verdure engraved - winter 2015

verdure engraved winter 2015

contents hallveig agustsdottir arianna sanesi emila medkova rosylyn drexler gteta stern alicia d’amico elana darikovich jaak kadarik christian schad milner gray margaret watkins suzanne duchamp unknown artist unknown artist james dixon viacheslav tarnovetski emil orlik norah borges rei taka josef ehm leideitchikov betty hahn sergei gitman jaroslav rossler

rcover image by pheobe riley law frontispiece by jrf

hallveig agustsdottir

Being fascinated by the relation between music and visual art and not wanting to choose between them, Hallveig Agustsdottir turned to soundscapes in her most recent drawings. She started a quest for an accurate way of depicting music, sounds, noise. Yet this sound-based approach turns out to be a starting point for exploring texture and material. By restricting herself to an artist’s basic materials (paper, charcoal and white acrylics) she seems to discover freedom within this strict limitation.

Paper, more so than canvas, is sensitive to mark making and thus can be dented and scarred. By carving, scraping and injuring, the paper itself becomes textured which affects the black of the charcoal and the white acrylics applied on it. The unctuous wet gesso disintegrates the charcoal at some points in unintended veils of brown and blue while the surface becomes a bursting crust that erodes and recovers itself through the both soft and powerful handling of the materials.

Through an aleatoric method of working Hallveig shows us the importance she attaches to the process of the making of the drawings and wipes out the difference between noise and music, scribbling and drawing, black and white. She accepts all consequences of every mark and that implies that every drawing is worked on until it satisfies and has balance. Layer upon layer is added, erasing is obtained by adding more drawing and gesso. In that way the drawing process evokes a whole world of creation and destruction, light and dark, with reminiscences to landscapes, musical scores and noise.

And the viewer isn’t even forced to choose between them.

Michael Bouchez Š 2010

arianna sanesi the 28 names we know

The 28 Names We Know "So I walk in the forest at night and early morning, and look for a sign of the memory these trees hold within. Their roots go down three times their height and, after what they have witnessed, they are bound to protect it forever. I have the feeling they are doing it well and watching me trying to do the same thing, stumbling in the dark on soft soil and rotten branches.

We do not know all of the names of the people killed in these forests, and we barely know the number. But some names have resisted through history, just like these trees. These names are those of the children killed in Kuldiga. They did not have the chance to grow. These trees did."

The 28 Names We Know is a project about Holocaust and memory, done with the guidance of Simon Norfolk during the masterclass "Photographing The Past" in ISSP, Latvia.

In 1941 Jewish people have been mostly exterminated with mass executions that usually took place in the forests or on some beaches (Liepaja, nowadays crowded with tourists). I decided to focus on mass killings that took place not far from Kuldiga town, in Kurzeme region.

The forest has a main role in latvian tradition and in "dainas", latvian traditional folk songs: it is a place for mystery, magic, but it has also been a safe refuge for rebellious fighters. Trees are a strong symbol in all cultures, and they have been widely used in the Garden of the Righteous to stand for the memory of unforgettable individuals.

I tried to convey the need and the will to remember with the indefinable feeling we get in those enchanting and yet gloomy forests. Nature is a sumptuous and powerful witness, and it is often described as indifferent to human struggles. The act of choosing trees in that location, looking at them one by one as they were people, just made me realise there is more than that, and we can hardly unveil the mystery of it.

I used the names provided by Yad Vashem Archives, and (as they also warn) sometimes they could be misspelt or written twice, but such is the battle to keep memory alive: it has to deal with human limitations.

I used to show the entire work in a long strip going from light to darkness, that reminds me not only of the forest and the time passing in it, but most of all of the frightening lists of names I read while doing research for this project.

scrapbook

emila medkovรก

rosylyn drexler

alicia d’amico

greta stern

elana darikovich

jaak kadarik

christian schad

milner gray

designed for clarice cliff production

margaret watkins

suzanne duchamp

book illustration unknown artist

book illustration unknown artist

james dixon

viacheslav tarnovetski

emil orlik

norah borges

rei taka

josef ehm

leideitchikov

betty hahn

sergei gitman

jaroslav rossler

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