Peripheral ARTeries Art Review - July 2013 - special issue

(photo by

Sterk)

Peripheral Peripheral ARTeries A

R

T

R

E

V

July 2013 Bug Davidson

I attempt to paint my own interpretation of the inner workings of urban life, but in a way that allows the viewer to project and create narratives drawn from their own experiences. The audiences' reading of the work is as equally valid (if not more so) than my own- my use of symbolism is more suggestive than prescriptive.

Steven Stark

E

W

SPECIAL ISSUE

12

4

Nothing like Ivanhoe is a short experimental film that seeks to describe the mechanics of modern filmmaking technique.

Investigating sound, music and visual collaboration in what we, the present day audience, take for granted as a talking picture.

C. A. Way

I

20

26

34

40

Art is something that conveys a certain almost unspeakable truth and is built to last beyond its own time. It speaks to people across generations, across the years, across cultures. It’s more than that, of course, but for starters that's where I’d start.

Pia Cruzalegui Senses deconstruct the very aspect that makes humans unique. Our sensory system provides our brain with data for perception. Our reaction to sensations and emotions are based on awareness or consciousness and personal experiences often affected by environment, culture, and/or upbringing.

Yumiko Ono Ono’s aim is to reflect her origin in the field of contemporary arts by using Japanese traditional elements in euphemistical and poetic way. At the same time she focuses on the localized issue, she keeps exploring universality and universal expressions based

Sanne Van Gent Creating my work often starts in an instinctive way with a found object or element such as a stone, a piece of paper, carton, wood or anything else that triggers my mind. I explore the boundaries of those found materials by investigating their form, colour and shape. I combine them with my own handmade elements.

II

Mak Ying Tung

50

58

“When I suffer or get depressed I can’t work and my work doesn’t come to completion”.

The idea of "Sterilization (2013)" came from a daydream during lesson.

While the teacher was giving the lecture, I was wondering why we were never aware of the seeds of strawberry and what it would be like if I pick out all the seeds from it.

Louise Winter

”By expressing myself through colours I would like to transcend the turbulence and darkness of my most painful experiences

66

74

Aylwin Greenwod-Lambert My practice is built around an investigation of the objects that surround us where I consider them in terms of being comprised of a network of both physical (essential and accidental) and abstract and attempt to understand the nature of these elements, their manner of coexistence and relationship with such things as aesthetics, creativity and art.

Central to my practice are ideas of displacement: is the location of material central to its definition so that if it is displaced from its ‘real’ context can it still be regarded as the same object, where then does it exist, if at all?

Maike Hemmers Drawing enables me to express my thoughts with the drawn line. My hand translates the activities in my head.

Drawings are like the thoughts in my head plentiful and fast in execution. Thus they are distinguished by a intuitive and sketch-like character.

Deborah Esses

82

90

Sara True My paintings express the unseen as I explore the Shadow side of reality.

Aided by philosophical examinations of abjection, sublimity and the Real, my work confronts invisible forces excavated from the collective subconscious.

I approach each canvas with open intentions, allowing mark making to flow as the painting reveals its own evolution.

Feel free to submit your artworks to our art review: just write to peripheral_arteries@dr.com III

Peripheral ARTeries

Bug Davidson

Bug Davidson (USA) an artist’s statement

Nothing like Ivanhoe is a short experimental film that seeks to describe the mechanics of modern filmmaking technique. Investigating sound, music and visual collaboration in what we, the present day audience, take for granted as a talking picture. Scoring music live from within the frame two composers affect the action onscreen. A cause-effect reversal of recognition evolves from music driving the action at the point of audition. This can imply a new reality or perverted relationship between sound and picture. A historical question of classification regarding melodies and motifs from within the cinema is asked of the audience, all while following queer individuals in their habitat on Austin's east side. The cast and crew of Nothing like Ivanhoe are from the Austin Community.

The cast consists of a group of people I have been working with creatively for eight years.

Together we are a reflection of the working class queer community with whom, I have come of age. Our homes, our day-to-day existence, and reflection of ourselves are documented here. I feel I have grown as a director with this community, as their talents for performing, music and visual arts have also flourished. This work arrives in a succession of films where I attempt to interpret both our unique identities as well as similarities to those in our neighborhoods and communities. All while communicating a humor, style and class politic that defines us outside of consumerist gay and lesbian culture. In the genre of queer film and video I hope to participate in an expansion of

A still from Nothing Like Ivanhoe

capacity, as artists in this medium are presently doing. The redundancy of story in our collective cinematic past has surfaced to emphasize what many in the contemporary audience see as an 4

Bug Davidson

exhausted narrative. A coming out story, a love story, a hero story; perhaps these things are Ivanhoe. By leaving narrative behind, this short film employs a layering of dislocated

Peripheral ARTeries

audio visual clues to the viewer; clues that may lead to the solution that experimental film and queer existence have much in common.

5

Bug Davidson

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Bug Davidson Hi Bug, welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question... what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the feature that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

Maybe art should communicate something to the viewer, or put a new thought into the world, or twist an emotion - or it can change you - I think that is possible. The contemporariness - is a relevance that is effortless or unknowing. I heard recently that to be a successful contempo-rary artist that you can't like the nature of the contemporary scene (or work) too much because it quickly becomes irrelevant.

So it becomes about some sort of discontent with a current dialogue. I think that challenge is important.

Bug Davidson (photo by Rob Chamberlin) Bug Davidson is a motion image artist, film director and curator. Interested in all things moving pictures, Bug's next film Nothing Like Ivanhoe will premiere in Austin this summer, featured by Polari Festival’s filmmaker assistance program. Bug is also proud to one of 21 directors adapting for the screen Michelle Tea's Lambda Literary Award winning novel Valencia. Bug has collaborated with Two Left Feet Dance to create Martindale a dance for camera multichannel video.

Bug also enjoys bringing experimental queer film to Austin as the co-director of the Homoscope film series and is currently an MFA candidate at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, I would like to know your point about formal training: you have recently received a MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts. How has this impacted on your art practice?

Graduate studies impacted my practice in a very beneficial way.. The state of the educational system in the US is at a strange point, and I wouldn't recommend the investment of a MFA to everyone. But with my background it was a good investment of time and funding.

My approach as a young filmmaker was a very punk, working class, grassroots ethic. And I wouldn't change that for anything. I love that I funded my first film selling buttons on St Marks Place in NYC and working outside the system to a large degree. But, as the years passed, I wanted growth and new skills. I had somewhat hit a wall professionally and creatively. I was making work that was not for the theater, or festival, it was for the gallery. And I didn't know where to put it. I now know how to conceptualize

Work, approach moving images as a maker, a writer, a researcher. But again, I wouldn't trade my traditional filmmaking background for anything. And I will continue to make both types of work.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

Approach can be grounded in the process itself.

I often work with the same collaborators - so the discussion can be ongoing. Technical aspects 6

Bug Davidson

Peripheral ARTeries

A still from Nothing Like Ivanhoe

include an extreme attempt at visualizing what I am about to shoot and how to match that vision.

Or the complete opposite - picking a camera or tool and forcing the notion of a specific image out of my mind until I have a frame. Atmosphere is very important to me. Time and working conditions are always a consideration.

setting up this fallacy that the audio and the image tracks are "stuck together." Then breaking them apart. It was a fun experiment.

Now let's focus on your work Nothing Like Ivanhoe whose stills have been published in these pages: would you like to tell us more about the genesis of this project?

The interesting soundtrack plays a relevant role in this short: and I'm sort of convinced that sound brings a temporaral aspect to an artwork, while the artwork itself brings a physical aspect to sound: could a symbiosis between two apparently different media give birth to a completely new kind of art, or just reveal hidden features of what we use to call "tradition"?

Nothing Like Ivanhoe is born out of sound studies, a love of early cinema and thinking about traditional cues to the viewer, specifically involving music. So the idea became to score the film live within the frame - recording the music and picture simultaneously. The music could bring about visual manifestations or character types. Then in post-production arranging setups that allow that formula to "lie" at times. Sort of

Oh good we are communicating! Well, one of the first things you learn when you start making movies is that sound is such a huge element of watching a dialogue driven piece - 70% is what I say. And yet the idea of designing or composing audio landscapes is such a secondary consideration. I would even postulate that video art (a totally separate discipline) is dominated by ways to get around needing sound recording / mixing 7

Peripheral ARTeries

Bug Davidson

A sequence of stills from Nothing Like Ivanhoe

skills to a certain extent - and don't get me wrong I think that is great because it emphasizes the lens - but you can see the form blown open often by sound based artists adding a video track.

do it alone. We have also been lucky to grow together. That can be extremely rewarding particularly for people that may have had things taken from them, pasts, family, a sense of normalcy. So we built these things together, and they reflect our sensibilities, the passage of time, our histories. It's very important to me.

The cast consisted of a group of people you have been working with creatively for many years: the artist Peter Tabor once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not". What's your point about this? Could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists?

And I would like to mention also another short of yours, Miggy n Lil: as you have remarked, it is a film about the greatest love of all - the love between two petty hustlers. Could you take us through your creative process when developing this film? By the way, how have new technologies as DSLR impacted on your process?

As a filmmaker I am often jealous of singer/songwriters because I do need such a concentrated crew to make work. This is partly my interest in conceptual video art. However, I have met so many talented people that make the process such a damn joy and they challenge me, support me, have patience with me, and I hope that I am giving that back as well. I’d also say that everyone that helps me build these pictures does it for some extremely unselfish reason. There is hardly any glory for directors of experimental film, much less the crew. In that way I really do believe that there is an eagerness to reflect our lives. To create a cultural document. I could not

Miggy n Lil is written by my long time collaborator Holly M Lewis. She isn't a Texas but

A still from Nothing Like Ivanhoe

8

Bug Davidson

Peripheral ARTeries

Your works have been often awarded, especially during these last years: is there an award or an exhibition that you would like to mention?

Moreover, it goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, but do you think that an award could even influence the process of an artist?

You know it's funny - Praise or validation is such a strange thing. Some of us need it more than others. But we all need it on some level.

Personally, recognition allows me to keep going, to continue putting myself out there.

Particularly on the harder subject matter. I know I will always be making moving image work, but if I were to go years without much of a reception - I could see myself hoarding, sitting on the work like a privacy obsessed hermit. So in the end that is what a system of

is certainly one of those "got here as quick as I could" types. In fact I should get her that bumper sticker.

Holly understands what the landscape of the southwest can mean cinematically, and she carries with her a cast of odd, lovable, flawed, outsider characters. I think we both think of ourselves as square pegs and have no problem with it. I could argue that petty hustlers are the most honest of characters in a way. I really really do. I love folks that are always working some angle.

It keeps you one your toes. And I love movies about 'em too. Miggy n Lil was inspired by a Mexican comic book where the hero cuts off people's thumbs to teach them a lesson.

A still from Nothing Like Ivanhoe

As for the DSLR it has been great to get good lenses on an affordable camera - and get the sound back out of the camera on a 2nd system. (I don't understand why people are trying to record sound in the DSLR liberate it!) But honestly I try not to geek out on digital cameras too much. They will come and go and in the long run don't effect the work so so much - certainly you want the best tool for the job - but I reserve my geekery for actual celluloid - besides I gotta say it there are so many "beautiful" things out there that were shot on the Canon 5D - and they all look the same! So these technologies can get redundant on the level of the image.

validation can be good for. Because anyone in the game can tell you - send out 50 things and you hear back from 1 or 2 - so there is a lot of rejection involved on the road to praise - you just don't see that promoted! And on the subject of promotion - I am so interested in what artists think/feel currently about the self-promotion that seems mandatory on the internet. How has web-based life changed ideas of humility, the braggart, etc? I struggle with the complexities of representing myself while being true to my comfort levels.

9

Peripheral ARTeries

Bug Davidson

a still from Big Brigh Future

I'm sure but there can be a certain blindness that eventually reveals itself and it’s usually like slapping your own face. In that moment I feel stupid and brave and very very aware all at the same time.

artists that I happen to interview, and I have to say that even though it might sound the simpler one, it givesme back themost complex answers: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

I also love the moment when you get the first shot up on a set with a full crew. I always have a very short break with reality where I ask myself what the hell all these people are doing here, how it all happened. That moment of crazy is pretty cool, feeling lucky and delusional all at the same time.

This is going to sound ridiculous but I have noticed a recurring element in my practice: a moment during shooting, just after wrap or sometimes way longer down the road at a screening - the moment where I realize that there was some large heavy aspect of the work that I didn't realize was present. (Operating only in the subconscious) This makes me sound like an idiot 10

Bug Davidson

a still from Miggy n Lil

Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Bug. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

The next hunk of my creative spirit will be dedicated to a historically inspired series of vignettes made in Buffalo, New York. The work will be based on literature and photographs of a working class feminist history that blossomed there post WWII. All celluloid, black and white. I am excited to weave personal narrative, real history and fictional history into one story. This is a new type of work for me. The film is titled Buffalo: Rule of Three.

a still from Miggy n Lil

11

Peripheral ARTeries

Peripheral ARTeries

ui an artist’s statement

has recently made her debut as a performance and video artist. Working together with a variety of other mediums, together with performance and artwork to capture the senses and enthrall the participant in her art. This past three works of experimental media in her first art fair and gallery exhibition. "Senses", "Awaken" and "Bile Ratha" debut in 2012 at both Nina Torres Fine Art in Miami and at the Miami River Art Fair, a satellite exhibit during Art Basel week, and the first River Walk t Art Fair in Miami. started her career in project management and graphic design. Over the years, she participated with the college theatre company often being asked to produce video or digital scenery backdrops for performances and musical events. Her interest for experimental cinema grew and produced Senses, taking her work a step further by began years ago in her native Peru. As a child she often found an escape in collaging, painting and creating masks.

She then moved to New York and where she continued to pursue art by attending seasonal workshops at Cooper Union. Later, she moved to South Florida, where she earned her Associates of Arts degree in Architecture from Miami Dade College in Miami and a Bachelor of Arts Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Currently, Pia is evident.

She is passionate for her craft and for her curiosity in human behavior and emotions, and she is excited to contiforward to showcasing her artwork in fine art galleries in South Florida and across the globe.

12

Senses deconstruct the very aspect that makes humans unique. Our sensory system provides our brain with data for perception. Our reaction to sensations and emotions are based on awareness or consciousness and personal experiences often affected by environment, culture, and/or upbringing. I rely on experimental style moviemaking, spontaneity, color and our desires for beauty and seduction.

My video art invites the audience to a voyeuristic observation of the sensorial experience using and auditory experience. "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.�

Max Velmans and Susan Schneider, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness

13

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

PĂ­a Cruzalegui Hello Pia, and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. We would start this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

For me, a work of art is the expression of an individual's perception of their world. An invitation to take a glimpse into someone's ideas and representation of the world as they experience it.

I think the different eras and the social experiences mark the contrast in art.

Looking at art on a timeline we can see these changes from concepts of religion, beauty and love to grotesque and violent depictions in contemporary expression. I think that for the most part, contemporary art expresses a sense of ambiguity.

So yes, there is a contrast that directly relates to our experiences with the world, society, culture and communication depending in what era we live(d).

Would you like to tell us something about your background? You have received a BA in Communication, Film Production & Multimedia from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and moreover you hold Associates of Arts degree in Architecture from Miami Dade College . How has these experiences informed your Art prac-tice?

And what has lead you to explore the intersting field of performative art?

not pursue art as a professional choice, he was very much inclined into exploring the arts from another angle, production of radio/TV broadcasting and documentary filmmaking.

When my father died, I was a young child and my oldest sister (halfsister) gave me a few art books that I adored and became companions for many years. My first exposure to art was directly influenced by her and by the time I was 12 I knew about Gauguin, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Botticelli, Raphael, DaVinci, Michelan-

I received a BA in Communication, Film/Multimedia, and yes, I also hold an Associates of Arts degree in Architecture. I worked in the design field for a while where I worked as a project manager and learned to pay attention to detail and aesthetics. So that experience forced some discipline from a design stand point that carried into video art production. As far as art goes, it must be in the genes. My father was a very creative man, he wrote and drew beautifully, and although he did 14

Peripheral ARTeries

Before getting in the matter of your art production, would you like you describe your methodology when creating your works? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I usually get my ideas randomly, I find myself observing and pondering on subjects of interest and allow this cogitation to grow in me for an undetermined period of time.

Some may materialize faster while others do take a little longer. The process for all is the same: write my thoughts, then a treatment, draft a storyboard, sketch my set, scout for location, figure out the technicalities of the shoot and give minimal direction to my performers. It is about freedom to express from within rather than coach for a specific result.

A piece could take up to 4-6 months from concept to final cut.

gelo, Vermeer, among others. The literature in those books became part of my daily dosage of reading, and for that matter the only reading I did for years.

School bored me to tears, so when I was home, this is what I would do, skip homework and stare at every image as if trying to memorize its details. And now, as an adult, I somehow feel I am going full circle with my art; I am now working towards my MFA in Multimedia at University of Miami.

Now let's focus on your stimulating works that our readers can admire in these pages: I would start from Senses, whose stills can be admired by our readers in these pages: can you describe a little bit about your creative process for this piece?

While, Senses derived from the observation of the inexplicable loss of the physiological, emotional and perceptional senses. I allowed my performers to give me their best interpretation on a particular physiological sense. I hardly coa15

Peripheral ARTeries

A still from Senses

3

Peripheral ARTeries

A sequence of stills from Senses

ched them as I wanted them to be as authentic as possible. Then I treated the footage as paint on a canvas (the timeline)

visioned as a setting, the blue sky and a desolate beach were the perfect backdrop to represent a spiritual cleansing process.

A visual of Senses that has particularly impacted on me is the deep saturation of colors, the intense red that from a photographic aspect seems to be the Ariadne's thread of the whole narration... would you like to tell us something about this feature and your choice about the grading of this video?

And we couldn't do without mentioning ano-ther recent and very stimulating work workof yours, entitled Bile Ratha: by the way, in this video sound plays a crucial role and I'm sort of convinced that sound brings a temporaral aspect to an artwork, while the artwork itself brings a physical aspect to sound: could a symbiosis between two apparently different media give birth to a completely new kind of art, or just reveal hidden features of what we use to call "tradition"?

In fact it is meant to be a labyrinth of interlocking familiar pieces that the audience can freely decipher and/or piece together in a unique and individual storyline.

But while Senses does not follow a narrative, the choice of colors serve to interlockthe images while hinting a "clew"

That is a good question. Bile Ratha is a video collage of imagery and sound. I agree that sound brings a temporal aspect to art and that artwork brings a physical aspect to sound. As a result, it defies the norm and generates contradiction just like sound and silence would in music. But from

Another pieces of yours whose stills can be viewed in these pages and on which I would like to spend some words is Awaken. Besides the interesting and effective usage of colors, I have been impressed with the editing: I would suggest to our readers to visit your website at www.5oclockfilmlab.com to have a more precise idea. Would you like to tell us more about the genesis of this project?

I originally produced this video as a backdrop for a choreographic production depicting ancestral rituals. That was the only reference I followed when producing this piece. While living in a location with few sacred areas for what I en-

A still from Senses

18

A still from Senses role of experience as starting point of your creative process?

more challenging pieces will determine that. But I will say that symbiotic relationships from different media in art could result only from persistence in their associations with the art world.

Perception and imagination are very important.

What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satis-

It goes without saying that in your works there is a clear reference to perception and - I would go as far to say- to reality. Notwithstanding this, I can recognize an effective synergy between reality and imagination. How important is the

The creative process (the brainstorming) and the people's reactions once it is done.

Thanks a lot for sharing with us your thoughts, Pia: nothing has left to say than asking you about your future plans. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

For now, I have two exhibits in Chicago and New York. I am also masterminding a new project with a slightly different take on senses and perception.

I seek to start production before the end of September. Thanks for inviting me.

A still from Bile Ratha

19

Peripheral ARTeries

C.A. Way

C.A. Way (USA) an artist’s statement

My art is a personal reflection on life as the proverbial cog in the big urban machine. I want to lift up the skin of the city, and show the metaphorical anatomy underneath.

I attempt to paint my own interpretation of the inner workings of urban life, but in a way that allows the viewer to project and create narratives drawn from their own experiences.

While I refer to my art as a personal reflection, the audiences' reading of the work is as equally valid (if not more so) than my own- my use of symbolism is more suggestive than prescriptive.

There is also a heavy influence of illustration in the way I paint; in some ways my art can be described as visual stories, however these are stories written by the reader.

24/7datenight, Painting, oil, 2013, 76 x 101 cm

20

Curtains, Painting, oil, 2013, 91.5 x

C.A. Way

183 cm

takeout, Painting, oil, 2013, 91.5 x 183 cm 2

C.A. Way

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

C. A. Way Hi C.A. and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries: let's this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what are in your opinion the features that characterize a piece of Contemporary Art? It's just a matter of making Art during these last years?

I prefer a relatively broad definition: art is anything produced primarily for aesthetic purposes. Of course, many conceptual artists would disagree with this definition; I admit to being something of a traditionalist in my own practice (in technique, if not subject matter). I primarily focus on the visual in my own work, so for me that's holds more importance than questions of intent or philosophy.

I have no problem with "contemporary art" as a broad catch-all term for today's artists- partly because it saves me from having to fit my own work into a neat little category.

You have a formal training and you hold a Bachelor of Fine Art that you received from the Ontario College of Art and Design. How much in your opinion training influences art?

And how your Art has developed after your left school? By the way, do you think that a certain kind of training could even stifle young artist's inspiration?

Art institutions can definitely stifle an artist's creativity. There is, however, one (possibly unintentional) benefit to an "Art Education": if you manage to make it out with your degree while still keeping your love of art intact, you'll be that much more prepared for the uphill task of trying to make it in the commercial art world.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your 5am,

22

Painting, oil, 2013, 51 x 76 cm

C.A. Way

Peripheral ARTeries

artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Nearly every detail of my paintings is planned out well in advance of the first brushstroke. I begin with a rough thumbnail sketch, which is then scanned into the computer and fleshed out with more detail.

From there, the detailed line work is printed, then projected and traced onto the canvas (which is probably the most tedious part of the entire process), and finally I am ready to begin painting.

The bulk of the work is a black and white underpainting, and once that's dry it's a relatively simple task to add the final colour through translucent glazes.

The entire method is fairly time consuming, but I`m something of a perfectionist when it comes to my art, and adding all the little details is one of the most enjoyable parts of the creative process.

Now let's focus on the artworks that our readers can admire in theese pages. I would start from your piece entitled 24/7datenight: what was your initial inspiration? Can you describe a little bit about your creative process for this work?

It's always difficult for me to pin down a specific source of inspiration for a particular piece.

A lot of the subject manner flows straight from my subconscious, but I'll say that this particular painting was inspired by some late night coffee dates, and some of the bizarre situations that went along with them. While some of my imagery might be considered "dark", I always like to include a certain element of the absurd in my work.

There's the occasional tendency to self-importance in artists, so it's important to keep a subtle sense of humour.

By the way, could you take us through your creative process when starting a new project? In particular I would like that you tell us something about the genesis of Curtains, that is a complex

23

Peripheral ARTeries

C.A. Way

and very stimulating piece...

This one also has a fairly mundane genesis; I'd moved into a new apartment which had some lovely large windows- but no curtains- giving me a spectacular night view of the little dramas unfolding in other neighbouring apartments across the city...

A visual from your artworks that has particularly impacted on me is the white colour. Especially in 24/7datenight and in 5am, it suggests me the physicalness of the neighbouring space: can you tell us a little about this feature?

I think white is possibly the most exciting "colour", or at least the one I have the most fun playing with; even adding the subtlest hints of the surrounding reflective hues instantly brings it to life.

I also like to allow areas of the white canvas to shine through; it gives the viewer a little reminder that they're looking at a two dimensional image.

In a line of your artist's statement you remark that your art can be described as visual stories, however these are stories written by the reader: I fnd that this is absolutely true, and I would go as far as to say that your artworks create a kind of starting point, an outline that forces your audience to create a personal experience.

Even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, when I'm in front of your pieces like Take Out it's like I would listen to a voice that urges me: "Come on, it's up to you!"... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

The audience's reaction is incredibly important (and fascinating) to me; I'm not sure I would paint if there was no one else to see it. The images already exist in my head, so putting them on canvas is mainly a way to share them with others. I don't usually have a specific type of person in mind when creating something, but I do closely consider the type of reaction certain images/symbols will spawn in the viewers mind.

Your artworks have been recently exhibited at LASTIN, Bezpala Brown Gallery, in Toronto where

24

24/7datenight, Painting, oil, 2013, 76 x 101 cm

C.A. Way

Peripheral ARTeries

you are currently based: what impressions have you received from this experience? And is there a particular exhibition that has impressed you in particular and that you would like to mention? By the way, it's obvious that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, but do you think that an award could even influence the process of an artist?

Galleries and awards and juried shows all have a role in shaping the art world that can definitely be hard to resist. You'll find yourself looking at previous winners and feeling the pressure to mimic their work in hopes of achieving the same success. However, actually exhibiting your work in a physical space makes it easier to resist the urge to conform; being validated by the establishment conversely makes it easier to follow your own path. As an artist, you spend much of your time creating in a vacuum, so it can be difficult to form an accurate assessment of your own work. Interacting with your audience face-to-face is one of the most rewarding ways to receive feedback.

There's a cliche question, that I often ask to the artists that I happen to interview, and I have to say that even though it might sound the simpler one, it gives me back the most complex answers: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

If I were completely honest, I'd have to admit that the finished project might be the most satisfying part of being an artist. This isn't to say I dislike painting (as I mentioned before, I enjoy fine detail work for example), but at times the creative process can be a difficult, almost painful experience. In the end, however, it makes the viewers reactions that much more sweet. I suppose you could say I have a lovehate relationship with art.

Thank for your time and your thought, C.A.: my last question deals with your future plans. What direction are you moving in?Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I will be taking part in two shows during July (one beginning on the 11th, the other on the 25th), both at Moniker gallery in downtown Toronto.

25

Peripheral ARTeries

Yumiko Ono

Yumiko Ono

(Japan)

an artist’s statement There are two important elements in work of Yumiko Ono. The first element is symbolism. Ono has been using symbols in her work over 10 years. She has been producing work with symbols in various media such as paintings, prints, sculptures, animation films and installations. She takes a symbol as a visual result of all kinds of culture such as environment as well as the history. In her work, she is using symbols as a condensed visual image of her thoughts and feelings. The second element is formality.

Formality is one of the characteristics of Japanese tradition, for example tea ceremony, dance and Haiku poems. Ono started her artistic carrier as a painter and she produced work with images using different framings such as animation films, storyboard, tear-off style calendar and comics. Even after she shifted her media to installations, she still kept having forms in her work by using repetition of motifs such as dolls, stones, and jigsaw puzzles. Besides formality, more things are connected to her cultural background such as floor based installation and preference of miniatures.

Ono’s aim is to reflect her origin in the field of contemporary arts by using Japanese traditional elements in euphemistical and poetic way. At the same time she focuses on the localized issue, she keeps exploring universality and universal expressions based on her research of symbols in the world.

26

Yumiko Ono

Wandering mixed media about 350x720(cm) 2011, Gallery Meetfactory (Prague, Czech Republic), Gallery Fleur (Kyoto, Japan)

2

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Yumiko Ono

Yumiko Ono

Hi Yumiko, first of all a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries.

I would start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, how were you introduced to creating your pieces specifically in this way?

Does not matter the format, if someone can be touched by piece, it could be moving, annoyance, anger, sadness,etc, that is art.

The piece always has to come truly from you though.

Can you tell our readers a little about your background? I have read that you have studied in several countries: from Japan to Israel, from Hungary to United Kingdom where you are currently basedto : how has these experience -I should say, a wonderful experiences- impacted on your art practice?

Moreover, what's you point about formal training? Do you think that artists with a formal education have an advantage over self-taught artists?

In the beginning I completed my BA in the field of oil painting in Kyoto, Japan. After that I studied painting and intermedia in Budapest and then I completed my MA in Prague. Last year I also studied in Jerusalem.

Every country gave me different inspiration and practice. For example, Hungary and Czech republic are former socialist countries and I produced many pieces connected to socialism, or the similarity between Japanese culture and socialism. Many socialistic elements inspired my work at that time. And my last study in Israel was hardest and a lot of struggling about space, cultural difference, which lead me to sound installation.

So every environment is a challenge for me and that's something I enjoy very much. I preferred being in art schools because compare to residencies, there are so many facilities as well as technicians to support my projects and also schools have usually longer period, I have more time to explore my work.

Since I use various techniques, I need various workshops and machines. Therefore it was more practical to stay at schools and I think academies have many things in one and that opens our mind. If I was not at school, I wouldn't have tried many techniques that I used for my work. I am sure even self-taught artists can work with various techniques but then it is harder to get all facilities by themselves.

28

Yumiko Ono

Yumiko Ono

Peripheral ARTeries

Before getting int he matter of your production, would you tell us about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, on what technical aspects do you mainly focus in your work?

I usually get an idea in the end and totally change the whole things.

Even if I had plenty of time to think, and actually have many ideas, I usually take the last one in the last minute. So in the end I take my instinctive plan.

As I said, I use different materials and techniques in my work.

Therefore what I focus the most is which technique and material is the most effective for the piece and I do not have any boundary in it. SInce I shifted from 2D work to 3D work, what I focus is how to use the nature of materials without decoration.

Wandering mixed media about 350x720(cm) 2011, Gallery Meetfactory (Prague, Czech Republic), Gallery Fleur (Kyoto, Japan)

And now let's focus on your pieces that our readers can admire in these pages. I would start from Wandering, that our readers have admired in the starting pages of this article: could you tell us something about your process for conceiving and in particular for making the pieces of this project?

Not only this piece but many work that I produced last few years is about home. Since I keep moving country to country last 8years and also my family situation in japan, the place to belong is an important issue for me. Personally I love kitch and I like to use my preference in my work in a different way. So ringtone for mobile was kitch for me- I myself had numbers of funny ringtones in my 29

Peripheral ARTeries

Yumiko Ono

Graves, 2012, 14x122(cm) each plaster Bezalel Academy (Jerusalem, Israel)

own mobile. From this experience, I wanted to use ring tone in my work and collected 50 different music about home and randomly rang the sound. In the end I think the atmosphere of the installation piece had a different effect, not funny, rather sentimental, sad and empty.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you use symbols as condensed visual image of your thoughts and feelings. Do you think that this could work also on a universal viewpoint? I mean, could a symbol that in a certain sense springs from the inner world, contaminate and even influence the outside world? I dare to say that this could be one of the most effective way of artistic communication...

In the early time, that was my main question and I was using both already existed symbols and the symbols that I created by myself from my feelings and experiences in my paintings and showed them to international audience. After receiving many feedbacks, I realized that there were not many misunderstanding or misreading caused by cultural difference and since then, I was sure that symbols can be tools for communicating with viewers.

Another project of yours on which I would like to spend some words is Graves, which has been inspired by the shapes of Muslim graves that you had the chance to see during your permanence in Jerusalem. I think that it's important to underline that this piece is exhibited together with a video called “Shabbat�, an Hebrew word that commonly stands for "Saturday" but that means "rest",

30

Yumiko Ono

Peripheral ARTeries

with clear religious references. I like the effective synergy that you have been capable of creating between cultures, and I would seize this opportunity for asking you if you think that Art could play a role in order to establish a real and effective syncretism, not only on a cultural viewpoint, but even on a social side...

Well, I showed both work at school in Jerusalem and people liked them but when I tried to exhibit them at galleries, I had difficulties due to the political reason. It is so hard not to think about politics there, which I understand. And basically politics and religions have more power than culture, not only in Israel but many places in the world. So I am not sure if Art could play such a role. I hope but I know it is actually very hard. I produced both piece based on the same idea, which is to capture the essence of the things in Jerusalem. I created that piece because I am from Japan and am not belong to any of the religions over there and I only know brief history and politics in the Middle East. Therefore, to get rid of all the religious and political meaning from things there was the only thing I could do in such a special place with full of "meanings" in many layers.

Many features of your artistic production are connected to your cultural background, and it goes without saying that Japanese traditional elements plays a crucial role: at the same time I noticed that many pieces of yours, like Home shows an interesting dialectic between modern technology and tradition... By the way, do you think that there's astill a dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporary?

Japan is a conservative country and takes traditions very important

Graves 2012, 14x122(cm) each plaster Bezalel Academy (Jerusalem, Israel)

Home

31

Peripheral ARTeries

Yumiko Ono

so there is definitely still a dichotomy between tradition and contemporary there. Although there are quite many Japanese artists dealing with traditions in their work technically.

Since I do not want to restrict my work in certain technique, I do not want to use Japanese traditions technically but more conceptually. This is why I do not mind sometimes I don't use my hand to my piece and it is even more interesting for me to produce piece which has universal format with reflection of my origin.

And we couldn't do without mentioning your sound installation entiled Azan, that -again- has been inspired by your experience in Middle East. I've found very interesting the creative contamination that springs from it, and this has maden me think about the role of sound in Art...

I'm sort of convinced that sound brings a temporaral aspect to an artwork, while the artwork itself brings a physical aspect to sound: could a symbiosis between two apparently different media give birth to a completely new

Field Paper 120x700(cm) 2011, Gallery Fleur (Kyoto, Japan)

Home Gallery Cube (Prague, Czech Republic)

Yumiko Ono

Peripheral ARTeries

kind of art, or just reveal hidden features of what we use to call "tradition"?

I think this piece cannot exist only with sound because the form of the speaker plays also an important role. But at the same time the piece is not about sound, only the concept of the work is formed(or molded) by sound. So sound is a way of embodiment of concept in a same way like it is visualised.

Usually vision can be taken more directly than sound. Sound is more abstract but sound in this piece is as direct as vision, therefore sound and vision and concept are in a same position, which is unique about the piece I think.

Anyway even when I was a painter, I was more interested in non-painting in painting format. Now I am doing similar things in different media such as object, sound etc. I think definitely there are things that you can express only when you mix media. I wouldn’t say completely new kind of art, but it’s just different. question that we often ask to the artists that we interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction? Well, actually ain't that

Because I started my career as a painter, and I was only painting from my own imagination, my artistc process or path until now is how to express my feelings and thoughts in non-expressive way. That is why I stopped painting from my imagination- which was too expressive for me, and started to use photographs, and materials from out side of my world, and started to copy daily objects, and in the end stopped even making things physically by my hand sometimes. This process is to release myself and my ego to be more playful and strict at the same time. In a way it is the process to reach perfection.

Thanks for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Yumiko. My last question deals with your future plans: what direction are you moving in creatively? anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I have been saying simple fundamental things from the beginning until now in my work. At the same time as you see, my work keeps changing format by the environment. A few months ago I moved to London, so I am also exited how my work will be effected by the place.

33

Peripheral ARTeries

Steven Stark

Steven Stark

from the nothing happens twice collection

1

Steven Stark

2

Steven Stark

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Steven Stark First of all, welcome to Peripheral ARTeries, Steven. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art?

I don't know if I could presume to answer this for anybody else. From my own standpoint, I would say that art is something that conveys a certain almost unspeakable truth and is built to last beyond its own time.

It speaks to people across generations, across the years, across cultures. It’s more than that, of course, but for starters that's where I’d begin.

By the way, what are in your opinion the distinctive features that mark the contemporariness of a piece? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

In my mind what marks the contemporariness of a piece -- and I'm not sure this is a good thing -is the sense in which it is created with an awareness of the commercial possibilities for it.

I think artists have always been subject to the whims of whatever market there is to pay for that work, whether it's in Michelangelo’s time or today.

Steven Stark

ted in visual poetry as a means of capturing experience -- not only through sound but also through the construction and look of a poem.

Once I started doing that, the move into something like the work you see here on Kierkegaard was only a small step.

But I think we live in such a market economy today that the idea that you create art which is going to last -- while at the same time creating art that will be commercially successful – well, there's always been a conflict there but I’m not sure it’s ever been stronger. That’s not a good thing obviously, at least from my standpoint.

May I ask you something about your background? Are there any experiences that have impacted on the way you make Art nowadays?

Now let's focus on your work Soren's Pseudonyms: The Literary Names of Kierkegaard that our reader can discover in these pages: could you take our readers through your creative process when starting this project?

To be honest I came to art through writing. I am still primarily a writer and write nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. In my poetry I became very interes-

A good and complicated question and I’ll try to keep my answer short. I'm a writer so I started with the words, as I often do. This is the 200th 36

Steven Stark

Peripheral ARTeries

to make a somewhat literary point with the words.That might be different from what traditional artists do because I am using something written in a lot of my work. I hope other people enjoy it.

And we couldn't do without mention that besides producing visual artworks, you are also a poet: I would suggest to our readers to visit your page at www.artofstark.com.

Nowadays there is an increased interest in spoken word poetry and performance.

How do you prefer your poetry to be read? By the way, your work seems to bridge a number of disciplines. Do you consider yourself a post-disciplinary artist?

Post-disciplinary isn't a term I would apply to myself but if others want to, that’s fine. I think we live in an age where it has become much easier to combine the visual with the oral.

Soren's Pseudonyms: The Literary Names of Kierkegaard

anniversary of the birth of Kierkegaard and I wasreading an article that reminded me that in his lifetime, he had written most of his work under various pseudonyms. I wrote these down and then decided to make a work of art out of them and have some fun with them.

By the way, would you like to tell us something about your interest in Kierkegaard's works?

I've read a lot of his work – I was a philosophy major in college. He provides a wonderful window into what eventually became existentialism.

What do you try to communicate through your work and what role does your audience play?

Well, I try to communicate something visually appealing, while at the same time I’m often trying

Soren's Pseudonyms: The Literary Names of Kierkegaard

37

Peripheral ARTeries

Steven Stark

from the scott's crosswords collection I think that’s typical of a lot of people in the culture – both on the artist side and in the audience. The idea that you're working with a combination of a number of media is natural -- in the same way that when movies introduced sound in the late 20’s and the 30s, within a few years it just became the common assumption that you would always combine them in this way.

New technology makes a lot of things that seemed undoable common-place.

By the way, your works have been often published, and your short story "The Bet" has been recently awarded from Clapboard House.

It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist...

Rewards can help financially of course. And, the 38

Soren's Pseudonyms: The Literary Names of Kierkegaard

Steven Stark

reinforcement that one gets from winning something is a psychological boost. But it's short lasting. I think if you go through the history of art of any sort, most artists feel relatively unappreciated. What’s more, for many, any acclaim tends to come after they’ve left the scene. Look at Scott Fitzgerald: When he died, he considered himself a failure – The Great Gatsby, which had never been a commercial success, was out of print. The same thing pretty much happened to Melville with Moby Dick and it’s happened to many other visual artists as well. The point I guess is that rewards and prizes are important, you shouldn’t allow your head to be turned by them. In the long run, but they might not mean what they seem to. the artists that I happen to interview, and I have to say that even though it might sound the simpler one, it gives me back the most complex answers: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

One of the things that I like about what I do is that it’s diverse enough so that if I get bored with something – even in the course of a day – I can do something completely different.

Writing long fiction, short fiction, poetry, and doing visual art are obviously quite different from one another. So, I’d answer that I like them all – depending on the day and the hour.

39

from the kafka lives collection

Peripheral ARTeries

Sanne Van Gent

Sanne Van Gent (The Netherlands)

an artist’s statement

The transiency of nature and its fragility fascinates me greatly. It gives me the urge to capture it and delineate it by combining it together with more solid forms and shapes such as squares and circles.

Creating my work often starts in an instinctive way with a found object or element such as a stone, a piece of paper, carton, wood or anything else that triggers my mind. I explore the boundaries of those found materials by investigating their form, colour and shape. I combine them with my own handmade elements. When they start to develop a visual relationship, I remove any associating with appearance, texture or origin, so that the found objects appear to be manufactured and the manmade elements appear to be natural. This process results in either a two- or three-dimensional collage.

I use the term collage because my work consists of a series of different layers, each layer constructed from the material that feels the most suited.

From the very start of the process I feel the need to develop defined boundaries around my work; to force it inside a finite space. I try to take nature and landscapes, or what I consider to be nature and landscapes, out of their embedded context and exaggerate the already unclear line between what belongs to nature and what is part of the man-made world. I am always searching for the blurred line between unspoiled nature and signs of human existence, because for me that is the most interesting and visually attractive place to stay.

Sanne Van Gent

Sanne Van Gent

Untitled (2013)

2

Sanne Van Gent

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Sanne Van Gent Hello Sanne and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art?

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to show my work in the Peripheral ARTeries magazine!

Art is an unexpected opening into my own thoughts. It gives me insights which nothing else can give me, it comforts me and makes the world a more interesting place. It’s life seen and shared through the eyes of different artists, all with different opinions, visions and backgrounds and that helps to reflect on the world if you’re open to it. Art exists without purpose and therefore is one of the only truly free things in life.

Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

I’ve never thought about the difference between traditional and contemporary art and I’ve never made that distinction. For me, there’s just art that interests me because it does something to my mind or makes me feel something, and art that doesn’t. That’s the only distinction I make. It doesn’t matter from what time the work comes or what kind of person made it, if it’s an oil painting on canvas, a bronze sculpture or a video installation. The medium is just chosen by the artist as a way to express himself but it’s the expression itself that counts. Of course, every time has its own mediums, subjects, traditions and new techniques come and go but they are insignificant to the content of the work and what it means and does to people. Maybe Caspar David Friedrich, my favorite painter, would have made video installations about nature if he would have lived now instead of the in the eighteenth century, we’ll never now but I’m sure they would have been very interesting videos.

Sanne van Gent (photo by

Sterk)

There were no theoretical studies that interested me because I wanted to create something myself but I had no idea of what and how. The first years I tried everything; I experimented with many techniques and materials, I painted, drew, made videos and photos and did projects with other students. In my last two years it got more serious, my work started to become more balanced and steady and the nature (and landscape) vs culture element was often already present.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you have studied Fine Art at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam -where you are currently based- and moreover you also attended the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom: how has these experience impacted on the way you produce your art?

I went to Exeter in my last year, out of curiousity of what it would be like at an art school in another country. I chose England because of the landscape; Scotland was my first choice because of its wildness but Devon turned out to be just as amazing. I’m sure that the exchange to the South West of England with its hills and Jurassic coast gave me my last push in the direction of the work

I started at the Willem de Kooning academie when I was 18 and, to be honest, I had no idea what to expect.

42

Sanne Van Gent

Peripheral ARTeries

my ideas into works. I’ve only recently started making work again. In the beginning I was very careful because I wasn’t sure what the effect would be and I was a bit sceptical about the results because I hadn’t had any practice for two years but the works surprised me in a good way. I did an exhibiton and was able to enjoy it.

Looking back I think this break from art has done my work only good, I’m a little older now and find myself suddenly able to make steps I coudn’t make before. My new works, the ones after 2010, are more authentic and have more content than the older ones. I’m finally able to leave spots open, something I had never dared to do previously because I was always frightenend that the work wouldn’t be clear enough, I always wanted to close work. I think the transparancy my work has now is much more interesting. My new work is lighter but at the same time has more to say. I feel it’s really going in an interesting direction.

By the way, I would like to ask what's your point about formal training in Art an especially if in your opinion a formal training -or better, a certain kind of formal training- could even stifle an artist's creativity...

In art school I learned to think, I learned how to put those thoughts into process and I learned how to coordinate this process. Of course, I made work with the voices of my teachers in my head (as almost every student does) but after a while those voices get softer and softer until they’re gone. I’m only able to make the works I make now because I had those four years of playing in the protected playground of art school surrounded by a framework that gave meaning to the things I did, even before they had meaning. A very important aspect of art education is the interaction with other art students, to be able to talk with them, work with them, learn from them and visit countless exhibitions and museums in many different countries with them was very valuable to me. Those experiences gave me a steady base. Every artist’s creativity is stifled every once in a while, I believe that’s normal and even helpful in some ways. Maybe an education in art isn’t essential for every artist but for me it was.

I make now whilst being away from Rotterdam also gave me the opportunity to gain some distance from my work. Also, to to talk about my work with other teachers and students with new ideas who hadn’t known me since my first year made it a very valuable experience.

After art school I showed my work in many exhibitions, it was a good way to get some real art life experience. It was important for me to see my work in galleries and exhibition spaces and to find out what worked for me and what didn’t. I made work non-stop until 2010. At the end of 2010, I completely lost my interest in my own work and in art in general; I lost my urge to make anything, I just didn’t see the point anymore and I was completely disorientated. I didn’t make anything for the next two years. I kept on sketching, I could never stop sketching and thinking but I didn’t put

Before getting in the matter of your art production, can you tell us something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

And how do you get the initial ideas that inspire the pieces you create?

It’s an ongoing process, as it is for most artists - ideas lead to other ideas, works lead to other works, a work

43

Peripheral ARTeries

Sanne Van Gent

Untitled (2013) framed collage 50 x 65 cm

never ends with the idea I started it with. I get inspired by examples of places where human territory meets nature. Also very simple sights such as a piece of paper curling up, a clustered pile of bricks, drainage pipes in a field, my own blankets, shadows on the wall in the shapes of mountains, a piece of fabric on a cement floor, these things tickle my mind and eyes. I never have to look for content for my work because the subject is always there, it was even there when I wasn’t even making art and I saw it everywere around me. Whilst biking through Rotterdam I see light, shapes, textures and colours around me, waiting for me to rearrange them and take them out of their context.

I start a work either with a sketch or with a found element which can be anything; a piece of paper or wood, a stone or anything else that triggers my mind. If I start with a found object or element the way of working is usually intuitive whereas if I start with a sketch it means that I already have a clear idea of what the piece should be like (at the end it never looks anything like that sketch but that doesn’t matter). A sketch usually comes from an idea I got while working on a previous work. I spend most of my time running through possibilities, taking pictures of every step of the process so I can compare the diffferent options I have and decide what works best.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would like to start from the first one [*] of the three-dimensional collages of yours that our readers have admired in the starting pages of this article: what was you initial inspiration? Could you take us through your creative process when starting this piece?

This piece is one that started when I found the wood with the tiles on it in some garbage; it probably comes from a house that has

Untitled (2013)

44

Sanne Van Gent been redone. It was once seperate elements that were cemented together and then destroyed again. I found it very interesting to find out how I could exaggerate that contradiction in the material.

It was too heavy for me to lift so I left it but I couldn’t get it out of my head, I kept thinking about its shape and the intriging open spots on the left and right where the tiles had come off. I had to have it, so I went back with someone to help me carry it and I brought it to my studio. I always need to look at a new found object for a while to find out what the content of the object is and how I want to give in my own content. I have to ‘live with’ the object for a while untill I know what I want to do with it and what I want it to represent. I kept it in my studio for months before I knew I had to paint the mountains (my translation of nature) on the shiny man-made tiles. I used only black and brown that I thinned with water to paint the mountains (and white for the snow on top.) After that it was still not more than a painting of a landcape on an alternative background.

So I painted the left square where the tile had come off in the pure brown colour and the right one in the unthinned black to point out the contrast between the natural attrition of the paint running over the tiles and the framed shapes of the brown and black squares. For me a landscape is only finished when it at least has the suggestion of a sky, or in this case; a substitute photocopied sky.

Other works of yours on which I would like to spend some words are [2] and [3] There is so much going on in each of your pieces that makes them unique. There is also a sense of rebellion and sometimes also of humour as in your sculpture Memorial unifying them all.

Yes, I find humour very important because it’s such a strong tool to point out something and at the same time it prevents the work from getting too heavy. I try to give all my works a certain light, humorous twist. I don’t know about rebellion, but I take it as a compliment because

Untitled

45

Peripheral ARTeries

Sanne Van Gent

Memorial 2007

I often find my work a bit well behaved. I’m still searching for that final last step because I think my work could use some more rebellion!

I’m alway searching for unexpected materials to do unexpected things with. Every work is an exercise in showing how I see the world and those two works are very good examples of that.

By the way, I do hope you will forgive me for the following naive question: why do you often avoid to choose a title for your works? Maybe that a title could put in a kind of semantic cage an artwork?

I realise not having titles is not very convenient for an interview but normally the works are viewed directly so then it’s less of a problem. Having titles, or not, has always been a bit of a topic for me. I’ve tried having titles and I had numbers for a while; landscape #1, landscape #2 and so on but neither seemed to work for me.

I always feel that titles make my work unneces-sarily heavy. At the moment I feel titles add nothing to my work. I also don’t want to force people to think something by reading the title.

Experience has taught me that people don’t find it very difficult to understand my work so for now I my works are untitled.

You often use ”found” materials, component parts you’re putting together that have had a life prior to you finding their creative potential: not to mention that nowadays this is a very common practice. I often wondered about the personal contribution of the artist, in such case... it goes without saying that also white canvas, acryls tube and pencil, they are all material that already exists: roaming and scavenging through "found" material to might

46

Sanne Van Gent

Peripheral ARTeries

happens to discover unexpected sides of the world, maybe of our inner world... what's you point about this?

I think every artist chooses the materials that suit them best. I started by making paper collages, using found pictures of landscapes or pictures I could use to build up a landscape with.

After a while I also started to make ‘collages’ with three dimensional elements. For me the whole meaning of my work is about manipulating those found elements and seeing how far I can push them and change them, I couldn’t do that by making a painting. I need elements that already have a meaning and a story and a context, that have already been into the world and have been influenced by nature. Changing that meaning and influencing it is one of the main things I’m aiming for. I never make a piece by ‘only’ putting found objects together, I always change them, cut them, make holes into them or paint over them so that they lose their old meaning but never completely, of course, that’s the point.

As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statement, the concept of transiency of nature and its fragility plays a crucial role in your Art. And landscape doesn't simply play the role of a passive background...

Yes, I try to exaggerate the concept of nature. Landscape in some form (with mountains) often plays the role of nature. Maybe it’s because I’m from the flattest country in the world. I was born in a small village at an Island surrounded by water and flat fields of potatoes and corn, an area were the sky is more present than the land and the athmosphere changes every fifteen minutes.Or maybe it’s because I spent a lot of time in Austria as a child but

Untitled (2008) Landscape #1 (2007) - framed collage 150 by 120 cm

47

Peripheral ARTeries

Sanne Van Gent

Wallscape (2009) - framed collage 21 by 30 cm (photo by

)

I’m obsessed with mountains. I see them in everything. I make mountains out of my blankets and I see them in buildings around me and stones I find. But nature can also be represented by a tree, or in my more abstract works, by the color green next to more industrial colors like grey, white and black. In the same way, artificiality and human existence are often represented in my work by tubes, plastic, stairs and geometrical forms.

By the way, I would dare to ask you: how do you feel about Photoshop? Would you ever use photo editing software to create an imaginary landscape, or do you feel it would compromise the integrity?

I’m not against Photoshop but using it has never occured to me because it’s a completely different way of thinking and working. Actual visible layers are essential in my work. An imaginary landscape created with photoshop is flat, the layers are not actually there, you can’t touch them. Making my work is very physical, I cut, I saw, I paint and I want those techniques to be visible because it’s part of the content of my work; I’m always intrigued by the edges of sawn timber or paper curling up. Working on a computer, creating a piece with a mouse as a tool is a completely different way of working than working with scissors, real brushes and saws and with a completely different result.

It’s not comparable.

And I would like to mention another piece of yours that I like very much, a more "traditional" paper collage, entitled Wallscape, that you created in 2009. By the way: what initially drew you to collage?

Background (2010)

I bought a book about wildlife in Africa in my second year of artschool for no particular reason. I was looking for a way to make nature look

48

Sanne Van Gent artificial. For fun I painted saddles and bridles on the lions and zebras in the book and I painted colorful sticks through their backs as if they had run away from a carousel at the funfair. I was amazed by the effect it gave because it looked very strange, funny, but also a bit real in a fake way. I tryed what happened if I cut out the animals with the saddles and put them into a new painted landscape. That was my first collage experience. After that I started to experiment with different pieces of landscape I cut out of books; I cut out pieces of landscape from different countries and put them together into one giant, new landscape that looked very natural from a distance until you came closer and saw the layers and edges of the paper. First, I used only pictures from books but after a while I started to use my own photos and after that I started to use everything I could find, from cartons to cut out pieces of my own drawings. Putting elements over each other, combining them, feels natural to me.

‘Wallscape’ is one of a series of Wallscapes all showing landscapes on walls using the elements of the wall such as damp patches and corners as a basis for a new landscape. I don’t make collages like that anymore - after a while I felt it became a trick I could endlessly repeat but that would be very boring so I started exploring other ways however the experience those collages gave me was very important for the development of my work.

There's a question, that I often ask to the artists that I happen to interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

It’s always a great feeling when a new idea develops in my head and everything is still open but nothing compares to the moment when I’m working on a piece and everything falls into place. Sometimes that takes weeks, sometimes months and sometimes it doesn’t come at all because the work turns out to be only a stepping stone for another work yet to come. But when it comes I literally jump around in my studio. It’s a good thing only my dog is there to witness those moments!

When I’m almost there I try to work until I feel there’s nothing more I can do and the work looks the way I want it to look. Then I go to bed so I can look at the work again with fresh eyes the next morning. It’s always exciting to see if the work ’got through the night’. Sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s good too because those works are useful as well. I know a work is finished when it looks as if it has always been there. That moment is the most satisfying aspect for me.

Let me thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Sanne. Are there any new projects on the horizon?

I’m at a very exciting moment in my career because I haven’t made any works for a long time and have only recently started again so I’m very much enjoying that everything is stil open. I’m looking forward to working again and to seeing what will happen in the future. I did one exhibition this year and I hope to do some more, but first I’m going to travel to Suriname and collect lots of materials and observe new landscapes!

49

Peripheral ARTeries

Mak Ying Tung

Mak Ying Tung (Hong Kong)

an artist’s statement

Mak Ying Tung is a conceptual artist, born in 1989, living in Hong Kong. Her practice combines installation and performance, frequently dealing with decontextualization of everyday objects. In an urban society with a high degree of organization and standardization, people live in a programmed way. Banality deprives people of their imagination and creativity.

In order not to take things for granted, Mak Ying Tung is interested in discovering something unusual in the minutiae of life. Everyday objects therefore play an important role in her creative process. Through repositioning, titling and minimal gestures, the original function and meaning of an object is eliminated. The possibility of the everyday objects however can be recovered again.

Mak has done a series of work called "Funny Stationery" in 2012. In that series, she explored the possibility of stationery by subtle interventions and then discovered the fun side of it, like the way people did when they were young. In order to get through the suffering hours in grammar school, Mak liked making a toy plane by putting a ruler and a pen together. What she did was actually altering the function of the stationery by transforming the physicality of them. She used the same approach in "Funny Stationery (2012)". For example, for the work "Everyone Makes Mistakes", she juxtaposed a bow compass to a diagram of a square, bringing out a visual challenge by misplacing the “cause” and “effect”. And for the work “I can't live without you", a calculator is devoid of its most essential part - the "equal” button. It exemplifies that something so meticulously designed could be ripped of its function all so easily by removing a tiny bit from the whole. In short, She would like to highlight that objects as banal as stationery would also be capable of addressing the anomalies in life and creating a sense of absurdity. And such association on banal objects has already become her own conceptual strategy.

Her following work, “Happy, Happier, Happiest” (2013), “Sterilization”(2013) and “Virgin Mary”(2013) also made use of domestic objects transfigured into objects of eccentricity and anomalies. www.makyingtung.com 50

Mak Ying Tung

The View

2

Mak Ying Tung

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Mak Ying Tung Hello and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

A work of Art is the expression from people who perceive the world differently from the majority.

While I was thinking about the contrast between tradition and contemporary, the image of a snowskin mooncake pop up in my mind. (The snowskin mooncake is sort of like the modern version of the traditional mooncake. As many customers thought the tranditional mooncakes were too oily so the bakery in Hong Kong used fruit to replace egg yolks to create a new type of mooncakes.) It is a good example showing trandition and contemporary are not contradictory. They can interact beneficially.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you studied at the School of Creative Media of City University of Hong Kong, the city where you currently work and live: I would like to ask what's your point about formal training in Art an especially if in your opinion a formal training -or better, a certain kind of formal training- could even stifle an artist's creativity...

Mak Ying Tung

better prospect. Now I finally made it to get a degree but no good 'jobs' are waiting for me and I am not going to seek for them either. How ironic it is! However, I enjoy what I am doing now. This is far more important.

I hadn't received any fine art training before I went to college. I chose School of Creative Media as my major not because I was particularly interested in art or the creative industry.

The reason why I chose it because by the time I could not get a good result in my Advanced Level Exam and associated degree programme (a second chance for losers of the HK education systems) of SCM can easily promote to bachelor degree. Everyone including my parents, teachers and friends also told me degree holders would get a good job MORE EASILY and have

I guess those who did not receive any formal training could be more instinctive because they have less burden, but it doesn't mean they are more creative than those who received formal training before. I went to the graduation show of China Central Academy of Fine Arts last month and some of their works prove that technique and concept could coexist in one human-being.

Before getting in the matter of you art production, can you tell us something about your process and set up for making your artworks?

52

Mak Ying Tung

Peripheral ARTeries

Now let's focus on you art production that our readers can admire in these pages: I would start from the recent Sterilization and Everyone makes mistakes. Could you take us through your creative process when starting this project?

The idea of "Sterilization (2013)" came from a daydream during lesson. While the teacher was giving the lecture, I was wondering why we were never aware of the seeds of strawberry and what it would be like if I pick out all the seeds from it. Therefore, right after the lesson, I bought a box of strawberry and picked out all the seeds of a strawberry when I was home. However, the outcome of such an unusual act was out of my expectation.

What I did was not just "funny"; it was intriguingly disturbing. The whole process was literally harvesting all the organs of the strawberry. In this situation, the strawberry as object has never been so passive and helpless before. The strawberry without seeds was like a person who lost his/her reproduction ability.

This "funny" act suddenly became a brutal and violent behaviour.

In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

I will get my mind prepared and browse pictures from Tumblr non-stop and also surf my artist friend Lam Hoi Sin's blogs and Facebook profile to get some insights and refreshment. If I am still stuck, I will go down to the street and wonder around. I have A strong SENSE OF association on the happeningS around me and that is my creative strength.

Moreover, do you visualize your works before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin?

Usually my work is an idea so it is what it is. So before creating, a general picture of my work is already in my brain.

Sterilization

53

Peripheral ARTeries

Mak Ying Tung

"Sterilization" would be presented as a live performance in my graduation show. I will keep picking out the seeds for hours. By such repetition, nonsense becomes a ritual. Some sort of solemnity is brought to the whole act.

I made a series of work using stationery last year and "Everyone makes mistakes" is one of them. The concept of it is simple. I juxtaposed a bow compass to a diagram of a square, trying to bring out a visual challenge by mispairing the “cause” and “effect”.

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, a crucial aspect of your art practice is the de-contextualization of everyday objects: using materials with a previous life, I would state that experience as starting point of artistic production is a recurrent characteristic of your works, in particular the one that we are now taking into consideration: so I would ask you if in your opinion experience is an absolutely necessary part of creative process...

I guess experience is very important to artists to a certain extent. For example, to me, I am an ordinary girl growing up in an ordinary family, living in a highly organized society with spoonfed education. Playing with the everyday objects seems to be a tactic to me to reject the banality.

In order not to take things for granted, I am interested in discovering something unusual in the minutiae of life. Everyday objects therefore play an important role in my creative process.

Sterilization Graduation Show

Another series of yours that I've found very interesting is the recent Funny Stationery in which you have explored the possibility of stationery by subtle interventions and then discovered the fun side of it, like the way people did when they were young... how did you come up with this idea? It's stimulating and at the same time very nice... by the way, I've found thoughtfully funny I was not born to be straight, as well...

One night when I was half awaken, I thought to myself, if I could make a clip rejected to be

I was not born to be straight

54

Mak Ying Tung

convey my message and association and also is a hint for the audience to look at my work.

I have read that you recently had your first solo exhibition, the aforesaid “Funny Stationery�: what experience have you received from the contact with your audience?

By the way, when you conceive a piece, do you think to whom will enjoy it?

I didn't have any artist statement for each piece, as the work itself was already selfexplanatory enough. So the audiences in the show were like guessing a riddle.

Most of the audiences are careful readers.

They would spend time trying to read what I meant and they would giggle when they got it.

It was definitely an amazing experience for me.

Even though I did not talk to them face to face.

We were communicating at the time.

attracted by a magnet, then that was really a stubborn clip(2012). So this work is the starting point of the Funny Stationery series. Then I tried to throw myself into the role of different kind of stationery and imagined the scenario they made mistakes and also imagine how they rejected to conform to the rules.

As for I was not born to be straight, I transform the physicality of the ruler and add a title to it. Titling is always important for my art pieces.

It is actually part of my work. It helps me

Everyone makes mistakes

The View

55

Peripheral ARTeries

Mak Ying Tung

Happy Happier Happiest

Mak Ying Tung Moreover, what are in your opinion some of the challenges for a sustainable relationship between the business and arts?

The contemporary art market has boomed. I guess the challenge is the art market has already become so dominant that people may mistakenly regard the art market as the entire art world.

However, art selling and buying are just one of the activities among all.

Other than that, people also swap thoughts, generate new ideas, appreciate and criticize each other pieces and do crazy things in the art world.

There's a clichE question, that we often ask to the artists that we interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

When every time I come up with a new idea, it is like having an orgasm. It comes all of a sudden, but actually it requires lots of effort beforehand.

Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I finally have my own studio and I always want to make something big and funny. I don't have the image in my brain right now but it is already written in my agenda.

56

Mak Ying Tung

Please take care of Lucy

8

Peripheral ARTeries

Peripheral ARTeries

Deborah Esses

(Argentina / United Kingdom) an artist’s statement

Deborah Esses was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1966, where she spent her childhood. When she was 15 she started her Fine Art studies at the “Instituto Beato Angelico” graduating with her first degree in 1985.

In 1986 Esses attended a one year postgraduate course at Tel Aviv University, studying Art History in the Middle East. She then returned to Buenos Aires, where she enrolled in a Mixed Media course at the “Ernesto de la Carcova Fine Arts Academy” under the lead of artist and professor Alfredo Portillos.

The following year she travelled throughout Europe, and became particularly interested in life in London, where she would later move to live and work.

Between 1990 and 1993 she began using the collage technique and won prizes in national competitions. From the very beginning Esses felt attracted to depict the emotional aspect of each subject and the psychology behind each of her characters, rather than reproducing or imitating figures in an academic way. Her work owes much to modern expressionism, to masters like Otto Dix, Oskar Kokoshka, Ernie Barnes and the Chinese painters Yue Minjun and Yang Shaobin and yet with an entirely individual style.

Movement is what appears to be at the centre of her artistic production, together with a repertoire of personalities that appears inexhaustible. She would later explain “my initial decision to focus on movement themes comes from my own physical moving from town to town and from country to country…perhaps accompanied by an internal movement that doesn’t seem to be appeased…”

She spent many years travelling until in 2002 she decided to finally settle in the UK, living first in Kent, and moving later to London. In her work there are couples dancing, athletes stretching their bodies and a whole world of joy where fun prevails over all.

The large canvasses put an emphasis on the freedom of women and their ability to enjoy womanhood be they truly dull or hyper sexy women. There are a few pictures of women viewed from behind; these refer to how the human being has turned its back on insanity and prostitution, sending children to war.

“When I suffer or get depressed I can’t work and my work doesn’t come to completion”.”By expressing myself through colours I would like to transcend the turbulence and darkness of my most painful experiences”.

Esses currently lives in London where she has her studio and gallery

58

Deborah Esses

2

I Told You

Deborah Esses

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Deborah Esses Hello Deborah: a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. Let's start this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, what could be the feature that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?

Deborah Esses in her studio

artist without the need to turn up the volume.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there particuIar experiences that have deeply impacted on your evolution as an artist? Please tell us something about your evolution as an artist and what has lead you to become the artist you are today..

Hello Peripheral ARTeries, Art for me, is the assum-ption and understanding that there’s always another way of seeing life. It’s the creation of another reality, the artist’s reality.

It is to have beaten your head for so long against the same wall, until you understand why.

Art is to design your own glasses so that you can see yourself. The contemporariness of a piece of art resides in whether the viewer can relate to the

I think having had long periods of lonelines while I was growing up has made me a good observer of people, their physicality, their behaviour, in some cases their velocity... I would then draw endlessly wherever I went, while visiting relatives, while being on holidays...sketching was my own digital camera, I had drawings and mental images 60

Deborah Esses

Peripheral ARTeries

ideas internally for future pictures, it’s like having my own museum inside my mind. So I go to the studio every morning after breakfast, I look at my internal imaginary museum, “download” one of the images and start work.

This is a moment of taking big decisions.

Sometimes I draw first, other times I paint straight away. Then I pause for tea and I think of the colours, I take distance, I look away and come back. Sometimes I can’t stop myself working, some other times I need to stop to rethink and “attack” again. When I reckon I have the general idea and the canvas has stopped being hostile to me I feel better, less sour. All this might take the whole day. Next day, when I come back to the studio, I may start work straight away, or not. It depends on whether the previous day’s production flicks my inner switch or not.

Now let's focus on your artworks: I would like to start with Going Red and I Told You, a couple of interesting pieces of a recent series of yours: could you tell us something about your initial inspiration for these pieces? Moreover, why have you chosen a condor for so many pieces?

Is there a particular reason?

I can’t sit still

“Going Red” is an inadequate hen that feels infuriated, with eruptive anger, and “I Told You”

of people and landscapes. I have a constant private illustrated dialogue with myself. Traveling inside oneself is a never ending trip, there’s always a new state of mind depending on where you stop, and that newer state of mind is what I call evolution. If it allows you to move further.

It’s important to try to look at things from every angle, so that you have lots of possible approaches available.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on with your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

I am all the time thinking of art and registering 61

Easy Life

Peripheral ARTeries

Golden Vulturine

is a wise, cool vulture. The idea started with some images I saw in a book. A book of birds of pray, and I became very interested in the expression on their faces, the shape of their beaks, vultures particularly, they look so angry and irrascible...and as usual I looked for the emotional side, and decided to paint “Vulturine” the first bird of the series, then the work continued with many more, including some sweet little birds and even dogs.

The choice of subject was unconsciously related to an inner feeling of being “vultured” by other people. This idea of some of my acquaintances chewing my flesh till they reached the bone! How pathetic.

Going Red

A visual of the aforesaid pieces that has impacted on me is the the saturation of the colors in comparison with the soft tones of other pieces from the same series. In particular, I noticed that there's an evident contrast between the squatted dog in an intense red of Easy Life and the reassuring tone of yellow of the condor in Golden Vulture...

to my own feelings with respect to each of the pieces. Colour for me is always the expression of emotion, and that intense red used in “Easy Life” would mean warmth in that particular piece of work. In “Going Red” it means irritation. The series of birds go through a mood swing, describing a state of the mind: placid at times, irrascible, candid.

Colour is episodic in my work.

Yes, true, there’s a huge variation of colour, tone and nuances among all the works, and I think it’s related 62

Peripheral ARTeries

for months or for a day, and that’s how I regulate the intensity of the palette. Then, colour can vanish completely and I can limit my palette to black and white. My first language is Spanish. My second language is colour.

Another piece on which I would like to spend some words is Kiss Me All Night: a painting that besides dealing with a moving passions -if you forgive me the word pun- seems to move itself: I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, but the first sensation that has caught me while admiring this piece for the first time was the sensation of "whirling", as the two lovers in the painting were vortically dancing: it's a painting that in my opinion has effectively snatched the spirit of movement, maybe also in a metaphorical way.

By the way, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this artwork?

Thank you for seeing the movement together with me. As you might know, movement has been at the centre of my work for a long time.

Movement of the body and moving emotions, and that’s what I felt when I painted “Kiss Me All Night” : a kind of swirling as you well described it with the person you love, a feeling of not wanting to stop the swiftness of the swirl and the melting into someone else’s emotion. Losing oneself in another, letting each other disappear in a vast love. A kissing session that is so pleasant so morish, that you would want it to last all night. A night where fear is absent.

By the way, any comments on your choice of palette and how it has changed over time?

I’m constantly experimenting with colours, they are the ingredients of my dishes. By mixing pigments, acrylic and ink, I manage to create new elements to work with. The speed of colour variation will depend on the duration of my moods. I could be excited for months and then I would use strong colours. I could be very calm

Yellow Tulips 63

Peripheral ARTeries

Deborah Esses

Although you focus especially on human or "animated" figures, I noticed that you have painted interesting landscapes, as Animal City where the landscape does not play a passive role of "a speechless background" but seems to communicate, as well. As you have stated about your artworks there's always a human personality that comes out from the figure of an animal, and I would dare to say, from a landscape or from a flower, as well... what's your point about this analysis?

Since I’ve started my artistic career I’ve been fighting this feeling of wanting to look at myself while not being me. I would like not only to look at myself but also to be able to paint while not being me...but I’m fully aware I can’t escape myself. This “being me” makes me look at everything from the human point of view, and that’s how flowers/ animals/ landscape acquire a human touch...It’s my own touch, because I can’t be objective enough. I can’t look at a field of poppies as if I were a tree, I will always be human and will always be subjective in the way I see and paint what’s around me. In painting a landscape scene, I can’t walk away from my own cocktail, from my own way of seeing things.

Putting a human touch on everything may have some adverse effects: you need to overcome constantly your own blues.

Thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Deborah. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thank you Peripheral ARTeries. I am working on a variation of subjects at the moment, always related to human emotions and movement.

an interview with

Animal City 64

Kiss Me All Night

Deborah Esses

4

Peripheral ARTeries

Peripheral ARTeries

Louise Winter

Louise Winter (United Kingdom) an artist’s statement

For my work I’m interested in questioning the fixed identities of objects and materials so they defy usual definitions and expectations, or, as the artist Tom Friedman has said, ‘Testing what matter is by allowing it not to be’.

Central to my practice are ideas of displacement: is the location of material central to its definition so that if it is displaced from its ‘real’ context can it still be regarded as the same object, where then does it exist, if at all? I am interested in how the re-assembling of such material or found objects can start to question the boundaries of the real by creating a tension between the literal and abstract readings of these objects as signifiers.

My practice is investigative in its nature and form, moving between object, process, event and performance. I don’t ‘create’ objects but work with already existing matter to collapse the distance between art and the mundane, exploring the poetic and often absurd potential of the everyday.

Bibliography In 2011 Louise graduated with an MA in Fine Art with Distinction and has since exhibited regularly across the UK, including London and held a solo exhibition in Leeds last year. Louise is also currently one of six artists selected nationally for an exhibition and essay on the use of rubbish in contemporary art practice www.axisweb.org/curated-selection/rubbish that explores the materials, processes and terminologies artists employ in the context of anthropological and socio-economic theories of found objects and has recently won a commission to create an installation for Gallery 333, in Exeter. In addition to her activities as an artist, Louise is also a writer for the international contemporary online art magazine ArtSelector.

66

Rubbish pile and fan, detail

Louise Winter

67

Peripheral ARTeries

Peripheral ARTeries

Louise Winter

an interview with

Louise Winter Hi Louse, a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries.

I would like to start this interview with my usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art?

Hi, thanks very much for having me, it's great to meet you guys. Haha that's a tricky one! I think really anything has the potential to be art and an artist is someone who has the ability to reformulate or extract meaning from something in such a way as to enable an audience or viewer to question the habitual ways of seeing and thinking about the world.

And what are in your opinion the distinctive features that mark the contemporariness of a piece?

I think contemporariness is distinguished by an awareness of how and where you position yourself in relation to current artistic practice and is characterized by a certain kind of visual and /or theoretical distinctiveness.

2) Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you recently graduated with an MA in Fine Art with Distinction at Northum-bria University: how has this experience impacted on the way you produce your art?

The MA had a huge impact on my way of working. When I first started I was overthinking things and the work was constrained as a result. Eventually I realized that I had to strip everything back and start again. The idea of displacement has always been central to my practice (collecting materials from a specific site and then placing them in the context of the studio or gallery and exploring how their meaning changes as a result of this re-contextualization) so I began visiting sites and collecting materials, photographing objects and anything that was of basic interest to me without any preconceptions of what might occur later I the studio.

Louise Winter continuing to happen in the gallery space so I started looking for ways to re-animate these objects which has lead me to create my most recent works.

By the way, I would like to ask what's your point about formal training in Art an especially if in your opinion a formal training -or better, a certain kind of formal training- could even stifle an artist's creativity...

By playing around with these materials in the studio and embarking on a process of post-rationalization, I was able to develop a much more fluid and intuitive way of working which enabled me to uncover more abstract readings of these materials, questioning their status as signifiers. I soon realized that I wasn’t happy to simply ‘re-stage’ displaced material and became interested in the idea of something happening outside and, in effect,

I didn't find art education stifling at all, quite the opposite, as it enabled me to really open up and develop my practice but there are lots of ways someone can come to art and education is just one of those ways.

I do, however, think art education is important in terms of being able to contextualize your own prac-

68

Louise Winter

Peripheral ARTeries

the assembling of each work (for example most pieces are the result of creating a delicate balance between each of the components) In the studio most of my time is spent looking at things and observing how they behave in order to learn more about them –there is a lot of time spent doing nothing!

But I like the absurdity of this and I think in some ways it represents a challenge to the traditional idea of the ‘heroic’ male artist laboring away in front of his canvas for hours on end that is often associated with more traditional craftsmanship.

Now let's focus on the artworks that our readers can admire in these pages: I would start from Rubbish pile and fan: would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this piece? What was your initial inspiration?

Yes sure. Prior to this piece I had been working with desk fans so I decided to experiment with smaller hand

practice and to generate critical dialogue and debate around your work with artists and peers that may not otherwise occur. I would say this is crucial in terms of developing an understanding of contemporariness that we discussed earlier.

Before getting to the matter of you art production, can you tell us something about your process and set up for making your artworks?

In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

If anything I think my works are characterized by a distinct lack of technical awareness and competence and I think this is where part of the humour comes from. I like to set things up very simply which belies the fact that a lot of concentration goes into

Rubbish pile and fan

69

Peripheral ARTeries

Louise Winter

held fans which, being powered by batteries, are much less restricted in terms of how you can position them. I was interested to see what would happen if say I collected a pile of rubbish from outside and attempted to move this material with a fan (the fan functioning as a parody of the wind if you like) The pile of rubbish I collected was quite specific, I wanted fragments of things as opposed to things in their entirety, things that were barely distinguishable as what they formerly were or, as the critic Darian Leader has eloquently described ‘discarded aspects of known objects’.

What became apparent as soon as I installed the work in my studio was how ineffective the fan actually is! As it rotates it barely manages to stir any of material beneath and is more effective in making sound than moving the mass of rubbish. So for me it’s a lot to do with the parody of function.

Pouring cans, video still creating a tension between the literal and abstract readings of objects ... could you elaborate a bit this concept for our readers?

Another piece of yours on which I would like to spend some words is Pouring can, that I suggest to our reader to watch directly at your website http://www.axisweb.org/artist/louisewinter This piece has made me think a lot and I noticed that

Yes, I think that’s an interesting point you raise about the symbiosis between past and present. I think it was Hal Foster who said that ‘There is no simple now: every present is non-synchronous, a mix of different times'.

there's a dichotomy between tradition and modernity- your artworks creates an interesting symbiosis between past and present. I find this this particularly interesting, especially because you are a very young artist: as you have stated once, one of the aims of your Art is to question the boundaries of the real by

My way of approaching the material was to expose, in quite a deadpan manner, how the cans are no longer able to perform their original function as containers as a result of the deteriori-

70

Louise Winter

Peripheral ARTeries

And we couldn't do without mentioning another stimulating artwork of yours, that have particularly impressed me: Branch carrier bag and fan... By the way, do you visualize your complete works before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin?

This piece came about when I was visiting a colliery in Sunderland and I noticed a carrier bag caught on a branch blowing around in the wind. Initially I thought I would video this but then I thought-why not take it a step further and actually take the branch into the studio? I decided to substitute the breeze for a second hand fan that propels the bag at regular intervals.

With this work I had the idea quite early on of what I

zation they have undergone at the site. This process isn’t derived from any kind of nostalgia for the past but rather, I am interested in how the process of decay has virtually erased what the object was, opening it up to new meanings and interpretations which is what the above quote refers to.

So there is a paradoxical situation whereby the history or past associations of an object are acknowledged but simultaneously negated through the act of pouring.

Branch, carrier bag and fan

71

Peripheral ARTeries

Louise Winter

Branch, carrier bag and fan, detail, 2012

wanted to do which is unusual because most of the time my pieces come about by accident or as a result of playing around with materials. I think if you try and visualize how something will turn out it usually ends up going wrong which is good because something much more interesting emerges from the process. I think the best way to make art is to not be afraid to fail or make something crap.

Puddle, installation, 2012

It goes without saying that modern technology has considerably impacted on Contemporary Art: I perso-nally find really stimulating the synergy between Art and Science and I do think that these apparentely different fields soon or later will merge each other, even though it's not uncommon to listen to some old-fashioned opinions according to which only acryl on a canvas makes an artwork... What's your point about this? Do you think that nowadays still exists a dichotomy between Art and Science?

I think that is very important to mention that besides producing your Art, you also write on a very interesting online review for the international contemporary online art magazine ArtSelector and I would like to suggest to our readers to visit it at http://www.artselector.com/

Within my own experience as an artist I have encountered less of a dichotomy and more of a synergy between art and science and I think this is something that has always existed (eg Galileo’s first drawings of the moon as observed through the telescope-which compelled us to rethink our place in the universe)

Yes, I’ve always been interested in writing and when I graduated from the MA in 2011 I founded an art magazine that was produced in collaboration with Gallery North, Newcastle. Peel magazine specializes in artistically and educationally meritorious works of emerging, as well as more established artists and writers. It serves as a critical forum for contemporary artistic debate by extending the culture of debate initiated by the gallery itself.

What is the importance of this type of (apparent) artistic outreach in relation to your work or art career? And what has lead you to start this project, which -I have to remark, is a very interesting one?

I’m not sure about art and science ‘merging’ into one another as I think the friction and disjunctures that can be found between the two have the potential to create the most idialogue.

Since then I’ve been writing for reviews for ArtSelector that supports and unites critically engaged art

72

Louise Winter

Peripheral ARTeries

Two fans, still, 2011 whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces?

I think it depends on what you mean by ‘influence’-if it’s that your work will change to suit someone else’s agenda then your process becomes compromised. If you’re creating a site- specific installation then of course you have to take the space into consideration but you should always maintain an integrity with regards to your own artistic process.

I never think of who will enjoy the work and certainly don’t make my work with anyone in mind for the reasons I just mentioned. For me, if an idea or work excites me then that is enough and I hope it will create the same intrigue in others.

I enjoy receiving critical feedback that enables a dialogue around the work but this is something that can be hard to achieve as when you have show everyone wants to be polite, congratulate you and say it’s great so it can be good to sometimes just hang around without people knowing who you are and hear more honest responses to the work!

professionals and audiences by creating opportunities for exchange and interaction which I think are crucial in order to sustain the visual arts sector.

My writing runs parallel to my practice as an artist and the skills you develop through these activities feed directly into one another so there is a kind of synergy. Ultimately I’m interested in ideas and the construction of meaning and by thinking and writing about other peoples work, you are better able to reflect more critically upon your own.

Let me thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Louise. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

During this years, your artworks have been exhibited across the United Kingdom, where you work and live: moreover, you have recently won a commission to create an installation for Gallery 333, in Exeter.

It goes without saying that feedback and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist, I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of an award- could even influence the process of an artist...

By the way, how important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to

Thank you it’s been great! Next month I’m curating an exhibition ‘Placeless, Place’ at an artist run gallery The Shed in Haltwhistle which will bring together six artists for whom the notion of site is the starting point and research subject for the process of making art.

The same gallery has also invited me to undertake a residency with them which is really exciting as it’ll be my first one and an opportunity to explore and respond to an entirely new location and, ultimately, enable me to continue to develop new and ambitious strategies of permeating the boundaries of the site and non-site.

73

Peripheral ARTeries

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert (United Kingdom)

an artist’s statement

As Homo Faber we exist through objects, our actions and experiences mediated by them; they are no longer mere tools but extensions of ourselves.

My practice is built around an investigation of the objects that surround us where I consider them in terms of being comprised of a network of both physical (essential and accidental) and abstract (eg function, types of meaning elements) and attempt to understand the nature of these elements, their manner of coexistence and relationship with such things as aesthetics, creativity and art.

The objects that are produced within my investigation are born out of an attempt to understand and accentuate connections between certain elements through interacting with them. Generally I begin with a preexisting object within which I perceive a certain relationship as being more pronounced than it is within other objects before applying an intuitive logic in deciding how to tackle that object in order to simultaneously understand and accentuate this relationship. Objects may be altered, displayed, represented and utilised in a variety of ways to achieve this however they are always treated as the things they are rather than as signs which can be used to represent something (although it should be noted that occasionally the initial objects may themselves be designed to function as signs). Often the manner in which they are treated is as important as the appearance of the final object – this is dictated by the interactions that are made with the object rather than vice versa. Where visual language is employed it is used to draw attention to an already existing aspect or else counter an unnecessary distraction.

I try to make the actions performed as visible as possible in order to make an audience aware of them – I do not want to conceal anything with mysterious techniques and crafting of objects is kept to a minimum in favour of assembling pre-existing components. This both enables the viewer the option of recreating an object in order to further understand whilst keeping unnecessary decisions to a minimum, thus limiting the possibility of producing objects which unwittingly function as a medium for subjective communication. This is important as the finished objects are not intended to be containers of art nor displays of visual rhetoric, rather they are intended as meta-things which aim to dissect the idea of an object and deconstruct how we relate to objects on a cerebral level.

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert 74

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

Peripheral ARTeries

Models for Transport and Display - 2011 Model Number One for Tranasport and Display 12cm x 12cm x 18cm

2

Peripheral ARTeries

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

an interview with

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert Hello Aylwin and welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. I would start this interview with our usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

If I may I would like to devote a bit of space to this question as it is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about and this will be the first opportunity I have had to put my ideas across in a public forum, therefore I which to be as precise as possible in order to avoid being misunderstood. I don’t believe that an anything can be defined as being or not being a work of art, rather I think that there is some quality that exists within all things resulting from human activity and that those things defined as art are those within which this quality may be perceived most clearly. Any attempt to define this quality becomes a description of those things a viewer subjectively perceives it in most clearly (it stands to reason that those things which rely on being contemplated in order to function are those within which this quality will be seen.) with these descriptions forming the basis of the discourse that is art theory.

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert Despite me not believing that anything is or isn’t work clearly my work needs to be classified as it in order to be placed in a situation where it can function, however I don’t feel that being accepted into this category makes it more special or somehow better than those objects which tend not to be.

Out of those objects classified as art there are those which are non-intentional and which fulfil their intended function outside of an artworld context but which may be taken out of the situation in which they function to be used to contribute to the discourse around art, something which often negates their intended function (As with pre-renaissance religious sculpture and painting and what is referred to as ethnographic art from cultures without an concept of art). Then there are intentional art objects which utilise the systems, situations and conventions that have grown up around the discourse of art in order to pursue and intended function whilst simultaneously contributing to this discourse, causing it to evolve. As intentional art objects have co-evolved alongside this discourse it has meant that they have become increasingly reliant upon art theory in directing people how to use them. Traditional art objects have more in common with non-intentional and pre-art objects and therefore don’t rely upon art theory in the manner that contemporary art objects do, something which I believe explains the split between the two, although obviously the boundaries are in fact blurred.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you have received a BFA from the University of Lincoln: how has this experience impacted on the way you produce your art? By the way, I would like to ask what's your point about formal training in Art an especially if in your opinion a formal training -or better, a certain kind of formal training- could even stifle an artist's creativity...

Well my current practice is only a couple of years old so my time at university isn’t particularly relevant to the development of it – it was a beginning but I went there wanting to be Michel Gondry and it took me most of the course to realise I wasn’t. Towards the end I began to make some collages and these developed enough to be probably the first professional things I made and to get me in a few shows but there was nowhere to take them that wouldn’t have ended up with them being produ-

76

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

Peripheral ARTeries

Genuine Artefacts - 2012 Variable - each part 19cm x 12cm x 5cm - Art deco frames, postcards, transfers from cigarette cards

produced as part of a routine. Therefore I abandoned them and spent the next three years constantly changing direction and just trying out various things that interested me – basically what I should have been doing at university. These led to a range of fairly arbitrary and mainly unfinished objects, however about two years ago things began to come together and I had a coherent practice – the objects I produce are still pretty arbitrary to look at but they are placed within a conceptual framework that allows for them to relate to one another whilst preventing me from developing a style that can just be trotted out.

have had to have been more rigorous in their defence of it than is probably often the case now which might lead to better artwork. Certainly the best tutor I had at Lincoln was the one who was most willing to challenge what I was saying and doing rather than just being polite about it.

Before getting in the matter of you art production, can you tell us something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work?

I tend to begin with an object I have come across (occasionally I start with a problem but generally the solution to this is an object presenting itself to me) within which the relationship between certain of the physical and abstract properties within it can be perceived more clearly. Choosing these objects is a pretty intuitive process and I will generally be drawn to an object before having to figure out the nature of the relationship I will be dealing with. I then go on to formulate a plan for how I will interact with an object, often the interactions I choose will be as much based around ridding the work of unwanted associations as on accentuating the relationship I am working with.

This thought process will often be very step by step

In terms of formal training in the sense you are referring to I am not sure that it really exists anymore, certainly as far as I’m aware most degree courses in the UK allow students to do pretty much whatever they want and whilst tutors are there to guide students and challenge them the greatest benefit comes from having a peer group to kick ideas around with. I’m not even certain that in the past the sort of formal training which could be seen as stifling students was necessarily always a bad thing – I think that in the past as many artists benefitted from having something to push against as would allowed themselves to be constrained and that those doing their own thing would

77

Peripheral ARTeries

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

Hung (The pencil draws a line across the spirit level) - 2012 28cm x 23cm x 9cm (Approx)

and occasionally a decision will involve choosing the lesser of two evils – for instance with the Ornament series I wanted to separate the decorative function of a shelving bracket from the practical function of supporting shelves whilst at the same time acknowledging that part of the its form that was dependent on this. I had the choice of either using four to create a roundel and then using some method to affix them to the wall or else using eight along with smaller brace brackets to make free standing objects – whilst the roundel idea was purer in terms of the use of the object itself I felt that the roundel would have been in danger of acting as a relief and being read as a pattern rather than an object whilst the brace brackets would only really act in terms of signs as a discrete reminder of the larger brackets function - in the end I went for the less pure object over the one with possible associations. A lot of other decisions are based around having to avoid too many decisions that don’t have a bearing on what I am trying to achieve – for instance with the Ornament series I choose to use spray paints from a limited range – I am aware that I could make a more visually pleasing object with a more nuanced choice of colour but this isn’t relevant to my aims.

Technically the interactions I use vary but I tend to avoid doing anything overly complicated – both because I tend to go in for constructing objects rather than crafting them as part of me avoiding unneccesary decisions but also because I want it to be very clear to a viewer what has been done to an object – I don’t want there to be anything concealed from them that might make an object look like a trick or a display of manual skill or rhetoric.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would like to start from your multidisciplinary installation entitled Plane iii which shows an interesting "channel of communications" between our perceptions of different dimensions: what was your initial inspiration? Could you take us through your creative process when starting this piece?

I was interested in reproduction images and how they function both as

78

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert

Peripheral ARTeries

a representation of an object and as a substitute for it – I wanted to do something that acknowledged this and the fact that these reproductions exist not only as copies of the original object but of each other his whilst playing with the tension that exists between an image as a two dimensional plane and as a three dimensional object in its own right. I chose Frank Stella reproductions to work with because he was of that generation of painters who first began treating a painting as an object – Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski are two other artists who I would like to use for future series, however their catalogues of early work (which is the stuff which is relevant to what I’m doing) are much more expensive. In terms of choosing planes it was purely because they are the most obvious thing to make out of a sheet of paper – anything else would have been too much of a choice – however I tried to limit them functioning as signs by upending them so they looked more like an abstract structure. Luckily (I’m not going to pretend that this is intentional) there is also the duality of meaning in the word plane – it can refer either to the three dimensional object or the two dimensional surface upon which the collage is situated.

Another works of yours on which I would like to spend some words are Genuine Artefacts and Hung: there's an interesting dialectic between the functionality of an object and its mere "being an object"… I often ask myself if technologic achievements while subver-ting the relation of master and slave between Nature and Man, actually recreate a subtle bond between Man and Nature... maybe between Man and Man's nature itself...

With Genuine Artefacts I was interested in the transition from an object from being merely an object to being an artefact – all the elements used are from the late twenties and early thirties so it is possible (if not plausible) that all the elements could have been put together in that manner in the thirties – if this had been the case then the phrase ‘Genuine Artefacts’ would only have referred to the objects depicted on the postcards. As this is not the case and they have been made in the current era then the phrase refers to the objects that have been used in construction. However at some point in the future (and the idea developed from trying to make something to act as an experiment to see at what point an object becomes an artefact) the phrase will refer to the two parts.

Planes - 2011 Plane i - Sidi Ifni (After Stella) Framed collage: 42cm x 32cm Sculpture: 20cm x 10cm x 7cm Frank Stella Catalogues, Shelf, Paper, Mountboard, Frame

With Hung it was about making an objects in a gallery which meant that they wouldn’t just act as symbols – I absolutely wanted them to be read as real functioning things – the nature of galleries meant that the best way to do this was to use objects which could be used in their own display. The prototype for transport and display was similar to this apart from it was more about designing a functional object to go into a gallery than using ones which were pre-existing - I wanted an audience to be able to see how a meaning and aesthetic can arise through an objects function rather than focusing on them as the main point of the work.

In terms of man and nature I try to avoid dealing with subjects like this in my work as I’m not certain that doing so doesn’t benefit the objects more than the issues being discussed – I’d also question whether an ability to manipulate visual language means that my opinions should be taken more

79

Peripheral ARTeries

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert factured articles as being particularly unpleasant as I don’t really subscribe to the idea of art objects as being special but rather feel they might show the specialness which exists in all objects more clearly this might be one way of describing the quality that I feel the term art relates to. In terms of the dematerialisation of the art objet this is of course one way of separating out art objects from the others although I would see a sentence or description as being constructed if not manufactured.

Prototype for transport and display - 2012 90cm x 38cm x 98cm Mild steel, wheels, spray paint

seriously than anyone else’s (and there would always be an opinion, visual language is never objective). This isn’t to say I’m not interested in such issues but I would direct people to read authors such as Mary Midgley or John Gray rather than to listen to my opinion (though for the record I think that the perceived split is a remnant of various ideologies rather than a fact) And a very stimulating conceptual sculptures of yours is Models for Transport and Display, which made me think that Modern Technology has revolutionized the idea of producing Art itself and moreover this forces us to rethink to the materiality of an artwork itself: since few years ago an artwork was first of all -if you forgive me this unpleasant classification- a manufactured article: it was the concrete materialization of an idea...

Dig 1 (East Country Yard Show) - 2012 29 x 20 cm Digital Print

In terms of the Models for Transport and Display thy actually began life with the practical purpose of explaining the idea for what became Prototype for Transport and Display (the end result of this process would hopefully be to have a production model made) to a friend. However it then acted in the same way as any object I come across and choose to use and I became interested in the idea of the model being able to in part fulfil the function of the actual object in terms of an audience approaching it visually. This combined with being interested in construction toys as basically being various solutions to the same problem that led to differing results when used due to both visual design as well as the limitations caused by them being part of a modular system.

I’m going to keep my answer quite brief for this because otherwise it’ll snowball into an essay - I think modern technology has revolutionised the production of pretty much everything and that it’s perfectly natural that this will affect our perception of art and the production of art objects. I think this applies both to the means available to artists to produce objects but also because of technology leading to an increase in the sheer number of objects and images – part of the discourse around art is about the specialness of art objects in relation to other objects - they need to stand out in some way in order to be successful in competing for attention.

As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statement, tools are no longer mere tools but extensions of ourselves". This cannot lead us to spend some words about augmented reality: I'm sort of convinced that this is a clear example of how Art and Technology are assimilating one to each other. What's your point about this? And

The increase in objects and images meant that the discourse around art had to find new ways to separate art objects from everyday ones which in turn influenced the creation of new objects. At this point I should probably state that I don’t see calling art objects manu-

80

Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert moreover, it goes without saying that modern technology has considerably impacted on Contemporary Art: I personally find really stimulating the synergy between Art and Science and I do think that these apparently different fields soon or later will merge each other, even though it's not uncommon to listen to some old-fashioned opinions according to which only acryl on a canvas makes an artwork... What's your point about this?

Do you think that nowadays still exists a dichotomy between Art and Science?

Peripheral ARTeries

different beasts with very different natures. Having said that I would argue that the quality of art exists within science although due to its very practical nature it’s probably not easy to spot unless you know about the science in question – a good example however might be the idea of the elegant solution which could be seen as allowing a quality of art to be seen in a manner similar to the way in which we judge a good piece of conceptual art in terms of a kind of neatness in the idea.

As I don’t really believe that any object is or isn’t art except in terms of some needing to be classified as it in order to function then for me there isn’t really any assimilation that can take place – new technology can be used to produce art objects and in the discourse around art but it can also be used for a multitude of purposes outside of this.

artists that we interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? What gives you the biggest satisfaction?

It depends on the object – I always enjoy mentally solving the problem of what interactions to make with an object. In terms of actually making an object sometimes it can be incredibly enjoyable and involve a satisfying amount of additional problems solving as I go along, on other occasions it can be incredibly repetitive and tedious, although in either case the production of the object helps me to further understand the relationships I am interested in.

Also the need for art objects to be viewed as special will always ensure that there remains some separation, as soon as something becomes too everyday its need to be seen as art vanishes. With art theory and science one is very much based around rhetoric and discourse whilst the other is based around fact and experiment - of course there a variety of ways in which there can be some crossover but I think they are at heart very

Once an object is finished it’s kind of fulfilled its use for me (they do need to be perceived in order to be understood but I generally experience this during production). Obviously there is an immense satisfaction in getting objects out into public for an audience to look at and hopefully get some level of understanding from and I’d be lying if I pretended that a proportion of this doesn’t involve some level of hubris although it is also about contributing something to the world and I’d never let the success or failure of certain pieces in this way change my production.

Let me thank you for your time and for sharing with us your thoughts, Aylwin. My last question deals with your future plans: anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I’m currently in a few exhibitions – Worcester Open at Worcester Art Gallery until the 27th July, Hot One Hundred at Schwartz Gallery in Hackney Wick until the 3rd of August and Narrative, Point A to Point B at the Fresh Meat Gallery at LCB in Leicester until the 7th August.

Ornament i, - 2012, Axis: 42 cm, 44.5 cm and 44.5 cm.

B&Q Form Ornament Bracket, brace brackets, nuts, bolts, spray paint

81

Peripheral ARTeries

Maike Hemmers (The Netherlands) an artist’s statement

Drawing enables me to express my thoughts with the drawn line. My hand translates the activities in my head.

Drawings are like the thoughts in my head plentiful and fast in execution. Thus they are distinguished by a intuitive and sketch-like character. Drawings are the emotional-instinctively counterpart of my thoughts and their pragmatic-rational completion in writing and reading.

At the moment my work deals with the perception of simple things. These are everyday objects as well as the (female) body. It fascinates me to abstract these things in my drawings, so that the essence and/ or the shadow of them remains on paper. Ordinary experiences can have magical properties in my eyes.

Occurrences can become special, because I focus my attention on them.

This concentration allows me to take the objects out of their context and give them a new meaning. reality, the drawings hold the key to my personal experience. It is more than just a simple and maybe naive external observations as there is an introspective process under the surface. When I focus on that, they gain meaning. By enlarging my observations I make the significance visible.

82 1

Meike Hemmers

Aquarel on paper 50 x 56 cm 2013

2

Maike Hemmers

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Maike Hemmers Hi Maike, a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries.

We would start this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? Moreover, do you think that there's still a contrast between tradition and contemporary?

Hello, thanks for having me.

Art can be everything. If someones states, that what he/ she does is art, than it is. For me it is as simple as that. Of course, it is a different question whether it has good or bad qualities. But thats just an opinion you give yourself to that matter.

There is a contrast between tradition and contemporary as I see it. I guess that is a natural occurrence as the 'new' wants to make a progression, that leads itself away from the old. Being human contains a natural want for renewal. That doesn't mean though, that tradition is no part of art today as tradition is part of culture. I do see a trend towards tradition like crafts and handmade. It seems to be that people long for another approach to a fast life. But this matter is not per se art related.

Would you like to tell us something about your background? I have read that you have recently received your BFA from AKI ArtEZ, in Enschede.

How has this experience informed your Art practice? By the way, what's your point about formal training? Do you think that artists with a formal education have an advantage over selftaught artists?

Maike Hemmers

I graduated two years ago at the art academy in Enschede, so I am fairly new as an active artist. The academy I went to isn't really comparable with most of the academies as the study is free and autonomous. I didn't get much formal training in that sense.

It helped me though to be in a surrounding so inspirational with driven people, that are busy making and thinking art. You get a lot of input from teachers, but also other students. You do something and it gets shaken up again. Since I left the academy

I am different busy as I have less time for making art as I have to make money otherwise. I do however concentrate more intensely on my work without the interference of others. It is still a search, that will hopefully never end. So I guess I got a good start at the academy, but making art is really different there. I would never say, that this way is better or it has an advantage per se though, as it is just my experience.

84

Maike Hemmers

Peripheral ARTeries

tention falls on things and occurrences that strike me as special. The execution happens in drawings.

I draw fast and without putting to much of an analysis in it while working (hopefully).

Most of the time I make a lot of drawings while working, because it doesn't take much time per drawing itself. Afterwards I can see which ones contain the most power and thoughtfulness, but that is not something I can or want to plan.

Now let's focus on your stimulating works that our readers can admire in these pages: I would start from Found: The Water and Adams' Apfel: can you describe a little bit about your creative process for this pieces?

At the moment I am quite fascinated by vessels (in form of vases and bowls mostly) as also the human body (just another kind of vessel). In Found: The water both came together in an oddly shaped vessel, which inspiration came from a butt. I am working a lot with Sumi-E paper (rice paper). This kind of paper is highly absorbent and light. I wet the paper before I draw on it with water color.That creates a certain tactility and allows the color to choose its own way. My control is limited, the materials seem to have an own will.

Adam's Apfel is made with chalk (siberische krijt in dutch). I wanted to have a really deep color.

Before getting in the matter of your art production, would you like you describe your methodology when creating your works? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

Making art is a constant thinking process for me. That means being busy with a permanent flow of thoughts. I observe my surroundings consciously and unconsciously, my at-

Found: the water, 2013 aquarel on paper, 50 x 56 cm

85

Peripheral ARTeries

Maike Hemmers

Adams’ Apfel, 2013 Charcoal, aquarel on paper 29 x 42 cm

The water color drawings are light and sensitive, they can never be the deep sea. I wanted to have another sight in my drawings, that can be the counterpart to the fluent. Thats how these kind of drawings started, the way of thinking and drawing is the same though.

Another pieces of yours on which I would like to spend some words is Hiermit ist diese Geschichte by the way, this has reminded me that you have stated that "the drawings hold the key to my personal experience".

Moreover, I can recognize an effective synergy between reality and imagination. How important is the role of experience as starting point of your creative process?

Liedschlag - What it could be, 2013 Installationsview (big drawing 50 x 56 cm, small drawing

I guess experience is the starting point for my creative process. My imagination and what I find reality seem to flow into each other sometimes, which can be scary, but also magical. But reality is a subjective matter anyway.

I also notice that dark colors are quite recurring in your palette, and it figures prominently in many of your recent works.

Any comments on your choice of palette or how it has changed over time?

You can never state, that what you experience is a reality for everyone. Here lies the key to being an artist for me, for the benefit of art, as the artist translate his/her reality in an art work.

I never used much color. To me they are just distracting from the purpose. If they cannot give meaning to the drawings, there is no need to use them, especially not in a decora86

Maike Hemmers

Peripheral ARTeries

As you have remarked in your artist's statement, concentration allows me to take the objects out of their context and give them a new meaning.

Could you elaborate this concept for our readers? I have been always convinced that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal hidden meanings...

While concentrating on an object you see hidden sights and meanings. Concentration allows you to dig deeper and go under the surfaces of things. I always feel like it is better to do things the second time round. When you are past the first time excitement (while seeing, reading, watching, listening) you can concentrate on the details and the deeper lying information. Concentration and repetition are connected in their meaning for making art for me.

Aquarel and Charcoal on paper, 21 x 29 cm)

tive manner. The color I use quite often is blue. That is because blue doesn't represent a color for me when using, but more of an element.

The sky and the water cannot be drawn, you have to use blue to make it visible. Also blue refers with these elements to some sort of infinity.

2012 Collage, aquarel on paper, 21 x 29 cm

87

Peripheral ARTeries

Meike Hemmers

Just wondering if you would question that I often ask to the artists that I happen to interview: what aspect of your work do you enjoy the most?

What gives you the biggest satisfaction? Well, actually

I like getting lost in thoughts and work. While concentrating on a subject I can feel rooted with the subject. To be able to research so intensely about matters is important to me. I often feel like I am the most myself while drawing, it feels like a distinct part of myself.

The connection and communication with my artist friends is also very important to me. It seems like a lot of artist are distinct people as they choose their life according to the arts they are doing. I feel very connected and inspired while being with them, talking about matters, that others couldn't care less about.

Thanks a lot for sharing with us your thoughts, Maike: nothing has left to say than asking you about your future plans. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I have nothing on my agenda right now. I just plan on getting lost in my work the second half of the year.

Liedschlag - What it could be, 2013 Installationsview II (big drawing 50 x 56 cm, small drawing 21 x 29 cm) Aquarel and Charcoal on paper

3

Meike Hemmers

4

Peripheral ARTeries

True

Peripheral ARTeries

Sara True (Israel / USA) an artist’s statement

My paintings express the unseen as I explore the Shadow side of reality.

Aided by philosophical examinations of abjection, sublimity and the Real, my work confronts invisible forces excavated from the collective subconscious. I approach each canvas with open intentions, allowing mark making to flow as the painting reveals its own evolution.

Abandoning brush in moments of painterly trance, I scrape paint with a penny, splice through thick color swatches with a pencil, squirt color straight from the tube, blend soft tones with my fingers, smear shades with my whole hand, until patterns flow seamlessly into each other as the movement of the piece evolves.

With bold, vibrant colors reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism, and drawn from the experience of the sensoria of individual environments, my paintings reveal the physical, cultural, emotional, and subtle energies of a specific place in the abstract language of colors and forms. acrylic, wax, blood on canvas, 30'' x 40'' 2012

1

Sara True

2

Sara True

Peripheral ARTeries

an interview with

Sara True Hello Sara, and a warm welcome to Peripheral ARTeries. Let's start this interview with our usual ice breaker question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? And what are in your opinion the distinctive features that marks the contemporariness of a piece?

Thank you. I'm glad to be included. How to define a work of art? I'm not sure an artwork can be conclusively defined anymore. In a post-Duchamp, post-Warhol world, it seems that anything can become art. Small moments, given proper attention, can be considered artworks. Yet there is something vital, I think, in the struggle or process that leads to that moment. Whether the moment is realized in a material artwork or in private ephemerality seems inconsequential, but there is a second component, I think, that defines it as 'art'.

The translation of that moment is also essential; there is an aspect of communication that is key. Effective communication of ideas or emotions marks an artwork's success or failure.

Sara True much have these interesting experiences impacted on the way you produce your art nowadays? Please tell us something about your evolution as an artist and what has lead you to become the artist you are today.

As for the contemporariness of a piece, I think that temporality has unavoidable impact on every work of art, whether intentionally or subconsciously. The present cannot help but assert itself. Every aspect of an artwork- the medium, subject matter, color palette, concept, tone, enactment, display- these are all influenced by the artist's unique position in time. Every work of art created enters a network of conversations with the past, so that each new artwork is in fact the latest enactment of art itself, each creative choice sparking a series of references to other artworks and aspects of culture. People criticize the contemporary art world for being too self-referential, for making arts that are elitist and inaccessible, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to make art that is not universally understood. It is simply a deepening of language; the further one delves into a new language, the more complex and difficult it becomes.

In my travels, I was able to study alongside students from Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Canada, South Africa, Sweden, and Uruguay, among other places. Exposure to so much cultural diversity brings a unique energy to the classroom setting. You never know what is going to stick in your mind- sometimes the most offhanded comment made in passing by a fellow student can influence your entire artistic practice.

With that initial leap from private hobby to legitimate craft, the art is catapulted into the public sphere of the classroom. The artist can become very vulnerable. A different kind of innovative energy emerges when many sets of eyes view a work together, and when different creative minds share their perspective on a single art piece. I have been fortunate enough to have mentors who have encouraged me to trust myself as an artist, to go bigger and bolder, and to be unrestrained. My art is

I would like to ask you something about your background: you hold a BA in Fine Arts that you received from UC Santa Cruz and moreover you have studied abroad at the Hellenic International School of the Arts in Greece, and at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. How

92

Sara True

Peripheral ARTeries

fun fair iii 33" x 70"; acrylic on masonite; 2013

expansive and often appears chaotic; if it was not for the encouragement of teachers and peers I'm not sure I would have had the courage to go to such wild internal spaces.

of a swimming pool, onto warm concrete. This was key to unlocking my latent potential, and I subsequently began to declare myself, loudly, in the shared studio space, painting freely and impulsively on large surfaces with bold palettes.

I have always drawn abstractly, but these were private notes, in a language only I could understand. In painting, I used to work more with symbols and the surreal. Two developments broke open the floodgates of abstraction, so to speak. First, I began to work in a larger studio space, with fellow artists who were unafraid to go big, assert themselves, and take up space. The scale of my work expanded; my pieces became as big as my ideas. Second, a classmate challenged me to do a painting using no white.

Before getting in the matter of your artworks I would like that you tell us something about your creative process and especially about your set up for making your works. In particular, on what technical aspects do you mainly focus in your work?

I tend to get in eddies and floes of working, delving into intensive periods in which I paint every night for weeks, then periods of rest and recoup, in which I catch up with myself. Generally, I like to complete a painting in one extended session, most often late at night. Once the clock hits midnight, things start to become loose; the mind loses its vocality somewhat and the artist becomes open to the subconscious and to intuition. I start with a mark. Or a color, or a strong feeling or impression. But the active side of painting starts with a mark, somewhere in the center of the canvas, usually. Once I have begun, I paint until the entire surface is covered, guided by intuition. One of my painting professors in college was insistent on the fresh-

At the time, I had been reliant on Titanium white as a crutch; seeing patches of gessoed canvas, or softening palettes with lots of Titanium white was calming, and let me feel safe while delving into deep psychological spaces. Taking up her challenge, I did a red painting, with no blank canvas revealed. It surprised me how intimidating a patch of blank canvas could be, but when I covered the final section of unpainted gesso with red, I felt something free inside. Streams of paintings emerged after that; I felt I had pulled myself up to a new level of creation, as one pulls oneself out

93

Peripheral ARTeries

True

Powers of horror, 69" x 36"; acrylic on wood; 2013

ness and vitality of a piece; he would often encourage us to stop, allowing the painting to be a little bit raw. There is a unique headspace one enters; preserving the exact atmosphere of creation for future adjustments is impossible. Acrylic allows me to edit as I paint. Because it is quick-drying, I can create dense histories of mark making in a brief period of time. Between speed and plasticity, I think it is the ultimate contemporary medium- it reflects the values of an increasingly fast-paced world.

For me, the technical aspects of painting are feeling-based; it is my body that conducts my choices. I feel, physically, if an area needs more or less of some color, if the pigments are too saturated, or if a part of the painting needs to be thick, textured, or flat. It is a constant tension between free flowing dance of brush on canvas and thoughtful pauses for consideration of tone, texture, and balance. There is a performative aspect of my artmaking as well. On my large canvases in particular, I sweep the brush across the surface with my whole arm and smudge and blur colors with my fingers, palms, and wrists. I attack the canvas, beating it with brush or palette knife, then soften, letting water drip through splotches of paint.

house of asterion, acrylic on canvas, 36'' x 36'', 20

My perspective shifts often, zooming in on detailed sections rendered with tiny brushes, and back out again, using a large brush or paint rag in gestural motions. Often I turn paintings upside down partway through working on them. Sometimes I turn myself upside down, standing on a stool or chair and painting bent over. The rhythm of the piece accumulates and alters as I compose and intuitively, I know when it is done.

Now let's focus on the works that our reader can admire in these pages: I would start from your work fun fair iii, By the way, does your process let you to visualize your Art before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin?

Paul Klee wrote that “The creation lives as genesis beneath the visible surface

of the work. All intelligent people see this after the fact, but only the creative see it before the fact – in the future.” When I begin a painting, I never know how it is going to end. I can visualize it, but the painting has life of its own; it is my task as artist to allow it to come into its own fruition, to, as effectively as possible, set down paint until the painting has become what it already is. Each moment possesses a latent internal potential. I think it takes a different kind of sight, an internal vision, to let the truth of a painting reveal itself. The

94

Sara True

Peripheral ARTeries

So I started the painting with airy, light colors on a brown masonite backdrop. As the painting progressed, I delved deeper into the delightful terror of the Sublime, attempting to penetrate the overwhelming space of infinity. The Sublime, a philosophical concept examined by Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, deals in vastnesses that our minds can understand but not grasp. The effect, in paint, is quite dizzying. One could stare at the painting for hours and different patterns, shapes, and forms would constantly emerge; the piece never stops moving. Like deja vu, a scent that stirs an undefined memory, or a word that evades the tip of the tongue, the painting is disorienting but familiar; it is the resurgence of the Void and a release of underlying energies. The town I live in now, Santa Cruz, is a beach town tourist trap. There is a certain view of the boardwalk here that is emblematic, for me, of this place.

Overlooking the scene from a cliff, one can see the technicolor exuberance of the boardwalk in all its swirling motion-rides zooming and lights flashing- set amidst the steady rhythm of the tides.

Cutting in front of this view are the traintracks, abandoned and foreboding, with a large sign that reads “Danger: No Trespassing”. Right next to the candy-coated world of the boardwalk is this shadowy part of town, host to drug addicts and

..., menstrual blood on canvas, 6'' x 12'', 2013

13

deeper I enter the space of creation, the more I feel a peculiar disorientation, in which it is no longer my eyes that guide me, but a sight that resides in the center of my head.

homeless. The juxtaposition is striking. “Fun fair iii” emerges from this gap; this space between shadow and light, surface and reality.

I painted it from a state of disorientation; its latent chaos reveals the illusory nature of reality; life as hall of mirrors constantly shifting.

"Fun Fair iii” is a good example of this process. It began with the color palette I often find most beautiful: tan, white, powder blue, periwinkle. Symbolically, these colors represent the 'air' element.

According to the Chinese five elements, air is the color associated with intellect.

Another artworks on which I would like to spend some words are house of asterion and ‫ בלגן‬that our readers have admired in the starting pages. What were your initial inspirations? By the way, could you take our readers through your creative process when starting a new project?

“House of Asterion” is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, a kind of psychological re-imagining of the Greek myth of the labyrinth

95

Peripheral ARTeries

Sara True

and minotaur. For Borges, the labyrinth is a symbol both of womb-like encasement, and of inescapable cage. The labyrinth alludes to the oppressive nature of infinity and the simultaneous entrapment and safety of the mind. My painting depicts a labyrinth thick with symbolism drawn from the story. In the story, for example, every nine years nine men are sacrificed. This translates to the painting with clusters of nine marks spaced nine strokes apart throughout the piece.

The minotaur himself can be seen, loosely rendered in the upper right-hand corner of the painting. In the center, the labyrinth continues, infinitely, with tiny labyrinths depicted inside the center.

All of my artworks serve as a release of intellectual, emotional, or purely physical energy. In " ‫”בלגן‬, colloquial Hebrew for “mess,” I literally drew out internal stresses, physically manipulating energy in a technique similar to reiki or qi gong, but enacted on canvas. The black lines and spiral shapes are a direct release of tangible energy in my body. Like untangling knotted thread, I feel which spaces need to be adjusted and try to open them up subtly, elegantly. The resultant painting is a map, directing energy where to go, and a history, a record of released tension.

Kandinsky has written that “The essence of life is to be sought in a driving force, an incessant impulse that is far more powerful than reason.” This impulse, this urge, is what propels my creations. I feel them as a physical necessity before they are released; the beginning of my creative process is most often a nagging feeling that something is off, that something needs to be confronted in my life. Facing the canvas is like facing myself, wholly and without restraint.

Sometimes I will enter a manic period of creation, in which I release pieces constantly, paint flowing onto as many surfaces as are near. At other times, I approach the canvas more thoughtfully, slowly delineating spaces and shapes. My most successful pieces tend to stem from a particular strong feeling. The art originates internally.

fire level 5, acrylic on wood, 28'' x 37'', 2013

well, chronicling chapters of my life as structured by various failed romantic and sexual entanglements. This piece, “....”, emerged from my anger at the suppression of women's voices and bodies. Aspects of female physicality that ought to be honored are denied and shamed. The 'Lolita' syndrome is rampant; thirteen-year-old girls seem to epitomize the perfect male fantasy. Tampons are a material metaphor that literally shuts up the flow of life that is inherent to female life. In acupuncture, blood carries the emotions.

'Successful' women in the contemporary business world are still forced to conform to male standards, silencing the flow of blood and shutting up the release of emotions in order to be practical, logical, to get ahead. As sexual objects, young women are denied their adulthood, pressurized

And we couldn't do without mentioning your stimulating piece entitled "…." that as we can read on the captions, has been realized with menstrual blood on canvas. It has me reminded the pieces of the British artist Marc Quinn...

In terms of materiality, Marc Quinn's blood sculptures are certainly relevant, but I think conceptually the piece comes from a more similar place to the works Miranda July, Lena Dunham, Marina Abramovic, or, especially, Tracey Emin.

These female artists are bold in their artmaking; they confront the world with the sad, sweet, and often messy realities of womanhood. My poetry comes from this place as

96

Sara True

Peripheral ARTeries

Can you tell us a little about this feature? By the way, any comments on your choice of palette or how it has changed over time?

It's wonderfully curious that certain aspects of paintings emerge in the eyes of certain viewers. The red paint hadn't occurred to me as particularly remarkable until you highlighted it. At a certain point, I stop being able to really see the paintings- this is why peer reviews and critiques are so essential. What can I say about this piece? It was a hot day, I felt fire inside. With the orange, I wanted to try something different. I intentionally bought colors that I would never typically use- Pyrrole Orange, Phthalo Turquoise, Dioxazine Purple- colors that I would prefer to mix myself. I think, as an artist, it is important to try opposites, to do things in ways you would never expect of yourself.

I remember the first time I painted over a finished piece; it was terrifying and completely liberating. Being open to change and challenges keeps the artworks from becoming too precious. But then there is something to be said as well for taking the work seriously; there is a strong interplay in my works between destruction and creation, destruction being part of the creative process. The first mark I make on a blank canvas destroys the purity, the innocence, of the sheer white. But in destroying the whiteness, it allows a new painting to emerge. In this way the act of painting resembles the natural life cycle: death fosters growth, decay leads to birth. My palette is heavily influenced by nature.

The world outside manifests internally in me; my emotional thermometer is calibrated to the feel of the seasons, the cycles of the sun and moon, the time of day. Summer paintings, lately, have featured heavy, smokey palettes; lots of yellow ochres, burnt siennas, violent purples, and stark umbers. Oppressive heat characterizes my days, so heavy yellows saturate my palette. Physical location effects my color choices as well: in Israel I incorporated dusty blues and sandy tans; evidence that I was painting in the desert. In Greece, meanwhile, the colors of the sea and of Mediterranean sunsets crept into my work. Spatial location is key to my color choices, while the motions and patterns are a direct expression of my internal self.

by media conditioning to remain girlish and naive in order to bait male desires.

Meanwhile, sterile white museum walls display holy relics; canvases portraying sensuous, idealized pillars of Beauty, embodied in the female form as understood and depicted by and for the male gaze. I bleed on the canvas, giving voice to the physical. This act elevates the abject substance from its place in the cultural shadows. By 'profaning' the canvas, I redefine what it means to be woman, and woman artist. Occasionally, my art functions as soapbox; in this case I declare that women must be allowed to bleed.

As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statement, your paintings draw directly from their environment; the physical, cultural, emotional, and subtle energies of a specific place are translated into abstract gestures of color and form.

Personally, I'm sort of convinced that sometimes environment hides informations which -even though are not "encrypted" need to be deciphered. Do you

A visual of fire level 5, an interesting and recent artwork of yours, that has impacted on me is the red paint flooding downwards.

97

Peripheral ARTeries

Sara True

think that one of the role of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of environment or of our society? By the way, what could be one of the role of a an artist these times?

Yes, I certainly do. A large part of what informs the artist's sensibility is an awareness of external factors; subtle details that other people might miss. I think it is why there exists the stereotype of the tormented genius; the artist's experience of reality is deeper than the average perception, so there is a disconnect between layers of reality. The artist can serve as a sort of metaphysical anthropologist, investiga-ting the Real. I have recently been exploring the ideas of Lacan, who talks about 'the Real' as the immutable entity of self that supersedes the symbolic and encompasses all differences. Lacan's theory is that once the adolescent youth first encounters his or her image in the mirror, the youth enters the world of symbolic differentiation, in which language holds sway. Subsequently the Real can only be experienced as traumatic gaps in the accepted order of things, often provoked by confrontations with death, as in natural disasters. So the Real is the space of Selfhood before boundaries. Willingly, I explore the space of the Real in my paintings, revealing underlying infinities at play. I do think it is important that artists be willing to confront realities, or to provoke viewers into confrontation.

Historically, art has often been the precursor to revolution or radical change. It is one reason art is so marginalized in consumer society; it cannot be effectively cordoned off into appropriate categories.

fun fair i; 47"x47"x67"; acrylic on wood; 2013

A major shift in the history of human occurred when oral storytelling gave sway to the prevalence of the written word. Now, with modern technology, physical movements and images are translated into instant written records. Dance, face, and gesture are becoming written languages. Soon, I believe, they will encompass the symbolic structures of language. So we move on, we evolve to the next most direct form of communication. Which, in this case, is energy, and the transfer of it. And that brings us back to science, and the scientific mindset.

I do think there is still a dichotomy, insofar as the approach differs; science still relies largely on logic, while art is often more spontaneous.

Another aspect of your work that I particularly like is the synergy between apparently different fields, and this is evident especially in Timepiece, where are recognizable references to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Do you think that nowadays there still exists a dichotomy between art and Science?

By the way, I would go as far as to say that in a way Science is assimilating Art and viceversa... what's your point about this?

But studies have revealed the importance of intuition in scientific discovery; one can think of Archimedes's “Eureka� moment of discovery while in the bath. There is a separate logic at play in painting, and distinct modes of rational analysis that still apply. So I think they are different fields, but both relevant and influential to each other. The information revealed by both emerging arts and new sciences enter into the cultural consciousness from which both are drawn; through these networks of significance artists draw from scientific materials, and scientists realize artistic concepts.

Besides producing visual artworks, you are also a poet: I would suggest to our readers to visit saratruewords.weebly.com.Nowadays

When I use words like 'evolution' and 'energy' to describe artmaking, it is clear that there is overlap between disciplines. I think, essentially, every aspect of life can be boiled down to energy. This is a distinctly contemporary scientific viewpoint. Modern physics has opened up new modes of perception that were previously evident only in religion. But I think that we are continuously apprehending the increasing complexity of things

98

13

Sara True

Peripheral ARTeries

there is an increased interest in spoken word poetry and performance. How do you prefer your poetry to be read?

By the way, your work seems to bridge a number of disciplines. Do you consider yourself a post-disciplinary artist?

I usually write with printed text in mind; poetry is partially a visual experience, in which spacing dictates time. I think it is a slow art. It is an art that lends itself well to sharing, so long as a reader takes time with each thought, savoring the flavor of each word. On a radio interview the other day, I heard a writer comment that poetry captures the spirit of reality. I think it also reveals the essence of words, but it is an art form that requires slowness in order to understand its subtleties and nuances. Like bittersweet chocolate, or fine tea, poetry evades the obvious immediacy of, say, advertising slogans, or some other highly accessible wordplay.

I have always been a poet; my mother is a writer and I am proud to have inherited the writing gene from her. And I have always been a visual artist- when I was a child I spent hours drawing, constructing shoebox theaters, and staging avant garde plays featuring tiny porcelain animals. Rather than a post-disciplinary artist, I think of myself as a complex creative being. Different creative outlets fill different visceral needs. Curiosity fuels me: I am artistexplorer, artist-thinker. At core, I am a wanderer, a nomad. When I don't travel physically, I explore mentally, or socially; this continuous metamorphosis is evident in my art. Maybe it is a postmodern conception of progress, the notion of constant change, but I think it actually hearkens back to an intrinsic wildness latent in humanity.

untitled; acrylic on masonite; 26" x 26"; 2013 Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us, Sara. What's next for you?

Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Thank you! In the next coming months I will continue to paint, explore, and write. I'm looking into various residency programs in Japan, so there may be more travels in the near future.

Poet Gary Snyder determines wildness as “the deep universal process of self-management, selfpropagation, self-organization that's characteristic of absolute reality,” in 'wild' time, we constantly recalibrate ourselves to our surroundings. Perhaps I am post-disciplinary, but in my view, I simply make art. I don't think this is different from what artists have been doing for a long time.

In the meantime, my video art will be shown at Public Screen, a video art exposition in Cairo, Egypt. (http://issuu.com/yaramekawei/docs/public_screen) My artwork will also be included in 'Abandoned Europe', and upcoming exhibition hosted by http://www.alexsolodov-art.com. Additionally, an article about my process piece, entitle “Timepiece”, which you've mentioned, will be featured in Serendipity magazine (http://magserendipity.blogspot.com). I will continue to update my website: (http://saratrueart.com ) as well as my poetry site (saratruewords.weebly.com), so more information and updates can be found there.

I express things in the method that calls to me; because we live in a fast-paced society, I have more options as to how. Immersed in the continuous present, I can do more in the time given me.

peripheral_arteries@dr.com

99