CREATIVPAPER Magazine
Vol 2
Issue 014
Welcome
If there is one thing that we have learnt in 2019, that is creating under stress is never a good idea. Not only are you in a vicious cycle of self-sabotage, it can also take a toll on your physical health and everyone around you. It is in times like this that you have to take a step back to look at the bigger picture. Impart a stoic approach to the obstacles in front of you. Is this something you can control? If not all you can do is focus on controlling your emotions and their outcome. This, as we all know, is easier said than done. Never underestimate the impact of your mental health on creativity. Harness those dark moments, transfer them on to paper, canvas, glass or earth. Whatever your medium may be. The artists we have worked with in this issue have all pushed through these strenuous moments and come through victorious, stronger and more resilient than before. We hope you enjoy browsing through the pages of this issue and remember, no matter how impossible things may be, you are never alone, and there is a solution on the horizon, failures are only different outcomes and new beginnings. Its all a matter of perception. CreativPaper
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Contents
06 GILBERT SALINAS 12 JASMINE FARROW 20 HIROMI KAWANO 24 MARCEL BASTIAANS 30 DAVID CURTIS 36 JOSEFINA TEMIN 40 CLARE SMITH 46 MICHAEL GOULDING 52 MANUEL TAINHA 56 DARIO YAMAMOTO ANGEL 62 JESSICA ALARZRAKI 64 IMAI ATSUSHI 68 HANNA SUPETRAN
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Cover Artist
GILBERT SALINAS gilbertsalinas.com
Growing up in beautiful Puerto Rico, artist Gilbert Salinas was moved by the environment he was surrounded by. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities with a concentration in Fine Arts from the University of Puerto Rico. Since then, Gilbert has had his work showcased both in his home country and internationally. A frequent participant of international art fairs, one of his pieces was recently shortlisted by the Saatchi Gallery in London to be showcased digitally on the Saatchi screen. Gilbert is fascinated by the ageing surfaces of the planet and the patina that time leaves behind. Another key area of interest is the conscience, instincts and complexities of human beings. He believes that by studying these processes, we can get a better understading of our reality and how they began.
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Above: Untitled 4, Mixed Media on Wood, 42” x 30”, 2018
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Above: Untitled 2, Mixed Media on Wood, 36” x 30”, 2017
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Above: Untitled 1, Mixed Media on Wood, 38” x 28”, 2017
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Above: Tropical Erosion 69, Mixed Media on Canvas, 48” x 60”, 2018
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Above: Tropical Erosion 4, Mixed Media on Paper, 46” x 42”, 2016
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Interview
JASMINE FARROW jasminefarrowart.com
Artist Jasmin Farrow’s fascinated with layers developed early during her time at The University of Sunderland where she studied art, design, video and photography. Her interest in layers transcends the physical and into the realm of narrative and meaning. Initially drawn into art via surrealism she also found inspiration in modern art with which she drew parallels to her ideologies. She was also passionate about music and sound and how it could be incorporated with moving or static images to add another dimension for the viewer. In 2012 she became very ill with M.E and was bed bound for almost a year. Eventually, Jasmin began to paint and create again; In our conversation with her, she talks about M.E, it’s public perception and the impact it has had on her and the joys of spending time in nature.
When you start working on a piece, do you have an idea about how many layers you would like to incorporate or is it an organic process? The majority of the time my process is an entirely organic one. Each layer informs the next, and it is a reactionary chain of events that build up over time. Often once the painting has reached a particular stage, or the structure seems defined and congruent with the feeling I want to portray, I usually proceed more cautiously and definitely to ensure all the elements I want are there and in harmony. There are occasions where I have a plan from the start though, and I plan each layer to create a specific effect or to try out an idea.
Could you be kind enough to share your experience with overcoming M.E through art? I wouldn’t say I have overcome M.E. through art. I still have M.E. It is more a case of my illness bringing me back to my path as an artist. I Studied art at University, and it was a massive part of my life, but everything went in a different direction when I left and had to get a job etc. Back then Universities didn’t give you any business advice or tell you how to use your artistic skills apart from perhaps becoming an art teacher and waiting to be discovered! The internet was not what it is today, and I had no access to a computer anyway. When I got ill I spent almost two years bed-bound, I couldn’t even roll over or lift a drink to my 12
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mouth. I had to sit in darkness because of light sensitivity. All I could do was think and sleep. I had a lot of time to think about my life and what I wished I had done with it. Art was something I missed so much. As soon as I was able, I had small amounts of internet time with the screen turned down low and one of the things I did was look at art. I found myself particularly moved by certain pieces of abstract art, which was a genre I hadn’t really paid much attention to before I was ill. It all suddenly made sense to me. I had something to focus on and made plans about what I would do if I were ever well enough to start painting again. It gave me hope. Eventually, after a few years, I was able to make things and paint and draw from my bed. Then in 2016, my partner made our little spare room into an art room for me, and I was able to paint sitting down at an easel in short bursts. When I wasn’t painting, I was thinking about painting. I haven’t looked back since. So if it weren’t for becoming ill, I would have never started painting again. Now I can’t imagine my life without art. What are the common societal challenges that people with M.E face in your opinion? I could honestly talk for hours about this subject as it is so complicated and involves so many things and people. When you are diagnosed with M.E./CFS, the problem starts there! They call it a black box diagnosis. People who have conditions which involve chronic fatigue as a key symptom and where the Doctor is stumped all end up in the same box. Many people are misdiagnosed and may actually have things like limes disease etc. The illness CFS doesn’t even exist for one thing. M.E. used to have its own set of diagnostic criteria (you don’t need to have fatigue as a primary symptom in actual M.E.), this was all laid out and
studied years ago but was then turned upside down by another Doctor who had his agenda. The diagnosis part is essential because to treat appropriately you need to know what you’re dealing with. Because people diagnosed with M.E. have various diseases, it becomes very muddy and hazardous. For example, there has been a lot of talk about ‘lightening therapy’. Many people with M.E. say it has helped them, but for many, it destroys their lives and makes them much worse and in severe cases, people have died through being forced to do specific treatments. The only treatments offered to M.E. patients are a graded exercise which is known to be extremely dangerous to people with actual M.E. and CBT which is a treatment usually used for mental health conditions. M.E. is not a mental health condition. It is a neurological one which affects every part of the physical body from the heart to the brain, eyes and the immune system. There has been such a stigma around the illness for years, even in the medical community where people have doubted it is an actual disease and that it is all in mind. Now this debate is over, but the smoke remains, and it affects millions of people all over the world who have their lives completely taken away from them and are left alone in the darkness, literally. Ignored by the medical world, misunderstood and mistrusted by society. I am aware that I am a fortunate person to have become well enough to do what I do at the moment. I never take a second for granted, and I have to pace myself and be so careful with what I spend every ounce of precious energy on. I know I can relapse at any moment if I over exert myself in any way. Overexertion for someone with M.E. can mean something as simple as having a bath when you feel too exhausted to really, or having a conversation with a friend for too long. 15
Finally, there are very slow, but definite signs of progress and I would recommend the film ‘UNREST’ to anyone who wants to try to understand the illness and the struggle behind it. Also looking up The Hummingbird Foundation for M.E. (hfme. org) as that has the best and most accurate information I have found on the web for actual M.E. If you could describe Jasmine in three layers, what would they be? This is such a hard question! I think the first layer would be the introverted observer and gatherer of information. I find (and seek) beauty and poetry everywhere, and I enjoy seeing both symbolic and literal meaning in simple things. The second layer is my analytical side where I try to make sense of the things I have learned. I am a chronic over-thinker and am continually processing. I think about things from every angle I can, joining up dots, questioning things. The third layer would be my creative side. I need a way to express all of the processed information I have gathered. If I don’t use and expel it creatively in some way, it can all get too much. Painting is my primary way of doing this, but I also love writing songs/music or writing in general. Could you talk us through some of the artists that have had a profound influence on your creativity? Number one would have to be Salvador Dali. His work was what inspired me when I was young and got me excited about what art could be. His ‘Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach’ was the first picture I saw of his in an art book. I would always go back to it. I always liked art with a dark or surreal edge really, regardless of whether it was literature, film, music, theatre or art. I am a big David Lynch fan and grew up reading Struwwelpeter and Brothers Grimm, and I found that those things influenced my early art. More recently though, my love is definitely for
certain abstract painters and abstract expressionists. I enjoy Cy Twombly’s work and Perle Fine etc. I am hugely inspired by my contemporary’s such as Sammy Peters, Margaret Glew, Leah Thiessen, Matteo Cassina, Rob Szot and Todd Clark. Would you say that the internet has made it easier for you to get your art and message out into the world? For me, the internet is absolutely crucial. I wouldn’t be able to do it any other way. Because of my illness, It is hard for me to get out and physically go to galleries and fairs and exhibitions and to be part of the local art scene. I struggle with dates and times to be places as I have no idea how I will feel at any given time. The internet has meant I can sell from my website and communicate with other artists and galleries that way. Social media is an excellent thing for networking and putting my work out there, and I can do things at my own pace and on my terms. I have some work in a local gallery, and I have still never been there. It was all done through emails. Plus I have learned so much about the business side of art too through various talks and podcasts which has been great and also have found YouTube great inspiration for everything from learning about other artists and how they work to finding inspirational talkers like Gary Vaynerchuk for those days when you need a good talking too. What message are you trying to convey through your work? My work used to be all about the message, often hidden meanings etc. Since being ill and moving over to the abstract side of things my focus is on merely expelling everything I have observed and stored inside. It is genuinely like using a new l anguage to explain all of these feelings and emotions and thoughts when there are no words. M.E. makes processing information a whole new ball game. 16
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I sometimes struggle to find words and expressing myself because my brain kind of shuts down. Sometimes I struggle to understand what people are saying even though I recognise the language. When I have days like that my art is more important than ever because it can be very frustrating when you don’t have a voice that people can understand. When there are no words, there are colours and ways of moving paint around that help me to express myself, even if all I want to convey is beauty itself.
the days when I can’t get out myself. I also enjoy making videos, especially editing, so it is nice to make some gentle films of the sights and sounds of the beautiful Norfolk Broads where I am lucky enough to live. END
What is Jasmine’s favourite thing to do after a long day in the studio? My favourite thing to do when not in the studio is getting out into nature. I find it so peaceful and sometimes get quite overwhelmed by how immense it all is. I have such a new found love for the outside after being stuck in the house for so many years. It does make me feel alive. I love photography so it provides an opportunity to take pictures of the outside to look at on 18
Artist Feature
HIROMI KAWANO opato.info
Based in Tokorozawa near Tokyo, artist and illustrator Hiromi Kawano converts her everyday commute into an art form. Capturing elements and combining exposures of what she comes across every day with organic images. Juxtapositioning the hustle of Tokyo with the stillness of nature. A balance that her home country is renowned for. Not limiting herself to a single medium, Hiromi is also an accomplished illustrator, regularly working on commercial and personal projects. You can find out more about her work via her website below.
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Above: Winter, 2019
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Above: Continuation, 2019
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Above: In the Station, 2019
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Interview
MARCEL BASTIAANS marcelbastiaans.com
Born in Arnhem, The Netherlands, artist Marcel Bastiaans started to paint at the young age of eight. His current work is both playful and full of colour. Mostly figurative and often experimental. One of the highlights of his career was the visit of Her Majesty, Royal Highness Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands at his exhibition in Hannover, Germany. His work is also archived in The National State Library, Dresden, Germany. Through his career, Marcel has worked with notable brands such as Bugatti and Lamborghini. But, its always the passion that takes centre stage for Marcel, as he tells us in our interview with him. If you are passionate about what you do and give it your all, everything else falls into place.
Could you tell us a bit about the term ‘Emotional Realism’ and its context to your work? Emotion is the base, the matrix of my paintings. The works are realistic in one way or another. Mostly figurative. In a playful combination with the abstract. Dynamic, including a hidden message or messages. I discovered that I had to listen to my feelings and emotions and work from there. And to control and research my thoughts. Painting ‘from within’ gave me the opportunity to be even more authentic. It’s just me and nothing else or nobody else. So my work became recognisable in an authentic fashion. The hidden messages could be created symbolically. Like the phrase ‘I AM’. It’s about being content with yourself and
appreciating yourself. A kind of self-love and self-appreciation. Not in a selfish or narcissistic way though. Being kind to yourself so that you can be good and worthy to others. Or the birds. They are my symbols for living in the present. Not worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. ‘Emotional Realism’. You’ve worked with some notable brands, could you give our readers some advice on how to approach companies that they may have an interest in working with? Those brands have always approached me. I never contacted them first. They approach me. I believe that when being authentic as a result of doing what you love and loving the way you do things, success comes automatically.
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Above: Robin
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Above: The Sea
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Above: I love Einstein
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Above: Sparrow
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It isn’t about How to succeed, but more why you want to succeed? Also not how to approach, but to question yourself why you want to approach? And be honest with your answers. So, I think that having faith in yourself and your work, thinking positively and believing in prosperity in all its forms, that is the key. When you are not convinced about yourself and your art, why should others? It is a choice; I am for sure. When you decide to be yourself (and not a copy of somebody else), appreciate yourself and your work and love what you do, you will attract people and all the things and miracles that match with and belong to this kind of positive energy.
layers. About layers. I work in thin layers. Sometimes 30 layers. And I play with these layers. To enhance the experience in the painting. I am just playing anyway. I have never worked. Just playing and having big fun in my studios. Full of wondering and amazement. It’s marvellous. I think that this is also the key to my success. It is doing what I love. Painting in my studio in The Netherlands, or on Ibiza island, Lesbos island and of course on one of my most favourite locations, Manhattan island New York. The process of painting for me is a fairytale with no end. I have a couple of yards in front of me as sight, not knowing where to end. I see the process as creating whipped cream. Whipping too long turns cream into butter. Then you have probably killed your painting. You have to follow your intuition, to feel when to stop in time, so it stays whipped cream.
And listen to your intuition. Especially when you wake up in the very morning or going to sleep at night! Write it down and come into In all your years as an artist, was there a action first thing in the morning! moment of self-doubt? Yes. Occasionally. Not about my work so What are you currently working on? much but more about my intended goals. I am busy with my new 3D-paintings I can’t The insight came when I realised that I had tell you much about at the moment. already reached several goals I had to be The effect carries the inner experience, grateful for and that some intended goals which goes with my paintings, to the next were probably not so good for me. Or level at warp speed. It is fantastic and maybe not meant to be. Or are upcoming at sometimes quite mindblowing. the right moment. Who knows. It made me more relaxed and gave me more faith. That The premiere was at the BUGATTI factory everything is all right and that everything is where the rich and famous couldn’t believe meant to be and everything has a purpose. what they saw. It shows a tiny bit of what is happening in my head. In my universe. I think that it is not What you experience in Lots of experimenting and loads of this life, but what you Do with these patience. Starting at 6:30 in the morning experiences. Are you a victim or are you a and squeezing two working-days in one participant in your own life! I have learned day. to embrace every moment. And to remain a child. And check my thoughts. What comes first, the concept or the process? What was Marcel’s favourite board game The concept. It drops into my mind. It growing up? suddenly appears out of the blue. I am Ludo! And checkers. END always searching for other ways to create my art. It will always be me, from me, from within, but in different stages. Different 29
Artist Feature
DAVID CURTIS
davidecurtisart.weebly.com A resident of the Falls Church area in Virginia for over fifty years, artist David Curtis has showcased his work across Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia in both solo and group shows. His current pieces create dialogue around a post-apocalyptic world, rejuvenating itself from the ruins of the current one. A primordial soup teeming with prehistoric life amongst familiar surroundings. Further themes of history, religion, literature and philosophy populate his artistic vision. Organic in its evolution, David’s work usually starts with a vague concept and lets the painting dictate its next stages using strata of symbolism. He currently keeps a studio open to the public at Jefferson Street Artists in Falls Church, Virginia.
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Above: Eyes Wide Shut, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x 24”, 2018
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Above: Grasping For Breath, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x 24”, 2018
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Above: Trickle-Down School, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2018
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Above: The Blind Eating The Blind, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2018
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Above: Is Anemone Out There?, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2018
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Artist Feature
JOSEFINA TEMIN josefinatemin.com
As artists, the medium we pick can often say a lot about who we are. For artist Josefina Temin. Her choices of paper, steel and space give her multi-dimensional options. She considers paper like a second skin, gentle, pure and warm. The complete opposite to steel which allows her to work in larger scales. The combination of the two present endless possibilities for her to express herself creatively. A perfect unison of both feminine and masculine mediums working on harmony.
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Interview
CLARE SMITH studio308ltd.co.uk
Co-founder of the Dover Arts Development, artist Clare Smith lives and works in Dover, England. Coming from a household with English and Chinese heritage, Clare is well versed with the different cultures she was exposed to growing up, using them as reference points in her work. A childhood regularly spent moving also gave her a fluctuating relationship with space. The tactility in her pieces is a testament to her passion for creating using her hands. Drawing, print media and collage are some of the mediums that she incorporates in her practice. We had a brief conversation with Clare where she touches on various topics such as the unity between humanity and nature, her current projects and the future of the art industry.
What are your thoughts on tactility in the creative process? Tactility is very important to my practice: I like to handle the materials I use and the contact with the paper in printmaking is something that is an integral part of my process – there is something real about rubbing the print with the Japanese baren or my hands. I often use the materials I use to create the marks. When working digitally with video on a project, as well as collecting the footage, I find it essential to work physically at the same time, and I usually include references to the physical work and or the process of making in my videos. So I’ll have glimpses of drawings in progress or images of the drawings themselves. Tactility is about a connection with the physical world and, in a way, is about
making the work not only about the image. It is a form of resistance in a world dominated by screen-based flatness, and I think the viewer can feel the difference in the pressure and time that produces the marks. There is something about being present and alive when making physical work. One of the reasons I often use a GoPro or action camera in my videos is to try to convey an embodied sense of space and bring a haptic or sensory experience to the viewing of the image on a flat screen. There is a certain subtlety and balance in your work that reminds us of oriental art, could you tell us a bit about that? I was surrounded by oriental art as a child and have pieces at home that have been given to me by my parents – my mother is Chinese, and my father enjoyed collecting pieces when we lived in Indonesia.
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Above: Will you walk with me?, Akua inks on Xuan paper 42.5 x 31 cm, 2017
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Above: All in Green, Akua inks on Xuan Paper, 61 x 59 cm, 2017
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Antique traders used to call at the house, and he often would buy a piece of porcelain, but also rougher Kitchen Ming, which I really like. We also had scrolls and embroideries as well as Persian carpets. I think I absorbed all these influences, but when I studied at art school in Canterbury, I had no idea how to incorporate them without being too overt about the references. It was when I went into a Chinese bookshop and picked up some paper that I started to experiment with using oriental materials, like Chinese paper or Japanese watercolours and Chinese inks. I also use other water-based inks as they give me some of the subtle qualities I am looking for. The materials have their own voice; they speak and influence the kind of work I make. It has taken me a while to free up my way of working to allow the influences to flow naturally into the work and I think this is partly to do with a change of subject matter – namely a focus on gardens and cultivated nature. Your latest work explores the unity between humanity and nature. How can we all strive for a better balance between us and the planet? As human beings we are apparently descended from a one-cell organism, together with all other species, so we are connected, and if we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. We need what we call nature as our shadow, but maybe nature will get us before we manage to destroy it.
I see the act of gardening as one of making time, tending, caring, nurturing, accepting and also arranging and curating, much like making art. Perhaps we can learn from that. Could you tell us a bit about your nomadic childhood and how it affected your creativity? My father’s job with the British Council took him to many different countries – Malaya (now Malaysia), Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia and even the UK. This meant boarding school for my sister and me and frequent journeying back and forth during the school holidays. I was fortunate to go to a school that encouraged the arts and went at a time when the art teacher encouraged a very free approach – we didn’t all have to draw or paint the same still life at the same time or learn perspective! I spent as much time as I could in the art room. The frequent travelling was unsettling and destabilising, and I developed a very ambivalent relationship to place, never feeling I had any roots. Art became a refuge, a place where I find a kind of reconciling of my mixed heritage and a sense of identity.
What are you working on at the moment? I am one of ten artists in residence commissioned through Art in the Park: Kearsney Interpreted, a project delivered by But my work is not so much about Dover District Council in partnership with nature, but instead about the spaces where Dover Arts Development and funded by humans, life, architecture, art and design Arts Council England. My residency project interact and about the labour – often hidden is a video, Watercress and Daffodils, which - that takes place in those spaces. Gardens explores the parallels between the seem to me to be a place where humanity structural laying bare of Russell Gardens as and nature come together to create a it is about to undergo a major restoration cultivated or cultural space in which neither project as part of the Council’s Heritage nature nor humanity can entirely dominate. lottery-funded Kearsney Parks project 43
and the revelation of a personal story connected to Kearsney Court Gardens, of which Russell Gardens was once an integral part. The gardens were designed by the Edwardian landscape architect, Thomas H. Mawson (1861-1933).
What are Clare’s goals for the next six-months? To stay as well as possible and start a new video and drawing project about gardens as ecologies of care. END
The video’s first public screening was in March 2019 in Dover’s Silver Screen cinema, and I am making a book to accompany it, though it will also stand on its own as a separate product of the residency. I am also preparing for a group exhibition in September with a collective called White Noise Projects. How do you think the art industry will evolve in the next few years? I don’t know, but I’d like to think it will be less competitive and I hope that the art industry becomes less separate from other industries and is seen as essential to the development of other disciplines. I’d like to see the definition of art as a soft skill that is “not academic” disappear! Is it easy for you to find a balance between aesthetics and meaning in your work? I don’t think I consciously make that distinction: the meaning has to derive from the experience of the work and aesthetics – i.e. the judgement as to whether the work is beautiful – seem to me to be partly dependent on cultural context. For example, how the Chinese judge the form and beauty of rocks for their gardens is culturally specific. Materials, intent, form need to interconnect to create meaning – perhaps the balance is about integrating contradictory sensory experiences to create a kind of identity that comes through the work – a balance of feeling and emotion as well as form.
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Above: Watercress and Daffodils (still), Video, 2019
Above: It was already too late (Still), Video, 2018
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Artist Feature
MICHAEL GOULDING gouldingphotography.com
The popularity of black and white photography can be found in its simplicity. It strips away a veneer of colour and distraction, allowing the viewer to focus on the finer details in an image. Colours, although great to see often detract our attention. Photographer Michael Goulding celebrates the beauty of the female form and spirit. Shooting exclusively in monochrome, he invites the viewer to discover something new with each viewing. Drawing them into the familiar yet abstract world that he has created. His high contrast images force the viewer to tune in on the interplay of light and shadow as well as textural detail, a single line of light or shadow, completely transforming the end result.
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Above: Luna XXXIV, Film Capture (35 mm), 11” x 14” (16” x 20” framed), 2016 Next Page: Michelle V, Film Capture (35 mm), 14” x 11” (20” x 16” framed), 2013
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Above: Amy XLIII, Film Capture (35 mm), 11” x 14” (16” x 20” framed), 2011 Opposite: Aileen LXIV, Digital Capture, 11” x 14” (16” x 20” framed), 2018
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Studio Visit
MANUEL TAINHA @manueltainha
During our time in the beautiful city of Lisbon earlier this year we were lucky enough to spend some time with Portuguese artist Manuel Tainha. He was kind enough to invite us to his studio which had some incredible views of the city. Bathed in the warm light of the Lisbon sun, his workspace was warm and welcoming, scattered with an array of materials and textures. This was very much a working studio. Manuel talked us through the inspiration for some of his pieces and the importance that bleach and soap played in his childhood, culture and work. You can find out more about Manuel and his work via the link below.
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Interview
DARIO YAMAMOTO ANGEL @ dyangel69
As a young child artist Dario Yamamoto Angel was fascinated by the works of the masters, Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and countless others had perfected the art of not only capturing the human form but the essence and emotion of the subjects they used. Growing up in Mexico City in the 1980’s Dario was exposed to a plethora of colours, shapes and sounds. His artistic family was an organic place for Dario to explore his creativity. His current work revolves around incorporating dance movements into the forms of trees in collaboration with the ballet dancer Mariana Omaña and contemporaneous dancer Irma Monterrubio
Growing up in Mexico City in the ’70s and ’80s, what did your exposure to the art world consist of? I was born in Mexico City in May 1969 and lived there until 1998. Even though I became a Chemical Metallurgical Engineer, I started drawing since I can remember. My Japanese grandfather, my father and my two sisters, were/are Graphic Designers. Besides, my mother was always learning and doing handcrafts such as knitting, sewing and making decorative things. I was surrounded by colours, papers, canvas, oil, pastels, art books, pictures, museums, pencils, brushes, paintings, etc., so that, I started drawing and painting trying to imitate what my grandfather and father had created over the years. The reviews and tips have always been there for me, so it has helped me to develop and improve my
skills. What is it about the human form that keeps you coming back for more in your work? Since I was a little kid, it amazed me how great artists such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael, Rembrandt and many others, were able to reproduce the human figure in such a fantastic way. But most importantly, they were able to capture the essence and feeling of the people they painted. In my paintings, I’m always trying to communicate feelings and sensations. That is why dancing artists are still part of my paintings. They communicate feelings and sensations not only with their facial expressions but with their movements and the tension and extension of their muscles. 56
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As an artist, do you think it is important to explore different techniques and mediums? Doing so is essential. By experimenting with different techniques, artists can discover new ways to express and communicate their ideas and messages. Every technique and medium has something that can make your artworks shift and can give you so many routes to walk from one emotional state to another. That way, oil gives you the flow of a brushstroke and watercolour gives you accuracy because of the drying time. We believe you will be taking part in the Tokyo Art Fair this year, could you tell us a bit more about that? Yes, of course. I have been invited to participate in the “Tokyo, Shibuya Station Exhibition” which coincides with the Tokyo Art Fair, organised by the Contemporary Art Station Organization. Contemporary Art Station, based in London and Tokyo, is a platform for emerging and established artists to make it easy and affordable to
show their works to the big-scale public through installations and exhibitions in public spaces. The exhibition will turn the Tokyo based underground railway station into an art exhibition, displaying the artwork printed in a B1 poster in the official billboard spaces. The ’Shibuya Station Exhibition’ offers a great opportunity for artists to showcase their works in front of an estimated 2.4 million commuters each day during a week. The posters will be on display at the tube station from March 5 to March 11, 2019. The exhibits will be located beside the ceramic mural ‘Kira Kira Shibuya’ by Koji Kinutani, created in 2008. The exhibition will be a fantastic marketing opportunity for all artists, since its duration coincides with the Tokyo Art Fair period (between March 7-10, 2019), which attracts thousands of art lovers, collectors and gallerists to the station while on their way to the Fair.
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Shibuya Station is located in Shibuya, Tokyo, and handles on average 2.4 million passengers on weekdays as per 2014 data. This makes it the fourth busiest commuter rail station in Japan and the world. The station connects the centre of the city and suburbs to the south and west regions. Only 42 artists were accepted to participate in this exhibition, and I have been one of the accepted ones. Could you tell us a bit about your current hometown of Queretaro, Mexico? Queretaro City is one of the most beautiful cities in Mexico. Located in the centre of the country, Queretaro was founded in 1823 with a Spanish colonial style with an amazing and colossal aqueduct made from pink stones. Several baroque style buildings stand out such as the Santa Rosa de Viterbo Church, the ochre colour San Francisco Temple, the main square, the ancient convent and the Regional Museum. The city is considered a Humanity Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO
since 1996 and has become the 4th Center of Aerospace Activities in the world due to its industrial and economic growth. It is the 1st tourist destination without a beach and the 7th nationwide with more than two million visitors every year. What are the unique challenges you face as a modern artist? It has always been a challenge for all artists to make a living from art. For me, like many others, I have to work as an Aerospace Auditor and Instructor so I can afford to paint. On the other hand, the variety of art styles makes it complicated to find people who like your work. However, since, I appeared in the “Important World Artists Vol. 3” publication in 2018, I have been invited to participate in different exhibitions all over the world such as Amsterdam, Germany, Vienna, New York, Tokyo and of course my participation in the “CreativPaper Magazine” published in the UK.
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How does Dario unwind after a long day in the studio? After a long day painting, I usually like to relax by taking a long walk, having dinner in a restaurant in my beautiful and peaceful neighbourhood or just by sitting at the backyard of my house and enjoying the magnificent sunsets of Queretaro.
and seizes the essence of the emotional and physical experience of women with a profound sensitivity.” END
I will also be participating in an exhibition in New York at the Amsterdam Whitney International fine Art Gallery in May 2019. I would like to share with you, the fine and artistic description of my paintings that they have written: “Our Curatorial Review Committee was deeply impressed by your expressionistic Female Iconography oeuvre which emblematizes the Female artistic essence of life and explores the spontaneity and drama of Women in the world. The visual intensity and psychological drama in your superb “CRISS-CROSSED” reveals a timeless romantic perspective and passionately captures the excitement and visceral mystique. You impassionately and creatively encapsulate an exciting and unique artistic vision in “DANCING GARDEN” with poignancy as it radiates a poetic, artistic viewpoint. We enjoyed your sterling visual voyage with its lyrical, compelling composition which reflects a unique, sensitive “Third Eye.” Your haunting “ECTASY” reverberates with a powerful interplay of light interacting with vibrant tonal combinations, as it is juxtaposed with a superb perspective while seductively revealing the allure of the feminine mystique. Your compelling “ SILENT MOMENT” treasures the essence of the Female with its eternal visual symbolism and embodies a timeless message while offering a powerful, sensitive narrative. We salute you on your intriguing Female Portraits which convey the invisible within the visible of the Female Personna 60
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Artist Feature
JESSICA ALARZRAKI jessicaalazraki.com
Modern life normalises getting everything done at what feels like the speed of light. This false sense of productivity comes at a substantial cost. Not only are we accelerating our demise but we miss out on the subtleties and intricacies of life. Everyday visuals that are taken for granted. It is these frames that Mexican artist Jessica Alazraki draws her inspiration from. Currently living in New York City since 1998, her body of work titled ‘Primitive Realism’ turns the spotlight on portraits of Latino immigrants. A vital yet often misunderstood and misportrayed part of American culture. She studied at the Parsons School of Graphic Design. Becoming a mother led to her quitting her job to focus on her family but the urge to create led Jessica to discover drawing and painting. A medium that she has refined through the years.
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Interview
IMAI ATSUSHI katanashimugyou.art
Japan has a rich heritage when it comes to art. This can be traced back to the Jōmon people who were its first inhabitants. They decorated everyday objects like pottery, adding character to a utilitarian object and also built clay figurines and jewellery. This creativity continued through the Heian, Fujiwara and Edo period which featured religious themes due to prominence of Buddhism around the country. Artist Imai Atsushi uses coloured pencils. His subject material ranges from Manga to photography. In our interview with Imai, he talks about his current projects, his steps into the world of art and the popularity of Manga.
We believe you paint exclusively with coloured pencils, when did that start? It is autumn of my second year of middle school that I started drawing with coloured pencils. Until that time I was drawing manga aiming for serialisation of Japanese comic magazines. The encounter of colour pencil drawing is a lecture art book of American colour pencil society sold at a bookstore in the shopping area of the city. I learned the colour pencil drawing with only that book. At that time in Japan, the colour pencil drawing book had only a range of hobbies, and there was no professional painter, so I have not forgotten the surprises when I saw a picture of a level that does not differ from oil painting. In autumn two years later I was the first colour pencil artist until 1995 to continue
my primary activity. In the twentieth year since the beginning in 2014, as a professional again I restarted as an illustrator at first, and after a year I began my second activity as a colour pencil painter at an exhibition in the UK coloured pencil society. Talk us through your sources of inspiration? The automatic flash is different at that time but what I emphasise is “How can you fascinate?” I like drawing a woman. For example, how cute you are in your teens, how complicated it is in your 20s, how gracefully in your 30s emphasises “drawing more attractively” not “drawing just like” by the age group of the model.
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Above: Kimono Woman #2, Colored Pencil on Water Paper, 25.7Ă—36.4cm, 2017
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Above: Townscape of Colmar, Graphite Pencil on Water Paper Board, 27.3×41cm, 2018
I think that I am a common sensibility though there are differences in country, ethnicity and culture. Just skin, just kimono, anyone can draw hair. In addition to intuition, I draw “drawing in” observation power and expression power into the image and draw a picture. What is the art scene like in Japan? That is a difficult question. The centre of art in Japan has been unchanged since the Meiji era, oil paintings, watercolours and Japanese paintings. Since comic art has been accepted into the world in the last decade, it is exciting as a subculture, but it is not the centre of the Japanese art scene. Coloured pencil drawing in Japan is also the latter.
Imagine the future art scene in Japan; I think intuitively that modern art will change. There is a premonition that the era will come when the act of drawing a picture with a different idea without the conventionally fixed concept is coming. As Japanese manga now changed by Dr Tezuka Osamu, I think that oil painting and coloured pencils are free thought that techniques and performances that anyone can not imitate may have.
What is it about Manga art that makes it so popular in Japan? There are various views on Japanese cartoons, but only “Moe” and “Girls” are not cartoon art. Although it tends to be misunderstood in various SNSs, only “barbarous” “eroticism” stands out, but the popularity of Japanese cartoon art has a To be a painter in Japan, it is currently the variety of genres not found in other only way to graduate from a professional school or university in Japan to countries. It is the most prominent feature and favourite reason to be able to expand win a prize at a domestic competition, but since I speak only in Japan, I think that it is ideas to the past and the future in addition different if it is all right. to realistic current occupation, school, 66
family image, society. The most apparent manga is “Doraemon”. I also see that the character is made into art, but the useful tool that Doraemon of the hero’s care tool robot sometimes makes me think. It is the essence of original Japanese cartoon art that it is cast from infants to old people by combining fun and socialism.
unique kimono of Japan. And the “woman” series is going to draw so that women can emphasise the richness of power and expressive power that they keep.
Would you say it’s akin to an alter ego for the otherwise conservative culture? I do not think it will. The Japanese culture which the past people have built is now also penetrating overseas, apart from whether it is accurately transmitted. And the content which is regarded as a new Japanese culture in modern times only makes various changes from now. Coloured pencil art in Japan is also part of it. The coloured pencil drawing I draw is also drawn with my original technique. Like that, cartoon art also changes according to the times. So I think that the word “culture alternative” is not right.
Have you ever experimented with other mediums? Yes. In addition to coloured pencil drawings, I do not draw pencil drawings, pastels, others, but I also draw watercolour paintings. Coloured pencil drawings are drawn not only on traditional watercolour paper but also on Japanese paper which is not ordinarily selected. I think that it is possible for me to draw like Japanese paintings personally though it is not suitable for coloured pencil drawing because Japan’s old paper is so thin. I am still in the experimental stage, but I’d like to show coloured pencil drawings painted with Japanese paper soon. END
What are you working on at the moment? My current efforts are aimed at improving the paintings I painted. I have been exhibiting paintings around the world for four years since 2015, but I will emphasise carefully drawing a piece of a picture so that I can bring a higher degree of perfection. And finally, it became possible to do activities in Japan so I would like to be able to open a solo exhibition in Japan in the future as well. At the same time, I am happy if I can feel my coloured pencil drawing spread even a bit. What message are you trying to convey through your work? Although I do not have a particularly profound message, I always think about drawing women’s attractiveness and items to wear. In particular, the series “kimono woman” decides a composition that makes the Japanese seasonal plants and flowers feel differently through the beauty of the 67
Artist Feature
HANNA SUPETRAN hanna@hannaintuitiveartist.com hannaintuitiveartist.com
After a decade spent jet setting around the globe in the corporate world, artist Hanna Supetran was ready for a change. Born and raised in the Philippines, Hanna made her way to Italy and took an intensive art course that covered an array of topics ranging from photography to fresco’s, figure drawing and contemporary art. Not shy in her use of colour, her paintings are a bold, emotionally charged and poignant. Her exploratory personality makes its way into her work, each colour and stroke dictating the next. She recently got back from spending some time in Japan, a place that is a constant source of inspiration for her. Hanna describes her paintings as an expedition for the soul, an intimate inward journey, one that she wants her viewers to explore.
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Above: DIVERSITY, Oil on Canvas, 24” x 36”, 2019
Above: NO APOLOGIES, Oil on Canvas, 24” x 36”, 2019
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Above: GUIDING LIGHT, Oil on Canvas, 30” x 40”, 2019
Above: LOVERS’ DANCE, Oil on Canvas, 36” x 48”, 2019
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Above: EXPANDING HORIZONS, Oil on Canvas, 30” x 40”, 2019
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