Issue 6 by artmazemag

Winter Edit

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Art Maze Magazine is an independent artist-run international publication which showcases experimental and progressive contemporary art, reflecting modern society and its environment, provoking conversation and action; fostering innovation and diversity of mediums which make today’s art scene so intriguing and versatile.

Submit for print and digital publications

Submit for online publications

We invite guest curators from internationally renowned galleries as well as independent art professionals to help us select works for each issue. We try to give spotlight to artists and engage with our readers and followers everyday through our social media, website and print and digital issues.

If you wish to submit to our online blog, you are welcome to send us a few images of your work and a written bio and statement to blog@artmazemag.com for consideration. For more details on blog submissions please visit our website: artmazemag.com/submit-for-blog-feature/

Artists are welcome to submit works in any medium: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, mixed media, digital etc. Artists or any art organisations on behalf of artists from all countries are welcome to submit.

Writers You are welcome to submit an article, review or interview for consideration for online or print publications. Please send us an email to info@artmazemag.com

Please visit our website for more details on how to apply for print publications: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art/ or see p. 8-9. Artists are welcome to submit works to our online blog. This opportunity also provides a chance to be published in print issues bimonthly.

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Issues Please visit our website to find out where to purchase print and digital copies of ArtMaze Mag: www.artmazemag.com/shop

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FRONT COVER:

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GENERAL ENQUIRIES:

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Paul Gagner ‘The Artist, Rearranged, With Pickle’, oil on canvas 44 x 48 inches more on p. 42-53

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blog@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Allison Reimus ‘Sis Boom’ oil, latex, pom poms, lace, flocking fiber on sewn canvas 52 x 42 inches see more on p. 100-101

BACK COVER: Delphine Hennelly ‘In Arcadia There I Go’ oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches more on p. 68-69

Submit for print and digital publications

Submit for online publications

Writers You are welcome to submit an article, review or interview for consideration for online or print publications. Please send us an email to info@artmazemag.com

FIND US ONLINE

Issues Please visit our website to find out where to purchase print and digital copies of ArtMaze Mag: www.artmazemag.com/shop

CONTACT

FRONT COVER:

www.artmazemag.com

GENERAL ENQUIRIES:

facebook.com/artmazemag

info@artmazemag.com

Paul Gagner ‘The Artist, Rearranged, With Pickle’, oil on canvas 44 x 48 inches more on p. 42-53

instagram.com/artmazemag SUBMIT TO ONLINE BLOG: twitter.com/@artmazemag

blog@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Allison Reimus ‘Sis Boom’ oil, latex, pom poms, lace, flocking fiber on sewn canvas 52 x 42 inches see more on p. 100-101

BACK COVER: Delphine Hennelly ‘In Arcadia There I Go’ oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches more on p. 68-69

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Welcome to the new edition of 2018 - Winter Issue 6. We are proud to present you with a lively array of outstanding artworks, chosen from the submissions we receive by the independent curator Kristian Day (p.64-113). For almost 20 years Kristian worked for some of London’s leading commercial galleries, establishing himself as a trusted advisor and experienced eye. Since developing his own curatorial programme in 2016 his collaborations with individual collectors, organisations and institutions have earned him a reputation as one of the UK’s most active curators. He continues to collaborate with a wide range of galleries, creating shows that enjoy great popularity and draw wide audiences. We thank Kristian for being so actively involved in this new Winter Edition. You can also find our interview with Kristian in the previous Anniversary Issue and online on our website in the interviews section. The editorial selection displays highlights from the submissions we receive for our online blog and print issues. We wanted to thank artists for their interest in ArtMaze’s opportunities list and we want to encourage others to send us works for a chance of free promotion features online and in print. Special attention goes to our ‘interviewed’ section where we have several artists sharing their inspiring journey and creative vision, including our cover artist Paul Gagner whose work is both hilarious and undeniably relatable (p 42-53). We also spoke candidly with independent curator Chris Sharp, who is a prolific writer and co-founder of micro hybrid project space, Lulu in Mexico City. Chris shared insights into the role of a curator and the importance of ‘making art happy’ - be sure to read his bio on p.15 and the full interview on p.16-20.

Featured image: Rebecca Ness ‘Snow’ flashe on panel see more on p. 54-63

Check out our new call for art (p.10) for the next Spring Edition Issue, which will be led by Benjamin Sutton, who is an independent curator, art critic and news editor at Hyperallergic. His articles on public art, artist documentaries, the tedium of art fairs, James Franco’s obsession with Cindy Sherman, and other divisive issues have also appeared in The L Magazine, Modern Painters, Art+Auction, artnet News, BKLYNR, and Brooklyn Magazine. He has curated exhibitions at the Lower East Side Printshop, Field Projects, the Spring Break Art Show, and the Gowanus Loft in NYC. Since ArtMaze’s first issue it has been an astonishing journey which has brought to our attention so many young and mid-career talents from all over the world. We are humbled by the great support we have received over the previous year and we are strongly encouraged to continue developing our community so that more artists and curators can become part of it and share their experiences with us. We wish you all every success in 2018! Best Regards, Editor and Founder Maria Zemtsova

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Featured image: Rebecca Ness ‘Snow’ flashe on panel see more on p. 54-63

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On making art happy: In conversation with independent curator Chris Sharp ............................................................ 14

by Kristian Day

Familiar and foreign, strange yet relatable and lovable figures by Joakim Ojanen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................................................... 24

Elizabeth King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Delphine Hennelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Tristan Barlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Amanda Doran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Paul Reid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Olha Pryymak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Tom Wilmott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Super Future Kid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 John Busher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Sarah Slappey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Scott McCracken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Jane Hayes Greenwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Gretchen Scherer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Andrea Magenheimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Emma Fineman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Emil Robinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 George Hill-Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Chantal Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Kevin Mooney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Allison Reimus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Abi Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 GEMMA BROWNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Lysandre Begijn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Emily Vanns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Jeanette Gunnarsson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Anna Liber Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Karen David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

“...constant tension and movement...” by Stevie Dix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ 32 From colourful beach scenes to a zombie apocalypse WITH of todd bienvenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ 38 exorcizing of useless or harmful thoughts with Paul Gagner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................................................... 42 specific moments that the world wouldn’t know existed unless they are painted. Work of Rebecca Ness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ 54

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David Hytone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 116 xiaofu wang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 118 Tahnee Lonsdale . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................... 120 Robert Fitzmaurice . . . . . .......................................................................... 122 Chris Gullander . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................... 123 Jamey Hart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 125 Heui Tae Yoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 126 M. Benjamin Herndon . . . ........................................................................... 128 Hoda Kashiha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................... 130 Kelsey Shwetz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................... 132 Yoo Hee Chang . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 134 Sarah Alice Moran . . . . . . .......................................................................... 136 John Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 138 Joe Carrozzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 140 Jay Gaskill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................................................... 142 Georg Oskar Giannakoudakis ............................................................ 145 Jono Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................................... 146

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On making art happy: In conversation with independent curator Chris Sharp ............................................................ 14

by Kristian Day

Familiar and foreign, strange yet relatable and lovable figures by Joakim Ojanen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................................................... 24

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Spring Edition Issue 7

CA LL FO R A RT DEADLINE: F E B R UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 8 Guest curator: Benjamin Sutton, independent curator, art critic and news editor at Hyperallergic.

Submit your work for a chance to be published in print and digital issues bimonthly, as well as online on our website and social media. ELIGIBILITY: The competition is open to all artists, both national and international, working in all mediums. Artists are welcome to submit works in any medium: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, installation, mixed media, digital, film etc. DISTRIBUTION: ArtMaze Magazine is an independent international publication which is distributed both nationally and internationally via book shops, galleries and museums, art events and via the online store: http://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 OTHER OPPORTUNITIES: Artists are welcome to submit their works to our online blog. This opportunity also provides a chance to be published in print issues bimonthly. Please visit our website for more information: www.artmazemag.com or contact us at info@artmazemag.com

featured artwork by Elizabeth King ‘The Reluctant Daughter’ watercolor and acrylic on canvas 34 x 39 inches more on p. 66-67

Spring Edition Issue 7

CA LL FO R A RT DEADLINE: F E B R UA RY 2 2 , 2 0 1 8 Guest curator: Benjamin Sutton, independent curator, art critic and news editor at Hyperallergic.

featured artwork by Elizabeth King ‘The Reluctant Daughter’ watercolor and acrylic on canvas 34 x 39 inches more on p. 66-67

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www.chrissharp.net

On making art happy: In conversation with independent curator

C h r i s S h a r p Chris Sharp never set out to become a curator. The independent writer, curator and co-founder of micro hybrid project space, Lulu in Mexico City, thought originally of becoming a novelist. While these literary leanings are long in the past, their influence remains present in Chris’ animated and prolific arts writing. Chris has written artist monographs and contributed critical texts to publications on the work of numerous artists from around the world. He was previously news editor at Flash Art International and editor-at-large of Kaleidoscope, is currently a contributing editor of Art Review and Art Agenda and has been published in many major and independent art magazines and online publications. But for Chris, the activity of writing is fundamentally separate from the process of curating. “Exhibition making is a kind of non-linguistic, non-communicative writing in itself,” he says. And as such, allows each pursuit its own space and place. Working internationally, Chris’ curatorial focus is on materiality – the literal stuff of ideas. The artists he characteristically works with are each concerned with the politics of their own practice, exploring ideas through form, space and medium.

Text and interview by Layla Leiman Photo: Ana Hop

www.chrissharp.net

On making art happy: In conversation with independent curator

Text and interview by Layla Leiman Photo: Ana Hop

AMM: Hi Chris. What led you to get into curation?

“ Th e ro l e o f t h e curator, as far as I am concerned, is to facilitate and mediate the presentation of ar t in the best possible way. In other words, to make art happy. This means prioritizing art over ideas.”

CS: It was all an elaborate, felicitous accident. I studied French literature, and had every intention of becoming a (French?) novelist, not a curator. I was living in Paris just after graduating college, and ended up working in art mostly as a way to make money, although I was of course very interested in contemporary art. I found a job working as an assistant for the artist Piotr Uklanski and around the same time (2006), a local gallerist, Fabienne Leclerc, for reasons that are still a mystery to me, invited me to curate her summer group show. I never had any intention of becoming a curator, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I did, and it worked out very well. I loved curating that show. I loved it because it became clear to me that I could participate in the trajectory of a given work of art, even become, if only momentarily, its co-author, à la Barthes, without having to own it or actually create it ex nihilo. It could come into and touch my life and the lives of others and then go on its way. There was a special, “creative” agency to this process, which did not necessarily add or subtract anything from the world, but only temporarily reconfigured and fleetingly modified a series of already extant elements. I also realized that I had a knack for establishing and negotiating the discussions and spatial relationships between works of art. I was lucky enough to understand almost immediately that it was simply a question of knowing or being able to intuit whether or not works of art were happy together. Although I have made and continue to make many mistakes, grasping this basic rule right off the proverbial bat has kept me on the side of art and artists. But this rule is not difficult to grasp. Everyone knows when art is happy or unhappy, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it. Unhappy art looks like shit or is in the wrong company. And just looks, well, unhappy. AMM: Curation is in a way central and peripheral at the same time. How do you view your position in the art ecosystem? CS: I think I am something of a mutant in so far as I inhabit a grey area between writer, curator and (fake) gallerist. Given that I run a space which functions according to a hybrid non-profit model (we sell art, but do not represent artists, in order to fund the program), continue to write and curate exhibitions internationally, I operate, ethically I believe, in an implicitly forbidden zone of mutually exclusive positions. Were I driven by a desire for economic gain, this so-called mutant position could be problematic. But my motives are wholly driven by what I believe to be the good fight, e.g., endorsing and presenting art which challenges conventions and promotes genuine discussions around certain works of art and artists. AMM: What’s your style of curation? Do you work quite collaboratively with artists or take the lead? What is your understanding of the role of the curator? CS: It depends. At Lulu, the process is often collaborative, even if I always have a very strong sense of what I want or am looking for. Otherwise, I am a bit of a tyrant in that I often know exactly what I want and how it should be presented, although I am not foolish enough to believe that I always know what’s best.

Image (p. 16) Lin May Saeed ‘Teneen Albaher Relief III’ styrofoam, steel, acrylic paint 33.5 x 47 x 12.5cm

p. 16 interviewed: chris sharp

The role of the curator, as far as I am concerned, is to facilitate and mediate the presentation of art in the best possible way. In other words, to make art happy. This means prioritizing art over ideas.

Image (p. 17):

AMM: Do you have a particular curatorial methodology that interests you and frames your work?

Miho Dohi installation view

CS: Looking at a lot of art and trying to figure out ways to make it happy.

AMM: Hi Chris. What led you to get into curation?

Image (p. 16) Lin May Saeed ‘Teneen Albaher Relief III’ styrofoam, steel, acrylic paint 33.5 x 47 x 12.5cm

p. 16 interviewed: chris sharp

Image (p. 17):

AMM: Do you have a particular curatorial methodology that interests you and frames your work?

Miho Dohi installation view

CS: Looking at a lot of art and trying to figure out ways to make it happy.

AMM: What are you on the lookout for in an artist’s work? What makes you want to work with a particular artist? CS: A clear commitment to materials and making, the manifest development of their own personal, idiosyncratic language, and real problems which they are trying to solve through their work. When I say “real problems”, I mean as opposed to “borrowed problems”, which are often merely topical political issues which come and go with the day’s news. I need something real. I am interested in fully integrated artists. Artists whose politics are inseparable from the materials they use and the forms they create with those materials. Artists who think plastically.

Featured image: Santiago de Paoli installation views

AMM: As a curator, how do your own preferences and taste influence what you do? CS: Taste is a complicated issue. It is often demonized and dismissed by so-called serious professionals, as if it were inadmissible. But there is no such thing as no taste. I don’t care if you’re a militant LGBT activist or a hardcore Marxist, taste will always play a role in what you do and the exhibitions you make. Although I am aware of the risks involved, I accept and even embrace this. At the same time, I am also aware that taste cannot exclusively dictate the decisions I make as a curator. Exhibitions should and need to take place within a much greater network of considerations which go well beyond my own personal interests or problems. In any ideal world, your interests and problems naturally align with what’s going on. Even if they don’t, however, I think you can learn how to make things align – that is, if you have real problems that you’re working through. All that said, I hasten to add that taste can never be taken for granted, but must always be interrogated. There is no real taste without a self-reflexive interrogation of that taste. AMM: Is it apt to talk about a curator’s ‘eye’? What skills does it take to do what you do? CS: I think it is apt or possible to speak of a curator’s eye. It has many components. A crucial one is to think spatially, while another is to be able to connect the dots: to look at a lot of art, archive it, spot affinities, and map out common points of interest and create dialogues. I think you also need to be able to think very superficially, even, to a certain degree, like an interior designer, and ask yourself questions like, does it look good together? Sometimes curating is that basic, that simple-minded. But probably the greatest “skill” or at least capacity is a genuine love of art. This may seem like a no brainer. But you would be surprised by how many curators do not love art – who see it merely as a means rather than an end in itself. AMM: You work on projects around the world, have you noticed any curatorial trends in the industry right now? CS: I think there is a lot of pressure to try and respond to the terrible political and ecological turmoil of the world right now. Paradoxically, I am confident that this will help engender as many great works of art as it will inspire bad exhibitions (if you think about it, the late oughties, what with its relative political stability, did the exact opposite, at least in Europe and the States: allowed for a lot of curatorial experimentation while producing a lot of “clever”, smug, self-satisfied neoconceptual art about art). AMM: How do you get involved in projects? Do you approach institutions and submit proposals or do projects find you? What’s opportunity like in your field? CS: At this point, after curating for eleven years, it’s a combination of the two. Being a maniac helps ensure for me that I always have opportunity. I have a terrible tendency to overcommit. But I think this is just because there is so much great art and great artists with whom I want to work.

p. 18 interviewed: chris sharp

Interviewed: kristian day

p. 19

Featured image: Santiago de Paoli installation views

p. 18 interviewed: chris sharp

Interviewed: kristian day

p. 19

AMM: How does your writing influence your curatorial work and vice versa? CS: I think my best exhibitions take place independently of any writing. This is because exhibition making is a kind of non-linguistic, noncommunicative writing in itself. Doing a lot of writing before an exhibition is liable to lead to an illustration of ideas. I often prefer the raw writing, as it were, of exhibition making itself. By the same token, I wonder if some exhibitions aren’t better as essays or even texts?

because, being an egomaniac, I am often more interested in trying to figure out what I like about a given practice and what makes it interesting and unique than necessarily hearing what the artist has to say about it. Besides, they have already done the work. It’s my job to engage with it. AMM: What led you to co-founding Lulu and how does the space operate?

AMM: Artists often don’t like speaking about their own work. What’s your approach to interviewing artists and writing about art?

CS: Lulu is the byproduct of two art rootless, peripatetic professionals – myself and Martin Soto Climent – trying to connect and consistently contribute to their local community. In some ways it totally worked, in others, I think it alienated us even further.

CS: I don’t do so many interviews with artists, mostly because I am not very good at it, and

AMM: How do project spaces such as Lulu fit into and play a part in the art industry? CS: That is a good question which I am not entirely sure how to answer. Sometimes I think hybrid project spaces, which have a much more fluid relationship with artists, are the future, and at other times, I see us merely as a passing fad, which nevertheless functions as an intermediate space between the conventional gallery and the conventional institution. Like we’re the missing link, or something. Which helps connect the two. AMM: What’s next for yourself and Lulu? CS: At Lulu, we are currently preparing the second edition of the Lulennial, which will be co-curated by myself and the Los Angeles-based critic, Andrew Berardini. The title of this exhibition is: A LowHanging Fruit, and as you might have guessed, it is indeed all about fruit. We’re doing a fake biennial about fruit. Insert smiley face emoticon here. We have an amazing list of artists, which features the likes of: Rodrigo Hernandez, Jef Geys, Allison Katz, Adriana Lara, Nancy Lupo, among many others. As for my own non-Lulu related work, 2018 will be a busy year. I am currently preparing a solo show of Austrian artist Kiki Kogelnik for Johann König gallery Berlin, opening next March; an ambitious show about Mexico City, entitled, Dwelling Poetically: Mexico City; a case study, for the Australian Center for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, which opens in April; a survey of the American pop artist Tom Wesselmann entitled La Promesse du Bonheur for the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, which opens in June, and then lastly, a solo of Michael E. Smith for Atlantis, Marseille, opening in August, 2018. In 2019, I will co-curate the New Zealand Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, which will be a solo of the great Dane Mitchell.

Image (p. 20) Daniel Rios Rodriguez ‘Ylem’ oil on plywood with rope and rubber frame 24 x 18 inches

Image (p. 21): Kate Newby ‘I feel like a truck on a wet highway’ installation views

p. 20

interviewed: kristian day

interviewed: chris sharp p. 21

AMM: Artists often don’t like speaking about their own work. What’s your approach to interviewing artists and writing about art?

CS: I don’t do so many interviews with artists, mostly because I am not very good at it, and

Image (p. 20) Daniel Rios Rodriguez ‘Ylem’ oil on plywood with rope and rubber frame 24 x 18 inches

Image (p. 21): Kate Newby ‘I feel like a truck on a wet highway’ installation views

p. 20

interviewed: kristian day

interviewed: chris sharp p. 21

Image (p. 22) Kate Newby ‘I feel like a truck on a wet highway’ installation views

Image (p. 23): Lin May Saeed, Djamil installation views

interviewed: chris sharp p. 23

Image (p. 22) Kate Newby ‘I feel like a truck on a wet highway’ installation views

Image (p. 23): Lin May Saeed, Djamil installation views

interviewed: chris sharp p. 23

www.joakimojanen.com

J o a k i m O j a n e n “I tr y to make the characters so you feel like they have b e e n l i v i ng a l i fe b e fore t h e y get por trayed. I’m tr ying to give them expressions that have a contradiction and depth like real people have, bu t st ronge r . ” Text and interview by Christina Nafziger

www.joakimojanen.com

Swedish artist Joakim Ojanen sculpts and molds remarkable ceramic characters with unforgettable expressions that appear both surprising and charming in their own unique way. Each irresistible creature has an air of nostalgia, with a specific palette and style that adds to the vintage flavor. Ojanen’s work often includes subtle elements that seem similar to our own world, but there is always something a little bit off — something a little bit extra — in his work. The character’s skin is blue or its eyes are coming out of its head. These bizarre figures are both familiar and foreign, strange yet relatable and lovable. Inspired by a love of comic strips and cartoons, Ojanen has created a world of characters that are full of simplistic honesty combined with the complexity of a wide array of emotions, as their expressions range from charismatic to melancholic. Although he has worked in many other mediums, Ojanen’s current body of work features his wonderful characters in 3-D and 2-D in the form of ceramic sculptures and oil paintings. Join us in conversation as the artist discusses the relationship between his paintings and sculptures, the tactile quality of his aesthetic, and his creative beginnings experimenting with graffiti and animation.

AMM: Was there anything specific that inspired you to be an artist? When did you begin expressing yourself through creative avenues? JO: I got in to graffiti quite a lot when I was 14 and did that for almost ten years. When I was 17-18, I started to do animations and really liked that. I did a couple of music videos for friends and small short films. I got some jobs animating and directing, and it was really fun in the beginning, but I ended up doing more and more commercial jobs that I didn’t really enjoy. It killed a lot of my creativity. I started to make drawings when I didn’t have paid jobs and in the evenings. These drawings later turned into fanzines and so I decided to change direction and apply to art school. AMM: When you began creating artwork, did you primarily use clay as a medium? What would you say is your primary medium today, if any? JO: The first small exhibitions I did were mainly drawings and screen prints that were the base for the fanzines I put out. Once I started to do exhibitions I felt like the drawings and prints weren’t enough, so I started to experiment with paintings and sculptures. Today I mostly do ceramic sculptures and paintings, but I’m also trying out different materials and sizes with the sculptures. For my last show at Ruttkowski;68 I did a 2.17 cm tall bronze sculpture, which was really fun to do. AMM: Where do you find inspiration for your powerfully unique characters? Can you discuss your creative process developing these colourful creatures? JO: It’s a lot about trying to find personalities and feelings in the characters. I try to make the characters so you feel like they have been living a life before they get portrayed. I’m trying to give them expressions that have a contradiction and depth like real people have, but stronger.

Image (p. 24-25)

Image (p. 27, right):

Anthropocene at Ruttkowski;68 installation view

‘Birthday Party Dog’ glazed stoneware 56 x 26 x44 cm

Image (p. 26)

Image (p. 27, left):

‘Red Boxing Nose’ glazed stoneware

Stone Hugger glazed stoneware 44 x 19 x 21 cm

Image (p. 24-25)

Image (p. 27, right):

Anthropocene at Ruttkowski;68 installation view

‘Birthday Party Dog’ glazed stoneware 56 x 26 x44 cm

Image (p. 26)

Image (p. 27, left):

‘Red Boxing Nose’ glazed stoneware

Stone Hugger glazed stoneware 44 x 19 x 21 cm

Featured image: ‘Tough Day (Boy with Bag)’ bronze sculpture 217cm tall

AMM: Your oil paintings are just as fascinating as your ceramic work, as they share a similar, distinct aesthetic. Do your paintings, or perhaps even drawings, exist before your ceramic pieces, or do your characters made from clay inspire your twodimensional work? JO: The paintings and the sculpture feed off each other. Usually I work with one medium for a while until I feel I need to do something else, and then I switch to the other medium. Giving myself a break from a specific medium helps me to develop my work. AMM: Your ceramic works are very tactile, as they have lots of texture that you can almost physically feel. Do your paintings display a similar quality on their surfaces, or is this element felt purely visually? JO: It’s hard to see on flat images, but I think my paintings are quite tactile if you get up close to them in person. I use oil paint and there are elements like highlights and shadows in them that stick out from the canvas a bit. I’ve never showed them to a blind person yet, but I think they would actually experience the work pretty well by just touching them. AMM: The characters you create are so full of life and emotion, existing in two-dimensional and threedimensional form. Have you ever worked with these characters in any form of animation? JO: As I said earlier, I have an animation background, but the animation I did wasn’t very character based. It was before I created the universe of characters I’m doing today. I’ve been thinking a little bit about trying animation again in the future, but right now I don’t have the need to do it. AMM: Do you imagine your characters to be part of their own narrative or world? JO: Yes, I think my work is some sort of universe, but I don’t have any rules or narrative for it. I think it’s quite close to the world we live in, but more honest. It’s a place where people can show their true feelings and don’t hide behind a facade. AMM: Your characters look like they could be from a vintage cartoon or comic strip. What influences, if any, do you find from these sources? JO: I think it’s from my childhood. When I was young, I copied a lot of comics like Donald Duck and Garfield and tried to make my own comic strips. When I was a little older, I was a big Futurama fan. That type of style has always been a big inspiration source. So then I tried to make something for myself, developed in this way…and it’s still developing. I don’t know how it will look in a few years and that is something that keeps me going — to see what will come next, I think. AMM: Do you listen to music while creating your work? What are you listening to right now? JO: I have periods where I listen to different stuff. Right now, I listen to Swedish radio where they talk about what’s happening in the world, culture phenomenons, economics and stuff like that — pretty dry stuff. A year ago I was almost only listening to trap music while I was working, and a few years ago I only listened to chopped and screwed music. Sometimes I listen to audio books or podcasts. I stick to one thing I really like until I get tired of it. Right now I feel like I need something new.

p. 28 interviewed: joakim ojanen

Featured image: ‘Tough Day (Boy with Bag)’ bronze sculpture 217cm tall

p. 28 interviewed: joakim ojanen

‘Newspaper Spy’ oil on linen 37x47 cm

‘Orange Dog Head with Camouflage Cap’ oil on linen 150 x 180 cm

‘Newspaper Spy’ oil on linen 37x47 cm

‘Orange Dog Head with Camouflage Cap’ oil on linen 150 x 180 cm

www.steviedix.com

“...constant tension and movement...” by

S t e v i e D i x

An artist driven by movement, shape and color, Stevie Dix makes paintings that brim with creative energy and freedom. Dix has always looked to art as emotional release, from her youth in a creatively liberated household in Belgium to her studio in Suffolk. And the emotional charge within each of her works is visible. For Dix, true and honest painting represents her interiority, visible through her work’s complications and contradictions. Inspired by blank canvas and fresh paint, Dix allows her mind to lead her work, resulting in vivid, animated abstract paintings with thick, clear brushwork and constant tension. Dix isn’t shy about putting her emotions into her paintings – after all, other artists’ work hits her equally hard. Through colors and shapes that hold meaning to her, Dix’s work is visceral and honest. We spoke with Dix about the vitality and tension of her work, her use of Instagram as a portfolio and what’s coming next in her career.

Text and interview by Maya Chung

www.steviedix.com

“...constant tension and movement...” by

S t e v i e D i x

Text and interview by Maya Chung

AMM: How did your upbringing lead to your pursuit of art as a career?

I try or not. The recurring shapes I use hold a lot of specific meaning to me so their place on the canvas and their size and colours play with the tension of their own meanings, just as the abstract fields used to do.

SD: I grew up in a pretty free household. We were encouraged to draw, paint, play music and rules didn’t really exist. Regardless of my parents really struggling with money there was no pressure to do well in school and apply to university as long as all of us were happy, inquisitive and learning something interesting in our own time. When I was a child I didn’t think my upbringing was odd but looking back as an adult and comparing situations I definitely think it was eccentric on some levels. It gave me the freedom that comes with believing that existing outside of the norm is okay. And for me that resulted in feeling like being fulfilled creatively was more important than anything else. I’m sure it could have also had the opposite effect though.

AMM: Though your art is mostly abstract, there are some figurative elements. How do you decide what form your artwork will take on and what elements will appear in it? SD: Being totally honest I feel most inspired by looking at an empty canvas and a stack of fresh paint tubes. At some point you have to trust this is something you’ve been doing for a while, be familiar with your own capabilities and rely on your mind to be able to construct and deconstruct a composition until it just feels right. AMM: This month, you had shows in Mallorca and one in New York. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

AMM: Tell us a bit about what characterizes your work. How would you describe it? SD: I try to achieve movement. I want shapes and colours to hold such tension they tremble and bounce off each other and almost look animated. I’m really picky when it comes to paint application and I need it to look a certain way. It has to be thick and visceral and you need to see clear brushwork. I think they’re really subjective and heavily loaded with ‘me’. I feel they’re romantic and emotional, but I’ve heard them described as dark and comical too. My friend told me my work is full of juxtapositions, two opposites pulling in their own direction. Which aids the idea that there is constant tension and movement. I like that way of describing my work.

SD: I showed a piece in a group show called 20cm From the Ground in Mallorca at L21 Gallery. I really like their program and history of shows. Martin Lukac, Rafa Forteza, Rasmus Nilausen are some great artists they’ve shown and I am looking forward to working with them more in 2018. In New York I did a small solo show at Tennis Elbow, which is the sister space of the Journal Gallery. They do weekly presentations and have a slightly alternative way of working to some galleries out there. Again, they have shown some great artists like Joakim Ojanen, Odessa Straub, Bruce M. Sherman and Jesse Littlefield, which I’m really honoured to be in a line up with. I’m really excited to be showing there for my first New York show. I made the work for it whilst on residency in Los Angeles and I think the pieces are a little bit different from my usual stuff.

AMM: What is your creative process? What’s going through your mind as you work? SD: The artists who work in the same building would probably say I’m fairly unapproachable when I’m painting and they have to catch me on breaks. That’s not to say I don’t absolutely love it and I skip and whistle on my way to the studio every day – it is my happy place. But a very private, emotional release was my only reason for painting before I realised it could be a job, so tapping into that state is the way I still work most honestly. These days I have found a way to be more pragmatic about it; I work out ideas more carefully and it’s much more deliberate.

AMM: Your art is largely displayed on Instagram. How has the social media age changed the way you present your work to the world?

AMM: Your work is very emotive. What do you hope viewers gain from, or feel when they view it? SD: Paintings really hit me hard sometimes, other people’s work I mean. They always have done. And it’s helped me understand things and has helped me feel human. So I think that’s ultimately why I make stuff public after the process of making them has served its purpose for myself. If the hard work and emotion that went into it translated well that would be great, but if they just thought it looked great above their bed I can relate to that too – I’m fine with that. AMM: As an abstract painter, where do the ideas for your work come from? Do you have specific thoughts or concepts you want to communicate through your work? SD: I started as an abstract painter but now I use hints of forms and shapes. I don’t usually sit with an idea of a concept; the composition tends to lead the work. I think either way, my mind bleeds into it pretty automatically and the compositions I draw up seem to mirror my state of mind whether

p. 34 interviewed: stevie dix

Image (p. 32): ‘Me vs You’ oil on canvas 140 x 180 cm

“I try to achieve movement. I want shapes and colours to hold such tension they tremble and bounce off each other and almost look animated.”

Image (p. 34): ‘Dreaming of the Past’ oil on canvas 122 x 91,5 cm

Image (p. 35): ‘You’re bringing me down’ oil, oil stick, enamel, emulsion and charcoal on canvas 101,6 x 81,3 cm

SD: I’m not sure what life as an artist would be like without social media because I had Instagram before I started seriously painting. I used to post some work I made on social media but this was very much for family and friends. It had nothing to do with ‘the art world’, or dreams of a ‘career’. I think I was even unaware back then that the art world, more specifically the one that focuses on contemporary painting, existed in the form that I now know it does. But the more I started using Instagram as a portfolio, the more other artists found me and I found them. I think galleries and curators follow quite organically after that. I never had to go through the process of e-mailing round my portfolio or going to private views to try to network. I don’t think I could do it. I moved away from London when I was 25 to try to be in the studio full time, surrounded by nothing but my own practice, my dog and my fella. And I guess social media has allowed me to live like this. AMM: Who or what are your biggest artistic influences? SD: My husband Thom Trojanowski is a big influence on me because he’s the most dedicated painter I’ve ever known. Whatever the weather or the mood, he’s in the studio and when he’s physically not able to be there he paints in his head or is sewing a costume together for a character he’s made up, or he’s ordering 20 kilos of bright yellow pebbles on eBay to make an installation that I’m not sure he’ll ever even make. It’s what made me fall in love with him and it rubs off.

interviewed: stevie dix p. 35

AMM: How did your upbringing lead to your pursuit of art as a career?

AMM: Your art is largely displayed on Instagram. How has the social media age changed the way you present your work to the world?

p. 34 interviewed: stevie dix

Image (p. 32): ‘Me vs You’ oil on canvas 140 x 180 cm

“I try to achieve movement. I want shapes and colours to hold such tension they tremble and bounce off each other and almost look animated.”

Image (p. 34): ‘Dreaming of the Past’ oil on canvas 122 x 91,5 cm

Image (p. 35): ‘You’re bringing me down’ oil, oil stick, enamel, emulsion and charcoal on canvas 101,6 x 81,3 cm

interviewed: stevie dix p. 35

My early influences were probably my most obsessive, and sadly they were dominated by my art teachers at the time and they included an embarrassing lack of women. I remember being taught about Louise Bourgeois in school and thinking I’d make sculpture and installation based work. Pierre Alechinsky and Rene Magritte were a big thing for me growing up in Belgium. I’m a big fan of Niki De Saint Phalle and discovering AbEx artists like Lee Krasner really kicked things off for me into a different direction. But there are so many artists that are active now, people I’m exhibiting alongside that push the boat out. I think the biggest inspiration is

Image (p. 36): ‘29 Palms’ oil and enamel on canvas 81 x 92 cm

p. 36 interviewed: stevie dix

the feeling of being in this current movement of really exciting painting. It makes me feel inspired to work. AMM: What’s coming next in your career? Any upcoming projects? SD: I’ve got two solo shows confirmed in 2018. I’m not sure if I can give them away before the galleries release their program, but I’m really excited for both of them as both are with galleries that I feel are really supportive and they get where my work is going. I’ve also got a few group shows coming up in The Netherlands and in Belgium and am working towards cocurating a three person show in London.

Image (p. 37): ‘Conceived in El Coyote’ Solo show at The Cabin Los Angeles 29 Palms and Surf’s Up photography by Danny First

Image (p. 36): ‘29 Palms’ oil and enamel on canvas 81 x 92 cm

p. 36 interviewed: stevie dix

Image (p. 37): ‘Conceived in El Coyote’ Solo show at The Cabin Los Angeles 29 Palms and Surf’s Up photography by Danny First

www.instagram.com/toddbienvenu

From colourful beach scenes to a zombie apocalypse WITH

T o d d B i e n v e n u Brooklyn based artist Todd Bienvenu infuses his own brand of humour into his energetic oil paintings. He offers us views of awkward and often unflattering nudity, creating a unique, unassuming atmosphere that adds to the hilarity of the situations in his compositions. The artist draws influence from his experience growing up in an environment that always valued art as well as Bienvenu’s own artistic interests and abilities. Interested in the materiality of the medium, Bienvenu uses thick brush strokes of bold hues to build up the textural surfaces of his paintings. The artist uses an intuitive approach in his process, as he experiments with his compositions through trial and error, or, in his own words, he is attempting to pull a painting “out of the mud”. Now working as a full-time artist, Bienvenu’s artwork has been included in several group shows and has recently been featured in the solo exhibition Endless Bummer in New York City. We discuss with Bievenu his process as a painter, his art historical influences, and the inevitable humour that continues to pour out of him and into his work.

Text and interview by Christina Nafziger

www.instagram.com/toddbienvenu

From colourful beach scenes to a zombie apocalypse WITH

Text and interview by Christina Nafziger

AMM: Nudity and the often-awkward situations that come out this state seem to be a reoccurring theme in your body of work. Can you speak a bit to this subject? TB: People have been painting for thousands of years, there’s not a lot left to say. As an artist who wants to be contemporary and has respect for the painters that came before, nudity is a way for me to do both. I’m basically riffing on art history in a modern language. I try to avoid the old conventions and bring something new to the conversation. My nudes aren’t about the male gaze or female vanity, it’s usually self-deprecating. AMM: Your most recent work, which was shown this past summer in a solo exhibition at Harper’s Books in NYC cleverly titled Endless Bummer, features sandy scenes of ocean waves and bikinis. Tell us about the work in this exhibition. What influences this beachy environment? TB: When I moved to New York, I didn’t think I’d be going to the beach, but you can take the subway to the Rockaways. Spending time there feeds the paintings with images of bikinis, butts and beers. The Harper’s show was in late June in the Hamptons and I had been making a bunch of beach stuff — it seemed like the way to go. AMM: Your paintings appear very loose and intuitive. Do you do much sketching or planning for your paintings, or are your compositions more instinctual and perhaps created more spontaneously?

AMM: Tell us about your time growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas — a place very different from your current place of residence, New York City. Was your childhood filled with creativity and art-making? When did you begin to experiment with paint? TB: I was always the artistic kid in my class — I remember drawing a self-portrait that won a prize and hung at the Arkansas art center. I used to win the Duck stamp prize for drawing the best duck and the Drug Free poster contests for the best anti-drug signage. My parents were really supportive of my creative side. We built tree houses, zip lines and skateboard ramps in the yard. My dad got me a drafting table where I made my own my comic books. My grandparents are really cultured, they have oil paintings on their walls. One of my earliest memories of a painting is a tasteful French nude hanging in their bathroom that we call the “Butt sisters”. I went to an all boys Catholic high school — no art classes there, so I didn’t get to try oil paint until college. AMM: Using thick paint strokes of luscious colours, your work has a distinct, stylized aesthetic that is both fun and tactile. Have you always worked in this style? TB: In the beginning, I was trying to get it right; the expressive side came later, and back then it was mostly mud. I’ve always been drawn to painty paint. Auerbach, Rembrandt, de Kooning were big influences when I first began. I’m definitely a painter’s painter in that I love the materiality of the medium. I’m a big scraper, too. I take the paint off when it’s not working. Basically, I think that once the viewer can tell what the thing is, then I’ve done enough describing, I’m going for abstract shapes, good color, interesting paint. AMM: Many paintings of your work, such as your hilarious Pizza Butt piece, have an irresistible amount of humour. Where do you find inspiration for this particular element of your work? TB: I can’t help it! I sometimes wish I made “serious” paintings, but this is the stuff that comes out of me. I make the work that I want to see — I guess I’m a fan of butts and pizza.

p. 40

interviewed: todd bienvenu

TB: It’s totally instinctual and direct; I pick a nice color and go. In the beginning, it’s totally abstract marks; eventually, I locate something and try to dredge a painting out of the mud. Sometimes I’ll do a drawing or a small painting to figure things out on a big one. And I also draw every day, which helps me to find things in the mess to develop. Paintings frequently will go through a few different lives before they land on the final subject. Just recently I’ve been making different versions of the same painting, I used to think they all had to be completely original, but it seems like I can think about new things the second time around. If I know what the structure will be, I can spend more energy thinking about new color ideas or other variables. AMM: Is there anyone in your life that you look to for advice or encouragement when it comes to your artwork? TB: My New York dad is Bill Jensen. He’s been a great mentor for me and a tremendous example of what a real artist is philosophically and practically. AMM: What experience in your life would you consider to be life altering, or maybe even art-changing? TB: A few years ago I started to get really bad social anxiety and panic attacks. I started therapy and taking medication, but I came to realize that I couldn’t have a 9-5 job anymore; I needed to just be an artist. Once I decided to do that, it felt like things started to work out. The paintings got better, people started to put me in shows. I think the artist life only works if you have no plan b. And my anxiety is much more manageable since I get to do what I want all day. AMM: You have also been showing your work in numerous different group exhibitions recently. Are there any artists that you’ve shown with that are creating work that you find particularly exciting? TB: Tons! I’ve been fortunate to show with loads of great artists, the Brooklyn scene is rich. There’s Kathy Bradford, Jason Stopa, Mie Olise, Meg Lipke, Helen O’Leary, Cynthia Daignault , Shara Hughes, Alicia Gibson, Clintel Steed, Sarah Faux, Canyon Castator, Matt Phillips, Katherine Bernhardt, Lauren Luloff, Alex Nolan, Mandy Lyn Ford, Mike Olin, JJ Manford, and Walter Robinson. AMM: I noticed you have a painting titled Zombie Apocalypse, with the subject matter speaking for itself. And I have to ask — are you a fan of zombie films? Do you have a favourite? TB: I am! Sean of the Dead.

Images from top left to right, central left to right, bottom left to right: ‘Venetian’, 2016, oil on canvas, 134,5 x 117 cm; ‘Checking on things’, 2016; ‘Shoes on the line’, 2016; ‘Zombie Apocalypse’, 2014, oil on canvas, 170 x 193 cm; ‘Big Tat’, 2016; ‘Towel’, 2016; ‘Squirt’, 2016; ‘Pizza butt’, 2016, oil on canvas, 61 x 53 cm; ‘Point-break’, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 207 x 172 cm.

p. 40

interviewed: todd bienvenu

www.paulgagner.com

exorcizing of useless or harmful thoughts with

P a u l G a g n e r The satirical paintings of Paul Gagner conjure up the humorous and bizarre nature of the life of an artist. His work includes text like “How to impress and baffle people with artspeak” and “How to do everything and nothing all day. Tomorrow” that is both hilarious and somehow undeniably relatable. The artist’s paintings, which look similar to self-help book covers, poke fun at the seriousness of art and lighten the mood of pretentiousness that can often be found in the art world. With a brilliant wit that is not unlike the headlines from the sardonic news site The Onion, Gagner’s work is sure to leave you wanting more. The autobiographical nature of Gagner’s paintings makes them unassuming and light-hearted, although they are so often painfully true. Each painting captures the anxiety, uncertainty, and absurdity that so many of us feel after graduating from art school, or just after graduating from any school—or perhaps even from just waking up in the morning. Whether you are an artist or not, Gagner’s work hits the nail on the head. Using himself as a subject, Gagner describes his works as therapeutic as they “exorcize” his inner critic. The self-doubt and critical thoughts that so many of us experience are reversed and flipped on their head, as the artist turns them into hilarious retorts. Originally hailing from Wisconsin, Gagner currently lives in New York after moving there to attend the School of Visual Arts, where he earned his BFA. Although he studied illustration during his time at SVA, he later studied fine art at Brooklyn College where he earned his MFA. Join us in discussion as Gagner tell us about the time he took himself way too seriously, his experiences in the academic art world, and the importance of being able to laugh at it all.

Text and interview by Christina Nafziger

www.paulgagner.com

exorcizing of useless or harmful thoughts with

Text and interview by Christina Nafziger

AMM: Let’s begin by getting to know about the person behind the paintings. Were you always a creative type growing up? Where does your sharp sense of humor come from? PG: Yes, I would consider myself as being a creative type from a very early age. I drew a lot in my childhood. It started with mimicking comic books and the Sunday comic strips, like Bloom County, which was one of my favorites. In fact, the humor in Bloom County was particularly fascinating to me, which could be seen as a smart and irreverent critique of the Reagan Administration. For whatever reason, I was really drawn to those who were irreverent. My first live concert was Weird Al Yankovic. I loved his humor and his iconoclastic image. In retrospect, Weird Al had a huge impact on my sense of humor. As I got older, my humor shifted to other humorists and iconoclasts like Frank Zappa and Gwar. I also try to embrace the mantra of “never take yourself too seriously.” It’s for this reason that I make fun of myself more than anything. Also, I’m from the Midwest. Midwesterners are frequently self-deprecating. AMM: In one of your paintings, it says, “Mom. Dad. I’m an artist. Breaking the News.” Did you ever have a moment like this with your parents, or did they always know your dark secret? When did you first consider yourself an artist? PG: Dark secret! I love that. No, my parents were very supportive and still are. I really appreciate that about them. They have always been proud of my artistic abilities and accomplishments. I never hid my fascination with art from them and, frankly, it never occurred to me that it would be an occupation that was off limits. I’m not sure there was a decisive moment when I considered myself an artist, but it probably occurred after grad school. Before that time, I was insulated by institutions and it never felt honest or real. It was after grad school that I realized that “I need to focus, because no one else cares if I produce work or not.” AMM: Has your art always had a satirical, humorous edge to it? What led you to develop this strong voice that is so unmistakably present in the work you create today? PG: Yes, it’s definitely my “standard operating procedure”. There have been moments when I’ve gotten too serious and it always comes across as being pedagogical and didactic. It ends up feeling phony to me. At some point I realized that satire and humor could be used as a particularly powerful vehicle for delivering hard truths, perhaps because it softens the blow and makes it more palatable. Although, I never set out with the intention of telling someone how they should feel or view a situation. Over the past several years, I’ve developed this kind of litmus test for my work. While humor isn’t explicitly one of the requirements, it often ends up being implied by how I think about the work. For instance, I want my work to have some awkwardness to it. Sometimes that awkwardness ends up being very funny because it results in unexpected imagery or compositional ‘no-nos’. I always enjoyed John Baldessari’s Wrong series that challenges the conventions of composition in art and photography. Sometimes doing something “wrong” is so much more compelling than doing it “right” and, consequently, it can be very funny too. AMM: With memorable messages like “How to Impress and Baffle People with Artspeak” and “Art Events are for Networking NOT Penis Puppetry” your paintings seem to be part self-help book covers and part PSA announcement, which I love. Can you speak a little to these witty quips and retorts in your work? PG: Thank you! Yes, I always refer to them as self-help books, but it never occurred to me that they could also operate as a kind of PSA announcement, but I love that. That’s very funny. For me, this series was always about motivation. What motivates us to do or behave a certain way and why? Most everything that I do is autobiographical, partly because it’s therapeutic, but also because I’m lazy and it’s easier to use myself as the model for these paintings. So, the titles are really meant to be my internal art critic who only offers

p. 44 interviewed: paul gagner

“Keep a low expectation and you’ll never be d i s a p p o i nt e d . I t ’s a cynical way of looking at the world, but it kind of works. I suppose all of the work is a questioning of t h e ro l e o f t h e a r t i st and a more general existential angst. However, that would be too depressing to tackle head on, which is w hy I i nj e ct hu m or . ”

Image (p.42):

Image (p.44):

Image (p.45):

‘When Art Attacks’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

‘How to Do Everything’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

‘Hairscaping’ oil on canvas 30 x 26 inches

p. 44 interviewed: paul gagner

Image (p.42):

Image (p.44):

Image (p.45):

‘When Art Attacks’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

‘How to Do Everything’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

‘Hairscaping’ oil on canvas 30 x 26 inches

awful advice. I can’t speak to other artists, but my inner critic is very impulsive, cruel, and irrational. Making these paintings is very therapeutic for me. It’s kind of an exorcizing of useless or harmful thoughts. Also, I think the use of humor has a way of pointing out just how ridiculous some of these thoughts are. I think the satirical news site The Onion is a good example of how satire can point out absurdity and hypocrisy through humor. I try to channel that. AMM: What inspired you to integrate text into your work? PG: I’m not sure. Honestly, text just crept into my paintings a while ago and, frankly, I never really thought about it. I’m also a graphic designer, so that might explain some of it. The designer side of me loves type and the nuance of typefaces. However, it wasn’t until other people pointed it out to me that I noticed just how often I incorporate text. I guess it’s very deeply imbedded in me. AMM: Many aspects of the life of an artist your work cleverly puts in the spotlight are often situations that are first encountered at art school, like studio visits. Can you tell us a bit about your own time studying Fine Art? PG: That’s true. It’s impossible not to consider how much our individual education has affected our current perspective and outlook. My upbringing didn’t stress the importance of going to college, so I started a little later than most at a community college in Madison, Wisconsin at the age of 22. I then transferred to the School of Visual Arts in New York and got my BFA. While I liked my time at SVA, the non-art related classes were laughable. It felt like a school for kids who could never handle a traditional college education. I felt a little cheated in this aspect. However, the art classes were top notch, but I should also add while I was at SVA, I was studying illustration and not fine art. My fellow illustration/cartooning friends and I would laugh at the fine art students. It’s probably not fair to say this, but we thought at the time they were turning out these emotionally overwrought and terribly didactic works and that we were doing something useful or more justified in some way. We were definitely arrogant and

‘How NOT to Make an Ass of Yourself’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

p. 46 interviewed: paul gagner

overly confident. The strange thing is that I wanted to be in those fine art classes. I really didn’t care about illustration; I just thought it would be a more stable job. Needless to say, my illustration background didn’t prepare me for applying to grad school in fine art. The work that I applied with was horrible. Thankfully, none of it exists any more. Grad school is where I started to understand fine art, but it wasn’t until after grad school that I started to consistently make work that I could live with. In retrospect, art school is a good foil to the art world. It’s a kind of hermetic experience complete with its own language and hierarchy. It’s for this reason I love poking fun at it. I definitely took myself way too seriously back then. AMM: Does the dark-comedy that appears in your work reflect your own experiences as an artist working in today’s often-convoluted art scene? How do you feel about the so-called “art world”? PG: I’m a pretty small figure in the art world and for this reason I probably don’t get the kind of criticism that way more established artists get. Or at least I don’t hear of it, anyways. The biggest obstacle for me and other artists in my position is being written about at all (good or bad). I’ve been very fortunate to have some wonderful press, but more often than not, nothing is written. It becomes the philosophical equivalent of “if an artwork is placed in a gallery and no one writes about it, does it exist?” This was especially true early on after grad school. I think back to art school and it’s sort of a microcosm that was cut throat and divisive. I haven’t actually seen that in my experiences of the “art world”. I assume it happens, but most everyone I know has been exceptionally generous. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel especially competitive with others and I avoid assholes. I should be clear; it’s not all rosy. Certainly I see major issues with the art world. The most egregious is the lopsided ratio of men to women, and white artists to people of color. Also, it’s sometimes hard to shake the idea that we’re all just making luxury goods for an elite class. That can be profoundly depressing, if I think too hard about it.

‘Thingness of Things’ oil on canvas 10 x 14 inches

AMM: Almost all of your recent paintings include the words, “By Howard Moseley, M.D.” Who is this person? Is he someone you know or is he a fictional character?

are going well, there’s nothing better. I live for those moments.

PG: Howard is a fictional character. He came about after reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. The protagonist is a British art historian named Howard Beasley. In my mind’s eye, I saw him as a frumpy, tweed-wearing liberal academic, which I thought would be the perfect model for my fictitious self-help guru.

PG: That’s a tough one. Growing up I adored Picasso, Monet, and later on Pollock. Nowadays, I love Nicole Eisenman, Amy Sillman, Rachel Harrison, and Dana Schutz. Perhaps the one artist that I keep returning to is Philip Guston.

AMM: Your work often pokes fun at the absurdity in the painful anxiety of the future and expectations. Does this mood that your paintings capture come from your own thoughts and emotions? PG: That’s a really good read! I often tell myself, “Keep a low expectation and you’ll never be disappointed.” It’s a cynical way of looking at the world, but it kind of works. I suppose all of the work is a questioning of the role of the artist and a more general existential angst. However, that would be too depressing to tackle head on, which is why I inject humor. It makes it more palatable for me and hopefully others. In the end, we have very little control over this and the best thing that I’ve found is to laugh at it. Not to get too philosophical, but we’re all filled with contradictions, so we might as well admit to it. AMM: Is there a part of being an artist that you have ever struggled with? What has been the most enjoyable part of art-making for you? PG: I’ve definitely struggled with being an artist and still do on occasion. It can be hard to keep yourself motivated when you don’t have deadlines. Also, the way that I work can be a bit laborious. Sometimes work comes out fast, like in one sitting, but often I’m working and reworking a painting because it doesn’t look right. That can be very frustrating, because I don’t work with any sort of blueprint. Sometimes that goes as far as thinking that a painting is finished and then turn around and paint right over it with something completely different. However, when it does eventually come together, it’s a sweet feeling. Those moments when things

‘Life After Art’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

AMM: Who would you say is your biggest influence as an artist?

AMM: Much of your brilliantly catchy messages in your work can be read as advice or perhaps a warning. Can you share with our readers your favorite piece of advice? PG: That’s a hard one. I always liked the advice to embrace failure. It may be overused, but it’s really good advice. Also, for me, I feel like artists are often too precious with their work. I had a professor that told me that if you have a favourite part of the painting, then you have to get rid of it. I never really understood that at the time, but for me it means one good passage can’t prop up an otherwise bad painting. A painting works as a whole or it doesn’t at all. Also, another professor told me how he would start a painting by “destroying” it or by making an awful mess of the surface. Then he would get to work on “fixing” it. I always liked that idea that a painting could be broken and all it needs is fixing, like a window or an old appliance. AMM: What is the next step for you? Where do you see your work going in the future? PG: I’m not sure, yet. I never really have an idea for where it’s going or, when I do, it often ends up in an entirely different direction. I suppose that’s the fun part. It’s not predictable. However, with that said, I’ve been thinking about sculpture lately. I want to make some objects. I had been thinking of making some clocks, but haven’t gotten very far with it. I guess I’m getting a little bored with flat, square surfaces and need a break for a little while. But who knows? I guess I’ll have to see where the work leads me. I like surprising myself!

‘I’m An Artist’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

interviewed: paul gagner p. 47

‘How NOT to Make an Ass of Yourself’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

p. 46 interviewed: paul gagner

‘Thingness of Things’ oil on canvas 10 x 14 inches

AMM: Almost all of your recent paintings include the words, “By Howard Moseley, M.D.” Who is this person? Is he someone you know or is he a fictional character?

are going well, there’s nothing better. I live for those moments.

‘Life After Art’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

AMM: Who would you say is your biggest influence as an artist?

‘I’m An Artist’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

interviewed: paul gagner p. 47

Paul Gagner ‘Genius-ishness’ oil on linen 20 x 24 cm

Paul Gagner ‘Hypnotizing Curators’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

Paul Gagner ‘Genius-ishness’ oil on linen 20 x 24 cm

Paul Gagner ‘Hypnotizing Curators’ oil on canvas 9 x 12 inches

Paul Gagner ‘The Portable Artist’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘Cheap Studio’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘The Portable Artist’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘Cheap Studio’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘The Artist as Receptacle’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘24 Hour News Cycle’ oil on canvas 44 x 48 inches

Paul Gagner ‘The Artist as Receptacle’ oil on canvas 32 x 40 inches

Paul Gagner ‘24 Hour News Cycle’ oil on canvas 44 x 48 inches

www.rebeccalness.com

“If I work with a fire under my ass, that’s when the paintings get the most exciting”

R e b e c c a N e s s

The blue-green light of a cellphone screen illuminates the face of a lone figure sprawled on a rumpled bed late at night. The people in Rebecca Ness’s paintings are pictured trawling the internet, washing the dishes, shaving, eating. The unremarkableness of these scenes however is what makes them interesting. In the often lonely, banalness of everyday life, we recognize ourselves and in Rebecca’s figures we see our own experiences illustrated. Rebecca is currently a student at Yale University. Her chief media are oil paint and gouache. Her work is quirky, irreverent, moody. But the sad internet girl visual vocabulary is underpinned by a quiet activism. Rebecca’s art gets straight to the heart of being young today, urgently questioning, uncomfortable, wanting better and more.

Text and interview by Layla Leiman

www.rebeccalness.com

“If I work with a fire under my ass, that’s when the paintings get the most exciting”

R e b e c c a N e s s

Text and interview by Layla Leiman

AMM: You’re currently busy with your MFA at Yale University. What appealed to you about this institution and how is being there influencing you creatively? RN: I received my BFA from Boston University, and many of my teachers there had Yale MFAs. So, a lot of my knowledge that I gained about Yale was from hearing about their experiences and being really excited about their work. I was also excited about how Printmaking can also be an integral part of the program if you want it to be; we all receive “Painting and Printmaking” on our degree. I make prints so it was important for me to attend an institution where printmaking facilities were accessible to painters. Also, so many of my favorite artists have studied here.

been assigned in class or brought up in studio visits. Specific readings that have stuck with me all semester include Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde and Our Aesthetic Categories: Cute, Zany, Interesting by Sianne Ngai. I’ve always been a bit of a history and true crime nut, so I usually watch documentaries or listen to podcasts of that genre while I’m painting. Podcasts in heavy rotation include Last Podcast on the Left, which is a “comedy horror” podcast, The Daily, and Love and Radio. Every weeknight I also watch a live broadcast from the progressive online media outlet The Young Turks. AMM: What is your process of working?

This is a big program with about forty students in total, so in terms of my studio practice it’s been great to just have so many different eyes and voices. I have multiple official studio visits with faculty every week, but I have many unofficial studio visits with fellow students just popping in to see what each other is working on. My notebooks are full of feedback and ideas that I’m going to be sifting through for years.

RN: My current medium of choice is Acryla Gouache from Holbein. It’s an opaque, waterproof, extremely quick drying gouache. For the past two years I’ve worked quite small on a drafting table. I like the “inspection” quality that smallness allows; to be able to hold something in your hands and look at every little detail. Usually I start with a pencil drawing on the surface, and proceed onto color from there.

AMM: Do you have a set daily painting routine? What does a typical day in studio for you look like?

AMM: Many of the figures in your paintings are pictured alone. We see them texting, sexting, preening, listlessly scrolling, negotiating humdrum life. What interests you about these mundane moments?

RN: I try to get to the studio pretty early, but always end up taking slightly longer than expected and usually arrive at the studio around 10 am. Coffee is essential. I like working in the morning because I feel fresh and I have a whole day ahead of me. I usually work on only one or two paintings at a time, so I’ll start off looking at what I left for myself from the night before. If I left the studio frustrated the night before, I usually feel slightly more optimistic in the morning, and I try to capitalize on that optimism. I’m more likely to make big risky painting moves earlier in the day. A friend of mine told me that our brains need breaks from labor every three hours or so, so I usually go grab food or start something different or go on a walk a few times a day. These breaks help me keep working, and then I drive home usually around midnight or 1 am.

RN: I prefer to see these mundane moments as actually quite specific. I think about what it is like to inhabit a body, and how just maybe sitting and scrolling through the news is super specific to our own lives and our own story. To the outside they may seem like generic moments, but to the person actually doing the action, it is quite specific. I’m interested in creating specific moments that the world wouldn’t know existed unless I painted them.

“I’m interested in creating specific moments that the world wouldn’t know existed unless I painted them.”

AMM: Your work offers a playful and irreverent look at gender and identity politics. How close to home is this subject matter for you? RN: As of late, I make work that has some semblance to my life, memory, or visual experiences I’ve had in the world. Many times the events or scenarios are imagined, but they usually are triggered from something in reality. The moments in my paintings that relate to gender or identity politics are products of who I am and how I live my life. AMM: How does contemporary culture and intersectionality influence you and your work? RN: My work is created from the body of a young, white, Jewish, gay, cisgender woman who grew up in the northeastern United States. Therefore, my work inherently deals with those things, whether they are obviously present in the image or not. No matter what I make, the object came from a body with that biography. With the internet, the ability to quickly research how people around the world are currently making paintings has been so important to my development as an artist and to the development of painting as a whole. To see a painting someone in another city made today in their studio is really exciting. With a computer or a phone, someone who isn’t living in a major art city can see what’s going on in painting, and has the power to contribute to and shape those conversations. It raises voices that wouldn’t otherwise be raised. AMM: What are you reading, watching, listening to right now? RN: Most of the reading I’m doing right now are texts that have p. 56 interviewed: rebecca ness

AMM: Conversely, you produced a series of gouache satirical paintings focused on the previous US national elections. What is the role of art and artists in society?

RN: I have always been fascinated by politics and history, and thought for a little while that I wanted to pursue a career in that field. Many of those paintings were made while watching the debates. I don’t want to speak for anyone except myself, because I think activism is broad and can be manifested in many different forms and approaches. I paint what I’m thinking about and what is important to me, and stay open and inviting for people who want to converse about the work. A “political painting” doesn’t need to have a big orange buffoon in it. I think that the conversations that art objects can kick-start contribute to society the most. They are objects onto which viewers project their entire biography, so I love hearing conversations about work from different types of people. My mom would talk about my work very differently than a friend from high school, who would critique it very differently than a colleague from within the art world. If we want the world to be generous enough to look at our work, we should be open to hearing different thoughts and reactions. I try to be a bit more open and vulnerable every day. AMM: People seem to be at the centre of your art in a variety of ways. There’s something very intimate and personal about your series of paintings focused on details of clothing, each bearing the simple title of a person’s first name. Please tell us a little about this body of work. RN: This work has been an indulgence in the act of painting and seeing. I have a background in painting and drawing from live models. I was lucky enough to start doing this very young in a small after-school independent art program that I would attend growing up. I was taught a certain kind of optical analyzation that was really formative for me as an artist and seer. I find this type of

Image (p. 54):

Image (p. 57):

‘Sad Painting’ gouache and graphite on paper 6.25 x 6 inches

‘(a) Dad + Community Garden Patch’ gouache on paper 7 x 8 inches

AMM: Do you have a set daily painting routine? What does a typical day in studio for you look like?

AMM: Many of the figures in your paintings are pictured alone. We see them texting, sexting, preening, listlessly scrolling, negotiating humdrum life. What interests you about these mundane moments?

“I’m interested in creating specific moments that the world wouldn’t know existed unless I painted them.”

AMM: Conversely, you produced a series of gouache satirical paintings focused on the previous US national elections. What is the role of art and artists in society?

Image (p. 54):

Image (p. 57):

‘Sad Painting’ gouache and graphite on paper 6.25 x 6 inches

‘(a) Dad + Community Garden Patch’ gouache on paper 7 x 8 inches

Image (top):

Image ( bottom):

‘Mistake’ gouache and graphite on paper 12 x 14 inches

‘Slight distraction gouache on paper 7.5 x 7.75 inches

looking so satisfying and challenging; the kind of translation that happens when an image goes from original object, to eyes, to brain, to hand, and into an entirely new object. Regarding the painting of shirts themselves, that body of work came after a series of body hair shaving paintings, thinking about how one curates one’s own body. With the shirts, I was thinking about how every item of clothing we wear is a distinct choice of how we wish to be seen by society or by certain groups. We curate ourselves socially based on what we wear. For instance, a woman buttoning up a shirt all the way can be a signifier of queerness to a queer audience, and just seem like a simple fashion choice to a non-queer audience. I asked both people over Instagram and friends of mine to send me photos of themselves wearing their favorite shirt, a shirt that held a specific memory, or a shirt that otherwise held some sort of significance. I would love to paint a shirt that someone had their first kiss in or something. I’ve painted shirts of close friends and also people who I have never even met. AMM: What are some of the other ideas you’re currently interested in and exploring in your work? RN: I’ve started this project where I visit the anatomy lab at the Yale School of Medicine and make etchings and paintings. It was my first time seeing a dead body so the work started off really anxious and urgent. The more times I go, the more at peace I am with the space, and my hand slows down. It’s actually quite a beautiful place; the hallways are lined with artwork made from medical students, thanking the donors for their amazing gift. AMM: Prior to Connecticut you were based in Boston. Do these two city’s art scenes differ? What kind of art community are you currently a part of/or would like to be a part of? RN: They differ in the way that Boston is a larger city and New Haven is a much smaller one, so the art scenes are proportional to the city’s size. Right now I would say I’m a part of the Yale School of Art community. In my life I’ve usually been in communities of those with creative leanings, both makers and non-makers. Back in Boston I was friends with gallerists, percussionists, designers, muralists, writers, fellow object-makers, insurance agents, you name it. I like to be friends with people who have also got a hustle that gets them up and at ‘em every day. AMM: Lastly, do you have a motto that you make art by? RN: Less a motto, but more a word, and that word being “urgency”. I try to have faith in the work and its natural development, and I think one of the most important things that I can do to contribute to the work’s progress is a sense of urgency. Urgency to get to the studio early, to stay in the studio late, to supply myself with the correct tools, etc. If I work with a fire under my ass, that’s when the paintings get the most exciting.

‘Down the rabbit hole’ (detail) gouache and graphite on paper

interviewed: rebecca ness p. 59

Image (top):

Image ( bottom):

‘Mistake’ gouache and graphite on paper 12 x 14 inches

‘Slight distraction gouache on paper 7.5 x 7.75 inches

‘Down the rabbit hole’ (detail) gouache and graphite on paper

interviewed: rebecca ness p. 59

Rebecca Ness ‘Time Trials’ gouache on paper 12 x 7 x 7 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘Plank’ gouache on paper 6 x 6 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘Time Trials’ gouache on paper 12 x 7 x 7 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘Plank’ gouache on paper 6 x 6 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘Sitting in my chair, wearing various accidental patterns’ gouache on paper 7 x 7.75 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘What’s in your pocket’ gouache on paper 10 x 12 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘Sitting in my chair, wearing various accidental patterns’ gouache on paper 7 x 7.75 inches

Rebecca Ness ‘What’s in your pocket’ gouache on paper 10 x 12 inches

Featured image: Anna Liber Lewis ‘Head ‘ oil on canvas 170 x 140cm (more on p. 110-111)

c u r a t e d s e l e c t i o n o f w o r k s b y K r i s t i a n d a y

Featured image: Anna Liber Lewis ‘Head ‘ oil on canvas 170 x 140cm (more on p. 110-111)

c u r a t e d s e l e c t i o n o f w o r k s b y K r i s t i a n d a y

‘Tree Surgeons’ Delight’ acrylic on canvas 20.5 x 31.5 inches

‘DayQuil and Dimetapp cosponsored the semi-finals’ fabric dye and ink on canvas 72 x 96 inches

‘Turkey Enthusiast’ watercolor, gouache and etching ink on paper 8.5 x 11 inches

I paint the way a spider hunts. Landscapes are my web to trap figures as my prey. I weave the two together with many threads of paint. I touch the surface uniformly, until figure and landscape are inseparable. The interlocked layers become screens, allowing air to flow freely. I stop each painting just before any element dominates the other and leave them hanging in the balance.

www.elizabethkingpainting.com

E l i z a b e t h K i n g

‘The Fountain-Maker preferred orange sherbet’ fabric dye and ink on canvas 72 x 96 inches

p. 66

Curated selection of works

‘Tree Surgeons’ Delight’ acrylic on canvas 20.5 x 31.5 inches

‘DayQuil and Dimetapp cosponsored the semi-finals’ fabric dye and ink on canvas 72 x 96 inches

‘Turkey Enthusiast’ watercolor, gouache and etching ink on paper 8.5 x 11 inches

www.elizabethkingpainting.com

E l i z a b e t h K i n g

‘The Fountain-Maker preferred orange sherbet’ fabric dye and ink on canvas 72 x 96 inches

p. 66

Curated selection of works

D e l p h i n e

H e n n e l ly www.delphinehennelly.com

Delphine Hennelly (b. 1979, Vancouver, BC, Canada) received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2002 and her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Visual Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2017. A painter and drawer and occasional printmaker she explores figuration primarily using the female form. Often tongue in cheek her subjectivity can be sarcastic and humorous. Deeply influenced by formalism her palette, playful and saccharine, subverts the gendered proclivity pastel colors perpetuate while her compositions obfuscate the possibility of a linear narrative. Using the weave of tapestries as an infrastructure from which to form a gestural pattern, I embrace the lenticular effect of the pattern that develops and coincidentally the interlacing quality of a seemingly digitized image. The idea of tapestries and screen technology as apparatus for viewing becomes a meaningful aspect of the paintings and provides a lattice, so to speak, from which much of my formal decisions are made. Replacing thread for the brushstroke, it is the parts of the tapestry that are frayed that become interesting to me, the effect of looking at something worn by the ages is a quality I am trying to replicate. I paint breaks in the otherwise overall systematic linear pattern creating an image that becomes digitized, broken up, worn with wear and tear, glitchy. Although the resulting image does not move and shift when viewed at different angles, an allusion to lenticular printing changes the entire depth of field. Flower garlands to decorate but also to act as a foil, - to distract; stones locking a picture plane in place like possible paper weights, a pair of pastoral lovers: all these motifs, along with colors I choose, work in service to formally build a ligature from which to hang the image. Within this framework the use of repetition and decoration, either masking or unmasking, offers a multiplicity of possible interpretations. In a text by Amy Goldin published in Artforum in 1975 titled Patterns, Grids, and Painting, Goldin states: “Pattern is basically antithetical to the iconic image, for the nature of pattern implicitly denies the importance of singularity, purity, and absolute precision.” This quote perfectly exemplifies my interest in using repetitive motifs but more pointedly explains much of the reasoning behind my choice in duplicating the figure. Goldin further writes: “to see the same image over and over again in a variety of situations disengages the control of context and erodes meaning.” By playing with repetition I enjoy seeing how far I can subvert the iconic image from its singular contextual meaning while retaining some residue of the power an iconic image can hold. Perhaps I am attempting to have my cake and eat it too. Nonetheless, it is the tension that lies in this dichotomy that has become fruitful in my wish to pursue figurative/pictorial inventiveness.

‘Moon River‘ oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches

Image on the left: ‘An Offering of Tiny Cherries’ oil on canvas 74 x 68 inches

Image on the right: ‘Comus and the Lady’ oil on canvas 96 x 72 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 69

D e l p h i n e

H e n n e l ly www.delphinehennelly.com

‘Moon River‘ oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches

Image on the left: ‘An Offering of Tiny Cherries’ oil on canvas 74 x 68 inches

Image on the right: ‘Comus and the Lady’ oil on canvas 96 x 72 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 69

www.tristanbarlow.com

T r i s t a n

‘Cupid and Psyche’ acrylic on canvas 90 x 60 x 4 cm

B a r l o w

Tristan Barlow was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1990. He lives and works in London. Tristan received his MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He also studied at the New York Studio School with Carole Robb and received a BFA in Fine Art from the University of Southern Mississippi. His work has recently been shown in Tristan Barlow and Hans Neleman at Anita Rogers Gallery in NYC, NY, 2017. Tristan’s work has been included in the John Moores Painting Prize Exhibition in 2016, Creekside Open, selected by Lisa Milroy in 2015, and the Red Mansion Art Prize Exhibition in 2015. He has also taught drawing and painting for the Rome Art Program in Italy. Tristan was awarded the Red Mansion Art Prize 2014 and the Barto dos Santos Memorial Award 2015. Tristan has been awarded residencies at the Chautauqua Institute of Art, Vermont Studio Center, and the Red Gate Residency in Beijing, China. My paintings are visual fictions, a collection point for thoughts, personal philosophies, and abstract notions. They are formed through a physical process that involves an extensive relationship with materials, pigments and textures as well as a cognitive soup of loose ideas that includes everything from the internet to the Ancient Egyptians pulled tightly into a collection of marks that delineate a visual experience and image. Through making a mark on a surface, scraping, scrubbing, destroying, and reconstructing, a painting becomes a fiction that requires a willing suspension of disbelief, a mythic narrative where the protagonist is a mark on a surface or the 2 dimensional picture plane that holds infinite potential for visual spaces. These notions are not so much tangible or “real”, rather, they are mysteries or half-truths, believed in by choice to make and find an image.

Image (left): ‘Narcissus’ Skull Reflects’ oil on linen 31 x 21 cm

My approach to making work is intending to make images that are bold and vibrant, shocking and gutsy, whether that is conveyed through the image content, the scale, the materials used and the use of them or the gesture and application of the materials. I like work that can be seen as ugly or pretty, that is a general bombardment, full of life and that can push its own boundaries.

Image (right): ‘Narcissus’ Reflection iii’ oil on linen 31 x 21 cm

A m a n d a

D o r a n

www.facebook.com/amandadoranartist p. 70

Curated selection of works

www.tristanbarlow.com

T r i s t a n

‘Cupid and Psyche’ acrylic on canvas 90 x 60 x 4 cm

B a r l o w

Image (left): ‘Narcissus’ Skull Reflects’ oil on linen 31 x 21 cm

Image (right): ‘Narcissus’ Reflection iii’ oil on linen 31 x 21 cm

A m a n d a

D o r a n

www.facebook.com/amandadoranartist p. 70

Curated selection of works

www.paulreidart.co.uk

P a u l

R e i d

Graduated in 1998 with 1st Class Honours in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee, UK. Awarded John Kinross and Carnegie Trust travel scholarships to Italy & Spain. Solo exhibitions between 1999 and the present with the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and London; 108 Fine Art in Harrogate, Perth, Hull and Dundee; John Marchant Gallery in London. Official Tour Artist for HRH Prince of Wales in 2004 and 2009 on visits to Turkey, Italy, Jordan & Canada. Featured in Art Review Magazine 1998 and Turps Banana painting magazine issue 18, 2017. Work featured in ‘The Dictionary of Scottish Painters, 1600 to the Present’, Julian Halsby & Paul Harris 2010; ‘Art Tomorrow’, Edward Lucie Smith 2002; ‘A History of Scottish Art’ Selina Skipworth & Bill Smith, 2003. Working predominantly in the medium of oil paints on canvas, I am fascinated by the enduring power of ancient mythology and its continued relevance to our culture. Although not allegories, I see my images as confronting aspects of our dual nature as self-conscious, rational beings set against the uncomfortable knowledge that we are also beasts who have evolved as part of the animal kingdom. Many of my paintings recall ancient images and myths of animal headed gods and other beings which haunt the imaginations of different cultures. Whilst mainly concerned with the Greek myths, I have touched upon Celtic and Norse myths whilst researching my subject matter and have also found inspiration in 20thC science fiction such as HG Wells ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’, George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse 5’. These novels were a particularly strong influence on my series of paintings depicting the mythical ‘Island of Circe’. Circe was a powerful sorceress who transformed stranded sailors into animals and let them roam free on her island with their human minds still intact - a horrific story which exemplifies aspects of the human condition described above. In tandem with my interest in mythology I am also concerned with the history and techniques of oil painting and have researched and studied them since my college days. The surfaces of my paintings are carefully built from layers of thinned and impastoed paint in order to produce what I hope is a beautiful and beguiling effect.

‘Pan’ oil on canvas 105 x 70cm

‘Theseus and the Minotaur’ oil on canvas 105 x 130cm

Curated selection of works

p. 73

www.paulreidart.co.uk

P a u l

R e i d

‘Pan’ oil on canvas 105 x 70cm

‘Theseus and the Minotaur’ oil on canvas 105 x 130cm

Curated selection of works

p. 73

www.opryymak.com

O l h a

P r y y m a k

My current body of work originates in a fascination with folklore surrounding food and medicine. My interest was sparked as much by the ritualistic processes of growing, drying and consuming herbs as by their actual medicinal properties related to my cultural heritage. This area of focus has led to a dramatic expansion of the parameters of my painting practice, dipping into performance and relational art. Within my painting, I am seeking an equivalence to alchemy. I aim to create a therapeutic and revelatory effect through the application of paint on canvas. Looking back to prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies – in particular, the theories of cultural historian Joseph Campbell that tribal people executed cave paintings to represent situations they hoped would come to pass – I am evoking contemporary painting as a shamanistic ritual. I am exploring painting’s ability to transform and heal as well as its capacity to affect its viewer. Over time, the focus on the cultural belief systems and exploration has led me towards relational art. Recently I have started investigating the socially afflicted conditions by recreating the elements of healing tea drinking rituals within a performance. Audience participation is very important for me. The performance creates a social environment in which participants come together to share a tea drinking activity. The imagery and dialogue acted out in the performances feed back into my painting work. Ultimately all the elements of my practice are directed towards addressing the art’s claim to bring on dialogue, transformation, healing and change.

‘Chrysanthemum’ oil on linen 40 x 50 cm

‘Curtain’ oil on canvas 107 x 90 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 75

www.opryymak.com

O l h a

P r y y m a k

‘Chrysanthemum’ oil on linen 40 x 50 cm

‘Curtain’ oil on canvas 107 x 90 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 75

www.tomwilmott.co.uk

T o m

W i l m o t t I am a painter living and working in London. I studied at Central St Martins and Camberwell College of Art and have held a studio since 2004. I am co-founder of the curatorial partnership Wilderness Projects and have over a decade’s experience as a technician and gallery manager in major commercial galleries. My practice as a painter is based very simply on my love for the medium and its natural characteristics, and an instinctive need to indulge in the act of painting. Like so many painters I know, I experience a constant base urge to make things, which manifests as a growing frustration, relieved only when I am absorbed in physically making work. This being the case, the paintings I make are products of necessity. In truth I am able to derive a satisfaction from any kind of painting, be it in a fine art, DIY, or most any other context, however a penchant for the materialist moves me to make paintings specifically. I want to produce painted objects from which a viewer is able to derive some positive feeling. In this respect it is possible to divide my practice in two. The behaviour fulfils the base need, and then the object fulfils the material desire. Between when the last mark is made and when the painting is dry something changes, such that the behaviour ceases and the object appears. In the object I am searching for essence; indefinable characteristics of the medium which, when combined well, exhibit something singular and unique to painting. I do not look to employ paint to do my bidding. Rather I hope to work with it and find some common ground on which it may do what it wants within the simple boundaries I set for it. The object stands on its own merits - it is a painting and lives or dies by its physical, visual qualities. It does not communicate more than those things. It will not profess alternative conceptual reading as a way to artificially inflate its intellectual value. It is a physical, tangible thing made for its own reasons and therefore performs in this arena. Its essence is as an object of humble material and construction and nothing else. For me painting is a deeply personal pursuit which is inextricably bound up in my own life and history. I openly employ it as a means to improve my experience of living and to help me maintain myself in a state I wish to be. Creativity is a flighty, unruly, unpredictable thing and to pin it down to a single mission statement is probably contradictory to its nature. Nonetheless I try, perhaps as much to clarify it for myself as to explain it to anyone else. Despite expending a good deal of time, thought and consideration on putting something down in writing it remains a force not easily explained but, in the end, if looking at my work proves a positive experience for you then you already know everything you need to.

Image (left): ‘I wouldn’t trade my hand for all the aces in the deck’ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 80.0 x 60.0cm

‘I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. XIII’ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 50.0 x 40.0cm

Image (right): ‘Ooh what’s come over me? Here it comes again... ‘ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 80.0 x 60.0cm

Curated selection of works

p. 77

www.tomwilmott.co.uk

T o m

Image (left): ‘I wouldn’t trade my hand for all the aces in the deck’ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 80.0 x 60.0cm

‘I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. XIII’ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 50.0 x 40.0cm

Image (right): ‘Ooh what’s come over me? Here it comes again... ‘ indian ink, acrylic ink & emulsion on board 80.0 x 60.0cm

Curated selection of works

p. 77

www.superfuturekid.com

S u p e r

F u t u r e

K i d

My work is largely based on themes that strongly relate to certain ideas of childhood and youth, a time that still has a great influence on my personality and artistic identity. I am deeply fascinated with the perception and perspective on the world from the view of an adolescent mind, and particularly in related ideas of mystery and strangeness, games and playfulness. Those ideas include the realms of spirituality, the occult, myths and curiosities as well as themes of character identity such as the play of dressing up and costumes and lastly the idea of the freedom of the youthful spirit itself. The medium of painting serves me as a very sensual tool in this respect. Paint is a very primal substance that constantly evokes my curiosity. I am also fascinated by its power to create a whole world of its own, an entirely non-verbal space. Most of all do I see the act of painting as an ongoing extension of my own childhood, it allows me to explore ideas that are deeply rooted within myself and therefore helps me to continuously map out and shape my identity as an artist and in the end as a human being.

‘Bob’s your Uncle’ oil, acrylic and airbrush on canvas 80 x 70 x 4.5cm

‘Everlong’ oil, acrylic and airbrush on canvas 140 x 110 x 3.6cm

Curated selection of works

p. 79

www.superfuturekid.com

S u p e r

F u t u r e

K i d

‘Bob’s your Uncle’ oil, acrylic and airbrush on canvas 80 x 70 x 4.5cm

‘Everlong’ oil, acrylic and airbrush on canvas 140 x 110 x 3.6cm

Curated selection of works

p. 79

J o h n B u s h e r

www.johnbusher.ie

The work references the nuances of perceptual experience. Investigated from a bodily point of view, figures often disperse through a gradual process of reworking. Notions of chance are unearthed through a mingling of sorts, where forms interact in peculiar transactions. This exchange is sought through re-contextualizing varying planes of narrative. The physical properties of the medium are measured against the resulting imagery that materialises. John Busher (b. Wexford, 1976) graduated from NCAD with an MA Art in the Contemporary World in 2015, a Post Grad in 2008, and an Honours Degree in 1999. Recent joint exhibitions include ‘Transferrals’, Pallas Projects, Dublin (2015). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Jostle’, Pallas Projects, Dublin (2017); ‘Floorplan’, NAG Gallery, Dublin (2015). Selected group shows include ‘Impressions Biennnial’, CCAM, GMIT, Galway (2017); And Creatures Dream... A New Language..., Wexford County Council & Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford (2017); ‘Halftone’, the Library Project, Dublin (2016); Winter Open’, RUA RED, Dublin, and ‘Essays for the House of Memory’, Ormston House, Limerick (2014). He was the recipient of the ‘Living Arts Project’ residency in 2015 & 2017 (Wexford County Council & the Arts Council).

Image (left): ‘Climbing Frame (Birds) ‘ oil on canvas 120 x 100 cm

p. 80

Curated selection of works

Image (right): ‘Shop’ oil on canvas 180 x 150 cm

‘Blue Rope’ oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches

S a r a h

S l a p p e y

www.sarahslappey.com

Sarah Slappey (b. 1984, Columbia, South Carolina) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Slappey received her MFA from Hunter College in 2016. She has exhibited in both solo and group shows in New York, Italy, and London. Her work has appeared in such publications as Social Life, Long Island Pulse, and Hamptons Art Hub. My paintings are rooted in dark humor, surrealism, and illusion. The sinister undertones are tethered to a Southern Gothic aesthetic reflecting my childhood in the American South. Bible Belt superstition, ghost stories, swamp lore, and mysticism all intermingle in the quietly menacing worlds I create. Dark humor and illusion are also vital to my work. Framing (both literally and figuratively) within a painting coyly reiterates the image’s deceit and its self-awareness. Similarly, the images are both rendered and speckled with abstract slices that take the viewer out of the illusion of reality. Both the interior and exterior spaces aim to explore qualities of shifting reality and visual destabilization. Like a dream, things might first appear logical, but with time, slide into something that resists explanation.

Curated selection of works

p. 81

J o h n B u s h e r

www.johnbusher.ie

Image (left): ‘Climbing Frame (Birds) ‘ oil on canvas 120 x 100 cm

p. 80

Curated selection of works

Image (right): ‘Shop’ oil on canvas 180 x 150 cm

‘Blue Rope’ oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches

S a r a h

S l a p p e y

www.sarahslappey.com

Curated selection of works

p. 81

S c o t t M c C r a c k e n

www.scottmccrackenartist.net

Scott McCracken’s paintings present an index of imagery achieved through an accumulation and a recycling of geometric motifs. This process of recycling allows the forms to be reconfigured into new compositions, making the image feel concrete while still retaining a level of ambiguity. A recurring motif in the series adopts a different identity with every repetition, affording each painting its own singular logic and individual personality. Although rooted in the language of abstraction, there exists a figurative, animated quality that charges the work with a reflection of the physical world. Scott McCracken is a painter living and working in London. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 2005 to 2011 where he received his BA and MFA in Painting. He was a participant on the Turps Studio Programme in London from 2015 to 2017. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK including solo exhibitions at Darbyshire Ltd, London and Bargain Spot Project Space, Edinburgh. Previous group shows include Standard Projects, Wisconsin, USA; Art Bermondsey Project Space, London; Universität der Künste Berlin, Berlin; ArtWall, Athens; Blankspace, Manchester. In 2017 he was awarded the Darbyshire Prize for Emerging Art.

Image (left):

Image (right):

‘Big Crunch’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

‘Sharpshooter’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

‘One Too Many’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

Curated selection of works

p. 83

S c o t t M c C r a c k e n

www.scottmccrackenartist.net

Image (left):

Image (right):

‘Big Crunch’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

‘Sharpshooter’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

‘One Too Many’ oil on canvas 60 x 45cm

Curated selection of works

p. 83

J a n e

H a y e s

G r e e n w o o d

Born 1986, Manchester, UK, Jane Hayes Greenwood is an artist based in London. She is a painter and makes sculptural installations. Her practice explores desire, shame and the erotic body. 2017 exhibitions included a major solo show: ‘Lead Me Not Into Temptation’ at Block 336 and group exhibitions such as ‘You see me like a UFO’ curated by Marcelle Joseph. Studio Marant presented her work in Paris and Marseille and the curator Marie Madec included her work in the third edition of her series of exhibitions ‘Sans Titre’, Paris. She was selected as a finalist for XL Catlin Art Prize in 2016 where she made a solo presentation of work. Alongside her practice Jane Hayes Greenwood is co-founder and Executive Director of Block 336, an artist-run project space, studio provider and UK registered charity in Brixton, South London. Block 336 has held 26 exhibitions since opening in March 2012. The organisation foregrounds emerging and underrepresented practices, working with artists within a supportive and critical context, free from the constraints of the commercial market. Jane is also a BA Fine Art tutor at City & Guilds of London Art School.

www.janehayesgreenwood.co.uk

Images of artworks and installation shot from the exhibtion: ‘After The Fall’ (detail) acrylic and oil on canvas 200 x 250 cm

‘Lead Me Not Into Temptation’ Block 336

Curated selection of works

p. 85

J a n e

H a y e s

G r e e n w o o d

www.janehayesgreenwood.co.uk

Images of artworks and installation shot from the exhibtion: ‘After The Fall’ (detail) acrylic and oil on canvas 200 x 250 cm

‘Lead Me Not Into Temptation’ Block 336

Curated selection of works

p. 85

G r e t c h e n S c h e r e r www.gretchenscherer.com

Gretchen Scherer received a BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and graduated with an MFA from Hunter College. She is the recipient of a Graf travel grant to Berlin and has attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and The Vermont Studio Center Residency. Recent shows include Spoonbill Studio, Brooklyn; Silas Von Morisse Gallery, Brooklyn; C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, and Anna Marra Contemporanea, Rome. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. I create paintings of fictional interiors that are dream-like windows into the past. They depart from the original sources of inspiration to become imaginary spaces of possibility — much like the capriccios of 18th century Italian art. I base them on collages composed of different images I find in old books on the history of interiors. Rooms are linked together in curious ways; stairs, halls and doorways go on endlessly as if in a dream where one cannot find an exit. My paintings are about the blending of interior spaces that exist, either in the past or in our minds, and the way those visualizations can be so mysterious, full, and empty all at the same time. They are small oil paintings that are very detailed and meant to be experienced closely. I seek to allow spaces that have been lost to the past to be found anew in the perpetual expanse of painting.

‘A Vast Mirror’ oil on panel 18 x 24 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 87

G r e t c h e n S c h e r e r www.gretchenscherer.com

‘A Vast Mirror’ oil on panel 18 x 24 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 87

A n d r e a M a g e n h e i m e r

www.andimagenheimer.com

Andi Magenheimer graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 2012 and The School of Visual Art in 2009. Awards include the Chelsea Arts Club Trust Special Projects Award, Burren Exchange, and the Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Visual Arts. When a soldier finds himself in boot camp, as the films tell us anyway, he must endure a series of physical and psychological trials. If the commander asks if he is close to death he must yell, “No, Sir! I’m full of joy!” Pain is how you know you’re still alive, and humour is the lens through which it becomes necessary to view our sufferings if we are to carry on. I am interested in this comedy of the sick, the damned, and the horrendously clumsy, and make it the primary subject of my paintings and drawings - whether that comes in a rainbow of dirty limericks or fart jokes scrawled in charcoal on the wall of a penitentiary cell - metaphorically speaking. That said, a nicely done painting of a flower can be quite restorative, especially when it looks like someone you dig.

Image (left): ‘Nick So Nice We Get to Die Twice’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

Image (right): ‘The Stoning of St Stephen’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

‘Polish Folk Painting’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

Curated selection of works

p. 89

A n d r e a M a g e n h e i m e r

www.andimagenheimer.com

Image (left): ‘Nick So Nice We Get to Die Twice’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

Image (right): ‘The Stoning of St Stephen’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

‘Polish Folk Painting’ oil on linen 52cm x47cm

Curated selection of works

p. 89

E m m a F i n e m a n

Image (p. 90): ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ oil and charcoal on canvas 240 x 180 cm

Image (p. 91): ‘Questions of Silence’ oil and charcoal on canvas 150 x 235 cm

www.emmafineman.com

Emma Fineman was born in 1991 in Berkeley, California. She is currently living and working in London, UK where she is on the Master in Arts Degree Course in Painting at the Royal College of Art. In 2013 she received her BFA as a Painting Major at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Fineman has received numerous awards and scholarships including the Harley Open Judges Prize granted by the Harley Museum and Foundation, Nottingham, UK (2017); the Anderson Ranch Arts Center Presidential Fellowship (2013); Trustee Scholarship (2009-2013); MICA Presidential Scholarship (2009-2013); the MICA Foundation Scholarship (2009) and the MICA Recognition Award (2011). Her works have been shown globally with solo shows in London, San Francisco, Miami, and New Delhi. Fineman has also participated in residency programs internationally in countries such as Italy, Finland, Iceland, United States and Turkey and has been invited to participate in group exhibitions in each respective location. I embrace painting’s ability to flatten time into a still image and I seek to highlight this seemingly preposterous task by allowing my narration to layer and slip, depicting the dense compression of time in our contemporary culture. It seems that we are now unable to experience life one thing at a time. It never is, and perhaps never has been that way. I feel however, especially aware that at present, we are all inundated with such a degree of information that it makes thinking, feeling, and understanding clearly, practically impossible. Images of an imagined junction with words like exit become my self-reflection. My internal desires played out in a series of expressive and gestural marks that sit somewhere between drawing and painting. Somewhere between the quick note to jot down an idea, and a more prolonged meditation on the parts of daily life that for some unknowable reason affix themselves to the back of one’s mind and kick about with an unnerving permanence.

Curated selection of works

p. 91

E m m a F i n e m a n

Image (p. 90): ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ oil and charcoal on canvas 240 x 180 cm

Image (p. 91): ‘Questions of Silence’ oil and charcoal on canvas 150 x 235 cm

www.emmafineman.com

Curated selection of works

p. 91

E m i l R o b i n s o n

www.emilrobinson.com

Emil Robinson is an artist known for paintings of figures and evocative spaces. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. Robinson’s figurative work garnered a prize from the Smithsonian and a review in the Washington Post. Recent presentations of Robinson’s work include a solo exhibition at Waterhouse and Dodd Contemporary in London and shows at Novella Gallery, Anna Zorina Gallery in New York, and Goldfinch in Chicago. These paintings depict the fantasy life of everyday surroundings. Forms are imagined and personified. The result is a synthetic painting language organized by history and psychological relationships. The boundaries between the body and the landscape are uncertain positing of an edgeless consciousness.

Image (left): ‘Ecstatic Space 3’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

Image (right): ‘Ecstatic Space 2’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

‘Ecstatic Space 1’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 93

E m i l R o b i n s o n

www.emilrobinson.com

Image (left): ‘Ecstatic Space 3’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

Image (right): ‘Ecstatic Space 2’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

‘Ecstatic Space 1’ oil on panel 41 x 29 inches

Curated selection of works

p. 93

georgehillbaker.net

G e o r g e

H i l l - B a k e r

George Hill-Baker works mostly in three dimensions and recently digitally. His practice is influenced by the ardent need for exploration, the characteristics of gravity and the presence of worlds beyond our own. With a keen interest in sky and what lies beyond he reflects upon the avoidance of earthly confinement, showing a disdain for bodily limitation and one’s compulsory residence on the planet. Taking influence from the work of the late cosmologist Carl Sagan as well as artists who use gravity as a medium, Hill-Baker has embarked on translating the digital into the physical. He creates compositions of depth and form within a non-physical environment, depicting an otherworldly array of interaction between objects in motion that have interstellar characteristics. These works have been made using the draw tool on the Notes app on an iphone. Hill-Baker expresses our mortal struggle by using anthropomorphic elements such as hands to reference attempts at piloting or reaching for objects within the confines of his structures.

‘The Annoyingly Small Device IV’ digital drawing dimensions variable, best 14 x 17cm

‘The Annoyingly Small Device V’ digital drawing dimensions variable, best 14 x 17cm

curated selection of works

p. 95

georgehillbaker.net

G e o r g e

H i l l - B a k e r

‘The Annoyingly Small Device IV’ digital drawing dimensions variable, best 14 x 17cm

‘The Annoyingly Small Device V’ digital drawing dimensions variable, best 14 x 17cm

curated selection of works

p. 95

www.chantalpowell.com

C h a n t a l

P o w e l l

Chantal Powell creates sculptural objects and installations that explore concepts of truth, illusion and constructs of reality. A PhD focusing on the social psychology of human relationships informs her practice as an artist. Her works are symbolic explorations, often personal, into untangling faith, disillusionment, make-believe and myth. With works often playing up theatrical facade and illusionary twists, we are led to consider the selffabrication and deception that occur in our personal constructions of our realities and our post truth society. Recent works turn this focus towards the impact that a chronic illness has had upon her own mental constructs of reality. They make use of primitive and symbolic materials in order to explore themes of fragility, value, and transformation. They reference a mythic world of pre-modern artifacts, talismans and alchemy – a faith in ritual and self-healing. Powell’s work demonstrates a joy of making, a commitment to understanding the inherent vocabulary of her materials, and a desire to explore the riddle of our psychological world. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, most notably at Guildhall Art Gallery in London (alongside Paula Rego, Yinka Shonibare, Grayson Perry and Matt Collishaw), the Royal West Academy in Bristol, OCCCA in California, and at collateral events at the 53rd and 54th Venice Biennales. She was shortlisted for a prestigious Mark Tanner Sculpture Award and selected by Griffin Gallery to create a collaborative work with a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust scholar. She has been elected as a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and was a finalist in the Young Masters Art Prize. In 2013 she was awarded a Review Bursary for critical and artistic development by The Artist Information Company which led to a period of mentoring by gallerist Danielle Arnaud. Powell has also worked on a number of public commissions including two installations in Saltwell Park for NewcastleGateshead Initiative, site specific installations for both Guildhall Art Gallery London and a grade II listed church in Southampton, and an interactive public work for Museums at Night.

Image (left): ‘Impending Fractures’ cement, sand, paint 15cm (h) x 14cm (w) x 14cm (d)

Image (right): ‘I Felt the Atmosphere Of Shifting Illusion and Reality (Baetyl)’ bronze cast of a cleft rock 10cm (h) x 10.5cm (w) x 7cm (d)

‘Studies in Self Healing II (Fortuity)’ gold plated silver cast of a horned twig, dead wood 20cm x 22cm x 15cm

curated selection of works

p. 97

www.chantalpowell.com

C h a n t a l

P o w e l l

Image (left): ‘Impending Fractures’ cement, sand, paint 15cm (h) x 14cm (w) x 14cm (d)

Image (right): ‘I Felt the Atmosphere Of Shifting Illusion and Reality (Baetyl)’ bronze cast of a cleft rock 10cm (h) x 10.5cm (w) x 7cm (d)

‘Studies in Self Healing II (Fortuity)’ gold plated silver cast of a horned twig, dead wood 20cm x 22cm x 15cm

curated selection of works

p. 97

Image (top, left): ‘Trickster’ oil on hessian 80 x 60 cm

Image (top, right): ‘Old Ceremony’ oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm

Image (bottom, left): ‘Immigrant Tale’ oil on canvas 180 x 140 cm

Image (bottom, right): ‘Storyteller’ oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm

K e v i n

M o o n e y

www.kevinmooney.org

‘Mound Man’ oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm

Kevin Mooney is an Irish artist based in Sample Studios, Cork. He graduated from the Masters in Fine Art, NCAD in 2012. Solo shows include “Seeing Things”, Artbox Projects, Dublin 2017; “Twilight Head Cult”, Ormston House, Limerick, 2016; “Wave”, Pallas Projects, Dublin 2014; “Dog Island Tales”, Talbot Gallery, Dublin 2014 and “Timeline” Queen Street Gallery, Belfast, 2010. Selected group exhibitions include “Looking Forward, Looking Back Now”, at Tactic Gallery, Cork; “What Is and What Might Be”, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 2015; “Making Familiar”, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, 2012; “Horizon Sprawl”, Ormston House, Limerick 2012, and “Video Killed the Radio Star”, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2010. Art Fairs include Context New York 2017 and VUE 2017, Dublin, both with Gibbons & Nicholas. He received a Visual Artists Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017. In 2015 he was shortlisted for Wexford Arts Centre’s Emerging Artist Award. He was also shortlisted for the Thames and Hudson publication “100 Painters of Tomorrow” in 2013. In 2012, he was longlisted for the Saatchi New Sensations Prize. Kevin Mooney’s parents were part of the mass exodus from Ireland in the 1950s, returning decades later. This background of emigration, and his early experiences as a UK born Irish person growing up in Ireland, informed his painting practice. As a child, he was partly excluded from a “real” Irish identity as a result of this family history. This allowed him to develop an “outsider” understanding of Irishness. Rooted in mythology and a semi-fictitious Irish art history, his practice is culturally specific. A key influence has been part of the last generation to experience a living oral tradition. This has been crucial in developing his work, which can be read as the abstraction of Irish folklore as seen through a contemporary lens. His paintings, sometimes made with rough heavy canvas, and with surfaces bearing layers of varnish, play with the notion of history. Contemporary languages of paint find their way onto the canvas alongside a prehistoric symbolism and a medieval flatness, creating a compression of time. With vocabularies of paint encompassing prehistoric, medieval and contemporary periods, the work can be read as a memory that maps, re-traces, and re-imagines cultural history as an active interplay between loss and renewal.

Curated selection of works

p. 99

Image (top, left): ‘Trickster’ oil on hessian 80 x 60 cm

Image (top, right): ‘Old Ceremony’ oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm

Image (bottom, left): ‘Immigrant Tale’ oil on canvas 180 x 140 cm

Image (bottom, right): ‘Storyteller’ oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm

K e v i n

M o o n e y

www.kevinmooney.org

‘Mound Man’ oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 99

www.allisonreimus.com

A l l i s o n

R e i m u s Allison Reimus is a Chicago-based painter whose work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications in the US and abroad. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Knox College (Galesburg, IL), The Mission (Chicago) and Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia, PA). Her work has been included in Maake Magazine and New American Paintings (#88, #113, #125), highlighted as both an “Editor’s Selection” and a “Noteworthy Artist”. Recent reviews include The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and NPR. Reimus received her BFA in Studio Art in 2005 from Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) and her MFA in 2009 from American University (Washington, DC). I explore the relationship between decoration and function and similarly, how painting operates as both an object and an idea. I favor simple compositions, rendered in shallow pictorial space, because I find freedom within boundaries. Feminism, motherhood and domesticity inspire the content and enforce a need to experiment with media more closely associated with the “feminine” — materials often used in handicrafts and the decorative arts, such as glitter, gold leaf, burlap, lace, yarn, sandpaper, textiles and flocking fibers. Recent works include literal references to domesticity through the use of towels, tablecloths, chunks of ceiling tile, and sewn canvas.

Image (left): ‘Nite Kite’ oil, collage, glitter on sewn canvas 16 x 14 inches

Image (right): ‘Quiet Party’ latex, oil on canvas 16 x 14 inches

‘Sew Bad’ oil, collage on sewn canvas 16 x 14 inches

curated selection of works

p. 101

www.allisonreimus.com

A l l i s o n

Image (left): ‘Nite Kite’ oil, collage, glitter on sewn canvas 16 x 14 inches

Image (right): ‘Quiet Party’ latex, oil on canvas 16 x 14 inches

‘Sew Bad’ oil, collage on sewn canvas 16 x 14 inches

curated selection of works

p. 101

G E M M A B R O W N E

www.abi-box.com

A b i

B o x

Gemma Browne, born London, UK, lives and works in Dublin. She has an MA Fine Art, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, UK, 1992-1993 and National Diploma in Painting and Printmaking, Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork, 1984-1988. Selected group shows: Dec 2017: Papercuts, curated by Kristian Day, Tripp Gallery, London; Dec 2017: Got it for Cheap, travelling art show, 0-0 Gallery, LA, curated by Charlie Roberts, Chris Rexroad and Jordan Watson; Nov 2017: Got it for Cheap, Gallery SteinslandBerliner, Stockholm, Sweden; Oct 2017: Papercuts, curated by Kristian Day, Manchester Contemporary; Oct 2017: GIFC, Rod Bianco Gallery, Oslo, Norway; Sept 2017: GIFC, The Hole, New York City; Sept 2017: GIFC, Soulland, Copenhagen, Denmark; Aug 2017: Got it for Cheap, McCaulay and Co. Fine Art, Vancouver, Canada; May 2017: SuprEYES, Lexicon Gallery, Dublin, curated by Martin Drury from collection of the Arts Council of Ireland; May 2017:GIFC, Art Athina Fair, Athens, Greece. In my artwork female characters look doll like and a bit unreal. They don`t depict a particular person or story but are fragments of memories or are drawn as emotional responses to events. I like to create fake environments in my work, so houses look like doll houses and nature is a manufactured garden, pond or imagined forest! The figures and sets are like props for different feelings. My colours are usually bright, varied and enticing but there is a vaguely sinister disquietude present in the pieces. Equally, the subjects depicted can be beautiful say a doll face, flower or dress but there is also a sense of frustration in the scenarios. I draw and paint very instinctively based on mood or feeling but there are also recurrent feminist themes in my pictures, as the homes or pretty gardens could also be trapping, domestic environments. There is a disjoint between my subjects and their settings, they appear to be a bit fragmented or out of place. Drawing is a very important practice for me as it`s so primal and immediate and yet can be endlessly fresh and sophisticated and recently I have drawn a lot with coloured pencils. I like a similar approach with painting and prefer to use water based paints like acrylic and gouache and currently work a lot on paper. There is a beauty and exuberance in my work but also hints of discomfort and frustration simmering not too far under the surface! Much of my work is about describing what is around me, translating the things I see into interesting collections of marks. Making paintings which balance between figuration and abstraction, exploring paint’s ability to visually describe and reinvent. I mostly paint from nature, trees and bushes; I especially like spaces that either are, or appear, abandoned and for there to be a sense of turbulence and debris. I’m inspired by the different places and environments I visit, the variety of flora, like brushstrokes, fluctuate wildly in ‘style’ and these regional nuances influence my own vocabulary of mark making. In my paintings where I work with oils on acrylic, the two surfaces repel and the paint loosely pools, persistently fighting definition. I like this lack of control, it interrupts my ability to accurately observe and describe, resulting in my paintings being interestingly detached from reality; impressions, full of subtleties and nuances. I often reference a small work in the making of a much bigger piece. Indulging in the unknowns, daring to transform small gestures made from the wrist into giant marks articulated from the shoulder. Much of my intrigue revolves around the idea of being able to blow up small intricate brushstrokes into huge sweeping ones, combining both intricacy and …massiveness; bold and striking structures alongside delicate and tentatively faltering gestures.

www.gemmabrowne.com

Abi Box graduated from London University of the Arts Camberwell (2008). Having previously been based in London she is now living and working in Bermuda. Recent exhibitions include Haloclines at Jessica Carlisle Gallery in London (2016) and The Smaller the Larger at Sobering Gallery in Paris (2016), as well as participating as artist in residence at Stiwdio Maelor in Corris, North Wales (2016) and the Trélex Residency, Refugio Amazonas, Peru (2015). Abi’s work is held in both a number of private and public collections including the University of the Arts London Alumni Collection and the Simmons Contemporary Collection.

Image (left): ‘All Lovers Must’ oil on board 27 x 21 cm

p. 102 Curated selection of works

Image (central):

Image (right):

‘Losing Our Minds Together’ oil on canvas 94 x 64 cm

‘With Abandon’ oils on acrylic 181 x 121 cm

‘Cross Dress’ colour pencils on paper 30 X 38 cm

‘Intact’ colour pencils on paper 30 X 36 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 103

G E M M A B R O W N E

www.abi-box.com

A b i

B o x

www.gemmabrowne.com

Image (left): ‘All Lovers Must’ oil on board 27 x 21 cm

p. 102 Curated selection of works

Image (central):

Image (right):

‘Losing Our Minds Together’ oil on canvas 94 x 64 cm

‘With Abandon’ oils on acrylic 181 x 121 cm

‘Cross Dress’ colour pencils on paper 30 X 38 cm

‘Intact’ colour pencils on paper 30 X 36 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 103

After her studies in psychology, sculpture and mixed media, Lysandre Begijn (NL, 1977) took up painting. Her work, which bears an affinity with installation art, embodies a strong connection between the psyche and art. While much of Lysandre Begijn’s painterly work can be defined as abstract, this recent body of work strongly tends toward the figurative. Faces - or masks - are what instantly come to mind. At the basis of these colourful ‘faces’ is an assemblage of abstract, flat painted forms and scraps of textile material. Some compositions have been entirely built up out of textiles. Between the draperies a play of veiling and unveiling unfolds, thus suggesting a continuous movement. Painted shapes and the use of textile, endow the work with a direct and powerful physical presence. In this physicality the sculptor can be recognised. Using textiles undoubtedly accords a tactile quality to the work in which the classical format of the painting becomes a layered installation. In the rawness of the works, using odd materials, and in the negation of conventional rules of well-defined art disciplines, these works find resonance with the masks made by Dadaist Marcel Janco. Janco made masks representing distorted, bizarre faces that found inspiration in the sculpted wooden masks of the Lötschental in the Swiss Alps and that were used during

L y s a n d r e

B e g i j n

Dada gatherings. Sources and references to Lysandre’s masks are manifold. They range from outsider art, folk art and tribal art to Pop Culture and the subconscious as interpreted by Carl Jung. Masks, persona (from which the word person is derived) in Latin, tend to obfuscate the face of the real person, to provide a person with a second persona and to give free reign to the unconscious. Expressions often are grossly exaggerated. They help to externalise the subconscious and to vent the unknown, deep-rooted anxiety, the supernatural, primitive instincts. More than representing faces, these installations are icons of faces. They are icons of the human condition, of sadness, of anxiety. Masks especially during carnival - give the bearer a new, alternative identity (or non-identity) which is loose from society and hence is able to comment on that society. During carnival two worlds of experience, that of the accepted reality and that of a parallel reality encounter one another, touch one another in the physical world. These faces imply a transformation, an obliteration of the conscious ‘self’. Profile by Georges Petitjean (curator/author)

Image (p. 104):

Image (left, p. 105):

Image (right, p. 105):

‘Hausgesicht’ acrylic on canvas, fabric, spray paint 120 X 120 cm

‘Spunkless Spirit’ acrylic on canvas, felt, rope, spray paint 50 X 60 cm

‘Sewerface/Dirty Nose’ acrylic on canvas, fabric, spray paint 120 X 120 cm

www.lysandre.be Curated selection of works

p. 105

L y s a n d r e

B e g i j n

Image (p. 104):

Image (left, p. 105):

Image (right, p. 105):

‘Hausgesicht’ acrylic on canvas, fabric, spray paint 120 X 120 cm

‘Spunkless Spirit’ acrylic on canvas, felt, rope, spray paint 50 X 60 cm

‘Sewerface/Dirty Nose’ acrylic on canvas, fabric, spray paint 120 X 120 cm

www.lysandre.be Curated selection of works

p. 105

E m i ly

V a n n s

Image (left): ‘Embarrassing Reflections’ oil pastel and oil stick on cardboard 21 x 30 cm approx.

Image (right): ‘She Had The Habit Of Leaving Things In Unexpected Places’ oil pastel on paper 30 x 42 cm

Emily Vanns, b.1990 in Kent, lives and works in East London. She completed her BA in Fine Art at Kingston University in 2014 and has since studied at the Royal Drawing School. Her work has been exhibited nationally in group shows and has been used in publications such as The Protagonist Magazine. Using bright colour, bold line and repetitive imagery, Emily’s paintings and drawings are simultaneously a playful and serious exploration of cultural history, spaces and objects. Having worked in museums to support her art practice since moving to London, she has had the privilege of being able to interact with these incredible spaces and collections in a way that most people will never experience; “The most interesting times for me are in the morning and at night when very few people occupy the building, or the transition from day to night when so much happens to keep everything running. I often feel as if I am inside a vast stage or film set. What I am constantly trying to capture and express in my work is the magic and contradiction these spaces have. The push and pull between private and public, celebration and criticism, beauty and absurdity, violence and tranquility.” Inspired by her own memories and experiences, Emily’s fictional interiors are suspended in moments of transition. With no physical human presence occupying the spaces, the viewer is intended to be alone. Partially concealed by a pillar, column or curtain, the spaces take on a level of intimacy and solitude which could be conveyed as consoling or disturbing. A sense of intrusion is ever present. Sometimes indications of human activity are visible (tables of food, empty wine glasses, a spill on the floor), but the meaning or purpose is left ambiguous, leaving it up to the viewer to fill in the gaps of an incomplete narrative. Repetition is also an ongoing theme in Emily’s paintings and drawings. The depiction of the same objects (marble pillars and columns, archways, fruit, houseplants) acts as a visual vocabulary that is constantly growing and evolving; “I am fascinated by how painters choose to build and be identified by their own visual languages. Perhaps one of the reasons for repetition in my work is that it goes against the tradition of a single linear discourse, allowing each object I pick to have multiple lives and the freedom of new narratives. Multiple discourses of an object or idea is something we are increasingly exposed to through social media and digital culture; it’s a phenomenon with so much potential for exploration.”

www.cargocollective.com/emilyvanns

‘Marmaros’ oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 107

E m i ly

V a n n s

Image (left): ‘Embarrassing Reflections’ oil pastel and oil stick on cardboard 21 x 30 cm approx.

Image (right): ‘She Had The Habit Of Leaving Things In Unexpected Places’ oil pastel on paper 30 x 42 cm

www.cargocollective.com/emilyvanns

‘Marmaros’ oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm

Curated selection of works

p. 107

Jeanette Gunnarsson is a painter who recently graduated from City and Guilds of London Art School. Her practice and interests lie within the genre of expanded painting. Textiles, raw painted canvas, found materials and appropriated imagery permeate her work. By considering painting beyond the frame of a stretcher, the contained arena is removed and the works spill into environments, becoming charged spaces, walls and objects. This installation piece is titled “Drink The Kool-Aid... (Bitch)!“ You have entered into a hidden space. The first thing you feel is a confident, warm, cascading embrace. You encounter colour, overwhelming, gushing and intoxicating colour. You immerse yourself in this, you celebrate, you let yourself go… then, without really noticing it, you slide into believing, into believing in paint and painting and action and them and then Him and her by His side, picking her flavours, adjusting her hem. Regarding the sanctity of a sanctuary, seeing is believing and believing is your justification. But wait… something interrupts your joyful intuitions. Can you trust this divine, celebratory encounter? Where is the perfect transcendent experience you wished for? Where is your deliverance? Torn, placed, dirtied. The man you can’t avoid, he’s always watching you. And you want to fight it.

J e a n e t t e

G u n n a r s s o n

Maybe you don’t want to believe anymore. Maybe you don’t know what to believe. Perhaps you can’t fully trust. Something feels irreverent, temporary, impertinent and unsafe. This colour, at first so beguiling, why does it give way to these thoughts, these questions? It isn’t all as picture-perfect as you imagined it to be. But… don’t let me spoil the chocolate. Maybe you should get out, run away from this colourful confusion and drown in a sea of apathy. Dress designed and made in collaboration with Nura Catalan.

www.instagram.com/gunnarssonjeanette

Images courtesy of the artist.

curated selection of works

p. 109

J e a n e t t e

G u n n a r s s o n

www.instagram.com/gunnarssonjeanette

Images courtesy of the artist.

curated selection of works

p. 109

‘Rocks Off’ oil on canvas 130 x 100cm

Anna lives and works in London. She received her BA from Central Saint Martins and gained her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2015. She recently won the Griffin Art Prize and the Ingram purchase prize 2017. Previous awards include The Genesis Foundation Scholarship and the London Group prize 2013. Anna’s work has been shown throughout the UK and also in Europe. She is currently working on an exciting collaborative, immersive project that opens this summer 2018 in London. I paint from life, from imagination and from memory. Each painting comes from an encounter. I am interested in this moment, when something shifts: a metamorphosis that happens sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally; manifested in behaviour, body language and visual signs, a shape shifting. My painting is often concerned with ideas around female sexuality, challenging the image of woman, created historically by men. The paintings shift between what is seen and what is felt. They morph between the act of looking and the manifestation of a sensation, be that flirtatious glances, desire or defiance. Tension hides in the space between us: in the looking, not touching. Many spaces are at play and each of these spaces is left to vibrate in the truth and untruth of things. Oscillating between subjectivity and objectivity, ambivalence is the driving force, moving in and out of abstraction.

Image (left):

A n n a L i b e r L e w i s

‘Statement of Intent ‘ oil on canvas 170 x 130cm

Image (right): ‘I am and I am not’ oil on canvas 170 x 130cm

www.annaliberlewis.com

curated selection of works

p. 111

‘Rocks Off’ oil on canvas 130 x 100cm

Image (left):

A n n a L i b e r L e w i s

‘Statement of Intent ‘ oil on canvas 170 x 130cm

Image (right): ‘I am and I am not’ oil on canvas 170 x 130cm

www.annaliberlewis.com

curated selection of works

p. 111

‘Apophyllite VI’ acrylic on canvas with apophyllite crystal 51 x 50 cm

K a r e n D a v i d

Karen David’s multi-disciplinary practice examines themes and notions of mysticism with direct reference to consumerism and the domestic through the use of materials, mediums and subcultures such as tie-dye, crystals and dreamcatchers. Karen David is a London-based artist who obtained her MA Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art in 2012. In 2014 she undertook a research trip to the Southwest American desert to explore its landscape and mythologies and to inform an ongoing project consisting of her fictional artists’ commune; a snowflake-shaped self-sustaining structure where residents research and create works under their self-proclaimed ‘New Age Modernism’. In 2015 she was Artist in Residence at Islington Mill, Manchester, and in 2016 won the Artist in Residence award on the BA Painting Wimbledon College of Art. David also writes, curates and runs Cork Lined Rooms; an artist interview and studio project based on the Proust Questionnaire. Solo exhibitions include: Pure Reason Tint of Violet, Vitrine, Santa Fe; Art Lacuna, and Searching for the Viable Essence, Jacob’s Island Gallery, London. Group shows include: Mannequin, Griffin Gallery Perimeter Space; Without Shores, ASC Gallery; London Art Fair with OpenDraw; Anti Social Realism, Charlie Smith Gallery; A Union of Voices, Horatio Jr. Gallery; Tomb, Shrine, Survey - Marker, Enclave Projects; Expanded Painting: Mocka-Modern, Oval Gallery and WunderKammer, The Nunnery, London.

www.karendavid.co.uk Pure Reason Tint of Violet (Love for Humanity) TF32901 1 litre of wall paint with carborundum (artificial stardust), rose quartz stone and fine iridescent stainless steel. Custom-made wall paint named after the colour

curated selection of works

p. 113

‘Apophyllite VI’ acrylic on canvas with apophyllite crystal 51 x 50 cm

K a r e n D a v i d

curated selection of works

p. 113

Featured image: Sarah Alice Moran ‘Double Rainbow’ ceramic 10 x 6 x 7 inches (approx.) more on p. 136-137

E D I T O R I A L s e l e c t i o n o f w o r k s

Featured image: Sarah Alice Moran ‘Double Rainbow’ ceramic 10 x 6 x 7 inches (approx.) more on p. 136-137

E D I T O R I A L s e l e c t i o n o f w o r k s

D a v i d H y t o n e

www.davidhytone.com

In 2015 I began to create what would become a new body of work that led to an examination of human frailty, and the mechanisms we employ to cope with and compensate for our failings, imagined and otherwise. Soon the metric had begun to broaden, considering how these contrivances were performed on a societal level, how it is the nature of our lives, as individuals and societies, to constantly build and rebuild monuments to our existence, narratives shaped like carapaces around us, out of the ill-fitting remnants of our past coupled with the laminate symbols of our unsure futures. I’ve always said that when I enter the studio, I do not so much begin with an idea as endeavor to arrive at one. Lately, these ideas of projection, facade and the mutability of identity are facets of what I have been continuing to explore in my practice.

‘Apparently the Understudy’ ink, acrylic, flashe, okawara on panel 38 x 53 inches

‘Birthday Suit Ink’ acrylic, flashe, okawara on panel 18 x 14 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 117

D a v i d H y t o n e

www.davidhytone.com

‘Apparently the Understudy’ ink, acrylic, flashe, okawara on panel 38 x 53 inches

‘Birthday Suit Ink’ acrylic, flashe, okawara on panel 18 x 14 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 117

‘Introvert’ oil on linen 77 x 96 inches

Wuhan born Xiaofu Wang’s painted surfaces create an environment bordering abstraction, where recognizable elements become handholds leading deeper into a dream. An observer staggers between the forms themselves, and their deceptive proclamations, as if meaning and appearance were strangers to each other. Bright and cheerful hues seem to hold threatening positions; a jagged line could be the sign of a celebration or an explosion. It is as if we are seeing life-forms and environments blurred and morphed in time.

www.wang-xiaofu.org

Image (top): ‘Bang! Paradise’ oil on panel 48 x 96 inches

Image (bottom): ‘The Best Actor’ oil on linen 67 x 96 inches

x i a o f u w a n g EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 119

‘Introvert’ oil on linen 77 x 96 inches

www.wang-xiaofu.org

Image (top): ‘Bang! Paradise’ oil on panel 48 x 96 inches

Image (bottom): ‘The Best Actor’ oil on linen 67 x 96 inches

x i a o f u w a n g EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 119

T a h n e e

L o n s d a l e

www.tahneelonsdale.com

Born in Reading, UK in 1982, I completed a Foundation and BA in Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art. I now live and work in LA and have gallery representation in New York, London and Edinburgh. Domesticity: something I became very familiar with when I first moved to LA. Being thrust into domestication sharpened my focus onto how easily we slip back into these roles. I’m focused on the idea of gender roles and how they play out behind closed doors. Using furniture as a reference to domestic life; the table representing ‘a woman’s place’, the sofa at the centre of the archetypal British family, and chairs cluttering up our homes, I wanted to humanise these items of furniture as a way to create tension around the idea of submission and marriage. I also wanted to explore the tension and prudishness around the topic of sex.

‘Scene Of A Revolution’ oil on linen 47 x 39 inches

‘My Table’ acrylic on canvas 47 x 40 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 121

T a h n e e

L o n s d a l e

www.tahneelonsdale.com

‘Scene Of A Revolution’ oil on linen 47 x 39 inches

‘My Table’ acrylic on canvas 47 x 40 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 121

www.fitzmaurice.works

R o b e r t F i t z m a u r i c e

C h r i s G u l l a n d e r My most recent paintings came from a despondent stage in my life, right after the 2016 American presidential election when it felt like all hope was lost. At the time, I was living in New Jersey, working the graveyard shift at one dead-end job after another, all the while absorbing the neon-soaked imagery of my state’s bedraggled bar scene. I noticed that the figures in my paintings began to drink, carouse and misbehave. Others began to act out my psychological frustrations in a comedic language, like New Yorker cartoons gone horribly wrong. It was as if my subjects were reminding me that humor and jubilation are more important than ever at this moment in history when a global cataclysm feels more imminent every day. In a broader sense, this series is about the psychological turmoil that makes us feel trapped and the things we do to escape. Painting is my way of beaming myself into the present moment and coping with tragedies. My subjects remind me to find joy in the drear of life and to celebrate in the face of irrevocable disaster. Chris Gullander is an American painter from New York City who received his BFA from Montclair State University in 2016. His work is primarily influenced by the Northern Renaissance, German Expressionism and Chinese Socialist Realism. He is the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Drawing and Painting from Montclair State University and the Cento Amici Scholarship. He is represented by both Booth Gallery and Greenpoint Gallery in New York City and has exhibited in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

www.chrisgullander.com

Robert Fitzmaurice (born 1960) is a British painter and printmaker. Originally from the Midlands he has lived in Reading, Berkshire since 1984. After studying Fine Art at the universities of Sunderland and Reading he went on to be selected by Adrian Heath as Artist of the Day at Angela Flowers Gallery, London. Since then he has continued to exhibit nationally and internationally, with work entering a number of private collections around the world. He creates absurd, charged, fragmented narratives. They draw upon human dramas, especially childhood, family and rights of passage, to excavate the patterns of behaviour, systems and structures that define us. Combining personal motifs with references to votive and devotional art, history and contemporary culture, their main preoccupations are with power, vulnerability and desire. Operating between figuration and abstraction, and contrasting illusionistic space with a respect for surface and the materiality of paint, his focus is on an evolving vocabulary of forms that majors on meaning and layered identities. Latest exhibitions include Just Under 100, IPCNY, New York; ING Discerning Eye, London, and Rye Winter Salon, Rye Creative Centre, Sussex.

‘Common ground’ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Inside out boy you turn me’ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Fixer ‘ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Tequila Sunrise‘ oil on canvas 8 x 10 inches

p. 122

EDITORIAL selection of works

‘Stand Up’ oil on canvas 48 x 38 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 123

www.fitzmaurice.works

R o b e r t F i t z m a u r i c e

www.chrisgullander.com

‘Common ground’ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Inside out boy you turn me’ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Fixer ‘ oil on aluminium 150 x 120 cm

‘Tequila Sunrise‘ oil on canvas 8 x 10 inches

p. 122

EDITORIAL selection of works

‘Stand Up’ oil on canvas 48 x 38 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 123

J a m e y

H a r t

www.jameyhart.com

Hart’s painting practice focuses tightly on the way a thing comes into being, like a rock or a snowball, compacted and varied, shaped and affected by the strange attractions of the world itself. The work orbits the material language of abstract painting and reveals the potential therein. “I am informed by things that grow from themselves, where the meaning is found radiating off of them in some gaseous, amorphous fog. Painting is both a portal and something you can bump up against. I am interested in the gestation of material, two-ness, and remaining in the spectrum between things. After good days, I am left with the object in the room with me, haunting and inconsolable, making me want to keep going.” Hart graduated in 2014 from the Cleveland Institute of Art where he studied painting. He is currently living and working out of Erie, Pennsylvania and has recently been included in exhibitions in Poland, New York, and Massachusetts.

‘Bad Action’ acrylic, wood, glues, nails, floss, rope, other things approx: 11 x 18 x 3 inches

‘Crystal’ acrylic, glues, felt, nails, wood, other things approx: 11 x 17 x 2.5 inches

‘Gums’ acrylic, fabric, socks, nails, glue, paper, wood, other things approx: 11 x 16 x 2 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 125

J a m e y

H a r t

www.jameyhart.com

‘Bad Action’ acrylic, wood, glues, nails, floss, rope, other things approx: 11 x 18 x 3 inches

‘Crystal’ acrylic, glues, felt, nails, wood, other things approx: 11 x 17 x 2.5 inches

‘Gums’ acrylic, fabric, socks, nails, glue, paper, wood, other things approx: 11 x 16 x 2 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

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‘I Watched News Last Night’ watercolor on paper 60 x 42 inches

www.yoonheuitae.net

I was born in 1980 and raised in Seoul, South Korea in a very big and wealthy family. Both my mother and father’s side of the family are from the north part of Korea. Usually people who are from the north side, have very dry humor and wry wit; I grew up with that. My gifted dry humor and sarcasm are always reflected in my work. I lived in New York between 2005 and 2016, and moved back to Korea since then. Obviously, my work is not about good taste. In my recent watercolor works, I asked viewers to enter into my brain, and play with what I really see in the city. Through the use of painting, sculpture, photography, and video, regardless of the medium that I choose, I reveal the process of artistic creation through humor and satire, jokes and confessions, and malaise and ignorance. Through the revelation, I realized what was reflected in my eyes was a warped space, a kisser, a city, a mountain, problems, and the fourth dimension. So I painted what I was really seeing on my paper, and painted what I was feeling. And it became my brain. And it became my heart.

‘Kiss’ watercolor on paper 14 x 10 inches

H e u i T a e Y o o n EDITORIAL selection of works

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‘I Watched News Last Night’ watercolor on paper 60 x 42 inches

www.yoonheuitae.net

‘Kiss’ watercolor on paper 14 x 10 inches

H e u i T a e Y o o n EDITORIAL selection of works

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www.mbenjaminherndon.com

‘Curve No. 10’ silverpoint, graphite, gelatin, and marble dust on linen 34 x 33 inches

M. Benjamin Herndon received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2016, and his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2012. Herndon has been awarded residencies and fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, and Marble House Project. He currently lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, and teaches in the printmaking department at RISD. In my work I am interested in creating a quiet conversation between material interactions, subtle compositional intention, and optical experience. My recent paintings explore how a single silverpoint line, drawn hundreds of times, slowly migrates to create volumes of shimmering light. These undulating forms hover just above luminous fields of graphite on linen. Both the silverpoint lines and the graphite fields provide either brilliant reflection or profound darkness depending on the viewer’s position in relation to light. With surfaces that are meticulously crafted, the paintings are embodied artifacts of time and labor which suggest that there is light to be found within darkness.

M .

B e n j a m i n H e r n d o n ‘Forty-One Quadrilaterals ‘ silverpoint, graphite, gelatin, and marble dust on linen 12 x 11 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

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www.mbenjaminherndon.com

‘Curve No. 10’ silverpoint, graphite, gelatin, and marble dust on linen 34 x 33 inches

M .

B e n j a m i n H e r n d o n ‘Forty-One Quadrilaterals ‘ silverpoint, graphite, gelatin, and marble dust on linen 12 x 11 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 129

H o d a K a s h i h a

www.hodakashiha.com Born Tehran, Iran, she got her MFA in painting from Boston University in 2014. Between 2007 and 2016, Hoda participated in different group shows in USA, Tehran, Athens, Brussels and Warsaw. Her most recent solo shows were at Etemad Gallery in Tehran. Her most recent group shows include: Human Condition, Abandon Hospital, Los Angeles; New narrative, Storefront Ten Eyck, Brooklyn, NY; New talent show, Alpha Gallery, Boston, MA; ‘The World that is Full of Anything’ (Sherman Gallery, Boston, Ma); Boston Young Contemporaries (808 Gallery, Boston, MA); Mills Gallery, BCA, and ‘Realities’ at Emerson College Gallery. Hoda is the recipient of different awards such as Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Award, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Rare Book Prize, Iranian Association of Boston Scholarship, and Boston University Women’s Council Scholarship. She was a fellow at MacDowell Colony and she got a John Mitchel foundation grant at Vermont Studio Center. In the most chaotic settings, I always find myself paying attention to the smallest details that most would miss out on. This is an essential quality that shapes my work. I create playful paintings, which bounce between real life and one that I imagine. Capturing awkward and dark humor moments, which happen at a glance, are the main themes running through my work. In my paintings, characters experience temporary and oppositional feelings such as femininity and masculinity, love and hatred, violence and peace, power and defeat and life and death. The meaning continuously shifts and it never gets fixed. Body plays an important role in my work because I observe the world and understand my fears, desires and identity through it. Illustrating the body not only projects my personal life but also the external world that is made of current political affairs, society and its past and recent history. In this series, I am interested in male–female interaction. There is a blurred line between traditional definitions of man versus woman which results in shifting of masculinity and femininity between man and woman and vagueness of dominant roles that each character takes on. My paintings represent my experiences and viewpoints, however depicted hostile, but tempered by humor, a common strategy used by people of my country to survive the current social and political system. For this reason I incorporate pop culture, emojis and comic cartoons, mixed with masterpieces taken from art history in order to create unique images.

‘A Complex Guy ‘ oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 100X 70 cm

‘The Cloud Making Machine’ oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 150 X 180 cm

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 131

H o d a K a s h i h a

‘A Complex Guy ‘ oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 100X 70 cm

‘The Cloud Making Machine’ oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 150 X 180 cm

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 131

K e l s e y S h w e t z www.kelseyshwetz.com

I am interested in creating work that holds multiple moods and experiences simultaneously, such as pleasure, exploration, boredom, regret, indulgence and discomfort. My current body of work tracks and bears witness to a female figure as she moves through an imagined landscape. Each canvas articulates part of an origin story, mapping out zones of the world and recording the figure’s experience of and interaction with her surroundings. The relationship the central figure has with her surroundings and other characters or objects often changes across paintings, which calls the viewer to imagine her machinations that must occur out of view and in between paintings. I’m interested in many visual languages coexisting on one plane of the painting and for that presentation to inform how the viewer experiences the world: as though they are remembering it, through a lens of false nostalgia or vague recollection but unclear whether this was a lived experience, a story, or a dream. Kelsey Shwetz is a Canadian-born painter who lives and works in Brooklyn. Her work is concerned with the female gaze, intimacy, registers of memory, and obsession. She’s most recently created a figurative character that inhabits worlds populated by plant life. Shwetz was most recently represented by Christopher Stout Gallery New York (2015-17), and has exhibited in New York, Germany, Miami, Toronto, and Montreal. She was awarded residencies at the Centre Pompadour (France); Emerson Landing, Eastside International, Starry Night (USA) and Can Serrat (Spain). Publications featuring her work include: Brooklyn Magazine, Whitehot Magazine, NYC-ARTS, Posture Magazine, Flavorwire, Lost at E-Minor, Lip Magazine, Tjen Folket, and the Globe and Mail.

‘The Noon Witch’ oil and acrylic on canvas 54 x 54 inches

‘The Hut’ oil and acrylic on canvas 32 x 42 inches

editorial selection of works

p. 133

K e l s e y S h w e t z www.kelseyshwetz.com

‘The Noon Witch’ oil and acrylic on canvas 54 x 54 inches

‘The Hut’ oil and acrylic on canvas 32 x 42 inches

editorial selection of works

p. 133

‘Running Errands’ oil, acrylic paint, graphite on canvas 130 X 130 cm

Y o o

H e e

I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. I pursued my BFA in Painting at Rhode Island School of Design. I took 3 years out after graduation, now I’m in the MFA painting program in School of Art Institute in Chicago. Throughout the 3 years, I spent my first year in New York and the other two in Seoul and had experience of various art platforms. I worked in a private art gallery, which was probably the worst. I got terrified by phone calls. Working in a gallery, all I did was make phone calls. After that, I worked as an artist assistant and taught art for elders, which was the best time. I was delighted that I could help people. Then I got back to Seoul and continued teaching art at middle school. Three years after college, I had a lot of ups and downs. Some days were brutal, cold, and suffocating. But there were more days that were delightful. Coming back to Seoul was bitter and sweet. I liked that I’m back home, warm food and family. I would spend my afternoon with my mom, and had dinner with my family every day. I felt like I was a little girl. I barely went out with my friends. I joined mostly my parents’ occasions. I followed wherever they went. One day, my dad told me, “I love that you’re back and spending time with us, but where are your friends?” And left me with two questions, “is he sick

of me already?” and “where are my friends? Who are my friends?” I couldn’t believe myself that I was so dependent on them. I was ashamed. But things move on, I applied for graduate programs. And I got terrified again, to leave my sweet warm house. I was almost traumatized to go back to a situation where I had to do most of my things by myself: laundry, cooking, watching TV and eating. And I cried and refused to talk with my dad. My dad got mad. He told me he’d cut all his support if I decided not to go to school. As this fight lingered, I felt stupid, so stupid. It was like a 7 years old girl crying on her first elementary school day. Of course, by the end, that girl ends up going to school with her angry face. It’s been three months since school started. For the whole three months, it was revenge to my dad. I worked and worked days and nights, so after all, I’m a winner in this battle. I wanted to get proved on something. But, I realized there’s no such a thing as winning and losing. There was no such a thing as a battle. My dad is always busy working on his own. He was never part of this game. I was the only player in this game. I learned that no matter how I neglect my dad, he wanted me to become an artist, and soon I’ll be one. My art tells who I am.

C h a n g

www.instagram.com/yooheec

‘2016 Is Almost Over’ oil, acrylic spray on canvas 58 x 60 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 135

‘Running Errands’ oil, acrylic paint, graphite on canvas 130 X 130 cm

Y o o

H e e

C h a n g

www.instagram.com/yooheec

‘2016 Is Almost Over’ oil, acrylic spray on canvas 58 x 60 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 135

‘iPhones’ ceramic 5 x 3.5 x .5 inches

Sarah Alice Moran (b. 1982, New York, NY) received a BA from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME and a MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. Her work was recently included in a group show at Monya Rowe Gallery, FL and at Field Projects, NY. In 2016 Moran was awarded a fellowship for the Can Serrat International Art Residency, Spain. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Image (left):

S a r a h A l i c e M o r a n

‘Swan Hug’ acrylic and ceramic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

Image (right): ‘Tiger Hug’ acrylic and ceramic on canvas 53.5 x 73 inches

www.sarahmoran.com

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 137

‘iPhones’ ceramic 5 x 3.5 x .5 inches

Image (left):

S a r a h A l i c e M o r a n

‘Swan Hug’ acrylic and ceramic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

Image (right): ‘Tiger Hug’ acrylic and ceramic on canvas 53.5 x 73 inches

www.sarahmoran.com

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 137

‘Portrait of Haviva’ acrylic on plywood construction 12” x 18” x 3” (overall)

www.johnfordartist.com Landscape, architecture and the human figure and portrait form the foundation upon which I build abstract images. I am interested conceptually and aesthetically in the idea of constructions and how our lives are built upon them and around them. I have come to these ideas through personal experience and I reflect through my work upon issues of family, identity, commitment, responsibility, age, and death and loss. I further contemplate the dichotomies of strength and weakness, structure and facade, choice and fate, destruction and renewal, anger and forgiveness, emptiness and love. The web of experiences and memories that make up our lives are not easily compartmentalized and I attempt to reflect that layered and interwoven reality thematically and materially in my work. While some of my abstract work takes a directly narrative approach, much of it reflects upon the aforementioned ideas in a more ambiguous or generalized way. I use and repurpose materials used in construction and renovation which I’ve developed an interest and curiosity in over time, having used them for their originally designed purpose throughout my life. I use these materials in reliefs and small sculptures, however I also employ traditional artist’s materials such as oil and acrylic paint, having developed my artistic practice originally as a painter. Many of the relief works I am currently making have their roots in small ink drawings and gouache and paper collages. I have in my most recent work begun to alternate between making paintings, reliefs, and sculpture, feeling that each discipline feeds and invigorates the others, and inspires more curiosity and experiment in my day to day practice.

J o h n

F o r d

‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ acrylic on plywood construction 18.25” x 25” x 3.5” (overall)

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 139

‘Portrait of Haviva’ acrylic on plywood construction 12” x 18” x 3” (overall)

J o h n

F o r d

‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ acrylic on plywood construction 18.25” x 25” x 3.5” (overall)

EDITORIAL selection of works

p. 139

J o e C a r r o z z o www.joecarrozzo.com

I’m interested in people, the ways they interact, especially the darker, more humorous or what might be characterized as socially unacceptable behavior. I’m drawn to the “lowbrow”, uncultivated, unintellectual sides of life and have a snarky fascination with the stupid choices people make and unpredictable circumstances they find themselves in. I’m charmed by the absurd, campy, and perverse parts of life. I want to know what’s happening behind the “curtain”, the back story and what’s not intended to be seen. The work is oil on canvas, mostly small in size and generally done quickly with little concern for accurate rendering and mostly in thick, chunky paint.

Image (p.140): ‘First Dive of Summer’ oil/canvas 14 x 11 inches

Image (p.141, left): ‘Smutty’s Fun House’ oil/canvas 16 x 18 inches

Image (p.141, right): ‘Blind Date’ oil/canvas 53 x 60 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 141

J o e C a r r o z z o www.joecarrozzo.com

Image (p.140): ‘First Dive of Summer’ oil/canvas 14 x 11 inches

Image (p.141, left): ‘Smutty’s Fun House’ oil/canvas 16 x 18 inches

Image (p.141, right): ‘Blind Date’ oil/canvas 53 x 60 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 141

J a y G a s k i l l

www.jaygaskill.us

Jay Gaskill was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. He moved to New York City in 1998 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts, earning a BFA. Following graduation in 2002, he moved to Brooklyn, NY and supported himself as an assistant to several prominent artists. In 2009 he enrolled at Hunter College in New York City and earned his MFA in Painting in 2011. Since then he has exhibited in group exhibitions on both coasts, his work has been featured in Maake Magazine, and his most recent solo exhibition was at One River Gallery in New Jersey in 2014. He moved to Portland, OR in 2015 where he presently lives and works. My paintings deliver their basic image in a flash and then leave you to sort out details. They are made with a goal of making mood their primary content. Occasionally this can tie into a kind of narrative, wherein the energy of a single moment informs the imagery without overriding it with specificity. Usually they are executed with the idea of conjuring a vibe, there are references, but nothing so definitive as to tie the image to another artwork or era. They are about placing the viewer squarely in the present moment. I refer to the shapes in my paintings as “colorforms” in which color and form define each other. Colorforms appear to lock into one another, alternately functioning as figures and grounds or positive and negative spaces. The overall effect is holistic, with a seamless surface and either a flip flop or a total rejection of figure/ground relationships. The goal is for the arrangement of colorforms to operate rhythmically, moving the viewer’s eyes through the painting. While the colors themselves operate sonically, amplifying this movement through the color interactions, producing phantom colors that are not painted, but appear in the mind of the viewer. The edge of the pictorial plane is important in terms of how to hold this energy in place. I like the works to be fully contained and fully realized, which requires a certain amount of compositional adjustment in the making. In that sense, the paintings have much in common with architecture in that they are planned before being executed. I put them together this way so that the relation between the colorforms is structurally sound. The brushwork within the colorforms is aimed less at establishing form than at giving the surface a sense of overall movement and breathing, by virtue of the velocity and the changes in density and texture of the colors. Above all else, I aim to create paintings that achieve a concreteness, without representing or denoting objects, of an independent truth.

Image (right): ‘Air Raid’ acrylic on raw canvas 46 x 35 inches

‘Old Sport’ acrylic on raw canvas 26 x 17 inches

Image (left): ‘Ballaeric’ acrylic on raw canvas 28 x 26 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 143

J a y G a s k i l l

www.jaygaskill.us

Image (right): ‘Air Raid’ acrylic on raw canvas 46 x 35 inches

‘Old Sport’ acrylic on raw canvas 26 x 17 inches

Image (left): ‘Ballaeric’ acrylic on raw canvas 28 x 26 inches

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 143

G e o r g O s k a r G i a n n a k o u d a k i s www.georgoskar.com

Georg Óskar delves in the subconscious in order to expose hidden emotions and introspective sentiments. The present climate dictates that we pay attention to the larger media and advertised landscape. Oskar’s practice seeks to reinstate the poetic simplicity of the everyday.

Image (left): ‘Tropical lands‘ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

Image (right): ‘Portrait of Tom next door’ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

‘Forest Child’ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 145

G e o r g O s k a r G i a n n a k o u d a k i s www.georgoskar.com

Image (left): ‘Tropical lands‘ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

Image (right): ‘Portrait of Tom next door’ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

‘Forest Child’ oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm

EDITORIAL selection of works p. 145

‘The Girl with Hands ‘ oil on canvas 48 x 48 x 2 inches

Jono Wright’s work focuses on the formal aspects of painting and the potential to communicate through a physical language. His influences include Tantric meditation, Capoeira and his wife. My paintings explore the non-verbal communication of the body, the sensual experience of movement and pose, the information that buzzes during quiet contemplation. Sex, frustration, release, doubt, love; these experiences are transmitted in painting through color and a compositional mode that favors density and positive form over expansive space.

J o n o

W r i g h t

www.jonowrightart.com

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. 10 or visit our website: www.artmazemag.com We have an open call for art for the next issue which provides publishing opportunities and lasts until February 22, as well as the ongoing open call for online blog. For any questions, please contact us at info@artmazemag.com

‘The Girl with Hands ‘ oil on canvas 48 x 48 x 2 inches

J o n o

W r i g h t

www.jonowrightart.com

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