from Voyager 1 as it was leaving our solar system in February 1990. It reminds me how small we are in the universe. It’s hard to find or even get a grip on where and what we are with the world rapidly changing around us. I’ve always been concerned with meaning and trying to understand our being and existence. No matter what type of work I’m making, these questions show up in some form. I realize the importance of the experiential aspect of art to my work. The subjects I choose to paint such as flowers, weeds, butterflies, the moon, all contain reminders of our mortality, the ephemeral nature of our existence. It helps me to be humble. Everything is temporary, nothing is permanent. AMM: For you, what does being an artist mean? SHK: For me, art has always been linked with history, because of the role it plays in our culture. For example, the intention and motivation behind certain works of art and journalism are similar, in that they are both attempting to record the conditions of certain events. Journalism, however, is primarily concerned with the facts, and art, the truth. With art, each of us has the freedom to contribute a different perspective of a situation. The way each individual experiences becomes passages and provides a diverse perspective for the viewer. So being an artist is just playing another role that’s part of humanity. AMM: We’re curious to know about the thinking and geneses of the nocturnal body of work you began in 2020. Was this in any way inspired by experiences or feelings related to the pandemic? What is this body of work about? SHK: The “Nocturne” series is related to my feelings about and experience of the pandemic. Like most artists, at the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t make anything because there was so much uncertainty about the future. Also, there was a shameful feeling for me when it came to being in the studio while all over the world people were suffering. Art and art making sort of lost its meaning. I needed hope. I think we all did. During this time, I went on long late-night bike rides across the city to escape from both my thoughts and worries, and one night I was struck by the way the moonlight shone through the cover of darkness. This somehow comforted me and I understood it to mean that this wasn’t the end. That’s when this new body of work appeared in my studio. It’s something that happened in my studio without any intention. It was the only thing that brought me peace and comfort. I wanted to make something that showed my empathy towards that which we’d lost and captured a sense of hope capable of easing some of our collective fear and worry.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25, Interviewed: Sung Hwa Kim

AMM: Nature is a recurring motif in your work. Can you tell us more about your interest in the natural world and what this represents in your art? SHK: In my work, nature symbolizes a moment of pause. I’ve been living in the metropolis area for most of my life and when you are surrounded by constant movement, sometimes it feels like there is no place to escape, to space to stop and catch your breath. Nature became that breathing space for me. I was also drawn to the familiarity and accessibility that scenes depicting trees, the moon, flowers, possessed. Nature also represents the cycle of life and death. AMM: What ideas or themes are you currently exploring in your work? SHK: Lately, I’ve been exploring the concept of solitude, creating scenes that highlight single, often unexpected or hidden, sources of light. I’m hoping to propose different ways of looking, slower, closer, outward, and above all, introspectively. With the world changing rapidly around us, I want to examine our surroundings while contemplating a newfound, heightened awareness of self, being, and co-existence with the environment. AMM: What is your approach to colour? Please tell us about creating mood and atmosphere in your work. SHK: My approach to color is more like trying to capture the shifts of light within each subject. For example, when we think of an apple, we think that it contains the color red, but actually what we’re seeing is the color red being reflected from the object while other colors are being absorbed. If I were painting the night sky, it wouldn’t be just black or dark blue. When you stare at it for a while, you start to see hints of purple, red, yellow, green, etc. The shifts of light slowly unfold for the viewer to get a sense of the air and feelings of the space. I try to create the atmosphere of a painting by capturing those subtle shifts of light, paying equal attention to what’s being reflected and absorbed.

times when my mind gets all cloudy and clogged up, I hop on my bike and go for a ride. It helps me to not get caught up with my thoughts and it is a great way to open myself up to a moment that might inspire me to paint something. AMM: When you’re not in studio, where are we likely to find you? SHK: Well, before the pandemic, I was easily found at the corner bar next to my studio, haha, but now if I’m not at my studio, I’m probably on my bike. AMM: What are you watching, listening to, reading right now? SHK: I recently watched “Dreams” by Akira Kurosawa. It’s an eight-vignette film that was inspired by Kurosawa’s dreams and the cinematography just blew me away. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. I’ve been listening to this Korean band called Jaurim. The lead singer’s voice and their lyrics hit the spot. I just finished the book “I do not bid farewell” by Han Kang. It’s about the civilian massacre that happened on Jeju Island Korea on April 3rd, 1948. It really hit me hard on many levels. AMM: Do you have any projects or exhibitions coming up? What’s next for you? SHK: I’ll be in a group show sometime in the spring in London. Hopefully, you guys can see my work in person! Also, I’m getting ready for a solo show in June in New York.

AMM: Nocturne: One day I’ll become a star in the night sky and protect you forever and Sometimes I pass by it, and again I wait. Today, I miss you on a street with blooming flowers … Please tell us more about the wonderfully poetic titles of your artworks! SHK: The titles are an essential part of my work. They carry almost an equal amount of value as the images that I paint. I normally think about the titles while I make the paintings. I think of them as an entrance, a portal into the work, that sets up the tone for the viewer and guides them through the piece.

Featured image (p.18): Sung Hwa Kim Nocturne: The night returned to its sleep and silence acrylic and gouache on canvas 24 x 18 inches

Featured image (p.21):

AMM: Do you have any daily rituals or routines that feed you creatively? SHK: I’m not sure if it’s a ritual but a lot of

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25, Interviewed: Sung Hwa Kim

Sung Hwa Kim We are not that different, you and I acrylic and flashe on canvas 60 x 48 inches

Sung Hwa Kim Nocturne: You were told to suppress emotions, so no one sees you had a heart till your chest is open acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches

Sung Hwa Kim Nocturne: On the day when your long night ends, I will be there acrylic, flashe, and gouache on canvas 30 x 24 inches

Sung Hwa Kim Nocturne: One day I’ll become a star in the night sky and protect you forever acrylic, flashe, and gouache on canvas 30 x 24 inches

Sung Hwa Kim Sunset cast their shadows on me, feeling lost. Be my north star. Be my north star acrylic, flashe, and gouache on canvas 30 x 24 inches

Sung Hwa Kim Moonlit night, you will fade into the distance. And we will fall asleep, flooded with longing acrylic and flashe on linen 24 x 18 inches

Sung Hwa Kim The dreamer who cannot paint what he sees. She’s a vision that he’s lost in a dream acrylic and flashe on linen 30 x 24 inches

www.isabelcavenecia.org

Exploring the subterranean landscapes of the unconscious mind in Isabel Cavenecia’s drawings In Isabel Cavenecia’s ethereal drawings, diaphanous forms emerge from obscure landscapes like figures approaching through fog, bubbles rising through water, or faces looming in dreams. Whether depictions of fantastical creatures, mucilaginous shapes and plantlike formations, or human forms and recognisable objects, the unearthly quality of Isabel’s images situates them just beyond the grip of our reality. The forms sit somewhere between liquid, solid and gas, not adhering to any single state of matter. Her imagined spaces are inhabited by alien subjectivities, recurring pointy-eared creatures, and sometimes by female human bodies, all floating in air, water, undulating landscapes, prisms of light or large, vesicular sacs. Isabel tells us: “All the figures in my drawings are actually the same person”, inviting a perception of her forms as fluid, shifting elements with the ability to merge and transform, or to split and mutate like the cells of a living organism. The figures and shapes in Isabel’s drawings are formed by a process of gradual erasure. After clouding her paper with a crushed powder of graphite or pastel, Isabel searches for shapes which arise organically from the haze she has created—a process she likens to “scenes appearing in the desert after the dust settles down”. This intuitive act of groping in the mist for the image floating there is reflective of the dreaming mind reaching into its subconscious depths to dredge up memories, perceptions and half-formed thoughts from beneath the surface of the waking mind. Indeed, a preoccupation with the psyche is integral to Isabel’s work. For her, the images she creates are always indicative of the emotional, spiritual and psychological state in which she makes them. Significantly, this connection to her own mind becomes apparent to Isabel only once the image is complete and she attains a certain psychological distance from it; the actual perception of the forms waiting to be discovered in the dust requires a state of mind untethered from analytical or rational thought. The predominantly monochromatic palette serves to further remove Isabel’s drawings from quotidian existence—as if reflecting the incapacity of the human eye and the mind’s rational faculties in grasping the dimensions of the numinous or spiritual plane. In this way, Isabel’s images enact a process of defamiliarisation by which we are compelled to relinquish reality and enter a space governed not by the logic of physics or reason, but by the ability of the subconscious to move between states and dimensions of being via the imagination.

interview by Rebecca Irvin

Featured image: Isabel Cavenecia Sheila graphite on paper 59 x 42 cm

AMM: Can you tell us a bit about your practice and your background as an artist?

manner?’ Can you expand on the meaning behind this?

IC: I have tried a lot of different mediums as an artist. During my studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague (2010-2014) I was mainly doing performances, installations and videos. At that time I was interested in science fiction; I felt like the world was changing so rapidly and science fiction was the only way to keep up with the accelerated tempo. I read a lot of sci-fi and I Ioved to imagine how the world would look in the future. My thesis was about how science fiction could be used in art as a way to philosophise about the future. The performances I made often had a sense of wonder but also a certain clumsiness. For instance, I would wear a robot costume of aluminium foil, binoculars and blue rubber gloves while using an orange 70’s hair blow dryer to dry the grass of a garden which I made from coloured plastic straws. I was actually quite serious about my performances and never wanted it to be funny but people often found it funny due to its clumsiness.

IC: This is a sentence that I found in the diary of my great-uncle Pim Conradi (aka The Orbitect). The full sentence is: ‘Are we allowed to look at this universe in a bit different manner? And leave it to be where we are mere creators of nature’s creative energy flow?’ Pim Conradi wrote this sentence with colourful markers on a page in his diary that was given to me after his death. The sentence

After my graduation I started to learn the program Cinema 4D because I thought it was an easy way to design those imaginative futuristic spaces I always had in mind. By using this computer program I could play freely with gravity and all sorts of materials. I could make marble structures fly or create soft transparent ceilings that would dance. I did this for a couple of years until I decided that I didn’t want those imaginative buildings to be digital. For this reason I started to study architecture in Berlin because I thought I could learn how to build the imaginative floating spaces in real life. Eventually it turned out that the architecture study was more technical and less imaginative than I had anticipated. My ideas for buildings were often called ‘too fantastical’. Most of the study was about calculating things and remembering rules which were in my opinion not important for my ideas. Maybe I could have made great floating structures for outer space or the ocean, if I’d had the willpower to continue the studies. During my time at the university I was looking at a lot of architecture books in the library that had the most beautiful drawings of fantastical buildings never built in reality. I loved looking at the images and imagining how wonderful it would be to be in the space depicted. And I thought to myself—maybe it’s enough to see only a drawing of a building, maybe it’s not necessary to actually physically walk there. Maybe it’s even better, because you get to use your own imagination to decide how the depicted space would smell and sound. Drawing these spaces would allow me to escape from the digital aesthetics I disliked and to not be restricted by the physics of reality. The process of drawing felt so good that I decided I’d finally found my medium and I would draw for the rest of my life. AMM: A statement on your website reads: ‘Are we allowed to look at this universe in a bit different

“The figures and creatures solely come from the subconscious. I don’t know them before I draw them. But looking at them after, I can see how they represent different archetypes of the female psyche. Or at least my own psyche. In the book ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the author explores the female psyche through fairy tales from all over the world in which the protagonist is overcoming an obstacle by returning to its inner voice. Sometimes the female voice represented is beautiful and sweet, sometimes she is mysterious, other times she is wild and mean, then she can be aggressive, fragile or funny. She can be all those things. I can be all those things. So I think the creatures in my drawings represent which inner archetype is taking over at the time I make the drawing.” - Isabel Cavenecia immediately struck me when I read it. I put it on my website as an ode to my great-uncle. He was a man without a house and he hated square buildings. He said square buildings make square people. So he made his own geodesic domes out of found materials. A bit bucky I would say, although he always assured people that he didn’t like Buckminster Fuller at all. He was very spiritual about his architecture—a strong believer that the mathematical shape of a building would shape the mind of a human being and vice versa. He

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25, Interviewed: Isabel Cavenecia

was homeless by choice because he wanted to be free, nomadic. I actually only knew him through his diaries because he was a lost family member for a long time, and by the time he was traced to Oakland California he was in a coma because he fell from a ladder while working one of his domes. I went there on behalf of our family and got to know him by talking to his friends and reading all his diaries. To me he really came across as somebody who wanted to change the world through his shapes. He was very sensitive. He felt stuck in the system; he wanted to be free and floating, not obeying rigid structures and rules, but just creating, enjoying the wonders of the world and sharing his love. So this is how I interpreted the sentence in his diary: as if he were asking society permission to live a life that way. It has a certain sadness because, in a way, we are not allowed. But it also has a sense of hope—in that maybe it is a question we can address to our own inner authority instead of to society. AMM: What have been the major developments in your work since you began developing your practice? IC: Starting to work with C4D, because it allowed me to design spaces like composing music. For me, working with the computer was like working in a kind of laboratory where everything was possible. I could experiment with different spatial compositions and see how the shape and size of elements in a space would relate to the shape and size of a character. Playing in C4D for years was about discovering how characters relate to their surrounding and in which way I can use this composition of character and space to transmit a certain emotion or feeling. The other major development was starting to make graphite drawings and invent my own intuitive workflow with the graphite and paper. The images just flow from the paper now, like scenes appearing in the desert after the dust settles down. AMM: Where do the figures and creatures in your drawings come from? Are they purely imaginative? IC: The figures and creatures solely come from the subconscious. I don’t know them before I draw them. But looking at them after, I can see how they represent different archetypes of the female psyche. Or at least my own psyche. In the book ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the author explores the female psyche through fairy tales from all over the world in which the protagonist is overcoming an obstacle by returning to its inner voice. Sometimes the female voice represented is beautiful and sweet, sometimes she is mysterious, other times she is wild and mean, then she can be aggressive, fragile or funny. She can be all those things. I can be all those things. So I think the creatures in my drawings represent which inner archetype is taking over at the time I make the drawing. AMM: What relationships and dynamics exist

photo by Chiara Bonetti

between these figures? How do they interact in the landscape? IC: The figures always are related to the landscape. The landscape tells something about the situation in which the figure is in. And for that reason it can clarify the emotion of the figure. The figure and its outside world are always one. It’s like—when you are feeling anxious, the branches of a tree can suddenly look very aggressive and sharp. But the same branches can look sweet and friendly on another day when you feel good. I believe that one’s feeling influences the appearance of shapes in the outside world; other times the shapes of the outside influence the feeling. So it’s actually a bit like my great-uncle’s philosophy on spaces. All the figures from my drawings live in the same universe but on different levels. I have not figured out the exact map of that yet; it could also be that this map is more fluid or moves like a Rubik cube. This is something I would like to discover. Also—all the figures in my drawings are actually the same person. AMM: You’ve spoken in a previous interview about ‘female energy’ a phrase which definitely seems to resonate with the forms in your images—is this an important aspect of your work? IC: For a long time I didn’t even know I had access to female energy. But one time I was in Peru, where my father is from, and there I had Huachuma, a cactus which grows in the Andes. I was amazed by the beauty of the environment I saw with my eyes closed and my eyes open. I was thinking towards this environment— how can you be so incredibly beautiful? The environment communicated with me via shapes and sounds and eventually became a part of my body. During this process I felt like I was a real woman, for the first time in my life. I was twenty-five years old and I was always very awkward about being a woman—I probably am still quite awkward but to a lesser extent now. To me it was an energy of celebration, beauty, mystery, sensitivity, orgasm, strength and humour. I never deliberately intended to make things about female energy or use female shapes but I think it just happens automatically now. AMM: Many of your drawings are monochromatic— what significance does colour have in your work, when it appears? IC: The colourful ones are made when I felt more light and colourful, which is mainly in spring and in summer. AMM: What materials do you use to achieve the ethereal quality of your images? IC: I use 8B graphite, thin erasers and makeup brushes for the monochromatic ones, and I use soft pastel and coloured pencils for the colourful ones. The graphite and the soft pastel are first ground into powder and the makeup brushes help me to apply the material very softly.

AMM: Can you break down for us your process of making an artwork, from the idea to the finished piece? IC: I grind the graphite and apply it to paper with toilet paper. I rub the whole sheet of paper with the powder. After this, shapes begin to appear in the dusty graphite clouds. I choose the shapes that I find most interesting and start to erase the contours. Then I use a makeup brush to define the shape. Then I look into the paper further for another shape that I can add. Sometimes I can see the other shape in the graphite dust but sometimes I can’t. When that happens, I just look at the shape that I already have and try to see what it needs around it. This way of working is intuitive without any pre-conceived ideas. But when the drawing is finished, I can always see that it was representative of the state of mind I was in at the time of making. Until recently I have only worked in this way. Now I have made a new work which is a drawing of my shoes. This is the first work drawn from reality, something with a preconceived idea—purely because the shoes were resonating with me at the time. AMM: Your images have been pictured in direct contact with natural environments—beaches, snowy landscapes, wilted fauna, mossy tree trunks and rocky riverbeds—as part of the offsite group show, Phantasmagoria, curated by Katherine Borchsenius at Schloss Neuschwanstein, Bavaria. In what ways are nature and organic matter present throughout your work? IC: Nature is our mother and father; it speaks to us with its shapes, smells and sounds. I wish I knew more about how nature speaks. But I live in a city so I don’t know much. For this reason it’s my wish to live in nature and get to know it better. I think this wish for living in and with nature is visible in the work. AMM: Does your work intersect with other art forms, for example, photography, music, sculpture or film? IC: Music is one of the best things in the world for me. Putting on the right music can direct my drawing in the path of the melody. I also make music myself—but this process is more like a diary. I also admire filmmakers a lot. I tried to make a short sci-fi film once at the art academy. It was called ‘Tinku Tinku, a Marvelous Space Western’. But it’s not where my talent lies. I think eventually I would become more interested in designing the world and the characters than the story and dialogue. I hope one day to design a movie set for somebody.

sometimes but it’s more a fun way to explore different shapes. I can use parametric equations to create interesting shapes, then multiply or deform them towards surprising outcomes. When I was reading a lot of sci-fi I thought it would be amazing to be able to design a whole virtual world and then meet each other there and walk around in it. But the reality of the whole metaverse just makes me a little bit sick. Drawing helps me to keep touch with reality. AMM: What requirements do you have of your workspace so that you are able to create effectively? IC: Solitude, warmth, pleasant sounds and daylight. AMM: Where do you seek inspiration elsewhere in your life? Do you make sketches or notes for drawings when you’re away from your studio? IC: There is so much to see and feel in the world; it’s a bit overwhelming sometimes. I think the moments that make me feel a sense of wonder or peace are the ones I tend to write down because I want to capture them. I don’t make sketches because I don’t plan my drawings. But I’ve been thinking that in 2022 I want to start to experiment with sketching those moments instead of writing them, then turn those sketches into drawings. AMM: How do you find the creative community in Berlin? Do you often collaborate with other artists? IC: There is a great artist residency/community in Berlin, organised with a lot of love by the painter Alice Morey. It takes place in the summer at an abandoned hospital, surrounded by a forest and separated from the outside world by a nice lake. During the residency period different artists and musicians come together to sleep at the site, create and improvise all sorts of things together. It’s very experimental, free and totally mad at times. For me this is as close as I get to something which I would call a creative community in Berlin. I have been going there for several years and the spirit of this residency is all about creation and improvisation which is very liberating and inspiring. Other than that I’m not very embedded in the creative community. I think it’s because I always think I will move from Berlin soon to a warmer place, in nature. In the next few months I will go to Mexico, New Mexico and California to see how it would be to live there. I’m curious about what will happen to the drawings when I’m surrounded by desert and a lot of space. In the future, I would like to collaborate with sculptors, land artists and garden designers.

AMM: Can you tell us more about the extension of your work into the digital realm? IC: I only made digital works because it was an easy and cheap way to create whole universes. But the aesthetics of digital art are somehow very repulsive to me. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t like it. I still work with the computer

Featured image (p.32): Isabel Cavenecia Off She Goes graphite on paper 36 x 30 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25, Interviewed: Isabel Cavenecia

Isabel Cavenecia Two Souls in my Shoes graphite on paper 27 x 31 cm

Isabel Cavenecia A Cup of Fresh Water graphite on paper 59 x 84 cm

Isabel Cavenecia Heartbreak in Spring soft pastel and colored pencil on paper 36 x 36 cm

Isabel Cavenecia Getting to Know You soft pastel and colored pencil on paper 60 x 84 cm

Isabel Cavenecia The Fire that couldn’t catch the Groove graphite on paper 42 x 38 cm

Isabel Cavenecia The Devil was Once an Angel graphite on paper 80 x 100 cm

Isabel Cavenecia Back to the Groove soft pastel and colored pencil on paper 42 x 59 cm

Isabel Cavenecia Pregnant Horse and I soft pastel and colored pencil on paper 42 x 49 cm

curated selection of works by Danny Lamb founder of exhibition based platform @painterspaintingpaintings and ADZ gallery, based in Lisbon, Portugal Featured image: Henry Curchod Debt Free oil, oil stick and charcoal on linen 183 x 152.5 cm more on p. 46-47

K a t r i n e

B o b e k

www.instagram.com/ktrib_

Image: Observer ink and oil on canvas 120 x 170 cm

Katrine Bobek was born in 1990, and graduated from Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien in 2020; lives and works in Copenhagen. I often work from the conscious and subconscious mind. Both with care and being spontaneous I depict relations in the public and private landscapes. I use symbols and form characters influenced by literature, old animation cartoons and sociopolitical surroundings. It is woven together in a web of connection. What I paint can also come from things that I have seen and be quite personal. It is a connection between landscape, memories and present. I use oil paint and ink on canvas. The paintings are often quite thick because I use layers and layers of paint to build up the structure, not intentionally but many images are hiding underneath all of my paintings.

Image: The broken woodstick man ink and oil on canvas 120 x 170 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

H e n r y C u r c h o d

www.henrycurchod.com

Image: Healthy prisoners oil, oil stick and charcoal on linen 106.5 x 91 cm

Known for his large colourful figurative paintings, Curchod captures moments that are typically impressionistic, sensorial and fleeting. His work is one that also reflects his diverse cultural background. The son of KurdishIranian and Anglo-American parents, his images reference a rich myriad of visual forms that are Asian, European and Oceanic in origin. There is an intimacy to the works, both in terms of how they are composed—whirling ethereal scenes, often partial in view—and how his painted figures appear unselfconscious and natural. He is preoccupied with the romantic, and takes pleasure in illuminating the minutiae of life; idle moments of modest beauty that contain a natural poetry that can at times approach the profound. Rich in association—some contemporary, some traditional—the works themselves remain enigmatic and curious. Curchod presents the viewer with a series of paradoxes: the new and the old, the grand and the slight, the flippant and the reverent, the quotidian and the miraculous. These are paintings that have the capacity to both enthral and confound. They delight with their beauty, their engagement with the romantic and the sensational, but they also don’t shy away from the gravity and untidiness of the real world. Henry Curchod (b. 1992, Palo Alto, California, USA) currently lives and works in Sydney. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Arts from the University of New South Wales, his work has been exhibited in Australia, New Zealand and Europe. He was also the overall winner of the inaugural Belle ArtStart prize in 2017. He is presently working towards upcoming solo exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Image: Solutrean blunder oil, oil stick and charcoal on linen 106.5 x 91 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

D i a n e C h a p p a l l e y

www.dianechappalley.com

Image: I saw me seeing myself oil on flax 130 x 170 cm

Diane Chappalley (b.1991 Switzerland) is based in London. She accomplished her MA at the Slade School of Fine Art (2017) and previously her BA at City & Guilds of London Art School. Her work has been exhibited in the UK, Switzerland, Portugal and Hong Kong. She was an artist in residence at the Academy of Visual Art, Hong Kong Baptist University, HK. Her work has been selected for prizes including The Marmite Painting Prize (Block 336, London/Highlanes Gallery, Ireland). In 2018, she received the Alice Bailly Award from the foundation in Switzerland. My work articulates inner and outer worlds as psychological landscapes, through metaphorical sceneries and symbols. It is a reflection on intimacy, in which I investigate the consequences of the traumatic memory as defined by psychiatrist Muriel Salmona. This includes feelings of dissociation, phobia, insomnia, body sensations and depression. The imagery comes from literature, music and film that is a reflection of my experiences. Along these lines, my work includes birds as a symbol of domination and power. The bird is a metaphor for an abusive father as in Barbara’s famous song ‘L’aigle noir’ or a feared predator as depicted in du Maurier’s short story ‘The Birds’. The snake represents an ending of life, a release from the real, like in Cleopatra’s myth, as well as in The Little Prince. In their state of becoming, the flowers are a reflection of our fragility and that of the world we inhabit. They reflect what once was, what is, and what can become. I also recently started working with ceramics. In-between flowers and creatures, the ceramic sculptures are like anthropomorphic bodies. They are sexual, both male and female; a blend of a sexual act, within one form. I refer to them as ‘Stone flowers’ because they have been captured in time, like the traumatic memory.

Image: I cannot carry this body with me, it is too heavy oil on flax 170 x 220 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

C a t h e r i n e R e p k o

Image: A Mother to many Mothers’ daughters oil on canvas 160 x 180 cm

www.catherinerepko.com

Catherine Repko (b.1990), is a painter living and working in London. Her works are concerned with the enduring continuity of the relationship between her female figures and ‘collective memory’ of family dynamics. She uses paint to reenact moments from the past and place them into a new context. The colour palette and layers of scratchy underpaint remind us that the line between fiction and memory is thin if not non-existent. This year, the studio became filled with cheap print-outs of pixelated faces of my three sisters, faces from different angles, photographs of us together, now as women: embracing, hands held, fingers intertwined—a deep connection, empathy, love and history. Thinking about the space between us, as adults, how we support each other and what these female relationships mean to me as a woman now, I began painting. Four women.

Image: Boundless love oil on canvas 128 x 182 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

www.nathanaelleherbelin.com

N a t h a n a ë l l e H e r b e l i n

Image: Par manque oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm Collection Pinault

Nathanaëlle Herbelin is a Franco-Israeli artist based in Paris since 2011. She continues to travel regularly to paint in her native country. She received her Master’s degree from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA) in 2016 and was invited in 2015 to attend the Cooper Union (New York, USA). Her work has been presented, among others, at Bétonsalon (Paris, 2019); In Box (Brussels, 2018); Collection Lambert (Avignon, 2017); Fondation d’entreprise Ricard (Paris, 2017); Passerelle art center (Brest, 2020); Abbaye Sainte-Croix (Sables d’Olonne, 2019) and Beaux-Arts de Rennes (2018) museums where two of her paintings have entered their collections as well as the CNAP (2020). She has also had solo exhibitions in France (2021), Belgium (2018), China (2020), US (2019) and at the Palestinian art center Umm Al Fahem in Israel (2021). My painting practice may be compared to a one-woman-crew documentary filmmaker from my immediate surroundings, capturing subtle moments of everydayness that might otherwise go unnoticed. Despite their seemingly unremarkable nature, my images provoke identification as they oscillate between the personal and the universal, the intimate and the political. My art is based on “personal observations” or site-specific based, and I believe that the more honest and personal I am, the closer I’ll get to others. In my paintings I tend to create categories such as landscapes, interiors and figures. I often portrait people by painting their rooms and their objects—those interiors sometimes become a kind of mentallandscape; thus the categories might merge into one story. Bringing bodies together is also very present—the need to make their environment an object of study remains: the nudity of the bodies is softer and lighter. The contours are redrawn, the proportions recalled and subjected again to the laws of physics. As a result of the liberty they allow me to take while I paint them, I find a multiplicity of reliefs and graces in these bodies. Painting eases me to evaluate time as something palpable that always precedes or follows events. Eventually, I am just trying to live with mystery.

Image: Elene dans la baignoire oil on canvas 81 x 130 cm Collection Jean-Jacques Raquin

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

www.joshuaraz.wixsite.com/portfolio

J o s h

R a z

Image: On Thin Ice oil on canvas 165 x 165 cm

Josh Raz b. 8th December 1993, depicts figures navigating environments that either contract or dilate. Each composition appears warped by a lattice of images and lines, ensuring any ground that figures walk upon is gradually revealed to be laid on precarious foundations. This instability is compounded by the imagery of each work oscillating between the familiar and the fabricated. In welcoming indecision, the paintings are consequently anchored in their failed attempts at clarity. These aesthetic qualities are mirrored by some of the more intimate concerns of Raz’s current work. Primarily, Raz’s paintings reflect the negotiation between individualism and a desire to connect with others. By extension, they address a cultural shift from valuing external fact towards prioritising our individual emotions as a measure of reality: the idea that ‘if you feel it, then it is true’. Within some paintings, scenes are constructed that show external experience becoming increasingly walled off. Other paintings hint that this exists in tandem with our internal experience being given new avenues to explore: each road winding over another in a one-way spaghetti junction that coils inwardly, towards the self. At times, temporary rushes are sought to hot-wire a getaway, or perhaps to re-experience ourselves, or to re-establish our closeness to others. Within some of these paintings, the scenes crystallise the desire to flee from quotidian regularity and to seek ecstatic experiences as a means to this end. Their static nature hints that the expanded internal awareness offered by these rushes is enticing, yet always fades with time’s arrow. This in turn endows some paintings with a bathetic quality. Amongst the paintings shown there is numbness and its embrace. Found also is a refusal to accept this state and an attempt to depart and search for something new.

Image: On Thin Ice (Reprise) oil on canvas 180 x 130 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

R a c h e l

G r e g o r

www.rachelgregor.com

Image: Fourth of July gouache on toned paper 32 x 27 inches

Rachel Gregor is a fine artist living and working in Kansas City, MO. Born and raised in Minnesota, she graduated from Kansas City Art Institute in 2012 and has studied drawing and art conservation at Studio Arts College International in Florence, Italy. Working primarily in oil paint and gouache, Gregor creates psychological portraits of young girls caught between an awkward tension of girlhood and womanhood, innocence and sexuality. The wide-eyed and wistful girls are frozen in a state somewhere between boredom and melodrama. Her compositions are often warm and inviting yet loom with a sense of existential dread. The figures and their surroundings are self-referential as Gregor takes moments from her life, past and present, and attempts to form a bond of empathy with her adolescent self through the characters she creates.

Image: Sunbathers in the Weeds oil on linen 30 x 36 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

C h l o e

W e s t

www.chloe-west.com

Image: Pocketknife oil on linen 12 x 9 inches

Chloe West is a visual artist born and raised in Cheyenne, WY and currently based in St. Louis, MO. West earned her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2017 and her BFA from the University of Wyoming in 2015. West’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows at PM/AM (London), UNIT (London); projects+gallery (St. Louis); No Place Gallery (Columbus, OH); Monaco (St. Louis), and Practise (Oak Park, IL), among others. West’s work has been featured in Booooooom, Artsinsquare, and Silver Space and she is the recipient of the 2021 Creative Stimulus Award from Critical Mass for the Visual Arts. West is a Lecturer at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art at Washington University in St. Louis. West creates figurative paintings that examine the complex history of the nude body within the art historical canon, specifically paintings of the female nude. The politics of looking and the history of representation of the body are at the forefront of her image making process. Her work deconstructs the male gaze, to reimagine the female nude, and question collective notions of beauty and representation. Her work is highly detailed, labor intensive, and engages in close looking to unveil tender portrayals of the body. West’s work is strongly driven by her upbringing in Wyoming and explores how the body navigates and orients itself in space. Her images examine how the body relates to the Western landscape. She creates images of herself in Wyoming and with collected objects encountered on hikes in the High Plains. These objects are often animal bones that lie scattered throughout the vast land. These bones became symbolic of her homeland, which is both breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly harsh. The work references iterations of the female nude throughout history and tropes in Flemish and Dutch painting such as the memento mori and vanitas painting. West’s images seek to acknowledge and confront the gaze while examining the historical tropes of painting and celebrating the craft of the medium.

Image: Two Bones oil on linen 20 x 16 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

T h é o

V i a r d i n

www.instagram.com/theo.viardin

Image: The remaining time of the storm oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm

Théo Viardin’s oil paintings explore the modes of representation of emotion, depicting surreal humanoid figures that engage in intimate and melancholic relations. Colossal and fragile, these figures flare up in burning reds and darken in sharp blues, reflecting and attuning to the light of the canvas around them. Ideas of race and gender don’t apply to their comprehension, whether it is because these concepts were never part of the picture or because they evolved to embody all and none of them. The scenes presented showcase narratives of melancholic intimacy in the context of a tightly-knit community. Viardin identifies his characters as “the last living humans”,imagining their story at each subsequent painting: how would they behave and what feelings would define their relationships when the end is looming? The colour choices facilitate the understanding of their existential moods, shifting from warmth to coldness. The color palette and the use of light are as important to storytelling as the dynamics at play: they set the stage and mimic the states of mind of the actors in front of them. Light glows on their skin and functions as abstract background for their tribulations. Through a narrativebased approach, the artist paints snapshots of a distant world where life moves slowly and notions of physical closeness and emotional attachment dictate the pace of its unraveling.

Image: Un endroit qui me paraisse suffisamment sûr oil on canvas 130 x 162 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

M o r t e z a K h a k s h o o r

www.mortezakhakshoor.com

Image: Bad Foot acrylic on panel 20 x 23 inches

Morteza Khakshoor (b. 1984 Iran) moved to the United States in 2010 and studied sculpture and printmaking in various schools across the country. He currently lives and works in Southern California, focusing mainly on painting, drawing, and printmaking. Like anyone who has emigrated/ immigrated, the inevitable complexity of one’s own split identity often begins to materialize in some manner in their life and work. At least technically, Khakshoor’s pictures are all composites: the product of dismantling and re-arranging myriad individual works to make an amalgam—a Frankensteinian image created from the castoffs of prior works. The images he focuses on are narrative building: a type of armchair psychoanalysis or even charlatanism on display. But all of this equally suggests a sort of discombobulated view of the body recalling a more psychological bent, and throughout the works, we begin to understand the hybrid world Khakshoor is interested in creating. In Khakshoor’s imagery, one can extrapolate Freudian ideas of the subconscious, or begin to see how this leans into politics of the mind, spirit, and body: which is not so distanced from a Jungian point of view, where the soul plays a part in understanding psyche and our collective human experience. Khakshoor has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally since 2011. Solo exhibitions include ‘Forty-One Drawings and Prints’, University Art Gallery, California State University (2018) and ‘What Has Become of Your Strength’, George Mason Atrium Gallery, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (2016). Group Exhibitions include, ‘Strange Paradigm’, Young Space Views, (2021); ‘Humoral Theory’, (3-Person Exhibition), BEERS London, UK (2020); ‘Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair’, London, UK; ‘Art on Paper Fair’, The Tunnel, NY (2019) and 2018 Editions Artists’ Book Fair (E/AB), New York, NY. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Inaugural Emerging Artist Award given at the Editions/Artists’ Book Fair (E/AB) in 2018. His works are in several private and public collections, most notably the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City.

Image: Martyr in the Morgue acrylic and crayons on panel 19 x 24 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

S h a b n a m J a n n e s a r i

www.shabnamjannesari.wixsite.com/portfolio

Image: Green House oil on canvas 55 x 67 inches

Shabnam Jannesari is an Iranian artist who received her MFA with distinction in Studio Art at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She has exhibited her work in the United States and abroad. Most recently she had a solo exhibition, The Carpet Grew Like a Garden, in Cambridge, MA and participated in the group exhibition Crossing Cultures in Boston. This spring her paintings and drawings were included in the Fidelity’s corporate collection. She is a recipient of the Distinguished Art Fellowship at the University of Massachusetts—Dartmouth and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, Canada (2020). She incorporates both drawing and painting to explore the memories and nostalgia of distant intimacies in her life through narrative. She illuminates the plight of the Iranian woman—censored by an overreaching patriarchy. Jannesari’s paintings express her personal story, but they also reflect on the life of suppressed Iranian women in general. Jannesari carefully composes the figures which empowers the complex reality of Iranian female identity. My work challenges the oppression of women by the Islamic patriarchy in Iran. The opposition is not explicit or radical in my paintings and drawings, rather, I seek to create a different kind of world for my figures, one that has a quiet kind of power, and is intimate and free. The heterotopic dreamscapes I construct create the possibility for escape from the reality of oppression, a space in which the women in my art and in my life are empowered and can exist freely. These paintings tell the stories of the life I left behind. In my work, I explore the bittersweet nostalgia of distant intimacies in my life. My closest friends and family are transformed into figures in surreal and hopeful visions of an alternate reality. My paintings express my personal story, but they are relatable to any woman who has been censored, sexualized, or otherwise oppressed by a patriarchal society. I carefully compose my figures in heterotopic spaces to reveal and empower the Iranian female identity. I flip the artistic tradition of objectified or idealized female forms intended to suit the male gaze. My subjects stare back and confront not only the viewer, but the notion that women should have to be anything other than their truest self. By reinventing and creating imaginary space, I construct an abstracted, highly emotive world and illuminate the plight of the Iranian woman censored by an overreaching patriarchy. Through this, I am reclaiming multiple aspects of my identity as an Iranian female and, thereby, establishing my longing for genuine selfhood.

Image: Azin is Getting Married oil on canvas 50 x 82 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

F e r g a l S t y l e s

www.instagram.com/fergalstyles

Image: The Jesuit’s House oil, acrylic and glitter isolant on canvas 120 x 100 cm

Fergal Styles (b. 1992) is an artist living and working in Dublin, Ireland. He uses a wide variety of media to create works that move between low realism and high abstraction. Fergal graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2016) and in 2018 completed a fellowship at Wendy’s Subway Brooklyn, NYC. In 2020, Wendy’s Subway published Goliard/Methexis a publication by himself and artist Cillian Finnerty. Fergal has received funding awards from public bodies such as the Arts Council of Ireland and DLR Arts. His work has been included in recent exhibitions such as ‘In A New Light’ at ArtCityWorks London, and ‘Rising’ at HangTough Contemporary, Dublin. His work is held in both public and private collections. ‘ I make art because I am optimistic. Dog’s teeth, disembodied legs, kitchen tiles, plant pots, blue splots and glitter-covered-bunting contest the shifting surfaces of my paintings. I smuggle things in and hide away others, always hoping the work will spring something unexpected upon me. I utilise a wide variety of media in an attempt to breach the picture plane and in extension, the dream-like nature of reality. I am playful, and material experimentation allows for the subject of my work to remain emergent. I anticipate my imagination’s own agency and let images come forward from the inside out. I make art because I am optimistic.

Image: Some Special Dharma Rug acrylic and oil on canvas 96 x 91 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

www.capsuleshanghai.com/artists/56-cai-zebin/works

C a i

Z e b i n

Image: The Reader acrylic on canvas 146.5 x 174.5 cm

Cai Zebin (b. 1988) is a visual artist based in Shantou, Guangdong province in Southern China. He graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2012. Selected solo exhibitions include: A Revisit at 2 bis rue Perrel, Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2020); Laval, Paris Internationale, Paris, France (2019); The Defense, Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2018); Olive, NUOART Gallery, Beijing, China (2015). He has participated in the following group shows: Metaphorical Reality, Almine Rech, Shanghai, China (2020); Exhibition of Young Power, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2020); Night Tour of the Pearl River, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2019); City Unbounded, Jing’an Sculpture Park, Shanghai, China (2018); The Latch, That Obscure Object of Portrait, C-Space+Local, Beijing, China (2017); A+ Contemporary, Taipei, Taiwan (2016); Hinterland Project, Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2015). Cai Zebin’s work was featured on Artforum, Leap, Artshard, Art Frontier, ArtAsiaPacific, and Contemporary Art Daily.

Image: Breeze #2 acrylic on canvas 155 x 167 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

J i

W o o

K i m

Image: The Particles of Your Sphere oil on canvas 36 x 18 inches

Ji Woo Kim is an artist interested in portraying the Asian American and immigrant experience through paintings that depict scenes from her own background as a first-generation immigrant. She is interested in the question of how we as individuals define home, and where home lies for people with variegated cultural identities like herself. Her recent works focus on portraying group scenes based on her mother’s college years in South Korea, in which one can get a sense of community and solidarity that Kim and most first-generation immigrants are rarely permitted growing up. Upon realization that unlike herself, people like Kim’s mother, who grow up and spend the majority of their lives in a country that they are native to, are able to fully belong to a community, an environment, and to one another, she became interested in comparing her mother’s life to hers. In this aspect, Kim depicts scenes from a life that she perhaps could have had, but never did have, focusing on the feelings of dissonance she experiences between cultural and physical environments. Ji Woo Kim is currently based in New York, New York. She received her BFA in Painting along with a minor in Art History with Highest Honors from Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) in 2018. Since then, her work has been exhibited internationally in group exhibitions held in Paris, Hong Kong, and New York. Most recently, she presented her debut solo exhibition, “We Yearn to Belong,” at ATM Gallery NYC.

www.jiwoo-kim.com

Image: Numbers Are Something I Didn’t Have oil on canvas 12 x 16 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

S a r a h

D a v i d s o n

Image: Fell watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 11.75 x 17.5 inches

Sarah Davidson works primarily between drawing and painting to create compositions in which shadowy, biomorphic figures and delicate, foliated fragments mingle. Making reference to a history of discourses constructing the ‘natural’ world, their works investigate bodies, environment, observation, and the tangled strings which often bind them together. While they often draw directly from ‘nature’, their drawings diffract distinctions between embodied self and other through a queer ecological lens: critters and space collapse in upon one another, suggesting a permeable web. Both the eye and the mind work towards the known – animals, plants, brush marks, lines—but are caught in a space of undoing. A question floats among the forms: who’s seeing who, and how? Sarah Davidson (she/they, b. 1989, Ottawa) lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. She has exhibited her work at Feuilleton (Los Angeles); Cassandra Cassandra (Toronto); Erin Stump Projects (Toronto); Unit 17 (Vancouver); The Power Plant (Toronto); Little Sister (Toronto); Birch Contemporary (Toronto); The New Gallery (Calgary) and Audain Gallery (Vancouver), among others. She was a finalist in the 2018 RBC Canadian Painting Competition, and is the recipient of awards and residencies including the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grant (2021), The Banff Centre’s Late Winter BAiR (2020), and AiR Sandnes residency in Sandnes, Norway (2016). She holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design (2015) and an MFA from the University of Guelph (2019).

www.sarahdavidson.ca

Image: Dizziness watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon on paper 17.5 x 12 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

J o c h e n

M ü h l e n b r i n k

www.jochen-muehlenbrink.com

Image: The House oil on canvas 180 x 150 cm

Jochen Mühlenbrink (b. 1980) lives and works in Düsseldorf and Oldenburg, Germany. He began his studies in 2001 at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 2007 as an MA student at Markus Lüpertz. Since then, his works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions such as: Kunstmuseum, Solingen; Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn; KIT, Düsseldorf; Kunsthalle, Osnabrück; MoratInstitut, Freiburg; Osthaus Museum, Hagen; Kunsthalle, Wilhelmshaven; Kunsthal, Rotterdam; Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen and Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam. His works can be found in various private and public collections, including: G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig; Stadtmuseum, Oldenburg; Deutsche Bundesbank; National-Bank or De Groen Fine Art Collection, Arnhem. His seventh monograph, JM, was published by Kettler Verlag in 2020. Perhaps best known for his exquisite trompe l’oeil techniques, Jochen Mühlenbrink’s latest series of paintings can best be regarded as a philosophical approach to painting. By executing seemingly natural optic effects in paint, he is investigating the ambiguity of reality. Mühlenbrink’s works are depictions of physical reality, fictitious images and physical objects at the same time. Fogged windowpanes, for example, are in reality nothing but oil on canvas and exist both through the illusion they produce and the material of which they consist. These fogged windows are balancing between a celebration of painterly illusion and dystopian iconoclasm. The fog panes— their pristine surfaces disturbed by a seeming finger—at once become an image-in-image and also show what can be seen through them. While the paintings are nothing but oil on canvas, Mühlenbrink appears to construct reality from paint, both as an illusion and as the object itself. The tension his paintings produce, especially in relation to the connection between perception and expectation (that what we see, what we think we see and what we see because we expect to see it), is an experience that is upsetting our idea of reality: we see an illusion, but we are simultaneously convinced by the power and autonomy of pure paint.

Image: The Cut oil on canvas 180 x 150 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

E d i n Z e n u n

www.instagram.com/edinzenun

Image: Rosa Canina 4 oil on canvas 10.2 x 8.2 inches

Edin Zenun (Skopje, 1987) lives and works in Vienna. Zenun’s work centers on painting and its intrinsic questionings around composition, the interaction of form and color, and its materiality by exploring handmade pigments, oil and clay. His paintings examine the space between abstraction and figuration and the interface between the retina and the brain, where individual parts transform into a whole. His work has been exhibited at Belvedere 21, Vienna; Auto Italia, London and Zeller van Almsick, Vienna among others. Edin’s practice expands to organising exhibitions, since 2017 he has been a founder and board member of project space Pina and the exhibition platform Haus Wien.

Image: för Hilma oil on canvas 10.2 x 8.2 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: curated selection

editorial selection of works Featured image: Seline Burn Take the lead oil on paper and wood 147 x 86 cm more on p. 86-87

E l i

d e

H a a s

www.elidehaas.com

Image: Kleine Slaper oil on linen 70 x 75 cm

Eli de Haas (b. 1999, Rotterdam, NL) has studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. He lives and works in Rotterdam, NL. There is something intangible about the world around us. Something not fixed. Image has something very dynamic. It deforms and changes, with its environment and in itself. While working I meet a stream of shifts. I keep wandering in-between the known and the unknown. And there, in that interspace, something new reveals itself. Something I didn’t know about before. The inner and the outer seem to enter into a conversation and form a moment together. A work creates its own world, like a shadow, which lives on independently of me or its origin. And it is precisely because of this individuality/otherness that it has something to say, that it can give a resonance. Figures appear to be looming out of an unclear distance. From Eli de Haas’s painting emerges an introverted gesture. Foreground and background, subject and surrounding, are flowing with the same inward motion. In speaking about his process, de Haas noted: “Imagery has the ability to work in an unstable, shifting manner. While meeting a stream of transformations, I keep wandering in between the known and the unknown. It is in this realm of interval, that an expressive silence can be found.” Perhaps the notion of interval could be seen as a significant aspect of the artist’s work. Between mundane objects and brightly colored meadows, between liminal shapes and posing figures, echoes the interval between the I and Thou. Not existing out of a single fact, but alive in the in-between. A sky is carefully being pushed away, as a little candle keeps burning in the night. A field of intimacy is exposed, while bringing along a distinct sense of otherness. Through his unique use of compositional tensions and softly articulated figuration, Eli de Haas’s paintings express a fresh reading on social structures, on moments of interchange.

Image: Untitled oil on linen 80 x 60 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

B a r r y

M c G l a s h a n

www.barrymcglashan.com

Image: Boundary oil, paper and varnish on panel 30 x 21.5 cm

Born and raised in Aberdeen on the North East coast of Scotland, Barry McGlashan studied painting at Gray’s School of Art graduating in 1996. In 1998 he returned to Gray’s School of Art where he continued to teach in the drawing and painting department until 2005 when he left teaching to pursue painting full time. Winning the Alastair Salvesen Scholarship at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2001, McGlashan used the funds to travel through the United States for three months. This trip became the starting point for several exhibitions based on this and subsequent journeys taking him through the Mid-West, the Southern States and West Coast. In recent years McGlashan’s fascination with exploration and discovery has led him on a notional journey through historical travellers, writers and famous artists and their studios. More recently, these research-based paintings have given way to more expressive, imaginative works related to memory, dreams and the nature of the painting as object. Examples of his work are held in many private and public collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, the Scottish Society (New York) and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. In 2019 he was invited to exhibit in the historical studio of the Flemish Master Peter Paul Rubens at the Rubenshuis Museum in Antwerp. More recently, he was part of the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (2020) and in 2021 was also invited to exhibit in a group show with Galleri Magnus Karlsson in Sweden, curated jointly by Instagram’s ‘Mothflower’ and gallerist Magnus Karlsson.

Image: Summer Night oil on canvas laid over panel 30 x 21.5 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

O l e g

Ts y b a

www.olegtsyba.com

Image: The Rape of Europa oil on canvas 180 x 180 cm

Oleg Tsyba is a Russian artist. In my artwork I explore the form in its primary manifestation. Most often, the subject for my work is an ancient mythology. These themes are always relevant to Humanity—they tell us about love, sex, passion and death. They inspire me to create.

Image: Venus with the Mirror oil on canvas 170 x 170 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

www.selineburn.com

S e l i n e B u r n Image: I don’t know, but I won’t fade oil on paper and wood 105 x 115 cm

Born in 1995 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Seline Burn works with drawing and painting. Keeping them in the manner of a journal, her work is fueled by recent experiences, distant dreams and internal processes. The Swiss artist summarizes these intangible themes in a clear, colorful interplay of light and shadow, expressing the accessibility to her inner life.

Image: Back of Your Hands oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

M a y a

W e i s h o f

www.instagram.com/mayaweishof

Image: Povoar o Tempo oil on linen 200 x 135 cm

Maya Weishof was born in 1993, in Curitiba, PR, Brazil, and lives and works in São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Weishof develops her practice in painting as a visual possibility based on her interest in the figurative. The artist uses fragments, distortions, caricatures and hybrid creatures when conceiving images in which body and landscape reveal themselves as substance to each other. Weishof takes drawing as the core of her work as she builds it from memories, myths, scenes that dialogue with the history of art or, more specifically, with the history of images. Her work tries to escape the premise of a narrative that is linear or closed in itself, expanding the figurative aspect to an imaginary of multiple semantic unfoldings. Maya graduated in Visual Arts at the Universidade Federal do Paraná—UFPR in 2016, she was selected for the artist residency program of Zaratan Arte Contemporânea in Lisbon, Portugal, and also for the Novas Poéticas, program that included Visual Arts students from all over Brazil. In 2017, the artist participated in the group of practical investigations in painting under the guidance of artists Regina Parra and Rodolpho Parigi in São Paulo and at the SESI Visual Arts Center, oriented by artist Ricardo Basbaum. In the second half of 2018, she participated in the exhibition project Confluências Poéticas at SESC Paço da Liberdade in Curitiba. In 2019, Weishof was selected for the artist residency program Pivô Arte e Pesquisa, in São Paulo. In the same year, she was invited by Cisterna Galeria in Lisbon to participate in the C-Lab artist residency program. In 2020 she opened her individual show “Espelho Espanto” curated by Fernanda Brenner at Simões de Assis, São Paulo. Also in 2020 Maya realized the site specific project “Primeiros Sóis” at Auroras, São Paulo. In 2021 Maya participated at Kupfer Residency Project at Kupfer Projects in London.

Image: Todo mundo viu oil on linen 260 x 220 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

M a r c e l o C a n e v a r i

www.instagram.com/marcelocanevari

Image: The Offerings acrylic on canvas 150 x 200 cm

Marcelo Canevari was born Buenos Aires in 1984. As a teenager he started painting with his father, who’s a biologist as well as an artist. They have worked together painting for numerous field guides of animals from Argentina. In 2019, he had his first solo show, “Our last camp” at C.C.Matienzo. His work can be found in galleries, and also in other mediums such as album covers, movie posters, and children’s books. His paintings have been selected in numerous contests. His work emerges as a game between father and son. An only piece painted in turns. Through several months, every day, each one is surprised by the work of the other and continues it. The same way a generation follows the previous one, without extinction, their differences coexist in the same territory, the canvas, trying to leave its mark. The objective of the work is to harmonize its differences without covering them up. In the realism of the natural landscape, oniric creatures sprout in the place as if it were their own. The gloomy landscape, the darker tones at the backround, with leaking lights throughout the branches, take part as a theatrical space for the scene.

Image: Our last camp acrylic on canvas 80 x 120 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

G r a c e K e n n i s o n

www.gracekennison.com

Image: Fall of the Rebel Angel acrylic on canvas 60 x 48 inches

Grace Kennison is an artist and painter exploring female-centric visions and stories of violence, resistance, and tribulation inspired by women’s complicated history in the American West: Growing up in the foothills of Northern Colorado, the bed of the Rocky Mountains near Fort Collins encouraged a strong relationship between the natural landscape and myself which heavily defied the alienating feelings in relation to ongoing urbanization of the Colorado Piedmont and a burgeoning suburban landscape. My work supposes land as a natural phenomenon is fundamental to construction of identity, memory, and spirituality as humans. Pulling from a long history of romanticization of western life and land in popular culture and art, my artwork fabulates intersecting narratives and fantasies of white women engaged in embittered relationships with themselves, nature, animal companions, other women, and god. Often reflective of personal explorations of violence and womanhood in the context of a post-colonial and late-capitalistic western world, my work can often be read as lamentations of failed symbiosis and troubled links to the natural world or my own identity in honoring and harmonizing with land that we make home.

Image: Anger is a Killing Thing acrylic on canvas 54 x 54 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

K i e r e n

J e a n e

www.kierenjeane.com

Image: Tell Me What To Do oil on canvas 54 x 44 inches

Kieren Jeane’s recent oil paintings are imagined landscapes of the life of two personas: the Moon Man and the Liar. The moon has been the subject of myths, fairytales, and epic poems as a spiritual and supernatural being often portrayed as feminine. However, astronomically, the moon is orbiting away from humans an inch and a half each year, to someday allow the ocean to swallow the shores and electromagnetic fields to self-destruct. Based on these facts about the moon, she depicts the personified moon as a man that denies stepping forward and committing to true devotion. The liars have also been subjects of many myths, such as Odysseus, Tereus, and many other male characters in Greek Mythology. However, in the contemporary world, women live in places to become liars for their safety and social reputation. Through the relationship between the Liar and the Moon Man, she suggests an allegory of love, which is highlighted through the contrast between the intimate composition of figures and bleak facial expressions. This particular body of work delves into the imperfect nature of love, and some of the works can be seen at Project Gallery V and 440 Gallery.

Image: Your Pain in the Palm of My Hand oil on canvas 60 x 60 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

www.lindseybull.com

L i n d s e y

Image: Into the woods oil on linen 200 x 150 cm

B u l l

Lindsey Bull (b.1979) lives and works in Manchester, UK. Her work explores different states of psychologies through figurative painting. Transforming imagery that has a particular potency for her, Bull is drawn to ideas of mythology, altered states and cults. She has an interest in individuals or groups of people that may be considered on the fringes of mainstream culture and society. Investigations into rituals, performance, fashion and magic come together to create scenarios of imagined myth making in her paintings. Bull has exhibited widely, nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: John Moores Painting Prize (2021); British Painting, Space K, Seoul (2019); Dressing Up (solo), bo.lee gallery, London (2018); We Are Where We Are, Baltic 39, Newcastle (2018); Vanitas, Marrow Gallery, San Francisco (2017); Lindsey Bull & Plastique Fantastique, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2017); Undergrowth (solo), bo.lee gallery, London (2017); Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists, India Buildings, Liverpool (2016). She was selected for the Atlantic Centre for the Arts Residency, Florida with master-in-residence Jules de Balincourt (2018). Awards and prizes include: Elizabeth Greenshields Grant Award (2017); Liverpool Biennial Associate Artist (2016-18); Red Mansion Art Prize (2010) and winner of the Brenda Landon Pye Prize (2009). She is included in the prestigious publication The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting, Anomie, Matt Price (2018) and had a solo exhibition at bo-lee gallery in November 2021. Forthcoming is a group exhibition at Marlborough gallery early 2022 and her first solo exhibition in New York March 2022 (ALLCITY.SPACE).

Image: The moors oil on linen 183 x 152 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

Y u e

L i

www.mellowmeadow.com

Image: Tear Sento watercolor 23 x 34 cm

Yue Li, also known as Mellow Meadow is an enthusiastic illustrator from Shanghai and is based in New York. Her work explores female identities and the idea of ‘intimacy’ in different contexts, in combination with nature and mystical beings. She loves to draw her imagination of the occult, fantasies and wild dreams with watercolor and colored pencils. She was interviewed by It’s Nice That and is the recipient of the 2021 Society of Illustrators Nancy Lee Rhodes Roberts Scholarship Award. Many of her works, including “Girl’s Bathhouse Diptych” and “Genesis”, were exhibited in LATITUDE Gallery, New York; Madein Gallery, Shanghai; M50 Museum, Shanghai etc.

Image: Queendom colored pencil 17 x 37 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

M a n u e l

B i s s o n

www.manuelbisson.com

Image: Run fast stay alive acrylic on canvas 12 x 16 inches

100

Manuel Bisson lives and works in Montreal. His artistic approach is distinguished mainly by two disciplines, namely painting and digital drawing. He completed his Bachelor of Visual and Media Art at UQAM in 2011, since then his work has been included in many group and solo exhibitions. He has participated in many Contemporary Art Fairs like PAPIER 14-15-16- 19 and in the exhibitions of several auctions in artist run centers including Galerie CLARK, Galerie B-312, centre CIRCA and L’Écart. In addition, his works have been shown in culture centers in Canada and Italy and his work has recently been exhibited at the Delphian Gallery and with Artistellar both in London UK. He has also been published in ArtMaze Magazine as well as the FOA book in Dallas, Texas. Manuel Bisson creates his images from a reflection on color, blurring, vibration and the scale of multiple perceptions. His language from drawing and painting operates both through digital culture and in the artist’s studio. The images he creates act as interfaces between the real and the improbable in a transpictural space border between video games, painting, drawing and fantasy. For him, a drawing always remains a landscape. The airbrush rendering of certain forms found in his images, recall the culture of tag and street graffiti. The world of concrete, the monolithic forms of Bauhaus architecture or Brutalism have always informed his approach. But beyond this surface language, the environment, nature and the animal world remain at the heart of his concerns. In his current work, Manuel Bisson uses different printing materials and methods to bias and foil his own knowledge of images. Oversized, reduced or transferred to new materials, Bisson endeavors to migrate his images to new realities of perception which combine relatable imagery in uncanny and unexpected situations. He summons the public to enter a spatial alchemy bordering science fiction, the occult and a magical and poetic formalism.

Image: Soon is now acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches

101

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

K a m i l

K u k l a

www.kamilkukla.com

Image: 21REK oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm

102

Kamil Kukla, born in 1989 in Tarnow, Poland, is a visual artist and musician who lives and works in Kraków. 2008 – 2013: studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. April – May 2017: participated in the Artist-in-residency programme in MeetFactory in Prague. August 2017: took part in the Artist-in-residence program in Dukley Art Community in Kotor, Montenegro. Kamil Kukla’s works are part of the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk, MOCAK the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art in Kraków as well as many private collections in Europe. I like to think about some of my paintings as corporal landscapes. In my work I often represent a division of ground in the lower part of the canvas and sky in the upper one. That way, I set the stage for a free flow of forms that I create on the go in a painting process that is very much improvised. Some of these shapes indeed resemble biological forms which clearly shows that I have a strong affinity for this kind of imagery. I guess that I am still under the influence of some baroque era artists who depicted every element of the painting in that manner. I really like paintings that are overfilled with almost frenetic physicality that can be overwhelming and even unbearable to the viewer. My method is to create art that has very strong physicality and visual intensity and is very open-ended when it comes to possible explanations. There are, however, a lot of different inspirations and visual areas existing in different realms of our culture that I like to draw upon – and in that sense you can approach what I do from many different perspectives and through a different lens. But there is no one big topic that defines and explains what I do and I see it as advantageous.

Image: 21SKE oil on canvas 160 x 180 cm

103

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

E m m a

R o s e

K e n n e d y

www.emmarosekennedy.co.uk

Image: Fantasy Football oil on aluminum 10 x 12 inches

104

Emma Rose Kennedy was born and raised in the sticky swamps near Miami. Ever restless, she was eventually swept up by the swift waters of the Gulf Stream and washed ashore on another peninsula, in the beautiful and mysterious Penzance in Cornwall, UK. She was trapped by its magic and now lives and works in Penwith in Cornwall, while also completing her MFA in painting at the Slade, London. One of the 21st Century’s slowest painters, her meditative and meticulous practice explores moments of quiet—when the mind slips to daydream and reality gives way to something else. Her practice has always drawn greatly from myths, legends and art history, and moving to Cornwall has pushed her even further down the rabbit hole into Arthurian legend, Cornish folklore, Victorian fairy painting and occult art. She is fascinated with the blurred lines between fantasy and reality, contemporary life and timeless religious and folk stories, personal bodies and universal thoughts. Her small paintings on aluminum seek to explore these gaps, hoping to act as two-way mirrors, quietly bridging the physical and dream worlds, even if just for a moment.

Image: Dream of My Chimera oil on aluminum 10 x 12 inches

105

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

Z a c h a r y L a n k www.zacharylank.com

Image: Hissing Air oil on linen 36 x 48 inches

106

Zachary Lank (b. 1989) is an artist/curator based out of Brooklyn, New York. Interested in exploring themes of deep ecology, mythmaking, and metafiction, Lank’s paintings propose allegorical alternate histories (or possible futures) where trespasses committed against the environment eke their slow toll. For Lank, these violences are twofold: at once impersonal yet sown by their victims. Irony and black humor mingle with a love of the Idyll. The toxic bucolic and nature’s splendor, triumphant yet envenomed, hold court over human subjects that mistake themselves for masters. In pseudo-historical Vice dramas, Lank gestures a gloved hand at the notion that “civilization” as such is only thus through desperate depredation. The paintings posit a kind of metamorphosis made necessary by long dissociation. Faces are replaced with palsied masks as singleminded toil begets toil. My subjects are not the subject, but rather their enactors. Act and role have taken over the primacy of the individual. The arch-myth of human conquest over nature subverts into a mythopoeic of labor and folly. Likewise, my tableaus become Vice plays; pseudo-historical tragicomedies set in an imagined past.

Image: Pneumatic Wheeze oil on linen 36 x 48 inches

107

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

M a r c L i b r i z z i

Image: Home for Fire 1 cast bronze with silver nitrate, beeswax 13 H x 7 W x 7 D inches

108

Marc Librizzi (b. 1997) is a New Jersey born artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Working across drawing, painting, and sculpture, Librizzi employs the functional logic and material language of furniture, even if its aims: comfort, usability, interchangeability, are absent. Through shifts in scale and the properties of material, a new form of architecture is created with memory and sentiment as its brick and mortar. Within this space structures fold and expand as you float in and between recognizable built and cerebral space.

www.instagram.com/marc_librizzi

Image: Lifting Folds, Making Creases; Soon to Be oil on canvas, glass, solder 27 H x 31 W inches

109

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 25: editorial selection

W i l l i a m

G r o b

www.williamgrob.com

Image: Home Office oil on linen 150 x 160 cm

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Lost Millennials started as a medium to try and understand the social situation of today’s and yesterday’s generation. Rather than try and depict scenes of friends and family I choose to create scenarios, distant lands that seem familiar but come from a place unknown to myself and the spectator, this is where memory and fantasy come together. It’s the generation of salt lamps and avocados, we were told we could do anything and be anyone, we went to school we achieved degrees and for a large part left unemployed. Those that are employed dare not save as what’s the point. A huge part of a generation left lost, no god to follow, no new news to read. The paintings create an environment to allow the subject the space to reflect the emptiness that came from the abundance of information. When you strip down the information and leave the viewer in this neo figurative world, where the characters and location seem familiar, we leave behind our own weight, we empathize with the painting to try to relate ourselves within the scene. It’s a similar sensation as when you walk past a random ‘moment of chaos’. We try to dissect the scene and understand the series of events to get us to this moment. The beauty of this moment is that everyone’s vision is different. This effect is echoed within the paintings, as there are multiple perspectives layered within the works. As if you’re looking up and down without moving your head.

Image: Sex so good the neighbours lit a cigarette. oil on linen 60 x 80 cm

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G r a c e B r o m l e y

www.graceannbromley.com

Image: Vigneron oil on canvas 24 x 24 inches

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My paintings are explorations of interpersonal intimacy, sexuality, and human psychology. I draw upon religious iconography, folklore and cartoons as visual inspiration. Using this vocabulary, I create metaphor about relationships and my own personal history using objects and the human form as symbols for psychological spaces. These paintings are, in effect, my contradictory fear of being seen met with my strong desire to be seen. I enjoy this tension and the slight comedy of it. By painting these very heavy personal narratives I am able to make light of myself, abstract myself, distort myself, hyper-sexualize myself or restrict myself to a rocking chair (with tea). It gives me a power over the powerlessness I sometimes feel in relationship to myself. Painting is the ultimate simulation.

Image: Furled Fronds oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches

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D i e g o L o z a n o

www.yawgo.xyz

Image: Big Business 24 x 24 inches

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Diego Lozano is a Dominican American artist based in New Jersey.

Image: Piano Player 24 x 30 inches

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Y u k o

S o i

www.yukosoi.com

Image: Time colored pencil and paper 53 x 46 cm

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Yuko Soi was born in 1985, and lives and works in Shizuoka-ken, Japan: I’ve been drawing with colored pencils for fourteen years. I have participated in solo and group exhibitions and art fairs in Japan and abroad. Colored pencils look light and weak when lined up with other oil and acrylic paints. Colored pencils are an important drawing material for me to express the delicate heart of a person. I have been thinking about how to maximize their good points. My feelings changed three years ago. I met a black pencil and I started to draw abstract paintings with it. Black added depth to my works. Black made the color of colored pencils more beautiful. These artworks each take about one and a half months. A blue artwork is created using black and blue pencils, a red artwork is created using black and red pencils. The latest artwork title is ‘Far Way’. The yellow words in the artwork are written in Japanese Hiragana. ‘Hold the unspeakable soul’. ことばにならないたましいだいて言葉にならない魂抱いて

Image: Far away colored pencil and paper 73 x 61 cm

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I n b a l

N i s s i m

www.inbalnissim.com

Image: Stories of the well traveled heart (7) ink on paper 28 x 38 cm

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Inbal Nissim’s intuitive, poignant paintings are drawn from her inner archive, including private, collective, historical and subconscious experiences and memories. Working primarily in ink on either paper or fabric, her mystical, nearly dream-like paintings flow with the many shades of life’s encounters; from the tumultuous to joyful and beyond. Her innate sense of colour, line, form and light give expression to the world as she understands it. Inbal Nissim was born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1979 and currently lives and works in Melbourne I Naarm. Inbal received her MFA (2011) as well as BFA (2006) from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, from which she graduated with Honours and received several awards including the Mitchell Presser Prize for Excellence in Painting. She was previously a lecturer for painting and drawing at the Bezalel Academy, and the Bar-Ilan University (2013 – 2017) in Israel. Recently, she was a recipient of a City of Melbourne Arts Grant (2021). Inbal’s work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in private collections.

Image: Light wind storm (touch) ink on paper 28 x 35 cm

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G I G A X

www.gigaxart.com

Image: Mobster oil, chalks, charcoal and spraypaint on cardboard 155 x 180 x 30 cm

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Cecily Walti (b.1994) – Artist Pseudonym GIGAX – lives and works as an artist in Zurich, Switzerland and gained her BFA in 2019 from Zurich University of Arts. In 2018, Gigax completed an exchange semester in Lebanon at the “Académie Libanaise des BeauxArts”. This experience has led Gigax to focus entirely on her imagination and her creatures/monsters. Gigax has participated in the past three years in various local off spaces in group exhibitions, among others in the “Schauwerk”, in the “Planet 5”, in the “Khora”, and in the “Dienstgebäude”. The first solo exhibition was in December at the Off Space “So-da” in Zurich. Gigax’s drawings feature a cast of fantastic beasts, monsters and hybrid creatures. They are rendered in charcoal, colored chalk, on cardboard or in ink on paper. Gigax draws from its own emotional life to create unique worlds who express the surreal and familiar, the sweet and violent as well as the chaotic and elegant. Gigax thus addresses the blurred relationship between the real and the subconscious. Gigax’s work visualizes a colorful universe of wild monster utopias being influenced by post feminism and art historical representation of beings.

Image: Dark Water River Rider oil, chalks, charcoal on cardboard 162 x 140 x 3 cm

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A r i s a Y o s h i o k a

www.instagram.com/arisayoshioka2_2

Image: That winter day I ate snow oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches

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Arisa Yoshioka is a 21 years old half Japanese half Mongolian self-taught artist who was born in Ulaanbaatar and grew up in Tokyo. I have loved making stuff since I was a kid. When I was a kid I had a lot of dreams, I thought I will be a Hollywood star or super rich person and will buy a nice house and car for my family and donate a lot of money for people who need help, I wanted to save this world... then I became a teenager who was really tall and started being interested in modeling but ended up getting an eating disorder and wasted so much energy and time because of self-shame. I became really into music and movies, I spent most of my high school years going to tsutaya ( dvd rental ). After I graduated from high school I really wanted to become a musician and started working in a record store, listening to music almost 24 hours. I wanted to make music with people who have the same music taste so bad, so I went to San Francisco and started my journey to make a famous and popular band. I started meeting people who make music and have the same goals and tried to make music together but I was too shy for that and could barely speak English plus I couldn’t really play instruments... only guitar but not great at it. I became really depressed and reality was too tough for someone who has tofu mental... so I switched my dream to become a writer like Dazai Osamu, I was so happy because I found my real dream! Dream is so important for me, without dream I think I can’t live. But I didn’t write anything...I just didn’t ... again I got depressed because it seems like not my destiny... I was just so depressed again and got globus pharyngis...basically my whole life since I was 15 years old is find a new dream and do nothing and get depressed then one day I realized that every time when I got depressed I paint, it will heal my soul. So here is my new destiny.

Image: I know where you are going to hide oil on canvas 16 x 20 inches

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We are looking to discover more emerging artists and to publish and help further promote their work If you would like your work to be featured in our upcoming issues, please find out more details on how to apply to be considered. See p. 11 or visit our website: www.artmazemag.com We have an open call for art for the next print issue which provides publishing opportunities. For any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us at info@artmazemag.com