Issue 9 by artmazemag

Ed iti o Autumn

ue Iss

9 , 2 0 18

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

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 fill in the application form on our website.

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

Please visit our website for more details on how to apply for print publications: www.artmazemag.com/call-for-art/ or see p. 10. Artists are welcome to submit works to our online blog. This opportunity also provides a chance to be published in print issues.

For more details on blog submissions please visit our website: artmazemag.com/submit-for-blog-feature/

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

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

FIND US ONLINE

FRONT COVER:

www.artmazemag.com

Charlie Roberts Athina Evenings

facebook.com/artmazemag instagram.com/artmazemag

more on p. 140-141

ArtMaze Magazine Ltd. G06, Binnacle House 10 Cobblestone Square E1W 3AR, London United Kingdom ® ArtMaze Magazine company number: 10441765

122

INTERVIEWED

CALL FOR ART

CURATED SELECTION OF WORKS

EDITORIAL SELECTION OF WORKS

L ove and devot ion , ove r and ove r agai n by S c ot t A nde rs on . . . . ........................................................... ................ 14

Anniversar y E d itio n, issue 10 .................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Stu mbling blindly to f i nd t he way: i n conve rs at ion w it h Ch ar lie Robe r t s ............................................... 26 L i nd s ey Me ndick : on be i ng hone st and fragi le , and he r wor k – le aky and g rote s que ................................ ............... 36 To touch w it hou t touchi ng : play fully m ani pulate d monu mental it y i n the work of Olivi a Bax .................................................. ................ 50 Ever yday me galom an ia(!): i n conve rs at ion w it h galle r i st K i m S ava ge of FOLD G alle r y ............................................................. 62

Contents

by Kim Savage Em m a Chi ld s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 M ich ael Vi llar real . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Kaz uki Ni shi na ga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6 Li a Rot hstei n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7 Er ic B u tcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 A nd rea Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Nick Pr i mo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 I r i na Raz u movskaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 G raz iela G u ard i no . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 James Tai lor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Ci an D u ggan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Sophi a Lat ysheva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Shi nuk Suh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 0 Holly Trou t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1 Nei l Car roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2 Kelly Fu ng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4 Rob er t Costello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6 Wi ll Sears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8 B i anc a B arandu n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 0 Stephen Jaques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Tom B u t ler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Xi aoli n Cheng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 G ray Wieleb i n ski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 G elah Pen n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Stefan Reiterer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Howard Schwar t z b erg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 10 Rhi an non Sali sbu r y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 Jonat h an M ich ael Ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 14 M ar k Kremer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 16 A lej and ro Ur r u t i a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 8 M ich aela Z i m mer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 0

Em i li a Olsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 24 Kate Kli ngb ei l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 26 A lvi n Ong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 27 Sophie Lou rdes Kn ight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 28 Ellie Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 30 Leah G u ada gnoli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 32 DS LEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 35 Keenan D er by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 36 Josh Jefferson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 37 Sara A n st i s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 38 Em Ket t ner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 39 XI NYU E YA N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Feli x Treadwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 G eorgi a Elrod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 D an ielle O rch ard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 A mb er B oard m an . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

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INTERVIEWED

CALL FOR ART

CURATED SELECTION OF WORKS

EDITORIAL SELECTION OF WORKS

L ove and devot ion , ove r and ove r agai n by S c ot t A nde rs on . . . . ........................................................... ................ 14

Anniversar y E d itio n, issue 10 .................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Contents

from the editor Welcome to our Autumn 2018 edition 9! As the introduction to this issue, I wanted to underline what I am sure is our shared aim of looking for new perspectives and changes. Embracing challenges can mean constantly living on the outside of the ‘comfort zone’, but at the same time it will most certainly provide outcomes that would be worth the sacrifice. Cover artist Charlie Roberts’ interview section is vivid evidence of his success in coming through many milestones and constant changes in a competitive world. His experience highlights how tough it can be to find your ‘niche’, but by being receptive and open to changes in your work can greatly enhance your artistic career. So, don’t be afraid to experiment not only just once or twice! This time around we were fortunate to have Kim Savage who is the Founder and Director of FOLD Gallery in central London as our guest curator. After working extensively on exhibition installations at Saatchi Gallery, as well as being a trained painter himself, Kim has developed a very strong and distinct vision as a gallerist, which is reflected in the line of shows in his own gallery space since 2015. Be sure to check out Kim’s picks for this issue’s curated selection on p.70-121 as well as his interview on p.62-69 where we find out more about his experience running a commercial contemporary art gallery. Our editorial selection (p.122-147) displays highlights from the submissions we receive for our online blog and print issues. We are very flattered to receive so many kind and thoughtful messages through submissions. We want to thank everyone who submitted their work or followed and subscribed to ArtMaze – we look forward to growing and developing together with you. Be sure not to miss out on our ‘Interviewed’ section, which gives a candid insight into several artists’ careers. Read about their inspiring journeys and learn about their intriguing personalities: cover artist Charlie Roberts whose work process even includes acts of ‘stumbling blindly and bumping into new bits here and there’; artist Scott Anderson who highlights love and devotion to his family and painting as the main sources of inspiration; Lindsey Mendick who openly and honestly talks about femininity, gender and sexuality through her work and Olivia Bax who is producing large scale sculptures and explaining the thread between size, monumentality and intimacy in her art. Our next and closing edition of the year 2018 is Issue 10 which I will curate as the Founder and Chief Editor of the Magazine. Being a lead curator of ArtMaze, I have immensely enjoyed the work of our guest jurors from previous editions, and they have inspired me to curate this next edition which will celebrate our second Anniversary. Over the last two years I must say that ArtMaze’s social platform’s feed has become a great base for showcasing works to our wide audience, mixing my own curatorial vision together with the highlights of our guest curated selections. I thank our previous jurors for all the massive work they have put in to make ArtMaze’s issues successful as well as sharing their distinct and strong aesthetic and conceptual thinking. I look forward to maintaining the high standards they have set, and to receiving all the new work through submissions which will form our special Anniversary Edition 10. Best wishes to all! Yours truly, Editor and Founder Maria Zemtsova

Featured image: Graziela Guardino Reverse acrylic on linen 45 x 65 cm more on p. 85

curated selection of works by Kim Savage, Founder and Director of FOLD Gallery, London

editorial selection of works

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curated selection of works by Kim Savage, Founder and Director of FOLD Gallery, London

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featured artists p.72 - 147

Anniversary Edition: Issue 10

call for art Deadline: October 25th, 2018 Juror: Maria Zemtsova Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Lead Curator of ArtMaze Magazine

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: artmazemag.com/shop HOW TO APPLY: please visit our website for more details and fill in the online form via the following link: 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. Please visit our website for more information: www.artmazemag.com or contact us at info@artmazemag.com

Featured image: Sara Anstis Ciggy After Murder soft pastel on watercolour paper 28 x 22 cm more on p. 138

Anniversary Edition: Issue 10

call for art Deadline: October 25th, 2018 Juror: Maria Zemtsova Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Lead Curator of ArtMaze Magazine

Featured image: Sara Anstis Ciggy After Murder soft pastel on watercolour paper 28 x 22 cm more on p. 138

interviewed:

Scott Anderson Charlie Roberts Lindsey Mendick Olivia Bax Kim Savage

interviewed:

Scott Anderson Charlie Roberts Lindsey Mendick Olivia Bax Kim Savage

Love and devotion, over and over again by Scott Anderson Scott Anderson’s work creates a fresh visual language with whispers from late modernism masters such as Robert Rauschenberg and Francis Bacon. His compositions demonstrate a layered and balanced intricacy within his signature figurative abstraction that continues throughout his work like a subconscious narrative, familiar yet unknown. The unique sense of texture and colour in Anderson’s paintings adds to his already singular style. It is truly incredible to have taken a medium like painting — almost as old as art itself — and reimagine its capabilities and aesthetics until they are moulded and transformed into each extraordinary and endlessly enigmatic piece. Earning his MFA at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Scott Anderson currently lives in New Mexico where he is Assistant Professor of Painting & Drawing at University of New Mexico. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at prominent institutions like the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Beers Gallery London, and Denny Gallery in NYC, where he recently had a solo exhibition. Join us as we discuss with the artist his creative process on the canvas, the doubts you feel as an artist, and the inspiration for the title of his solo show “Streaming by Lamp and Fire.”

www.smanderson.com text and interview by Christina Nafziger Featured image: Scott Anderson 4-Way Dancer oil, oil crayon, and graphite on canvas 50 x 40 inches

AMM: Let’s begin with your roots as an artist. Where did you develop your undeniably distinct style? Has artistic expression always been a big part of your life? SA: I’ve always drawn a lot, even as a child. My parents encouraged me to pursue something in the visual arts, which is a somewhat unusual thing for parents to do, so I was lucky in that respect. It still took me a while to realize what it meant to be an “artist”, and maybe I still don’t really know for sure, but I’ve been committed to the idea for a long time. I never really thought of doing anything else. The first artist that I was really attracted to in college was Robert Rauschenberg. I think it all goes back to him. The collage and the patina of detritus mixed with conventional art materials was so seductive and still is. I don’t think I really knew exactly why I was so hooked on that work back then, but in retrospect I think it has something to do with a kind of complicated, almost contradictory relationship his work had to serious painting at the time (thinking here particularly of the combine paintings from the 50s). He seems to long for the “romance of painting” but he knows too much to abandon irony, humor, and a sense of distrust of the myth of the medium. I really sense that tension and I identify with it – always have. Even as I think of other painters now that are more straight forward in their approach to figuration, narrative, or even abstraction. I think I still filter all of it through a kind of scepticism I’ve always associated with Rauschenberg. AMM: We’ve noticed there is often a distinct colour that unifies the already bold palette within each piece, such as deep reds or bright yellows, that frequently show up in multiple paintings. Can you talk a bit about the role colour has in your process as well as in your body of work? SA: When I was young, I was coming to painting as a draftsperson, so I was terrified of color at first. I love color now, but I still veer towards combinations that have a kind of graphic impact. The paintings from the past several years have had a lot of black in them, which I think goes back to that drawing sensibility. It is also very rich, dense – even the whites or the areas of seemingly raw canvas have a chroma and patina, and the paintings feel a little like frescoes that need to be cleaned or overbaked bread. I also think that my color palette has a lot more to do with historic European painting than say, the spectrum of contemporary visual culture. I like the contradiction of the historical chromatic and material signifiers marbled with an approach to narrative that is more dependent on the current moment. AMM: With such intricate and multifaceted layers within your compositions, how do you begin one of your paintings? Is there a larger narrative that connects the actions within each piece?

Autumn 2018

SA: The narratives typically arise out of the process of painting. Sometimes they are completely fictional, but often are connected in some way to real memories I have, familiar figures, objects, or spaces. Every once and while I look back at work I’ve made over a period of time and identify reoccurring themes, but it’s not something I set out to do.

all at once when they go to make a painting – or maybe they are all there whether the painter is conscious of them or not? I actually enjoy thinking about how many of them are in a painting and the more at odds they seem with one another, the better. That is what the title refers to, which is a broad theme that just about any painting I make could fit into.

AMM: Do your works on paper feed in to your painting process, or vice versa? How much experimentation is done on the canvas and how much preliminary planning is involved?

AMM: There seem to be influences of Francis Bacon in your fleshy, figurative abstraction. Is this an artist you find a connection with? Would you say the figure itself is often the subject of your work, or do these figures represent a more psychological manifestation?

SA: Almost every painting is made using a drawing as a model and almost every painting changes radically from that drawing. I’m completely willing to see what happens when a drawing simply gets scaled up and translated into new materials, but I’m usually unsatisfied with where that leads. Its cliché, but I tend to need to wipe out, or paint over large swaths of the painting at some point to have it make sense to me. AMM: Your paintings are layered not only compositionally, but materially as well. What media do you use to create your multifaceted paintings? SA: I’ve been drawing on the canvas with oil crayon, charcoal, or pastel to start a painting lately. Not every one of them, but most. I’ll also sometimes use ink or acrylic to start something. Basically, I need materials that set up quickly so that I can use them in a kind of “low stakes” sort of way. All of that stuff usually gets covered up by your standard battery of oils, mediums, and solvents, but I think it adds some kind of vitality to the materials even if it’s buried. I’ll also do stuff like mix sawdust, graphite, or small amounts of fine sand in heavy-bodied oil paint too, but all of those are moves painters have been making for a long time. They are very traditional paintings in terms of materials. AMM: Congratulations on your solo exhibition earlier this year at Denny Gallery in NYC titled “Streaming by Lamp and by Fire.” Can you tell us a bit about the selection of your work exhibited? SA: Thank you! I’m very proud of that show. The title uses keywords belonging to three separate time periods. “Streaming”, in this case, references the current moment of rapidly downloading content via the internet, “Lamp” has the modern and immediately pre-modern eras covered, and “fire” belongs to the broadly primitive. The metaphor for painting here is basically doing something by the light of three different periods simultaneously. It is also proposing that the something being done is happening in three different keys simultaneously, if streaming is about entertaining, a lamp is studious, and a fire is ritualistic. Seems to me the fate of the contemporary painter is to channel multiple moments of painting’s history and its functions

SA: I love Francis Bacon and I’m sure his paintings assert themselves as influences, even if I don’t deliberately seek them out as such. I do think about one of his contemporaries, R.B. Kitaj, quite a bit though. Like Rauschenberg, who I mentioned earlier, that group of British painters who came to prominence in the periods between the “high moderns” and the pop artists occupied diametrically opposed sectors of the art world with single bodies and unified bodies of work. They were like saints supplanted on pagan demigods, or Lutherans, or efficiency apartments. The figures in my paintings are stand-ins for all sorts of things like the material of paint, other paintings, the landscape, architecture, as well as elements playing the role figures have in paintings throughout the history of the medium. I guess the figures are in service of painting more generally as opposed to figurative painting specifically. AMM: With elements of the surreal prevalent throughout your body of work, does stream of consciousness or the subconscious have a role within your process? SA: I definitely think so, though it’s cued by the painting or the process of making the painting rather than it all coming from my head, if that makes any sense. I think the way I interact with the object and materials is far more likely to produce something fresh than my limited imagination. AMM: What aspect of your practice do you feel is the most challenging? Can you tell us about a moment in your career as an artist where you had to overcome a particularly difficult obstacle? SA: I think a lot of artists would relate to the fact that you feel like you are often making work with a feeling of near certainty that no one will ever care about it but you. No one may ever see it but you. Modern technology kind of erases the latter portion of that sense of anxiety but not the former. I’ve found that I have to be at peace with that or I might risk just chasing trends, which almost always fails (and is super boring). When I moved to New Mexico from Chicago I had an intense period

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Scott Anderson

Autumn 2018

AMM: Do your works on paper feed in to your painting process, or vice versa? How much experimentation is done on the canvas and how much preliminary planning is involved?

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Scott Anderson

of anxiety about all that. I felt isolated and I had largely lost the abilities I once had to detect if the paintings were resonating or not. Despite the intense light of the Southwestern US, I was painting in the dark, so to speak. The work changed. I changed as a painter, and I feel pretty good about it now, but there were a lot of reasons to quit for about 5-6 years. AMM: Having lived in Kansas and Illinois for your education, what brought you to you current location, New Mexico? SA: I moved to New Mexico to accept a teaching position, having never been to the area before the job interview. It was such a stark departure from the Midwest, which I felt I really needed at the time. New Mexico is so beautiful, severe, and specific. As a place, it keeps me from feeling neutral. I don’t really feel like I belong here, which can be bad, but I think it is also useful. Living here is generative for now. AMM: What aspect of your life do you feel inspires your artistic practice the most? SA: Love and devotion to those people closest to me, particularly my wife and daughter, but also love and devotion to painting. I believe in painting and paintings ecstatically. I don’t make work as a critical gesture, but to affirm my love for something that was great to begin with, by doing it over and over again.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Scott Anderson

Image:

Scott Anderson Judith oil and oil crayon on canvas 42 x 32 inches

Scott Anderson Web Assisted oil on canvas 42 by 32 inches

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Scott Anderson

Image:

Scott Anderson Judith oil and oil crayon on canvas 42 x 32 inches

Scott Anderson Web Assisted oil on canvas 42 by 32 inches

Autumn 2018

Scott Anderson Magician’s Lounge oil and oil crayon on canvas 50 x 40 inches

Scott Anderson Broken Birdcage oil and oil crayon on canvas 50 x 40 inches

Scott Anderson Magician’s Lounge oil and oil crayon on canvas 50 x 40 inches

Scott Anderson Broken Birdcage oil and oil crayon on canvas 50 x 40 inches

Scott Anderson Chino Quadra oil on canvas 50 by 55 inches

Scott Anderson Oligarchs at an Olive Garden oil and oil crayon on canvas 60 x 66 inches

Scott Anderson Chino Quadra oil on canvas 50 by 55 inches

Scott Anderson Oligarchs at an Olive Garden oil and oil crayon on canvas 60 x 66 inches

Scott Anderson Tumblers oil, oil crayon, and graphite on canvas 60 x 75 inches

Scott Anderson Fruitstand oil and oil crayon on canvas 40 x 50 inches

Scott Anderson Tumblers oil, oil crayon, and graphite on canvas 60 x 75 inches

Scott Anderson Fruitstand oil and oil crayon on canvas 40 x 50 inches

Charlie Roberts likes to keep things fresh. Working in a range of media from acrylic to gouache to wood carving, his approach to making art is ever changing, playful and experimental. Influenced by popular culture, the figures in his work are often depicted sporting athleisure wear and other signifiers of the current times. Charlie’s compositions are narrative-based and often humorously uncanny. A couple of well-dressed dogs are out for a drive, an artist sits sketching in a glass house, or a busy nocturnal park scene are some of the subject matter of his recent work. To devise what these scenes mean is no easy feat, and one might say is not the point of Charlie’s art. Wary of too much reading into his art, Charlie prefers to keep interpretation in the realm of formalism. What might the long-limbs on his figures represent? A compositional solution for filling the picture frame. We caught up with the prolific Oslo-based artist to chat more about his varied work, making a break in the art world and his day-to-day studio practice.

Stumbling blindly to find the way: in conversation with Charlie Roberts www.gallerimagnuskarlsson.com text and interview by Layla Leiman Featured image: Charlie Roberts Happy Party acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap

AMM: Hi Charlie! To start us off, can you share your earliest art-related memory? CR: I grew up a few blocks from the Kansas State Fair and remember being impressed and attracted to the strange paintings of celebrities and weather events on the carnival rides. Also I remember being blown away by the scene paintings done for a local production of Peter Pan. The DIY aesthetics of that local theatre have always stuck in my mind. AMM: You seem to produce work prolifically. What are your daily rituals that feed you creatively? CR: I try to be consistent and focused. Exercise, play basketball when I can, eat good and drink a ton of coffee and listen to fast music when I need to get shit done. AMM: What is your creative process? CR: It goes in waves, I will be floating around for a couple of weeks at a time, just experimenting, trying to be as loose and non-judgmental as possible until I hit on a kernel of something that can be built upon. Sometimes it is a new subject or picture structure, and sometimes it is a material or technique. For instance, I recently made a group of paintings with crayons and airbrush on burlap. It took a couple of weeks to become comfortable with the technique and then I had about two months of making the paintings. Then if I’m happy with the result I file away the technique and will visit it again when a subject I’m working on seems to fit it. The whole process is very much an act of stumbling blindly and bumping into new bits here and there. AMM: What mediums do you typically work in and what appeals to you about each of them? Any new medium you’re keen to try out? CR: I work with watercolor and gouache on paper, drawing materials, occasionally oil paint on canvas, acrylic and ink of canvas, and wood carving. They all have their advantages and the work in each informs the others. Wood carving is a reductive method and has influenced the way I think about organising pictures and my use of line in drawing. I think the carving drew the paintings into a flatter and more colour conscious direction for a while. You don’t have to think about shading and light with painted sculpture because the light does the job for you and you can instead focus singularly on colour. This has helped with the paintings. I want to make stone carvings. AMM: Over the years your art has changed considerably. What has influenced these shifts and where are you currently at in your work? CR: I´m pretty restless and my extracurricular interests tend to influence the work. Almost

all of my work can be seen through the lens of fandom. I had a period when I was reading a lot of detective fiction and was making noir-ish, detailed works, as well as storyboard/comic strip paintings. My lifelong love of rap has been an influence and popped up both visually and vibe-wise. The freedom, embrace of new technology and the aesthetic-hopping of rap music and culture has always been central to my work. Sporty Girls was a celebration of women in sport and comes out of my support and admiration of youth and amateur sports. AMM: Can you tell us about your pervasive interest in naïve representation, and what other styles of art you’re influenced by from the art canon (or beyond)? How does this translate into your practice? CR: The idea of genre painting has always appealed to me and seems to be a timeless setup for making pictures. It will always be fascinating to look back and see works depicting contemporary life with its fashions and technologies. There is the argument that too many specifics will date a song or image, but I find those details fascinating. The paintings by Jannson Stegner are some of my favourites right now. He combines classical technique with the college sweaters, dyed hair and sports gear of today. They are these strange timeless and hyper-current gems. I´m also a big fan and influenced by Pacific Northwest Native American wood carving, rococo painting, 2000s mixtape cover art, 80s and 90s fashion photography, the Flemish Masters… AMM: Some of your recent paintings have a nocturnal and surreal quality to them, like windows into dreamscapes. What is your thinking behind these artworks? CR: Sometimes it’s nice to slow it down and play a dreamy ballad. I’m not sure exactly where these come from. AMM: What ideas or concepts are you currently exploring in your work? CR: Right now I’m trying to figure out a way to bring lines back into the paintings, I’m trying a couple of different things and not sure where it’s headed… thinking about Marsden Hartley, Max Beckman, and Donald Duck Cartoons.

tricks by reproducing work. It makes sense that this has been a staple of art educations for forever. Also these works were made in the year the google image search came online in a big way. AMM: Who are the people in your artwork? Are they real or imagined? CR: Real, imagined and hybrids. AMM: In a fairly recent body of paintings, you depict lithe youths with long intertwining limbs. Can you tell us more about this body of work and what these elongated limbs might represent? CR: The swoopy drawing motion came first and it made sense to apply it to appendages. It is also a way of filling the picture space. AMM: You exhibit your work extensively around the world. Do you have any advice to share for marketing yourself as an artist and making connections in the industry? CR: Unless you have climbed past a certain rung on the gallery ladder I think you have to diversify your practice as much as you can. Work in as many markets as possible, and have a range of product, from small drawings to big paintings or whatever. But most importantly you have to buckle down and make good work. It is more competitive than ever and at the same time easier to be seen, so if you have something exceptional and you understand your lane and where you fit in you should be able to find a niche. And be flexible and friendly and go to shows. And work your ass off. AMM: You’ve been involved in a few fashion collaborations recently. How did these come about? What do you make of your art being ‘viewed’ in different contexts beyond the traditional gallery space? CR: Through friends, and I think it’s great to work in more accessible spaces. AMM: What’s next for you? CR: I’m getting ready to make some wood carvings for Magnus Karlsson.

AMM: In an artist bio you describe your practice as an “obsessive and eclectic collect[ion] of contemporary pop culture and art history”. In your earlier work this is apparent in the compositions which have an ethnographic quality to them. Can you tell us more about this aspect of your art? CR: In hindsight I think these works were a way to train myself to paint by copying hundreds of artists and making pictures of thousands of objects. You can learn a lot of

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Charlie Roberts

Image (p. 29): Charlie Roberts Brussels acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 136 x 134 cm

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Charlie Roberts

Image (p. 29): Charlie Roberts Brussels acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 136 x 134 cm

Autumn 2018

Charlie Roberts Rockaway Beach acrylic on canvas 160 x 140 cm

Charlie Roberts Burlington, Vermont acrylic on canvas 140 x 120 cm

Charlie Roberts Rockaway Beach acrylic on canvas 160 x 140 cm

Charlie Roberts Burlington, Vermont acrylic on canvas 140 x 120 cm

Charlie Roberts Magic Moments acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 170 x 135cm

Charlie Roberts Witching Hours acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 132 x 98 cm

Charlie Roberts Magic Moments acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 170 x 135cm

Charlie Roberts Witching Hours acrylic, airbrush, crayon on burlap 132 x 98 cm

Charlie Roberts Purple Pot painted wood 78 x 43 x 23 cm

Charlie Roberts Vic with Pooch painted wood 77 x 44 x 40 cm

Charlie Roberts Purple Pot painted wood 78 x 43 x 23 cm

Charlie Roberts Vic with Pooch painted wood 77 x 44 x 40 cm

Lindsey Mendick is frank; about sex, body politics and the trials and tribulations of working with clay. Lindsey’s sculptures are unruly and grotesque. They recast the female body as a fatal formlessness that violates masculinity by enveloping the male form. Her art celebrates the femme fatale who consumes male projections of female sensuality and sentimentality with her mutinous sexuality. She refuses to be defined by the male gaze, oozing and leaking beyond her borders. Lindsey says that the creatures in her art are extensions of herself and narrating her experience as a female artist. Drawing reference from mythical woman from history and a smorgasbord of popular culture, they tell a defiant story that is at once both vulnerable and resilient, much like the medium of ceramics itself. Ceramics is a medium of dualities. It sits comfortably between the disciplines of art and craft, and is equally associated with precious decorative heirlooms and banal functional objects. It is versatile and unforgiving, and simultaneously fragile and incredibly enduring. Its association with domestic and ornamental objects raises feminine discourse, which Lindsey manipulates, twists and recasts. Her work is garish and unashamedly female. Lindsey puts femininity on a pedestal in her work, but unlike most of classical art history, to challenge and provoke the male gaze. Her self-deprecating humour is a message of defiance, a middle finger to patriarchy, power and history.

www.lindseymendick.com text and interview by Layla Leiman

Lindsey Mendick: on being honest and fragile, and her work leaky and grotesque Featured image: Lindsey Mendick Don’t Look at Me ceramic 120cm h x 30cm w x 40cm d

www.lindseymendick.com text and interview by Layla Leiman

Lindsey Mendick: on being honest and fragile, and her work leaky and grotesque Featured image: Lindsey Mendick Don’t Look at Me ceramic 120cm h x 30cm w x 40cm d

AMM: Hi Lindsey! Do you remember the first piece of art you made? What was it and how old were you? What’s shaped your artistic journey since then? LM: I do remember! But I’m loath to share with you some of the intensely emo pieces I made (for your sake not mine). I had always been interested in the old masters (aged 8 I wrote some phenomenally bad poetry based on Monet’s Lilies) but when I was 14 my art teacher, Mr Wooley, introduced me to the YBAs [Young British Artists]. I was so charged by their hedonism and brit pop superstardom; I had never seen art like it. Tracy Emin had such a major impact on me. For once I was looking at work that didn’t belittle the emotions and horror of adolescence. I made a piece that was inspired by (and when I say inspired I mean ripped off in its entirety) her work. It was a massive wall hanging with all my emotions sewn into it and it was my first foray into contemporary fine art. I feel a bit sick thinking about its vulnerability and general awfulness. But I suppose my work has never stopped having that sense of honesty and emotional fragility. It’s that desire to connect with others that drives me to create. AMM: A scroll through your Instagram feed shows your appreciation of memes and internet humour. Where do you look for daily inspiration and how does this feed into your art? LM: Oh I’ve had a lot of people tell me how I should be doing my Instagram feed. Probably because I’m such a spammer and I also show the work before it has been exhibited. They give me tips on how to just ‘give a taste’ and to only post every 4 days. But I’m too excited to be restrained like that. I think it’s hilarious how people expect you to turn something so intrinsically personal into a well-oiled machine. I mean I really don’t care. Actually I care about the likes but not about what people think of my Instagram. I’ll put up memes that I find funny when I’m hungover in the hope that someone else will laugh at them too. My Instagram feed is everything that I’m thinking about, inspired by and interested in. It’s reactionary and it’s confessional like the work. AMM: Medusa heads sit cheek by jowl with pop culture references in your art. Can you tell us about some of the motifs in your work and what they represent? LM: I always describe myself as having a magpie-like affinity to popular culture. The everyday feeds into the work through osmosis. I pick out events and moments from my personal history that I feel have had a considerable impact on me and my sensibility. This can range from the mass hysteria of Princess Diana’s death to the garish aspirational designs of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on Changing Rooms. My practice embraces the subjects and moments that are deemed to be low culture, interweaving their iconography and ebullience with high culture methods of construction.

Image (p.38-39): Lindsey Mendick The Spectre at the Feast Ceramic, papier mache, tights 125h x 60w cm

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

Image (p.38-39): Lindsey Mendick The Spectre at the Feast Ceramic, papier mache, tights 125h x 60w cm

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

I’ve always had such an adoration of the greats in fine art. When being taught to draw as a child, we were always made to copy paintings by great men. Botticelli, Matisse, Monet and Rembrandt. Whenever I went to the National Gallery with school we had a guide who would point out secrets within the paintings and explain to us the story of their creation. I was fascinated by the feeling of kinship and understanding I had when looking at something that seemed to be so unfathomably ancient. But then as I grew older I began to realise that although my gender was represented in image, it was not in production. These huge galleries were filled with work by men depicting villainous and tragic females (such as Salome, Medusa and Persephone) from a mythology that was also forged by men. I am so drawn to these stories in Greek that talk of the danger of the female presence, with mythical women frequently violating masculinity by enveloping the male form in their fatal formlessness: melting, morphing and freezing them in sexual desire. I find myself feeling paradoxically comforted and horrified by the idea of history repeating itself and feel that by combining ancient myth or classical painting with modern iconography in my work I am able to highlight the disparity that I feel is ingrained within our culture. AMM: How do you explore and engage themes of gender, sex and the body in your work? LM: When I first began making I never confronted any of those themes. I was young and extremely naïve and thought that my work could just speak for itself regardless of my gender. Then when I started at the Royal College of Art there were a series of events that shaped my artistic practice. In a crit, one of my (male) contemporaries said that he couldn’t comment on my work because it was too feminine and he couldn’t relate to it. This was 2015. He said it unquestioned. Then I was attacked in the back of an Uber by two men who were sharing an Uberpool and my confidence was totally shattered. I felt so weak and I felt so utterly angry. I had had enough. My work began to be more political and less apologetic. I stopped trying to make my practice palatable and contained. I focused on being honest and fragile. Leaky and grotesque. I wanted to make work that was uncomfortable for the viewer and dispel this horrific myth that art related to the feminine is inferior. Sex and the desire for intimacy plagues my mind constantly. I think people try to pretend that the more ingrained in culture you are, the less you worry about ‘trivial’ things like lovers and partners. But it’s just not true. I revel in the trivial. Where sex is concerned I think that female desire is political. There seems to be a stupid myth that women don’t get as horny like men; or that if they do, they aren’t ‘horny’ they’re

‘aroused’. Once in an all-female peer led crit we were talking about ‘female desire’ and how women are turned on by the gesture; a caress of the neck, the arch of a back, the taking off of an earring and I just thought it was bullshit. Why does female sexuality have to be disregarded as poetry to make it palatable? It’s so Pre-Raphaelite and demeaning. When I talk about sex I am often described as being masculine in my approach because I am not coy or apologetic about talking about fucking or masturbating or watching porn. It’s unfair that female sexuality has to be pretty whilst men’s can be vulgar and primal. Why can’t it be individual? AMM: Your piece Don’t Look At Me is a study of the abject. Please tell us about how you play with the grotesque and humour in your work, and to what intended effect? LM: That’s probably one of the best descriptions of my work I’ve heard. I’m stealing that. I’ve suffered from obsessive thoughts, depression and anxiety from a young age. It would always come in waves and as I got better I would get confused by what was an obtrusive thought and what was a normal thing to think and feel. I would ask my best friends and my family ‘is this normal’ and they’d say ‘yes everyone feels like that’. Then why didn’t they say so? I couldn’t understand why there was this distinct lack of honesty in humans and why we always wanted to pretend that we didn’t have these intense feelings of guilt, shame and remorse. Or that we weren’t disgusting and primal at times. I often think of my pieces as sacrificial lambs. Moments that have eaten at me until I have processed them through clay and owned them as an intrinsic part of myself. AMM: Please can you tell us a little about your interest in the materiality and corporeality of clay, and how this might translate thematically in your work?

“...as I grew older I began to realise that although my gender was represented in image, it was not in production. These huge galleries were filled with work by men depicting villainous and tragic females (such as Salome, Medusa and Persephone) from a mythology that was also forged by men. I am so drawn to these stories in Greek that talk of the danger of the female presence, with mythical women frequently violating masculinity by enveloping the male form in their fatal formlessness: melting, morphing and freezing them in sexual desire. I find myself feeling paradoxically comforted and horrified by the idea of history repeating itself and feel that by combining ancient myth or classical painting with modern iconography in my work I am able to highlight the disparity that I feel is ingrained within our culture.”

LM: Before working in clay, I had used a lot of found objects, so my work was totally dependent on scavenger hunts in charity shops and car boot sales. The entities were always a disappointment, never entirely capturing my sensibility. It was then that I experienced Rebecca Warren’s immense and gluttonously anthropomorphic clay sculptures. I was instantly drawn to this medium and the way that it solidified and eternalised the artist’s manipulation. I started hand building in clay, creating monstrous deities to popular culture, extrapolating and deciphering the confusing and at times burdening world around me. As a naturally visceral medium, clay allows me to feed my neuroses and fears into the work through osmosis. I create entities that I see as extensions of myself, protagonists in my installations and storytellers of my narrative. But the act of making them itself also has a therapeutic function.

-Lindsey Mendick ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

Autumn 2018

-Lindsey Mendick ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

Autumn 2018

Now I make in clay out of necessity. As an adult, I am still being treated for OTD, depression and anxiety, but making in clay is extremely cathartic. When I am in the studio, I am able to shut out the world and delve into this tactile medium, creating anything that I desire. It is total escapism and my respite from the anxiety of the day to day. AMM: Ceramics is often regarded as functional or decorative. Your installation Must Try Harder and other works offer playfully ironic responses to this notion. What’s your relationship to clay and ceramics? LM: I quite often have this internalised fear of being exposed as a fraud when I think of how my work sits in relation to the history of ceramics. It’s definitely got worse as I have become more successful in my field and people’s expectation of the works have increased. I have become more unsure of myself, with intrusive and cruel thoughts creeping through the cracks in my ceramics and attacking my capability and successes. I think that due to the often critical and perfectionist nature of ceramics, this feeling can be magnified, as the work can receive criticality from both a craft and fine art background. There is this language to ceramics that even though I adore working in clay I just can’t permeate. I know a lot of artists who work in ceramics are interested in the craft and science of firings and glazings. But I’m not ashamed to say I’m not. I am happy with buying botz pots and throwing the glazes on without any idea of the outcome. I am not a ceramicist, I’m an artist. In the piece ‘Must Try Harder’ I used the stamps that teachers imprinted on the bottom of their pupils’ work. Those empathetic inspirational messages like ‘Getting There!’ and ‘Keep It Up’ that as a child (and probably as an adult) you live for. In my work I often shun perfection for tenderness and those cracked and earnest pots were a testament to that. AMM: You rarely produce standalone pieces, preferring immersive installations. What is your process of working? Do you envisage the final image at the start, or work more organically? How do you integrate found objects into the mix? LM: Oh it’s really uncool. My sculpture takes the form of theatrical, set-like structures; stages for storytelling and platforms for nostalgic imagery. I would like to think the installations give the impression of being hedonistic and decadent but they’re wholly fastidious. I’m a complete control freak and I plan them methodically. I have all of these sketchbooks of installation ideas, some terrible and some that result in being imagined. I think of each one as a story and then I think of how to tell the tale. AMM: Clay is a very temperamental medium. Can you share any standout calamities/pleasant surprises? How has working with it influenced your

Autumn 2018

approach to making art? LM: Oh god, I’ve had so many disasters in clay it’s hard to know where to start. But clay definitely is a medium that teaches you not to be too precious. I think perhaps the massive octopus (RIP) I made for the Zabludowicz show was probably the worst trial I’ve had. I had made what I thought was my best piece and was feeling like an absolute big man for achieving my biggest liker on Instagram. But when I moved it, the octopus split down the middle of its bulbous head and I was left standing holding one lone tentacle. I cried and mourned the work for a day. But then I had to think about why it broke and how I could make the work better. In the end I created a more technical piece than I had ever imagined I could.

opportunity to show their work in the same manner that we would. The children came into the pottery as artists and they will be displaying their work alongside anything that I or the invited artists make in The Turnpike’s main gallery space. It’s been such an emotional and heartwarming experience to see these young people come in and grow in confidence. They are incredible artists and such special people to work alongside. Now that all the sculptures are made it’s time for me to step up and create an environment that does their beauty justice. I’m terrified.

AMM: What are the hardest things for you to get ‘right’ in your art? LM: Probably the technical skill of making the work in clay. The material has such an ingrained set of rules that it’s easy to get carried away and make utterly stupid mistakes that can ruin a whole piece. AMM: What ideas or directions are you exploring in your current work? LM: I’m just about to start work on a duo show with my best friend and studio mate Paloma Proudfoot at Hannah Barry Gallery London. The show is our first collaborative exhibition and I’m thrilled to be working with her. Drawing from the tradition of celebrity couple portmanteaus, we will be rebranding ourselves as Proudick for the duration of the exhibition. Like the personal lives of Kimye, Brangelina and Bennifer, we are going to offer up our disastrous private lives as tabloid fodder through still-life installation and performance, drawing from both Greek myth, as well as the work of Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas. AMM: What keeps you awake at night? LM: Money, thinking people don’t like me, loneliness, shame, hypochondria about health, pregnancy fears, fears I won’t get pregnant, wondering why someone won’t text me back and my housemates when they come in drunk on a Friday night. AMM: What’s next? LM: I was recently awarded the Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award to work alongside The Turnpike, Leigh to create pottery for local children. The aim of the pottery was to introduce young people to contemporary artists, develop their skills in ceramics and give them a nurturing, creative space where they can express their ideas. To me, it is so important that the hierarchy and pedagogical lines were blurred in this project. I feel that in arts education, the children are not integrated into the gallery programme or given the

Image (p.42): Lindsey Mendick A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

Autumn 2018

Image (p.42): Lindsey Mendick A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Lindsey Mendick

Lindsey Mendick Perfectly ripe

Lindsey Mendick Perfectly ripe (detail)

Lindsey Mendick Perfectly ripe

Lindsey Mendick Perfectly ripe (detail)

Lindsey Mendick Cut your hair off to spite your face ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

Lindsey Mendick Booze Makes the Heart Grow Fonder ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

Lindsey Mendick Cut your hair off to spite your face ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

Lindsey Mendick Booze Makes the Heart Grow Fonder ceramic 40cm h x 32cm w x 5cm d

Lindsey Mendick This is Probably Why I Don’t Have a Boyfriend ceramic 45cm h x 25cm w

Lindsey Mendick Don’t Look at Me 2018 ceramic 120cm h x 30cm w x 40cm d

Lindsey Mendick This is Probably Why I Don’t Have a Boyfriend ceramic 45cm h x 25cm w

Lindsey Mendick Don’t Look at Me 2018 ceramic 120cm h x 30cm w x 40cm d

London based artist Olivia Bax creates large-scale, sculptural forms that are bold both in color and in presence. Many of her sculptures possess elements that are of the familiar, such as what could be a handle or a pipe. However, their unconventional form and candy-colored hues abstract their function. Combine that with an irresistible, textural surface, Bax’s work entices the viewer to touch and feel the tactile details that are created by the artist’s hand (print). Using paper pulp as her main material, the viewer is able to see impressions formed from Bax’s hands while constructing her captivating sculptures. This mark making creates an immediate intimacy between viewer and object, giving the structure an element of the human — a physical connection to the artist. Moving around her monumental works, these details offer us an insight into the process, as well as a trace of the maker. Bax has a BA in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art and an MFA in Sculpture from Slade School of Fine Art, London. Her engaging work can be experienced in person at her solo exhibition at Lily Brooke Gallery in London, opening in late September. Join us as we discuss the artist’s love for creating larger-than-life works as well as the challenges that come with the task.

To touch without touching: playfully manipulated monumentality in the work of Olivia Bax www.oliviabax.co.uk text and interview by Christina Nafziger Featured image: Olivia Bax Roar steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster 170 x 143 x 78 cm

AMM: What has your journey been like as an artist so far? Do you have a background in sculpture? OB: I knew I wanted to go to art school ever since I can remember. I moved to London at age 18 for an art foundation course at Wimbledon College of Art. I was interested in pursuing painting, sculpture or theatre set design. The set I made at Wimbledon was much larger than it was supposed to be and completely impractical. The tutor suggested it would make a good sculpture rather than a set! I did my undergraduate degree at Byam Shaw School of Art (2007-2010). It was a small school with few students. The degree was in Fine Art but I found myself mostly in the sculpture workshop. AMM: When did you begin making work in such a large scale? What are some challenges you’ve had working in this scale? Have you ever had space constraints while creating your work? OB: It has always seemed natural to make large objects despite not being tall myself! At Byam Shaw I made large steel sculptures. After graduating, I did a few residencies in the United States and would take advantage of the empty studio spaces by filling them quickly. Of course, making large work presents challenges! When I returned to the Slade School of Fine Art for my postgraduate studies, I went from working in my own studio to sharing an open space with 14 sculptors. The space in which one works has a huge influence on the work one makes. At the Slade, I wanted to make large works but had little space to make. I began fashioning components which I could assemble together in situ. After graduating I moved studios a lot, but I am now in a relatively large space and as a result I can make free standing, bulbous forms. Having room has been liberating too. Finding space has become a huge problem in London, particularly for sculptors. I heard Louise Bourgeois on the radio once, and her advice for young sculptors was to ‘buy good storage’. I couldn’t agree more. AMM: What materials are used in your work? What would you say is your favourite material to work with? OB: I use a range of different materials and I like exploring different processes. At the moment, I am using thin steel to create armatures for sculptures. Then covering areas with paper pulp. I mix shredded paper, glue, paint and plaster into a huge bucket then apply it with my hands. I like material which you can manipulate – like plaster and clay. The paper pulp works for me because I can mix large quantities and it is very malleable. Colour is important in my work too, I like that the colour is in the material, rather than being applied to the surface at the end. AMM: The surfaces of your sculpture are incredibly textured and tactile. As you use your own hands to

Summer 2018

create imprints in your work, can you describe your process physically manipulating your material to achieve this affect? OB: The marks on the surface are not arbitrary but show how the work has come to be. I need to press the pulp onto the surface in order for it to stick to the armature. It can only be applied by hand, hence the surface. I am trying not to disguise how the work has been made and I hope that becomes a good entry point for the viewer. AMM: Although your sculptures are not literally interactive, a physical connection exists within your work. Is this in order to further engage and connect with the viewer, allowing your work to touch without touching? OB: OB: I hope so. With pieces like Hot Spot there are actual handles in a convenient place for someone to grab. But I always think the suggestion is more powerful. I hope that when the viewer looks at the work they can imagine the act of grabbing without physically doing it. AMM: Some of your installation pieces seem to reference everyday objects, such as Palisade, which resembles a less functional fence. Do you find inspiration in these types of functional items? What elements of everyday objects do you find the most aesthetically interesting? OB: I take a lot of inspiration from things around me – the city environment, architecture, the way that things are made. Palisade was conceived with more of a functioning role than most of my work. I wanted to make a sculpture which could divide a space in different ways. The parts are slotted together in the space. I was thinking about fences and screens. AMM: Your works invite intimacy, yet are monumental; is ‘big’ best for your expression and why? OB: I hope all of my work invites intimacy despite the scale. My largest works comprise assembled components so although the installed work may appear monumental the individual components are of a human scale. Sam Cornish, a curator and a critic reviewed my last solo show at 93 Baker Street and described some work as ‘mock-monumental’. I thought that was appropriate. The work is not monumental at all in comparison with outdoor sculpture, public sculpture or architecture. But they do suggest a monumentality, maybe in a more playful, less serious way. I make work in relation to my own means and yes, the work often ends up being ‘big’.

as a continued conversation, or do you feel each piece contains its own narrative? OB: The exhibition at Baker Street shows a range of work from 2015 to 2018. It is the largest space I have shown in to date, and it was a great opportunity to see the work all together. It was interesting to see how the earliest piece in the show Boulder (with handle) related so strongly to the most recent works Rumble and Hot Spot. I hope that each piece can provide its own narrative but I like playing with many pieces together. A lot of my work is made up of small details, it is satisfying when you can look through one sculpture to another work. It creates a new dialogue. AMM: Has there been a moment in your career as an artist that you would consider a turning point? OB: I couldn’t give you one. The best thing about being an artist is trying new things and challenging yourself through your work. If I didn’t have regular turning points, I would be worried and dissatisfied! AMM: Who or what would you say has had the most impact on your work? OB: Again that’s hard to answer. I’ve had some excellent tutors in the schools I’ve studied at. I learned a lot from working as an assistant to Anthony Caro. He offered invaluable advice and support. My peers are a consistent sounding board. I don’t believe you can make art in a vacuum. AMM: What is a typical day like in the studio for you? What music or podcasts (if any) do you listen to while working? OB: I try and get admin out the way in the morning so I am not distracted when I get to the studio. I’m normally there from 10am and I work flat out. I actually like working in silence, unless I can hear someone else’s music from next door! Then I listen to something I don’t need to think about – classical music or desert island discs! I work until I’m done. I like running home from the studio. Artists never stop thinking about their work, but it helps me process what I’ve done or think about what needs doing.

AMM: I understand your solo exhibition “at large” recently opened at 93 Baker Street in London (organised by VO Curations), showcasing a wide range of your work. How did the work come together in one space? Do you see your body of work

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Olivia Bax

Summer 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Olivia Bax

Olivia Bax Rumble steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster 180 x 120 x 90 cm

Olivia Bax Monkey Cups steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster 245 x 290 x 270 cm

Olivia Bax Rumble steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster 180 x 120 x 90 cm

Olivia Bax Monkey Cups steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster 245 x 290 x 270 cm

Olivia Bax Hot Spot steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster, handles, hooks 150 x 201 x 22 cm

Installation shot from ‘Surface Matters’ FOLD Gallery, London

Olivia Bax Hot Spot steel, chicken wire, newspaper, glue, paint, plaster, handles, hooks 150 x 201 x 22 cm

Installation shot from ‘Surface Matters’ FOLD Gallery, London

Olivia Bax Zest plaster, hessian, polystyrene, wood, steel, paper, paint, PVA, silicone and armature wire dimensions variable Fold Gallery, London Photo: Noah Da Costa

Olivia Bax Footloose powder coated steel, plaster, hessian, paper, PVA, paint, foam, silicone, armature wire dimensions variable

Olivia Bax Zest plaster, hessian, polystyrene, wood, steel, paper, paint, PVA, silicone and armature wire dimensions variable Fold Gallery, London Photo: Noah Da Costa

Olivia Bax Footloose powder coated steel, plaster, hessian, paper, PVA, paint, foam, silicone, armature wire dimensions variable

Everyday megalomania(!): in conversation with gallerist Kim Savage of FOLD Gallery

Kim Savage got his start in the art world where many aspire to end up – at the international powerhouse that is Saatchi Gallery. Cutting his chops in this cut throat environment pushed Kim to develop impeccable exhibition production skills, which today are evident in the shows he puts on in his own London gallery, FOLD. FOLD Gallery currently represents a core group of thirteen artists who work in a range of media with a focus on materiality within European painting and sculpture. With an innovative exhibition programme of focused artist and group shows, Kim balances furthering FOLD stable artists’ careers on a national and international platform, and introducing new artists into the gallery FOLD. As a trained painter, we were interested to hear from Kim about his transition from artist to curator and gallerist, and find out more about his experience running a commercial contemporary art gallery.

www.foldgallery.com text and interview by Layla Leiman

Everyday megalomania(!): in conversation with gallerist Kim Savage of FOLD Gallery

www.foldgallery.com text and interview by Layla Leiman

AMM: Do you remember the first exhibition you curated? What are some of the things you’ve learnt since then and how has your approach changed over the years? KS: I think the first exhibition was USA Today, a Saatchi Gallery show in the State Hermitage in St Petersburg, which was something I cocurated with the newly appointed Hermitage Curator of Contemporary Art. It was a show that had previously been at the Royal Academy and it was quite controversial at the time – especially to be taking it to Russia. Just getting some of the work through customs was a challenge. I managed to convince them to hang a work by Josephine Meckseper in the old Soviet State vault which was used during the cold war. AMM: As a trained painter, in your view what are the parallels between making art and curating? KS: I think the gallery programme certainly reflects that I come from a painting background. It reflects my fascination with material and abstraction. Everything we show tends to somehow relate back to painting or the process of making. As a gallerist you have the ability to control the programme and, as a result, influence concepts and the aesthetics of what goes into making the shows. So I guess one of the main parallels between making art and running a gallery could be megalomania(!) AMM: What is your understanding of the role of curator? KS: I would like to say that I have never been comfortable with the term curator – I find it is often over used and not in the right context. As a gallerist – a term I feel suggests something more encompassing – there is a much broader reach, you work on all aspects of the programme simultaneously. Traditionally a curator’s role is as a specialist in a particular field or in a particular artist or group of artists. Often in big institutions it involves taking care of one specific aspect of a collection. There has been a lot written recently on contemporary curators as artworld ‘superstars’ being a bit of a blight, especially at events like the Venice Biennale. Although some might think simply selecting a group of artists and coming up with a show title might be enough to call oneself a curator – for me the best curators are those whose approach holds more in common with the tradition of ‘taking care’. I think it is these curators who produce shows with a sense of longevity and nurture. We must remember that without artists there would be no curators. Or galleries for that matter. AMM: What are some of the ways that curating challenges and satisfies you creatively?

working on the initial inception of a show in conjunction with an artist and then seeing it through to production. It is a great journey thinking about the concept and the aesthetic in tangent. This is particularly true with the artists I represent where there is a real sense of a mutual voyage of discovery. AMM: How does your experience in exhibition production gained through your various roles at Saatchi and FOLD influence you curatorially? KS: Saatchi taught me about attention to detail. Having my own gallery taught me about the importance of patience. AMM: Please tell us about your conceptual process when developing a new show. Where do you look for inspiration and new ideas? KS: This usually happens when I want to introduce new artists that I haven’t worked with before to the programme. I tend to present them first in a group show. I constantly have a long list of people I would like to show. So it is a matter of looking at the work and see who fits with who; it’s quite natural really. The concept or theme develops through the process of selection, studio visits and conversations with the artists. AMM: In your view, what characterises a successful exhibition? KS: A strong aesthetic, a good dialogue between the work, lots of press and a good gallery attendance. Of course some sales are also quite important. AMM: What are some of the challenges and learnings you’ve personally experienced running FOLD over the years? KS: Being dependant on sales is always challenging. Especially whilst trying to maintain an international art fair programme. I have learnt to be persistent and ambitious. AMM: In many ways, your business is all about people. Are you a people person? What skills does it take to do what you do? KS: I think in the beginning I wasn’t much of a people person, so that is something I have had to work on. I don’t think that there are any particular skills – like any business you need to be a good all rounder. AMM: What sort of gallery culture does FOLD have? How have you gone about establishing this? Image: ‘Yellow’ Exhibiting artist: Simon Callery, Torgny Wilcke Installation View at FOLD Gallery

KS: The name itself, ‘FOLD’, comes from the expression ‘welcoming someone into the fold’ – an idea of inclusion. I think we are unpretentious and hope to be accessible but also uncompromising in the standard of work we present.

KS: As a gallerist I get loads of satisfaction from

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Kim Savage

Autumn 2018

KS: As a gallerist I get loads of satisfaction from

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Kim Savage

Autumn 2018

AMM: In 2015 FOLD transitioned from a project space to commercial gallery. Can you tell us a bit about what precipitated that move, and as the founder and director, what that meant for you personally? KS: This process was quite organic. It happened as a result of building sales and of me giving up my day job. It was a big commitment but was also really exciting to be fully committed to the gallery and be more in control of our combined destinies. AMM: How does the programme of curated group shows support the gallery’s objectives and strategy? KS: We are producing fewer and fewer group shows as the list of represented artists grows. I now tend to present two or three person shows where we can really focus more on the artists’ practice and present a stronger dialogue between the work. AMM: A commercial gallery can’t exist without collectors. How have you gone about growing your collector base and bringing new collectors into the fold? KS: Art fairs are the main way of doing this. Doing the right fairs and meeting the budget are the biggest challenges. Once we are there if we have selected the right artist(s) for the right fair the work tends to speak for itself and this brings in the collectors. AMM: What’s next for you and FOLD? What should we look out for? KS: I’m really excited about our next two shows – Judy Millar in September / October and Dominic Kennedy in October / November. Also look out for us in Untitled Miami in December.

Image: ‘Sweet’ Exhibiting artist: Dominic Beattie Installation View at FOLD Gallery

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Kim Savage

Image: ‘Sweet’ Exhibiting artist: Dominic Beattie Installation View at FOLD Gallery

Autumn 2018

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9, Interviewed: Kim Savage

Image: ‘Tectonical’ Exhibiting artists: Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Florian Schmidt Installation View at FOLD Gallery

Image: DoneWith Objects Because Things Take Place Exhibiting artists: Valérie Kolakis Installation View at FOLD Gallery

Image: ‘Tectonical’ Exhibiting artists: Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, Florian Schmidt Installation View at FOLD Gallery

Image: DoneWith Objects Because Things Take Place Exhibiting artists: Valérie Kolakis Installation View at FOLD Gallery

curated selection of works by Kim Savage, Founder and Director of FOLD Gallery, London

Featured image: Will Sears Dog Walk oil enamel on wood assemblage 58 x 35.5 inches more on p. 98-99

curated selection of works by Kim Savage, Founder and Director of FOLD Gallery, London

Featured image: Will Sears Dog Walk oil enamel on wood assemblage 58 x 35.5 inches more on p. 98-99

E m m a

C h i l d s

www.emmachildsart.com

Emma Childs was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she lives and works today. Childs just completed her senior year at MICA, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in general fine arts. Throughout her time at MICA, she was featured in several on-campus exhibitions and has been awarded scholarship every year based on both her portfolio and academic performance. Childs has been featured in several group exhibitions in the Washington DC/Baltimore area as well as New Orleans, Louisiana. In this current body of work, I have been developing a language of painting that allows me to explore both emotion and viscerality as well as physicality and presence. I am interested in the ability of a work to evoke an energetically emotional response from a viewer as well as creating objects that physically interact with their environment. I have been trying to walk a line between creating something self-contained as well as reaching outward. While creating efficiently eloquent shapes, choices of color and application are integral steps within my process. Transforming experiences and emotions into a language of simplified form, color, edge, and paint applications has allowed me to simplify what are actually complicated interconnected metaphors about relationships and the world we build around us.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Over the Moon acrylic on canvas 48 x 41.5 inches

Different Impression acrylic on canvas 48 x 41.5 inches

Autumn 2018

E m m a

C h i l d s

www.emmachildsart.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Over the Moon acrylic on canvas 48 x 41.5 inches

Different Impression acrylic on canvas 48 x 41.5 inches

Autumn 2018

M i c h a e l V i l l a r r e a l

www.michaelvillarrealart.com

In 2013, Michael Villarreal received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and a Master of Fine Arts in 2017 at the University of Nebraska. He has exhibited in solo exhibitions at Art Palace Contemporary Art Gallery, Houston, TX, and Project Project, Omaha, NE. He’s been in numerous group exhibitions which include “Going My Way” at Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX; “Nebraska Rising” at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE, and “Excessivist Initiative” at LA Artcore: Brewery Annex Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. His work has been featured in several online and in print publications such as Huffington Post for a group exhibition in Los Angeles and in Issue No. 126 of New American Paintings which was released in October, 2016. Recently, his work was on view in the group exhibition “Real Shapes” at DATELINE in Denver, Co. He was also a resident at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in 2017, as the recipient of the 2017 Lincoln Mayor’s Arts Awards - Kimmel Award. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at Doane University in 2019. My work explores self, place, and value developed from the different components that make up a household. When I was growing up, both my parents worked for a moving company from which they brought home discarded objects, from abandoned storage units, to the house my dad built with his own hands. This home, interior and exterior, was not designed to fit an explicit aesthetic, but all aspects of the house were in harmony and completed by the objects brought into each space. The house became a repository for abandoned domestic American culture — beds, couches, appliances, and other products made it into the home in irregular but frequent intervals. Using my past as an influence, I take the idea of necessity to make sculptures that resemble day to day household items. The items are off kilter and exaggerated lending themselves to a nostalgic feeling of childhood — the sculptures are formatted into 90s cartoon like forms where colors are heightened, surfaces are smooth and corners are round. Each piece works together to create a parody of what should be an accepted idea of an American domestic setting.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (left):

Image (right):

Tangled plasti-Dip, primer, joint compound, insulation foam 71 x 31 x 17 inches

Autumn 2018

Long Summer spray paint, joint compound, primer, insulation foam on canvas 13 x 9.5 x 3 inches

M i c h a e l V i l l a r r e a l

www.michaelvillarrealart.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (left):

Image (right):

Tangled plasti-Dip, primer, joint compound, insulation foam 71 x 31 x 17 inches

Autumn 2018

Long Summer spray paint, joint compound, primer, insulation foam on canvas 13 x 9.5 x 3 inches

K a z u k i

N i s h i n a g a

L i a R o t h s t e i n

www.liarothstein.com

www.kazuki-nishinaga.jimdo.com

Lia Rothstein has BA and MFA degrees from Boston University. She has exhibited her photographic and mixed media work in galleries and museums across the US and her work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Polaroid Permanent International Exhibition Photography Collection, the John Hancock collection, and the Radisson Group. Rothstein’s encaustic and cold wax paintings are featured in the recently published book, “Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts and Conversations” by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin. Lia was awarded artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Baer Art Center in Hofsós Iceland.

Kazuki Nishinaga was born in 1993 in Tokyo, and graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Musashino Art University (Tokyo) with a Bachelor of Arts in 2016. He currently lives in London and is studying MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art as a 47th The Ezoe Memorial Foundation scholarship student. Kazuki Nishinaga works mainly in the field of sculpture, considering the human’s primordial activity which is to understand the world. Although he is aware the notion of “sculpture” can be seen as outdated within a contemporary context, he is still strongly interested in this term and those ideas which relate to it, such as three dimensionality, durability, gravity and materiality. The tradition of sculpture, which is a sense of making by hands, plays a significant role in his practice. Nishinaga positions sculpture among those activities which consider a structure of the universe such as science and philosophy. He explores the potential of sculpture and how to materialise armchair imagination, using a variety of approaches including traditional wood carving and the making of machines. His works aim to give both the joy of craft and intellectual stimulatio9.

My photographic work is about visual perception and the interactions between color, light, space, and lines in space. Whether I am shooting light and shadow, objects in my studio, or making images outside in nature, my interest lies in exploring the relationships between compositional elements and their emotional impact on the viewer. Sometimes the photographs are of a single scene; sometimes the images show layers of composited forms or locations, made either in-camera or in post-production. Photography means “drawing with light” and I capture reflected sunlight or manufactured light with my camera in order to extend meaning beyond the literal recording of a scene. With my more recent work, I have continued my interest in layers of meaning, translucency, and fragility by experimenting with new materials and processes that utilize handmade papers, fabric, and waxes derived from natural materials. The texture of the surface and the invitingly sensuous and tactile sheen of the waxes add to the visual and emotional impact of the underlying photographic work. What is revealed or concealed, contextualized or isolated, realistic or conflated, emphasized or obscured, as well as the ambiguity of foreground vs. background; all are called into play when materials are applied to a photograph’s surface and manipulated in space. I am intrigued by the calligraphic textures I see in the landscape, a language unique unto itself.

He held solo exhibitions: Sculpting Machine, Gallery Madogiwa, Tokyo (Japan) 2017; and Asteroid’, Workshop 53, London (UK) 2018. Selected group exhibitions include See Śūnyatā in a void, Gallery LEDECO, Tokyo (Japan) 2014; Musashino Art University Degree Show, Musashino Art University, Tokyo (Japan) 2016. He participated in the research project of Robert Smithson and made a presentation as a member at Afterthought Enantiomorphic Chambers #3, which was a part of the art event railroad siding 2015, Tokorozawa (Japan) 2015.

Image: Blind trust camphorwood 70 x 50 x 50 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image: Fold l pigment print on fabric with encaustic, plastic snaps 22 x 25 x 1 inches

Autumn 2018

K a z u k i

N i s h i n a g a

L i a R o t h s t e i n

www.liarothstein.com

www.kazuki-nishinaga.jimdo.com

Image: Blind trust camphorwood 70 x 50 x 50 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image: Fold l pigment print on fabric with encaustic, plastic snaps 22 x 25 x 1 inches

Autumn 2018

E r i c

B u t c h e r

www.ericbutcher.com

Working primarily with oil paint or graphite suspended in resin, a transparent monochrome is spread across the surface of an aluminium support and then stripped off, using a variety of metal blades drawn across the surface. This procedure is then repeated, slowly building up an accumulation of thin residues. The outcome is determined by three factors: the support, the instrument of stripping and the interaction of the above mediated by the artist’s hand. The support: The outcome is in part determined by imperfections in the metal surface, either through the process of its manufacture, or the result of handling, cutting, the burr of its edge, accidental knocks and dents sustained in the warehouse. Each tiny imperfection is amplified by the process of stripping, leaving a ridge of denser colour to register its often otherwise imperceptible presence. The tool: Over years of use the stripping blades develop subtle accretions of paint along their edges from previous use. The gradual accumulation of thin residues creates tiny variations on the edge of the blade which affect the density of paint as it is stripped away. Consequently each finished surface holds within it the traces and evidence of the manufacture of every previous surface. It contains within it the ‘memory’ or history of every act of stripping, of subtraction, destruction. The hand: The build-up of paint is negotiated by the movement of the artist across the surface of the support. Subtle shifts in the pressure applied, inflexion or angle of the stripping blade leave their traces in the shifts of consistency and density of paint. The finished piece is an accumulation of what the artist has learnt about that particular piece of metal and its interaction with his own body - affected by his distribution of weight, balance, the tension in his arms, neck, even his breathing - through successive applications and subtractions. This methodology evidences an increasingly deterministic approach to the creative act. A set of procedures material interactions - have been developed which involve taking away and systematising significant elements of decision making rather than relying on the contingent, intuitive or whimsical. The painterly process has been distilled to a set of rituals, patterns of behaviour, endlessly repeated, a mechanistic performance carried out in private, made public. Paradoxically, in adopting this quasi-mechanised approach - free of emotion, free of explicit content - a quintessentially human quality emerges. When compared with the perfection of machine production, the limitations and failures of the human hand are writ large. Everything in the painted surface that deviates from a flat, featureless monochrome is predicated upon error or impurity, human or material. As such this artistic practice represents a glorification of error and a celebration of what makes us human. Born in Singapore, Butcher studied Philosophy at Cambridge University and Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally with shows in Germany, Italy, Australia and the USA, and has initiated several curatorial projects. Image (top):

Image:

I/R.580 oil + resin on aluminium 400 x 500 cm

P/R.789 & P/R.800 oil + resin on aluminium 2 (80 x 108) cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (bottom):

Autumn 2018

E/R.695 oil + resin on aluminium 350 x 40 cm

E r i c

B u t c h e r

www.ericbutcher.com

Image:

I/R.580 oil + resin on aluminium 400 x 500 cm

P/R.789 & P/R.800 oil + resin on aluminium 2 (80 x 108) cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (bottom):

Autumn 2018

E/R.695 oil + resin on aluminium 350 x 40 cm

A n d r e a

Ta y l o r

Andrea makes work in an attempt to satisfy an obsession with visceral responses to visual art. She seeks to access the power and the vulnerability of the feminine embodied experience, creating works for her own exploration and, equally, to engage in conversations with other works and with the body and mind of the viewer. Andrea’s sculptures are, in a way, self-portraits as the artist continues to attempt the impossible – to show what it feels like to live in a body. These abstract figures have grown out of years of drawing and painting the 19th century Serpentine Dance stills from Loïe Fuller’s dance performed by an unknown dancer and filmed by the Lumière Brothers. Titles often reference the body or dance and movement. Andrea thinks of the abstract figure – a stand in for her own figure – as picking up bits and pieces from the various times she travels through. These are evidenced in the drawn marks, painted areas and sections of fabric and needle felting. There is a sense of time shown through the artist’s hand evident in the work and the process of its creation. The artist turns the sculpture as she works on it, responding as much as a painter as a sculptor in her sense of composition and form - the embodied mark intentionally left by the trace of her hand.

www.andreataylor.ca

Andrea holds an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She completed a Spring Intensive artist residency at Banff Centre, May 2017, and two collaborative artist residencies with Margery Theroux at Anvil Centre August 2017 and at Miranda Arts Project Space in Port Chester, NY in 2015. She had solo shows in 2016 at Malaspina Printmakers and at Back Gallery Project and is represented by Back Gallery Project in Vancouver. Andrea teaches Continuing Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver. Image (left):

Image (right):

Ecstase cardboard, acrylic paint, canvas fabric, pencil crayon, charcoal, glue, epoxy resin 12 x 11 x 13 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Autumn 2018

Ecstase cardboard, acrylic paint, canvas fabric, pencil crayon, charcoal, glue, epoxy resin 12 x 11 x 13 inches

A n d r e a

Ta y l o r

www.andreataylor.ca

Image (right):

Ecstase cardboard, acrylic paint, canvas fabric, pencil crayon, charcoal, glue, epoxy resin 12 x 11 x 13 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Autumn 2018

Ecstase cardboard, acrylic paint, canvas fabric, pencil crayon, charcoal, glue, epoxy resin 12 x 11 x 13 inches

N i c k

P r i m o

www.nickprimo.com

Utilizing the building processes and visual language of architecture, object and furniture design, I create sculptures, prints and drawings that investigate the intersectionality of these constructs with time, transition, intimate and public space. Playful and deliberately ambiguous, but not ambivalent, my artworks are reflective metaphors on living in a consumer dominated nation saturated with information and objects, where narrative, truth, and memory are all suspect. Living in Baltimore and working in Washington DC allows me a perspective into two very different urban, social and political environments that inform my artistic process. These two cities are spaces I live in and respond to, and the daily physical, emotional, and mental transition from one place to the other, guides my aesthetic decision making. The look and feel of their architecture, products, people, and the refuse collectively produced by them serve to inform my palette of form, texture, color, and content. Historically, I continue in an aesthetic tradition of minimalism typified by Richard Serra, David Smith, or Sol LeWitt, but have a greater fascination in material experimentation as in the work of Eva Hesse. Reflective of my work experience and training as a professional fabricator, I choose forms and building materials that reflect current industry standards through their prefabricated appearance, color intensity, accessibility to average consumers, and their place in the world once their utility is exhausted. As a result, I’m interested in building upon contemporary visual narratives created by working artists such as Thea Djordjadze and Valérie Kolakis.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

A child is still a child even after it’s learned the alphabet steel cherry ceramic 65 x 19 x 66 inches

Friend, I am made from the ground, and for the ground steel cherry ceramic 60 x 30 x 30 inches

Autumn 2018

N i c k

P r i m o

www.nickprimo.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

A child is still a child even after it’s learned the alphabet steel cherry ceramic 65 x 19 x 66 inches

Friend, I am made from the ground, and for the ground steel cherry ceramic 60 x 30 x 30 inches

Autumn 2018

I r i n a R a z u m o v s k a y a

G r a z i e l a

G u a r d i n o

www.irina-r.ru

www.graziela-guardino-x8aq.squarespace.com

Irina Razumovskaya is a ceramic artist, born in 1990 in St. Petersburg. She has a BA and MFA from St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Design and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London. Irina has participated in various ceramic residencies and symposia around the world and her works are widely exhibited internationally and represented by Officina Saffi Gallery in Milan. She has won several accolades for her art work. Most notably, Irina was the finalist of Loewe Craft Prize, was the winner at the 8th NASPA, Ceramic Talent Award in Westerwald Museum in Germany and also won at the Biennal de ceramica d’Esplugues Angelina Alós in Spain. Most recently she was invited for the Faenza Prize 2018 edition. Her first solo show in Gallery Officina Saffi opened on 25th September 2018.

Graziela Guardino (b.1979) is a mixed media artist who explores the binary forces that life presents. The ambiguous components found in her works are meticulously created to offer the viewer a sense of coexistence and interactions of opposites. Through a continuous process of experimentation, organic lines, geometric shapes and simple materials such as fabric, canvas, polyester and wood are used to juxtapose ideas of reality and illusion; fragility and strength; as well as absence and presence. By examining and deconstructing the meanings within the layers, it became a thoughtprovoking process to demonstrate how opposing elements can rely on each other to exist.

Irina’s love for archeology and ancient languages led to an interest in classical architecture and culture, objects of bygone eras and their reflection on today’s world. Making her work, Irina evades tacking to any direct narrative. She animates minimalist architectural forms and classical shapes in her work, reflecting on the internal topic of carpe diem and the dichotomy of building and destroying that is embedded in human history.

Graziela Guardino is a Brazilian artist who lives in Sydney, Australia. She has exhibited in Australia, Brazil, Singapore and Hong Kong. Guardino has been a finalist in a number of art awards including the prestigious Churchie National Emerging Art Prize in Australia and was Highly Commended for the Winsor and Newton Scholarship, 2017. Her work is represented in numerous private collections including the LASALLE College of Fine Arts in Singapore. Graziela has just completed her Master of Fine Art in Hong Kong as part of RMIT University in Melbourne.

Image: Megalith porcelain, stoneware, glazes 80 x40 x40 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image: Both sides acrylic on linen 45 x 65 cm

Autumn 2018

I r i n a R a z u m o v s k a y a

G r a z i e l a

G u a r d i n o

www.irina-r.ru

www.graziela-guardino-x8aq.squarespace.com

Image: Megalith porcelain, stoneware, glazes 80 x40 x40 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image: Both sides acrylic on linen 45 x 65 cm

Autumn 2018

J a m e s

Ta i l o r

www.jamestailor.co.uk

Mainly working with the possibilities that assemblages give, my practice is not tied to a particular medium or style. Taking found objects, usually at the end of their life and re-appropriating their narratives to form new ones, there is an unavoidably autobiographical meaning to be extracted from my objects. There used to be a point where I anchored my work to painting and although there is an undeniable link to that medium, this is no longer a primary concern of mine. Allowing my objects to exist as they are, somewhere in between painting and sculpture, frees my work and opens possibilities for me to create assemblages from materials with which I personally connect. The dis-guarded objects that I use convey an inherent sadness and a sense of anticipation. It is precisely that feeling that I cling to, for it connects with me through my own life experiences. Those objects are then paired with acrylic paint, which I obsessively rework into a self-made material (normally monochrome). There is something ridiculously excessive in my fixation with acrylic paint which can verge on addiction when reworking it again and again. Through draping, sculpting, casting or pleating I react to the tensions inherent to the materials which mirror the foldings of my own personal traumas. More recently my works have become predominantly pink, a colour I hadn’t used before. It was only days after my father’s passing away that I started painting exclusively in that colour. Internalised Homophobia? Although owning and using this colour has been liberating for its apparent links to my own sexuality, I am interested, from an allegorical point of view, in specific hues such as soft baby pink which I see, now, as non-threatening and come across as a natural choice for me when trying to express through the tension of the materials my own beliefs and insecurities. When manipulating the form, I consider colour, balance, composition or finishes i.e. matt or glossy, making it possible to direct it toward suggestions of the body, skin, entrapment, escape, fetish, intercourse, illness and mortality, all of which have a potential to be present in any given work. Recent examples are The Small Things (2017) and then Holding On (2018), both of which are part of a growing body of work. Pink acrylic paint as a visual counterpoint to the low utilitarian quality of wooden crates among other found objects that I also include in my work, bring about a personality that transforms them into proxies of me. Working in this intuitive way with found objects and materials and deciding that their assemblage is just right is a key part of my creative process for me; any change can drastically alter the meaning. In Falling (2017), the work became even more anthropomorphic with an apparently light hearted approach that fails to comedically conceal darker ideas of love, life and belonging.

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Acrylic Paint and Easels acrylic paint, easels and wadding x 2 150 x 86 x 10 cm

Autumn 2018

Falling concrete, boots, car grill covered in acrylic paint and found objects 100 x 60 x 40 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

J a m e s

Ta i l o r

www.jamestailor.co.uk

Image (left):

Image (right):

Acrylic Paint and Easels acrylic paint, easels and wadding x 2 150 x 86 x 10 cm

Autumn 2018

Falling concrete, boots, car grill covered in acrylic paint and found objects 100 x 60 x 40 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

C i a n

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

D u g g a n

S o p h i a

L a t y s h e v a

www.instagram.com/oldkidbootlegs

www.sophia-latysheva.com

OLDKID is an Irish street artist based in Vietnam. Brought up on skate culture during his teenage years. Drawing inspiration from its bootleg and DIY aesthetic and mixing it up with an interest in industrial materials and design. He combines organic yet unnatural shapes with human elements to create otherworldly forms that intervene directly into the environment around us. You can find his work on the streets and walls of Ireland, UK, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Sophia Latysheva, b. 1995, is based in Vienna, Austria. She graduated in Fine Arts from University of Hertfordshire, UK, continuing her studies in the sculptural department at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. In her art practice is an enduring fascination with the field of architecture in its complex relationship with a human body. She has previously produced works in response to architectural concepts, such as Horizontal Column, 2016, The Wall, 2017 and upcoming Agora, 2018. With industrial material Sophia explores the limits of sculpture in creative process. In a varied way she takes its classical concept into question, reinterpreting the basic principles of it, such as mass, volume, proportion and motion. Her work has been part of various group shows in Moscow and abroad.

Image:

DIRTBIRD enamel paint

Horizontal Column sculpture 6000 x 820 x 460 mm

Autumn 2018

C i a n

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

D u g g a n

S o p h i a

L a t y s h e v a

www.instagram.com/oldkidbootlegs

www.sophia-latysheva.com

Image:

DIRTBIRD enamel paint

Horizontal Column sculpture 6000 x 820 x 460 mm

Autumn 2018

S h i n u k

S u h

H o l l y

Tr o u t

www.shinuksuh.com

Shinuk Suh was born in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. He has lived in London since 2013. He studied MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, before finishing his BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Recently, he has been shortlisted for Solo Award 2018.

www.hollytrout.com

My work begins with voluntary psychoanalysis of myself, and it also begins with dream analysis. I have been instilled with the restrictive education, ideology and religion of South Korea. The personal trauma I have experienced in the process of recognizing the difference between trying to become the ‘ideal’ human (desirable role model) that was imposed on me from my background, and the ‘ideal human’ that is borne out by my subsequent experiences has troubled my unconsciousness to such an extent that it has caused me to have recurring nightmares. The visual paradoxes which I have experienced in dreams not only mess up the border between dreams and reality, but have also caused me to question: ‘How real is reality?’

I explore the ways in which ordinary objects and materials can be transformed from their normal order into anomalous objects and systems. Through these, I attempt to understand the absurdity, alienation, and disorder I experience within the world. My work is playful in nature all the while revealing the darker dimensions of contemporary life. In this new work, I use the profusion of objects in my life to construct a small room within the museum space. The objects are individually “re-packaged” in clear mover’s plastic wrap and stacked one by one inside the wooden frames of the walls. The plastic wrap removes the objects from their normal use, molding them into building blocks of various shapes and sizes. This coalescence of function is emphasized by the way in which the plastic wrap harmonizes the colors of the objects. Objects play an active role in constructing space and identity. Within the home, objects are continually in a state of rearrangement— picked up, heaped, eaten, and trashed. They project cultural narratives and personal histories. In emptying my home of these objects and assembling them to build a new space, I attempt to denaturalize the accumulation of objects and reveal the agency they possess.

My works explore my interest in the mental disorder symptoms that can occur when people cannot accept the gap between dreams and reality. I realized that the humorous and exaggerated behaviours expressed in the animated movies that I encountered in my childhood are extremely relatable to adult human behaviour, and so not just cartoon fiction. I have related many of these exaggerated behaviours to my own situation, and then expressed them in my work. The cartoonish imagination expressed in my work suggests a deliberate avoidance of the untruthfulness and absurdity of the real world, and yet at the same time, is very much focused on expressing how difficult it can be to distinguish between comedy and tragedy in such a world... by expressing reality in an exaggerated and ridiculous way.

Holly Trout’s studio practice focuses on sculpture, drawing, and mixed media. She received her MFA from American University in May 2018 and her BA from Mount Holyoke College, where she studied Art History and Film Studies. Holly lives and works in Washington, DC.

Image (left):

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An unsound slumber colour television, chair, air dry clay, wood dimension vary with installation

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

I don’t want to do the laundry acrylic on mdf, colour television, fabric softener, laundry detergent 132 x 88 x 21 cm

Untitled (Structure) household items, plastic moving wrap, wooden frame 8 ft. x 8 ft. x 8 ft.

Autumn 2018

S h i n u k

S u h

H o l l y

Tr o u t

www.shinuksuh.com

www.hollytrout.com

Image (left):

Image (right):

An unsound slumber colour television, chair, air dry clay, wood dimension vary with installation

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

I don’t want to do the laundry acrylic on mdf, colour television, fabric softener, laundry detergent 132 x 88 x 21 cm

Untitled (Structure) household items, plastic moving wrap, wooden frame 8 ft. x 8 ft. x 8 ft.

Autumn 2018

N e i l

C a r r o l l

www.neilcarroll.crevado.com

Neil is an emerging artist based in Dublin, Ireland. He received his MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University (June 2016) and his BFA from the National College of Art in Dublin (2010), achieving Distinction in both. Since 2010, Carroll has been continuously exhibiting in solo and group shows. He was selected to exhibit as part of New Contemporaries 2017, showcasing the best of emerging talent from UK art schools. In the summer of 2015 he was the recipient of a fellowship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, USA. He was awarded the Hennessey Craig scholarship for painting at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin in 2012. He has also received artist bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland (2018, 2017, 2015). My practice sets out to explore the ability of pictorial space to continue to meaningfully express and embody a perceived shift in how we conceptually construct the anthropological condition of the human figure and the contemporary space it occupies. By this I mean that the insistence on the clear legibility of space by a passive and centrally located viewer, has been replaced by more dynamic and multi-directional conceptions of an ungrounded space, in which the quality of fixity or of a centralised core cannot be attributed to the human subject/figure either. I question how painting can correspondingly shift to maintain direct links and remain representative of this constantly shifting landscape. It tries to make manifest these changes by re-negotiating with the painting format in a broader sense, breaking with the traditional bounds of objective spatial structures, to form a relationship through materiality with a more abstract, dynamic and transformable space. Ideally, as an experiential plane or territory, or like sections of informal diagrams on which ideas and possibilities are inscribed, the works could be viewed as fragments of a larger social and cultural fabric. As a contingent part of the world in which they are formed, they would document the thoughts and actions of the billions of human figures that move through contemporary urban environments on a daily basis. These ‘Spatial Constructions’ are created using common construction materials such as household paint, wood, plaster and metal, often moving beyond the stretcher frame to assume different forms.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

How Many is a Million? linoleum flooring, paper, tape, emulsion paint applied directly to gallery wall 8 m x 3 m approx

Fissure emulsion paint, plaster, paper, wood, burlap and mixed media on steel mesh 3 m x 2.5 m

Autumn 2018

N e i l

C a r r o l l

www.neilcarroll.crevado.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

How Many is a Million? linoleum flooring, paper, tape, emulsion paint applied directly to gallery wall 8 m x 3 m approx

Fissure emulsion paint, plaster, paper, wood, burlap and mixed media on steel mesh 3 m x 2.5 m

Autumn 2018

K e l l y

F u n g

Kelly is an interdisciplinary maker, she works with materials, objects, images and installation. For her recent research and practice, she collects broken and found objects, to recall fragmented memories. She is exploring the gaps that lie between them and creating imagined reminiscences in those spaces which allow her to leap forward, however, she knows they will stay forever unfixed. The objects she creates may no longer be functional, instead they have become her poetry, representing the exterior projection of her interior. She wants to create an on-going space that contains these objects. She calls it home: a union of space and imagination. Her work explores two aspects of transformation: one is growth, the other disappearance. The two concepts exist together in harmony. Her work reflects on the nature of these forces and the system that utilizes them. She plays the role of the owner of the system, the catalyst, and sometimes the subject. Materials, objects and the images serve as a record and as metaphors that allow us to speak to and from our collective memory/experience. Therefore, a conversation between the past and the present is invited or activated; she hopes this will bring us somewhere to the unknown. The use of humor in contrast with melancholy is important within her work, so through her exploration of the subject matter, Kelly is aiming to create work that provokes thought and maybe solicits a smile. Ultimately she is striving to create work that is a balance of poetic and cognitive dimensions.

www.kellywfung.com

Recent exhibitions include: Schmuck (group show), The Show (RCA degree show). Originally from China, Kelly graduated in Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2015, and recently received an MA from Royal College of Art, London.

Image (left): Image:

can’t remember when i broke my grandmother’s comb amber, gilding metal, grandmother’s comb, (my) hair 23.5 x 25 cm

momo found broken stool, cotton, acrylic, mop 100 x 100 x 200 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (right):

Autumn 2018

i didn’t break the glass broken glass, glass, gilding metal 20 x 20 x 50 cm

K e l l y

F u n g

www.kellywfung.com

Image (left): Image:

can’t remember when i broke my grandmother’s comb amber, gilding metal, grandmother’s comb, (my) hair 23.5 x 25 cm

momo found broken stool, cotton, acrylic, mop 100 x 100 x 200 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (right):

Autumn 2018

i didn’t break the glass broken glass, glass, gilding metal 20 x 20 x 50 cm

R o b e r t

C o s t e l l o

www.robertcostello.xyz

Robert Costello is an artist who has lived and worked in New York since 2006. He received an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in 2008 and a BFA in painting and photography from the University of Alabama in 2006. He has had two solo exhibitions in New York. Robert has participated in group exhibitions in Chicago, Miami, Memphis, Montgomery, Portland, and New York. He has also curated several exhibitions in New York. Robert has long followed an interest in the plasticity of human perception and the construction of shared realities. These constructions are viewed as provisional as are the peer groups they are based upon. Concepts of gender identity, regional traditions and holidays, clothing as social group identifier, social class signifiers and the like serve as fuel in his studio practice and as a curatorial vehicle.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Dabble acrylic on burlap 34 x 26 inches

Fatal Optimism acrylic on burlap 26 x 20 inches

Autumn 2018

R o b e r t

C o s t e l l o

www.robertcostello.xyz

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Dabble acrylic on burlap 34 x 26 inches

Fatal Optimism acrylic on burlap 26 x 20 inches

Autumn 2018

W i l l

S e a r s

www.willsearsfineart.com

Will Sears was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1987, where he spent his formative years, until going on to study painting at Syracuse University. He now lives and works in Portland, Maine where he splits his time as a sign painter and fine artist. Sears works primarily in assemblage, drawing upon the rich tradition of Maine assemblage artists such as Louise Nevelson and Bernard Langlais. His work utilizes imagery of hand painted typography and abstract geometry. By cropping and rearranging the painted words, the viewer’s focus shifts from the associated message of words to the physical composition of the letters as form. Sears carefully selects materials for their meaning, using found wood and ephemera of daily life. Often the artwork samples a variety of unique cultural aesthetics, most commonly focusing on Americana. Sears uses the visual chaos of deconstructed and rearranged signage, found materials, and painted elements to comment on the overwhelming nature of contemporary visual culture. His thoughtful compositions and restrained color palate are evidence of his desire to break up the daily barrage of sensory input and find beauty in the outcome. Sears’ work is held in multiple private collections around the US, and he has shown nationally. He attended the Quimby Colony residence in Maine in 2010, and most recently the Hewnoaks residency in 2014 and again in 2016. Sears received an Individual Artist grant through the Maine Arts Commission as well as a grant from the Warhol Foundation in early 2015 to start a mural initiative with his partner, Tessa Greene O’Brien, in Portland, Maine.

Image:

Waist Deep oil enamel on wood assemblage 42 x 42 inches

Snooze Button oil enamel on wood assemblage 32 x 40 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Autumn 2018

W i l l

S e a r s

www.willsearsfineart.com

Image:

Waist Deep oil enamel on wood assemblage 42 x 42 inches

Snooze Button oil enamel on wood assemblage 32 x 40 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Autumn 2018

B i a n c a B a r a n d u n www.bianca-barandun.com

Bianca Barandun’s works combine different mediums such as drawings, prints and building materials to create wall based sculpture. Her practice draws upon observance of social clustering, the formation of groups, the cherishing of anxieties and the constant urge of fitting in society. Bianca investigates how we build connection with one another in a community where spoken communication becomes an indispensable tool to connect and attach. In particular, how these interpersonal skills can be altered through an inability of verbal expression. A central point depicts the combination of various materials where deliberately familiar and abstract forms are in constant interdependency with each other. Bianca studied for an MA in printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London, where she graduated in 2017. Her work has been featured in a number of international exhibitions and publications. Exhibition spaces include CGP Gallery, London; the international traveling exhibition at Gallery 2F, Tokyo; Shanghai University; NEON Gallery, Wroclaw and Galéria Médium, Bratislava. Bianca just received the Artist-in-Residence Award 2018 at Unit 1 Gallery, London. My work focuses on seeing and interpreting dynamic relationships and transferring them into material metaphors. Materials take on personalities and play out roles with and against each other to observe and abstract relations. The work depicts stereotypical and restrained social behaviors or hierarchies that we are all too familiar with. The materials and visual elements join, penetrate, grow, push, caress, tear apart, hold together and imitate each other to attract the gaze of the viewer. The correlations between the elements depict how I see these situations and occurrences of power structures. The theme of stereotypical behavior forms a central part of my practice, in relation to both social structures and group dynamics. How do we fall into patterns, form a hierarchy, or attach one’s identity to another? References from history and literature, as well as personal encounters, simultaneously undermine and inform one another and merge into an ambiguous imagery. In my work dominating graphic elements set the tone. The compositions are purposely slightly off balance in order for contradicting thoughts and forms to be in constant interplay. Though seemingly calm at first sight one discovers after a while that parts of the imagery are just about to almost tip over. A shape that wants to fly is being held back by the nature of its material. Positive and negative forms are continuously trying to reach each other in vain, never to settle in their rightful place. My practice stems from my experimental engagement with materials. My work starts mostly by drawing upon a past experience or a sense of it. By sketching and arranging numerous components I try to illustrate an emotional discourse and displacement. For example, the work ‘Attached Bodies’ investigates the conditions of personal relations and the attaching and hefting of one’s gravity onto someone else.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

14.03.18, 27.03.18, 05.04.18 part of Series in A4 jesmonite, spray paint, varnish 29.7 x 21 cm

Lama jesmonite, MDF board, spray paint, varnish 174 x 143 cm

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B i a n c a B a r a n d u n www.bianca-barandun.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

14.03.18, 27.03.18, 05.04.18 part of Series in A4 jesmonite, spray paint, varnish 29.7 x 21 cm

Lama jesmonite, MDF board, spray paint, varnish 174 x 143 cm

100

Autumn 2018

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S t e p h e n

J a q u e s

www.stephenjaquespainter.com

Stephen Jaques was born in Derby and from a very early age was aware that his vocation lay in the visual arts. He attended Derby College of Art and Canterbury College of Art. After college he moved to the East End of London where he established a studio with fellow artists. Since 1995 he has been based at APT Studios in Deptford. His influences are many and varied and range from Matisse to Australian totems. Stephen has exhibited widely including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Creekside Open as well as group and solo shows in the UK and Europe and his work is in private collections and galleries across the UK, Europe and the US. Currently his installation, The Law of Entanglement, is on show at Cannon Place in the City of London. My work is a constant cycle of reinvention and transformation. From sacred geometry to anthropomorphic forms, colour acts as the unifying element bringing everything together. The process is akin to alchemical experimentation, a perpetual discovery. Driven by instinct in pursuit of the idea. The starting point is drawing, a constant thread which runs through the work and is the basis of all expression. Images evolve gradually over long periods of refinement, many revisions taking place before resolution.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Atomic acrylic on canvas 85 x 85 cm

Chain Dance acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 cm

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J a q u e s

www.stephenjaquespainter.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Atomic acrylic on canvas 85 x 85 cm

Chain Dance acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 cm

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To m B u t l e r

X i a o l i n C h e n g

www.tombutlerstudio.com

Born: 1979 London UK, lives Portland ME, USA. Education: 2005-2007: MFA Sculpture, The Slade School of Fine Art, London; 2002-2005: BA (Hons) Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, London; 1997-2000: BA (Hons) History of Art and Design, Southampton University, UK. My selected exhibitions include: 2017: Divided Self (solo), Print Sales Gallery, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK; Black Mirror: Magic in Art, The Gallery at AUB, Bournemouth, UK; “I was here”, Belfast Photo Festival, 2017, Belfast, Ireland; 2016: The Hidden (solo), Ogunquit Museum of American Art; 2015: Inhabitants (solo), CHARLIE SMITH London, Inhabitants Part 2 (solo), VOLTA NY; 2014: One Hundred Misfits (solo), Gallery 51, Antwerp, Belgium; Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London; Regeneration, The Photographers’ Gallery, London; AIPAD, Gallery 51, Antwerp, NYC; Art Brussels, Gallery 51, Antwerp, Belgium; Inner Worlds (Solo); Aucocisco Galleries, Portland ME; 2013: Absentees (Solo), CHARLIE SMITH London; 2012: Curio (Solo), Charlie Dutton Gallery, London. My work can be found in the following collections: The SØR Rusche Collection, Germany; Quintessentially; Soho House; The Caldic Collection, The Netherlands; University of Maine, Museum of Art, United States and private collections in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, United Kingdom & United States.

www.xiaolin-cheng.com

Xiaolin Cheng is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Born in China, she received a BFA from China Central Academy of Fine Arts and an MFA from Pratt Institute. My work is concerned with the process of refining stories and experiences, in order to analyze the observations of alternating in aesthetic taste. But I am not telling stories, I am making objects. Object is a symbol; a poetry, and is a metaphor between individual and the city. Everyone is a regular rather than a passenger in everyday life. Through the way the materials, textures and shape directly show my view of labors, especially in my emotion part, the feelings which can tell and cannot tell present my current doubts of attempting to record, feel and create in this world.

I make artwork about my twin human desires to simultaneously hide and perform, a process I call ‘conspicuous invisibility’. I think this is something we all do from time to time especially when negotiating uncertainty. The work expresses my natural inclination towards introversion by displaying performative artwork essentially about hiding. These self-portraits are created with my tripod-mounted DSLR and remote controlled shutter release. Here, I attempt to reduce myself as much as possible to a singular form, revealing only the top of my head, so instead of presenting myself in a recognisable way, I appear concealed, ambiguous and even monstrous.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (left):

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Figure #5 archival print 6 x 4 inches

Figure #9 archival print 6 x 4 inches

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Image: Future AGG 18 gage cold-rolled sheet metal 21 x 8 x 7 inches

Autumn 2018

105

To m B u t l e r

X i a o l i n C h e n g

www.tombutlerstudio.com

www.xiaolin-cheng.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image (left):

Image (right):

Figure #5 archival print 6 x 4 inches

Figure #9 archival print 6 x 4 inches

104

Image: Future AGG 18 gage cold-rolled sheet metal 21 x 8 x 7 inches

Autumn 2018

105

G r a y W i e l e b i n s k i

G e l a h

P e n n

www.gelahpenn.com

Gelah Penn expands the language of drawing in sculptural space. In site-responsive installations, she deploys a variety of simple synthetic materials to invade, interpret and confound architectural parameters. The work foregrounds internal formal and conceptual contradictions: cohesion and fragmentation, balance and vertigo, minuet and jitterbug. Her aim is to choreograph events of perceptual incident and psychological dis-ease; her hope is that such a conflation of disparate parts — mark, shadow, geometry, gesture, concord, dissonance — results in some sort of vertiginous whole. Her interest in film, particularly the uneasy territory of film noir, informs the work.

www.graywielebinski.com

Gray Wielebinski is an artist working between London and Los Angeles in collage, video, performance, sound, sculpture, and installation. Their work explores Gender and Sexuality and how these intersect with other structures of power and identity. They recently graduated with an MFA from The Slade School of Fine Art in June. Gray is inspired by glitches, male bonding, queer temporality, podcasts, quantum mechanics, Jennifer Lopez’s Green Versace Dress at the 2000 Grammy Awards, conspiracy theories, clowning, and Surrealism. Gray creates an iconography that both maintains and interrupts coded imagery to build an alternative space of both familiarity and discomfort, allowing the viewer to recognize and deconstruct their relationships to familiar images, objects, spaces, and notions of themselves and others. Gray is interested in mixed media installationbased work that “queers” traditional modes of viewing and experiencing media and space, particularly within a “white cube” context. Ultimately collage plays an integral role in their practice, taking on many forms, from video and sculpture to sound and printmaking. Gray’s work also serves as a methodological experiment to question what it means to make and archive an artistic practice as one’s gendered present and future is undetermined. They often create seemingly “monstrous” figures that oscillate between beauty and the grotesque that create new possibilities of embodiment. Ultimately their practice becomes a way to engage directly with the realities and contexts within which we live while at the same time imagining and proposing alternatives, even if it’s just in our imaginations.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Penn has exhibited her work widely. Recent solo and group exhibitions include the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery/SUNY Old Westbury (Old Westbury, NY); Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockland, ME); Baker Center for the Arts/Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA); National Academy Museum (New York, NY), and Bibliotheque Municipale Louis Nucera (Nice, France). Her work is in the collections of the Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); Columbus Museum (Columbus, GA); Brooklyn Museum Library (Brooklyn, NY) and Gund Library/Cleveland Institute of Art (Cleveland, OH). Reviews of her work have been published in Art in America, The New York Times, artcritical.com, The Brooklyn Rail and a feature in Sculpture magazine. Penn has received a Tree of Life Individual Artist Grant and fellowships from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony.

Image:

Z hand sewn leather, fur, jersey, catcher’s chest plate, cup, leather cowboy boots 6 x 2.5 feet

Situations: Zone 6 (Rockland) mylar, lenticular plastic, plastic garbage bags, foam rubber, vinyl, vinyl & silicone tubing, copper and steel mesh, polyester, silk, Ping Pong ball, metal chain, metal staples, acrylic paint, metal armature, T-pins 156 x 360 x 36 inches CMCA (Center for Maine Contemporary Art), Rockland, Maine

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G r a y W i e l e b i n s k i

G e l a h

P e n n

www.gelahpenn.com

www.graywielebinski.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

Z hand sewn leather, fur, jersey, catcher’s chest plate, cup, leather cowboy boots 6 x 2.5 feet

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S t e f a n

R e i t e r e r

www.stefanreiterer.com

Stefan Reiterer was born in 1988 in Waidhofen an der Thaya, Austria. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Prof. Daniel Richter and Prof. Lisa Ruyter 2007-2012) and the Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto (2011). Selected solo exhibitions include: No Bonus, SPZ Gallery, Prague (w. Axel Koschier); Stefan Reiterer, One Work Gallery, Vienna (2016); Stefan Reiterer, Mauve, Vienna (2014); Dissolution, STUDIOS Lenikus Collection, Vienna (2013). Selected group exhibitions include: Alpenglühen - 100 years of Ettore Sottsass Jr., Belmacz, London (2017-18); Mad Cow (Life is Random, Why Not All The Rest?), SCAG Contemporary, Vienna; Anton Faistauer Preis für Malerei, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg; Death In The Afternoon, KS Room, Kornberg AT (2017); We are all in Olio, Gesso Artspace, Vienna; Instagram Now!, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna; Presentation with Galerie Andreas Huber, Parallel Art Fair, Vienna. For several years and in connection with very diverse projects I have been dealing with computer- graphics as a starting point for my artistic practice on the borderline between painting and installation. Currently I am working on the series ‘Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO’, which deals with the satellite-software Google Earth and the process of ‘texture mapping’. Therefore I choose screenshots from the software, like photographs of landscapes, and deconstruct and rearrange them on the computer. In the already existing works I am also using the different resolution of the satellite pictures as an aesthetical tool. Later, as a contradictional consequence, these graphics, calculated in milli-seconds, are transferred into scrupulously precise painting on large-scale canvases. For me this act of transformation questions the possibility of translation from reality into a form of digital structure. I would also see it as a revaluation of an image and its significance in changing time- and precision factors. Furthermore I am working in site-specific installations. Therefore I use canvas stripes to build spatial models in the exhibition room. The formal characteristics of these objects could be seen as a reference to digital image description, pixel- and vector graphics: the exact defined shapes on one side, the diffuse resolution of texture on the other. The illusionistic purpose of computer graphics on the screen gets an absurd turn when shown as a ‘real-life’ model in an exhibition space. As an opposition to historic panel-painting or the computer screen, there is no illusion of space in the image - the space is more or less defined by the installation of flat image surfaces. A testimonial from the beginnings of computer-based image description is separated from its context and transferred into contemporary art-practice with historical artistic methods. The viewer is asked to react to the work, as he or she is able to walk through, make out front, back or side views and get the proportions of the models by entering the stylized landscape.

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Image (left): texture mapping - Vienna Contemporary 2016 oil on canvas, wood 350 x 380 x 380 cm

Autumn 2018

Image (right): texture mapping - Faistauer Preis 2017 oil on canvas, wood 300 x 250 x 250 cm

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S t e f a n

R e i t e r e r

www.stefanreiterer.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

108

Image (left): texture mapping - Vienna Contemporary 2016 oil on canvas, wood 350 x 380 x 380 cm

Autumn 2018

Image (right): texture mapping - Faistauer Preis 2017 oil on canvas, wood 300 x 250 x 250 cm

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H o w a r d S c h w a r t z b e r g

Howard Schwartzberg was born in 1965 in Coney Island, Brooklyn. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute and his Masters in Education from the University of New England, Maine. Schwartzberg began showing work in 1990 and has been in several group shows in New York, including the Drawing Center and Stux Gallery. He has had solo exhibitions at Momenta Art, Silverstein Gallery, Dorsky Gallery and most recently at 57W57Arts in New York City. In 1999 the artist created “Surface”, a large environmental earthwork in Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY. During his tenure as a New York City high school art teacher, he has developed site-specific art programs for hundreds of children, including those living in group homes, family shelters, drug rehabilitation centers and youth detention centers. In 1999, Schwartzberg received the New York City Art Teachers Association/UFT Honorary Art Educators Award in the High School Category. In the late eighties, feeling restricted by the confines of a stretched canvas, I started experimenting with ways in which to reverse the processes of making a painting. Using bags and containers, made of either jute or canvas, I began to explore weight and volume in relationship to the fluid properties of paint, seeking to turn a painting inside out where the medium essentially holds on to itself. This exploration resulted in a hybrid of painting and sculpture, conceptually leaning towards painting, as I explored new relationships between the canvas, paint and support. Collapse and decay are present throughout the work, as evidenced in the mended, sewn and glued canvas. Monochromatic color choices poured to a smooth, flat surface define the paintings’ form and personality.

Image (left):

Image (right):

Inverted and Reversed Formal Painting (Orange with Curved Bottom) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, staples, glue, foam 68.58 x 38.1 x 29.21 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

www.howardschwartzberg.com

Image (left):

Sandwich/Bandage (Vertical Lime Green) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, staples, foam 78.74 x 19.05 x 22.86 cm

110

Image (right):

Slit, Fold and Pouch (Turquoise and Hidden Turquoise) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, thread, staples, glue, foam 53.34 x 43.18 x 33.02 cm

Autumn 2018

Purple Sack Painting burlap, paint, plaster, thread, foam 53.34 x 60.96 x 45.72 cm

111

H o w a r d S c h w a r t z b e r g

Image (left):

Image (right):

Inverted and Reversed Formal Painting (Orange with Curved Bottom) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, staples, glue, foam 68.58 x 38.1 x 29.21 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

www.howardschwartzberg.com

Image (left):

Sandwich/Bandage (Vertical Lime Green) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, staples, foam 78.74 x 19.05 x 22.86 cm

110

Image (right):

Slit, Fold and Pouch (Turquoise and Hidden Turquoise) canvas, paint, wood, plaster, thread, staples, glue, foam 53.34 x 43.18 x 33.02 cm

Autumn 2018

Purple Sack Painting burlap, paint, plaster, thread, foam 53.34 x 60.96 x 45.72 cm

111

R h i a n n o n

S a l i s b u r y

www.rhiannonrebecca.net

Rhiannon Salisbury is currently enrolled on the Turps Painting Programme in Elephant and Castle, London. In 2016 Rhiannon completed her MAFA at Chelsea College of Art after receiving the prestigious John Hoyland Scholarship. Recent achievements have included being selected to undertake a residency in Guadalajara, Mexico to participate in “Panorama”, an exhibition led by George Blacklock; having work selected for the A.P.T. Gallery Creekside Open 2017, selected by Jordan Baseman, and being selected as the artist to represent University of the Arts, London, in an international advertising campaign for the university. In the last month the artist has been awarded The Darbyshire Prize for Emerging Art and will be having a solo show in London with Darbyshire Ltd, and in Edinburgh with Arusha Gallery in Autumn 2018. I use my paintings as a tool to investigate the role of women within a patriarchal culture. Using colour, form, and composition as language, I am investigating western standards of beauty and the idealisation of femininity, within the field of advertising. I deliberately work with found imagery from aspirational fashion and lifestyle magazines, focusing on the modelling campaigns of the most luxurious brands. Compositions and imagery are tweaked to distort and expose my dystopian perception of this capitalist dream. I hope that the reinterpretation of the advertisements through painting, opens up a dialogue where one can re-look at the structure of ideas and references used in each highly constructed and saturated image. Using gestures which explore the borderland between a substance that is alluring in its thick luscious texture, and grotesque in its ability to turn to chaotic mush, my paint handling and synthetic colour palette seeks to strike a balance that intends to at once allure and repel the viewer.

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Image (left): Moroccan Swimwear Collection acrylic on canvas 45 x 30 cm

Autumn 2018

Image (right): Waiting For Godot acrylic on canvas 45 x 30 cm

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R h i a n n o n

S a l i s b u r y

www.rhiannonrebecca.net

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

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Image (left): Moroccan Swimwear Collection acrylic on canvas 45 x 30 cm

Autumn 2018

Image (right): Waiting For Godot acrylic on canvas 45 x 30 cm

113

J o n a t h a n M i c h a e l R a y

www.jonathanmichaelray.com

Jonathan Michael Ray lives and works in St Ives, Cornwall, England, b. High Wycombe, England 1984. Jonathan studied a BA Hons in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University and subsequently an MFA in Fine Art Media at Slade School of Fine Art, London. He was artist in residence at HKBU, Hong Kong, in 2016 and he has this year been awarded the Porthmeor Studios Graduate Workspace Award supported by the European Regional Development Fund, via Cultivator, 2018-19. Informed by the act of looking, Jonathan’s art practice largely comprises of works in video, photography, drawing, print and installation. The work I make has always been contingent upon, and deeply linked to my surroundings, and I am continuously referencing the landscape, history and environment around me. I see all objects and places as imbued with a sense of memory, and I’m especially drawn to those which seem to have lost their exact meaning, or appear flat and are easily overlooked. By breaking down the process by which we see things, and addressing the things that remain unseen, my work focusses on looking beyond what we look for when we look. This comes from thinking that if I take the time to look at everything equally, and indeed, more so at the things that get forgotten, then I may be able to make some sense of this world and all the things that surround us.

Image (left):

Image (right):

Up Against The Rocks 16mm film (4 mins, colour, no sound), HD monitor, concrete blocks and PVC vinyl print 90 x 35 x 120 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

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Autumn 2018

Untitled Gathering glass, PVC vinyl print, limestone and stainless steel 84 x 15 x 63 cm

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J o n a t h a n M i c h a e l R a y

www.jonathanmichaelray.com

Image (left):

Image (right):

Up Against The Rocks 16mm film (4 mins, colour, no sound), HD monitor, concrete blocks and PVC vinyl print 90 x 35 x 120 cm

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

114

Autumn 2018

Untitled Gathering glass, PVC vinyl print, limestone and stainless steel 84 x 15 x 63 cm

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M a r k

K r e m e r

www.markkremer.com

My practice, in both research and creation, focuses on no less than three topics: The processes and mechanics of making. Providing a set of instructions to the maker as a means of exploring how we define authorship in the digital age. The intention is to highlight the qualities of that specific maker’s process – be it the artist, human, or nonhuman. Allowing the visual form of the artwork to illustrate the limitations or exceptional abilities of its maker, e.g. its stamina, height, arm-span, right handed-ness, precision/imprecision, etc. Activating the threedimensional space surrounding the work, and representing the choreography of the maker in creating the work.

Image:

Horizontal Line 1, Encased, Left to Right polyester drafting film, reflective mylar, paint marker, wood, aluminium 46 x 78 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

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Diagonal Line 4, Lower Right to Upper Left polyester drafting film, india ink, wood, aluminum 72 x 49 inches

Autumn 2018

117

M a r k

K r e m e r

www.markkremer.com

Image:

Horizontal Line 1, Encased, Left to Right polyester drafting film, reflective mylar, paint marker, wood, aluminium 46 x 78 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

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Diagonal Line 4, Lower Right to Upper Left polyester drafting film, india ink, wood, aluminum 72 x 49 inches

Autumn 2018

117

A l e j a n d r o U r r u t i a

www.alejandrourrutia.art

I am a Chilean architect/ sculptor and a firm believer in the feedback process between disciplines, cultures, places and persons. In the notion of enrichment through different experiences and knowledge that cultivate new perspectives. It’s this way of thinking that brought me to Copenhagen a year ago. I aspire to deepen my understanding of how sculpture relates to architecture in rethinking traditional ways of inhabiting, generating innovative combinations or sequences for seizing spaces. I study the relations that arise between a piece and its physical and social context. How it is positioned in space, the tensions and visual tracings generated by its form and material properties and what is implied by its placement in a community. The vision of sculpture motivates me, not only as an aesthetic object but rather in its relation to space, as a driver of experimentation, imbued with implications, rich in content and history.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

equilibrium polished stainless steel 65 x 90 x 55 cm

balance painted steel 70 x 30 x 75cm

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A l e j a n d r o U r r u t i a

www.alejandrourrutia.art

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

equilibrium polished stainless steel 65 x 90 x 55 cm

balance painted steel 70 x 30 x 75cm

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M i c h a e l a

Z i m m e r

www.michaela-zimmer.de

I regard the process-based nature of performance as the basis of my paintings. Traces of movement generated through persistent physical exercise are transferred onto canvas formats that are proportional to my own physical constraints, namely my reach. These meditative states of enactive consciousness are reflected in a variety of strokes and marks, and often incorporate industrial plastics. The introduction of sculptural elements enhances spatial awareness. Behind the semi-transparent PE film, details become blurred or remain hidden. Here, the stark contrast between abstraction and corporeality disappears into the merging of image and object, of illusionary space and material. The space around the work affects the viewers in the way that the interference from the material invites them to move around the work to engage with it. The transient nature of the surface encourages the viewer to react to the work physically, in turn reflecting the act of making. My work consistently explores the different possibilities of the spatial conditions we move in, and how these conditions might become images. My sustained research goes back to early time-based sculptures, which are comprised of photographic records of the interaction and energetic fusion of the human body with objects. Interpretations of concepts - such as the re-reading of the deconstruction of the support, or the sublime, have allowed me since to create a body of work that is focused predominantly on the limits of the pictorial medium. Michaela Zimmer holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts (former Chelsea College of Arts & Design) in London . She lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo shows include NONSYNONYMOUS, Galeria Kernel, Spain; deconnotation frontviews, Berlin and after white, FOLD, London, UK (all 2018); labo(rat)ori at PM/AM, London (2017) and CMYK, FOLD, London, UK. Perpetual Movement at The Lowry, Manchester (2016/17) took place in co-operation with Rambert, UK. Group shows in 2017 included apposite at Kosmetiksalon Babette, thirdness at Kunstquartier Bethanien, both Berlin, and New Material, APT gallery, London. In 2016 work was included in suckstract, Kunstverein Konstanz and Kunstverein Weiden and in object trouvé at the Centre Pompidou Paris, France. In 2015 work was shown in Others’ Own by GSL projekt / Harbor New York; Corporeality, FOLD and First Open, 40 years Christie’s South Kensington, both London. Former shows took place at Mies van der Rohe Haus, autocenter and Forgotten Bar Projects, all Berlin, Kunstverein Heppenheim; National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool; Royal Society of British Sculptors Gallery, London; Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; cgp gallery, London; Forum d’Art, Chateau Vaudremont, France. Among awards and recognitions obtained, are awards by the King Edward IV Foundation (1998), the British Academy (1998), and the LICC, London (2009). Numerous interventions and works in public space gained funding and prizes and her work is represented in various collections and institutions, such as the Miettinen Collection (Berlin), the Senate Collection (Berlin) and the Liverpool Museum Collection.

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

17080 thirdness lacquer, acrylic, spray paint, PE film on canvas 130 x 185 cm

140802 acrylic, lacquer, spray paint, PE film on canvas 243 x 175 cm

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Autumn 2018

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M i c h a e l a

Z i m m e r

www.michaela-zimmer.de

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: curated selection

Image:

17080 thirdness lacquer, acrylic, spray paint, PE film on canvas 130 x 185 cm

140802 acrylic, lacquer, spray paint, PE film on canvas 243 x 175 cm

120

Autumn 2018

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editorial selection of works

Featured image: Keenan Derby Wave Maker acrylic and sand on canvas 59 x 43 inches more on p. 136

editorial selection of works

Featured image: Keenan Derby Wave Maker acrylic and sand on canvas 59 x 43 inches more on p. 136

Emilia Olsen’s work features thick oil paintings of dream like scenes influenced by her personal and political anxieties. Her work evokes a world suspended between solace and reservation. The paintings describe sunburned women and skeletons in prickly pear patches, nudes reveling in baths, and boldly painted flowers and cacti. The protagonist in the work is often faceless, giving the figures a suggestive quality for her to indirectly discuss autobiographical subjects. This surreal atmosphere is created through the protagonists’ vulnerability, facing the realities of climate change, mortality, learning to choose joy, and laughing through the end of the world. Olsen (b. 1989 South Africa) earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of the Arts & Design in Washington, DC in 2011 and her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Australia. She had her inaugural solo show in summer 2018 at Doppelgänger | Studio in Queens, NY (USA), and has been most recently included in group exhibitions at Arts & Leisure (NY, USA), Elephant Gallery (TN, USA) and Freight & Volume Gallery (NY, USA). She has been featured in publications like Maake Magazine and Hyperallergic. She has attended residencies in New Mexico (USA), New York (USA), and Hungary. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

www.emiliawolsen.com

E m i l i a

Image (left):

Image (right):

Bluets, After Maggie Nelson oil, oil sticks, oil pastels on canvas 48 x 36 inches

O l s e n Autumn 2018

Joyful Girl oil, oil sticks on canvas 48 x 36 inches

125

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

www.emiliawolsen.com

E m i l i a

Image (left):

Image (right):

Bluets, After Maggie Nelson oil, oil sticks, oil pastels on canvas 48 x 36 inches

O l s e n Autumn 2018

Joyful Girl oil, oil sticks on canvas 48 x 36 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

K a t e

K l i n g b e i l

A l v i n

O n g

www.kateklingbeil.com

I want to make the insides known. My paintings are renderings of internal landscapes enhanced by the exaggeration of emotion. Being human is a strange thing, we are simultaneously deteriorating and regenerating, always moving. In the studio I am the conductor of a play, painting my characters dancing and interacting in a fantasy world, this alternate reality where pleasure, respect and equality reign. The work often begins with a seed of my own personal experience. I’m interested in upholding vulnerability, humor, honesty and play within the work, which ultimately strives to help people (including myself) feel less alone in this ridiculous experience of life within a human body.

www.alvin-ong.com

Alvin’s paintings synthesize histories, mythologies, theatre and folk forms into surreal improvisations and non-linear narratives. Characters wrestle amongst one another, journeying between mask, gesture and performance. At times, unraveling like a musical fugue in humid liminal space. They are improvisations and fecundity, or social satire; sometimes borne out of an idea or an image, or other times, informed by design and accident, the unique and redundant, the sublime and the banal.

Kate Klingbeil (b. 1990) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her multimedia work moves between painting, ceramics and animation to examine the psychology of desire, illness, perception and sexuality as a young woman today. She received her BFA from California College of the Arts in 2012. She has had solo exhibitions at Crush Curatorial (2017, NYC) and Hashimoto Contemporary (2018, SF, CA). Notable group exhibitions include Figured Out: Bodily Form in Contemporary Ceramics, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago (2017); Fugue, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, NY (2018); Clay Today, The Hole, NY (2018); The Ashtray Show, Fisher Parrish, NY and Seed, at Paul Kasmin Gallery (2018). Kate has attended residencies at Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA) and ACRE (Steuben, WI), among others.

Image:

A Mind Of Her Own acrylic, flashe and watercolor on canvas over panel 8 x 10 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

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Black Sesame oil on canvas 145 x 175 cm

Autumn 2018

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K a t e

K l i n g b e i l

A l v i n

O n g

www.kateklingbeil.com

www.alvin-ong.com

Image:

A Mind Of Her Own acrylic, flashe and watercolor on canvas over panel 8 x 10 inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

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Black Sesame oil on canvas 145 x 175 cm

Autumn 2018

127

S o p h i e L o u r d e s K n i g h t

www.sophielourdesknight.com

Sophie Lourdes Knight is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. She received a BTEC in Art & Design from Wimbledon College of Arts in London and a BFA from California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA. Within the studio, her core interests revolve around possible notions of failure and ideas of what success could be, attempting to overcome ‘failure’ by making and remaking; failure as success, as subject, as object. She is interested in the ceremonies we undertake to declare victory over loss and the objects we keep to commemorate the emotion of these moments.

Image:

Image (left):

The West Country acrylic on canvas 72 x 52 inches

128

Image (right):

Mountains out of Molehills acrylic on canvas 66 x 36 inches

Autumn 2018

The Cottage acrylic on canvas 30 x 24 inches

129

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

S o p h i e L o u r d e s K n i g h t

www.sophielourdesknight.com

Image:

Image (left):

The West Country acrylic on canvas 72 x 52 inches

128

Image (right):

Mountains out of Molehills acrylic on canvas 66 x 36 inches

Autumn 2018

The Cottage acrylic on canvas 30 x 24 inches

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ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

E l l i e

W a l k e r

www.ellierwalker.com

Ellie Walker, B.1995, Education: 2017 – BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting – University of Brighton; 2014 – Foundation Diploma – Arts University Bournemouth. Selected Group Exhibitions: Upcoming, 2018 – Artpiq Summerhouse Residency Show, Dusseldorf, Germany. Past: 2018 ‘More and More and More’, Organhaus Gallery, Chongqing, China; 2017 ‘Artiq Graduate Art Prize’, Exchange House, London; ‘State your Case’, 5th Base Gallery, London; ‘Graduate Show 2017’; Grand Parade, Brighton; ‘Fashioning the Frame’, Edward Street, Brighton, 2016; ‘Stretch’, Grand Parade, Brighton 2015; ‘End of Year Show 2015’, Arts University Bournemouth. Residencies, August 2018 - ARTPIQ Summerhouse 2018, Dusseldorf, Germany; May 3rd – June 27th 2018 - Organhaus Residency, Chongqing, China. Publications: March 2018 - Brenda Magazine, Issue 01 Feb 2018 – ‘Friend of the Artist’ magazine, Issue 05. Through my recent practice I have been exploring how past and present experiences trigger my feelings of anxiety and how I use painting and drawing to understand and confront these feelings. The emotive element of recalling a particular event has become an important aspect within my work and is the foundation of where my ideas begin. Initially, I create drawings through a combination of observation, memory and photographs to create narratives that are inspired and influenced by the experiences of my day to day life. After creating various drawings that re-use and re-arrange the collected motifs, the narratives become something new altogether, creating disorganised and fragmented realities. Stylistically my work is similar to the diary-like drawings children make to describe their daily lives. I do this in a falsely naive way, using my drawings as guidelines to start a painting. I then begin to allow the experimentation of colour and the application of paint to be my main form of guidance, which leads to new settings and accidental forms and figures being created, further modifying and disrupting the narratives of the work. As a result, the paintings are not accurate representations of my personal experiences. Instead, they are visual diary entries of how I perceive and remember particular memories, which have been distorted by the effects of anxiety. Image (left): Mint ice cream and hairy fruit acrylic, oil and oil bar on canvas 60 x 60 cm

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Autumn 2018

Image (right): Oil never looked so good acrylic, oil, oil bar and pencil on canvas 120 x 120 cm

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E l l i e

W a l k e r

www.ellierwalker.com

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

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Autumn 2018

Image (right): Oil never looked so good acrylic, oil, oil bar and pencil on canvas 120 x 120 cm

131

L e a h G u a d a g n o l i

Leah Guadagnoli lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA in Visual Art from Rutgers University in 2014 and her BFA in Painting and Art History from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012. She has had solo and two person exhibitions at VICTORI + MO (New York, NY); 247365 (New York, NY) and Sadie Halie Projects (Minneapolis, MN), and most recently at Terrault (Baltimore, MD) with Alex Ebstein. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at White Columns (New York, NY); Harper’s Books (East Hampton, NY); Asya Geisberg (New York NY); Cuevas Tilleard (New York, NY), and Library Street Collective (Los Angeles, CA), among others. Her work has been reviewed in New American Paintings, Art F City, Hyperallergic, Maake Magazine, and BmoreArt. She is the founder of the Maple Terrace Residency Program in Brooklyn, NY. I make three-dimensional wall based constructions that balance geometry, nostalgia, and architecture into unfamiliar forms. My work breaks from the typical picture frame through its irregularity, plushness and depth. It is unique in its close relationship to furniture making and encourages interaction. Aligned positions are offset by patterns that I design and digitally print onto fabric—recalling interiors and facades from another time. Decades worth of history are distilled into each piece I make. The past and present are combined and act as reminders of what we were, who we are, and who we might become. I am interested in geometric design’s cross-cultural and cross-generational narrative. Egyptian hieroglyphics, Islamic tiles, Gothic stained glass, Bauhaus architecture, The Memphis Group — examples of geometry’s impact and influence across history are as endless as they are utilitarian symbols of a specific time and place. I grew up in the Midwest during the late 80s and early 90s. The patterns and forms I make specifically reference suburban homes and related interiors from these “Flyover States”. Textured areas made with pumice stone and molding paste allude to stucco walls and popcorn ceilings. Painted canvas stretched over foam suggests an upholstered vinyl headboard or sofa. The patterns are reminiscent of the gaudy carpet, seating, and wallpapers found in movie theaters, casinos, coach buses, and waiting rooms. These often confounding motifs performed specific functions, whether in their ability to disguise accumulated stains and grime, confuse viewers in order to distract, or to facilitate a sense of nondescript, in-between space.

Image (left):

Image (right):

Number One Song In Heaven acrylic, pumice stone, molding paste, Plexiglas, PVC, digital print on fabric, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on aluminum panel 60h x 38w x 3d inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

www.leahguadagnoli.com

Image:

Number Six Song in Heaven acrylic, pumice stone, Plexiglas, PVC, found upholstery, Apoxie Sculpt, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on aluminum panel 49h x 30w x 3d inches

132

Sunset Roulette oil, acrylic, pumice, found fabric, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on archival coroplast 36h x 45w x 5d inches

Autumn 2018

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L e a h G u a d a g n o l i

Image (left):

Image (right):

Number One Song In Heaven acrylic, pumice stone, molding paste, Plexiglas, PVC, digital print on fabric, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on aluminum panel 60h x 38w x 3d inches

ArtMaze Magazine Issue 9: editorial selection

www.leahguadagnoli.com

Image:

Number Six Song in Heaven acrylic, pumice stone, Plexiglas, PVC, found upholstery, Apoxie Sculpt, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on aluminum panel 49h x 30w x 3d inches

132

Sunset Roulette oil, acrylic, pumice, found fabric, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on archival coroplast 36h x 45w x 5d inches

Autumn 2018

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www.ds-lee.com

D S

L E E

Through my work, I create an Internal (irrational) Space that emerged from the abstract imagination evolved around my introspective narratives and unconsciousness-flow for the sleepless nights in between the dreamy states and the morning. The imagery evokes a sense of impractical space, deformed time and alienated landscape, constructed out of the bold shapes and deconstructive fragments. The completed image on a paper nuances a non-sequential interior space that is non-rationally arranged, collaged and assembled with diverse elements and surfaces depicting depth, flatness or stripes, in either grayscale or colors though I deliberately strive to create a visual compliment when structuring the varying shapes and colors. I enlighten the moment of sensation of them conflicting and contrasting each other, which is created while transiting between the unconscious memories of the dreamy states and the physical moment of depicting those imageries. The composed space connects my exterior and interior life; the untiring influence from urban landscape and human-relations in contemporary life, intertwined with infinite self-recognition, emotional rigor and mental clashes. DS LEE is a South Korean visual artist based in New York. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her artistic practice reflects her earlier academic and professional background of architecture and urban design through careful consideration of non-structure vs. architecture and application of diverse formal elements. In addition, her deep interests in fashion and design have conjured up a profound dialogue with human and surrounding visual components of daily life, which she has developed and refined through several years of experimental studio practice.

Image:

Internal Space #07 acrylic, graphite, color pencil on paper H17 x W14 inches

Internal Space #03 acrylic, graphite, charcoal on paper H17 x W14 inches

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www.ds-lee.com

D S

L E E

Image:

Internal Space #07 acrylic, graphite, color pencil on paper H17 x W14 inches

Internal Space #03 acrylic, graphite, charcoal on paper H17 x W14 inches

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K e e n a n

J o s h J e f f e r s o n

D e r b y

www.keenanderby.com

www.joshjeffersonstudio.com

Growing up in Atlanta with a household of biologists, I was immersed at a young age in many diverse environments. During my explorations of the swamplands, beaches and mountains of the Southeastern United States, I learned to view the world with a scientist’s sense of observation and wonder. I find nature as an endless stretch of raw material to inform my paintings, its inherent cycles of destruction and renewal representative of the impermanence of all form. My work develops from the interface between observation, perception, and invention. A finished piece is a moment cast in stone, a memory solidified into its own painted logic.

Josh Jefferson has made visual art seriously since the late 1990s with a singular drive that combines material experimentation and visual simplicity, comics, collage and a fetish for the lush verso of antiquated source material; a tactile, albeit intellectual result of his fondness for the past. He is as unafraid of forging a face from three strokes of brush, pen and ink splatter as he is of layering a dozen disparately drawn discards into a harmonious whole. Jefferson doesn’t seem to concern himself with end results, but the laboratory’s immediacy is his prevailing enchantment. He makes marks with learned abandon; he erases them with naiveté and concision. His practical approach is alternately reverent and iconoclastic, whether rubbing frottage over vinyl lettering, painting with a broad brush or concentrated draftsmanship, his work is a celebration of abandon and control (Scott Zieher).

Keenan Derby lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He received his MFA from Boston University and his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has exhibited in galleries nationally, including Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, CA; Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Boston, MA; Gallery Also in Los Angeles, CA; LAST Projects, Los Angeles, and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and at the 2017 Art Market San Francisco art fair. His work is included in a number of private collections across the country.

Image:

Dangers of the Whale Fishery acrylic and sand on canvas 59 x 43 inches

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Mrs Nibbs feet collage on canvas 4 x 5 feet

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K e e n a n

J o s h J e f f e r s o n

D e r b y

www.keenanderby.com

www.joshjeffersonstudio.com

Image:

Dangers of the Whale Fishery acrylic and sand on canvas 59 x 43 inches

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Mrs Nibbs feet collage on canvas 4 x 5 feet

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S a r a

E m K e t t n e r

A n s t i s

www.saraanstis.com

www.emkettner.com

EM Kettner (b. 1988, Melrose Park, PA) holds a BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She has worked as a lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department at SAIC, and currently teaches Ceramics and Fibers at NIAD Art Center for artists with disabilities. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at HARPY (Rutherford, NJ) and group shows at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Roots & Culture, Roman Susan Gallery, and Western Exhibitions (Chicago, IL). Kettner weaves and cooks clay in El Cerrito, California. My ceramic-textile works celebrate disabled bodies and represent members of my community as funny, resilient and desirable. I’m thinking about how costumes can both reinforce and challenge origin stories that equate certain bodies with beasts or mythical creatures. Human and animal features fuse, and feats of mystics and prophets are recast as sideshow attractions. The miniature scale and use of materials historically associated with domestic crafts merge the functional with the so-called functionless. Each ceramic form acts as a tiny tapestry loom or shaped core for a woven basket. The resulting sculptures, held together and decorated by their fiber bindings, promote symbiotic relationships and body modification as a way of amplifying both our attraction to and fetishization of deformity.

Sara Anstis was raised on a small island off the Canadian west coast and draws and lives wherever she finds good light. Her investigations take place in various landscapes, and with different social groups such as nudists, survivalists and imagined communities. Discomfort and bodily experiences cause her work to evolve through drawings and installations that question the image of the body, female identity and the desiring look.

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Two Lovers soft pastel and charcoal on paper 37 x 27 cm

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The Pythia cotton and wool on glazed stoneware 5 x 6 x 1 inches

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S a r a

E m K e t t n e r

A n s t i s

www.saraanstis.com

www.emkettner.com

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Two Lovers soft pastel and charcoal on paper 37 x 27 cm

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The Pythia cotton and wool on glazed stoneware 5 x 6 x 1 inches

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Xinyue Yan is a Chinese artist who lives and works between Antwerp, Belgium and Shanghai, China. She received her MFA in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Having studied in art courses in different countries in the past few years (painting in Slade School of Fine Arts, UK and film studies in the École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix en Provence, France), she gained diverse sensibilities and perspectives from the experiences of geographical shifting and disciplines crossing. Xinyue has exhibited her works in different places, including solo exhibition at Sabaki Space, China, group show at Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, group show at Parc International Cévenol, France, and group show at Gallery Hi Art in Beijing. Her upcoming show is at Canton Gallery in Shanghai West Bund Art & Design 2018. Xinyue likes to depict the people and the things around her, and use her imagination to transform and transfer them onto her canvas. The viewers might find few dramatic conflicts in her paintings, but when they savour the non-contradictory scenes and things they see, they would discover the tension in the city life she lightly portrays. She manoeuvres the recurring elements in her paintings with different painterly methods to challenge the viewers’ expectations. She creates different energies and constructs different spaces that interact with each other inside one painting. She has no intention to involve the viewers in a certain narrative context, yet she invites them to read the paintings and to enter a broader space of imagination. Yan persistently explores painterly possibilities, while she shows a burlesque attitude in her paintings that induces the viewers to break free from the serious reality of contemporary life and (re)gain an exuberant vitality in this burlesque yet contemplative atmosphere.

www.xinyueyan.com

X I N Y U E

Y A N

Autumn 2018

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Workaholic oil on canvas 105 x 155 cm

Sweet life oil on canvas 75 x 90 cm

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www.xinyueyan.com

X I N Y U E

Y A N

Autumn 2018

Image (left):

Image (right):

Workaholic oil on canvas 105 x 155 cm

Sweet life oil on canvas 75 x 90 cm

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F e l i x

Tr e a d w e l l

G e o r g i a E l r o d

www.georgiaelrod.com

Georgia Elrod is a New York City based artist and painter. Her work has been exhibited in New York and abroad, in solo exhibitions at Novella Gallery and John Davis Gallery, as well as in group exhibitions at spaces including Momenta Art, Trestle Projects, and RH+ Gallery in Istanbul. Georgia is currently a member of the artist-run gallery Underdonk, and is co-creator of the art podcast Around About. She was a founding member of the feminist art collective tART, and co-curated at Heliopolis Gallery from 2012-2015. She received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

www.felixtreadwell.net

The sequential format of the paintings and drawings explore notions of adolescent vulnerability and conformity. The narratives betray a sophistication beyond their simplicity, following certain characters through an unusual, yet somewhat familiar world. The works examine internet culture’s growing relationship with adolescence, while referencing meme culture and virtual reality media trends that increasingly influence our being. The work aims to unpick trends in fashion, gaming and arts from the narratives in the paintings, functioning almost as mirrors to explain and reflect contemporary culture onto ourselves. The works also heavily reference comic and manga culture, for me being inspired by the many conventions of storytelling throughout my life.

Through studies in ink and gouache, I translate subconscious imagery into paintings that become most potent when they are unexplainable. My recent work began with a desire to interpret bodily function and experience, to question and understand our ungraspable insides, our fleeting outsides. Positing physical identity as living abstraction, the imagery can be both known and unidentifiable, interior and exterior; the body is composed of ideas. Anatomical scenes and body parts become strokes, shifts in perspective, colors, layers, and atmospheres. Visual simultaneities suggest something poetic, and perhaps a latent sentimentality.

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Triple S acrylic on canvas 80 x 60 cm

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Novel oil and mixed media on canvas 54 x 62 inches

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F e l i x

Tr e a d w e l l

G e o r g i a E l r o d

www.georgiaelrod.com

www.felixtreadwell.net

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Triple S acrylic on canvas 80 x 60 cm

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Novel oil and mixed media on canvas 54 x 62 inches

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D a n i e l l e

O r c h a r d

The women in these paintings are proxies for myself. They inhabit familiar and often cliché surroundings and circumstances, places like the artist’s studio, a melodramatic bath scene, or the receipt of an institutional rejection letter. These figures are always women, and their demeanor is suggestively vague–their expressions are thoughtful, distant, detached, or amused. They represent amalgamations of my own personal experiences, and their physical awkwardness often reflects my own. I’m interested in blending autobiography with art historical precedent, and I enjoy embedding specific painting references and visual cues. A Modernist painting language is used to expose the hidden interior worlds of these women. I imagine that the tension and emotion they are hiding or suppressing is projected onto their surroundings, and manifested in my own formal painting decisions.

www.danielleorchard.com

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Rejection Season I oil on canvas 30 x 22 inches

Girl Reading a Letter oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches

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D a n i e l l e

O r c h a r d

www.danielleorchard.com

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Rejection Season I oil on canvas 30 x 22 inches

Girl Reading a Letter oil on canvas 30 x 40 inches

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A m b e r B o a r d m a n

www.amberboardman.com

Amber Boardman paints the endless desire to improve the body as promoted by Internet and social media culture through makeup, hair dye and spray tans — the transformative ‘paint’ women use in everyday life. These consequences of this desire for self-improvement — bodily alteration and transformations of the self — may be interpreted as creating a tragicomic effect that unfolds through the devices of narrative and character based on the social media feed. These paintings explore the desire to both display a curated persona online through the appropriation of models from Internet culture, and the propulsion to constantly improve oneself as trends and fads endlessly change. The flip side of this aspirational selfhood is the creation of feelings of inadequacy or failure arising from the process of identifying with idealised others. The ideology of a striving, perfected self in search of the ‘American Dream’. These paintings become the Instagram posts of Boardman’s invented character, Jade, and exist both physically in gallery spaces and online as a social media feed. Boardman explores how contemporary painting can collide with Internet beauty culture through this social media feed in paint. Boardman has exhibited her paintings and animation throughout the US, Australia and internationally including BAM’s Next Wave Festival in NYC, and the 2018 Archibald and Geelong Prizes in Australia. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Juxtapoz Magazine. She has been the recipient of multiple awards, notably, Most Provocative Award (Atlanta Biennial), the Australian Post-Graduate Award (University of New South Wales) and the Joan Sutherland Fund Visual Arts Grant. She holds an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BFA in Studio Art from Georgia State University. Boardman is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Her works are held in numerous private and public collections including the High Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the University of Kentucky Art Museum, the City of Sydney, and Artbank Australia. She has worked commercially as an animator for Cartoon Network’s [adult swim], Comedy Central and Google. Born in 1981 in Portland Maine, Boardman maintains close ties in New York, New England, Atlanta, and Sydney Australia. Boardman is a founding member of shared studio/exhibition spaces in Brooklyn and Sydney. Her work is represented by Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta.

Image:

Image: Self Care Exhaustion acrylic on polyester 183 x 183 cm

Experiencing some middle aged gravity out on the yoga mat today : / #ThatPrincessHairTho oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm

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A m b e r B o a r d m a n

www.amberboardman.com

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Image: Self Care Exhaustion acrylic on polyester 183 x 183 cm

Experiencing some middle aged gravity out on the yoga mat today : / #ThatPrincessHairTho oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm

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We are looking for more artists to publish and promote 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 print issue which provides publishing opportunities, as well as the ongoing open call for online blog. For any questions, please contact us at info@artmazemag.com

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