LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue

DAVID

RUDY

RICARDO

Rudy’s interest in the image as a field of narcissistic and inexistent spaces or non-spaces, in between reflections and [lost] partial objects was exemplified in his serial works made in England, that were equally concerned with the loss of any kind of visual representation of the image itself.

What the image presented as void or elusive/ Rudy questioned the success of works of art that figure as performing a social interpolation - which proposed an overidentification within the status quo - or the symbolic order of a community - where the loss/destruction of the image, or the memory is re-enacted in terms of a collective memory.

Alexandra Gallagher's work celebrates the surreal and bizarre. Between the realms of memory, dreams and experience, her work looks beyond our limits and often tells a story of inner imagination and thought. "I take influence from everything around me - like every artist. Fashion, design, other artists, music, culture, society etc. Everything I see, hear and talk about. It all influences what I do. From a short abstract conversations with a strangers, to memories I have as an individual... we all have a story to tell, something interesting that is unique to all of us, as an individual. I love people watching. Looking at people and seeing how I could translate that into a piece of art - from my own perspective.

Nature is my images provider, on one hand I am tied to the nature (figures and proportions) but on the other hand I dismantle, delete and reassemble it the way I feel. I am creating a kind of havoc, releasing while contrasting, cutting and ripping, in order to create a new context and meaning. The images in my work are taken to dramatic and dynamic places, to disastrous situations such as tumble, storm, pain and escape.

The variety of materials, techniques and the different ways of print making, create enormous stimulations with whom I am talking and sometimes "struggling". Sometimes they govern and I am dominated and sometimes the opposite. Familiarity with them is not easy, but the resulting surprises induce great pleasure.

To graze and gaze in pastures of darkness. Vast, magical expanses, dim, deterring, threatening, albeit tempting one to dive far and deeply into them. Wide fields extending beyond the known, an allembracing infinity attracting onwards and onwards to graze within it, in the visions beyond the imagination. A surprisingly different place inviting one to be drawn inside, to be swept away in the fields of darkness. At first darkness is complete. One cannot discern a thing, opacity, opacity, opacity, and then comes one blue, deceptive, purplish, concealing secrets of deep red and gold. And then another blue, different, and anothe rblue, indigo, ultramarine... the darkness blurs and clears, shines up gradually, exposing and revealing how the illumined rises from the opaque.

One day, as Feruch was shooting a beautiful girl against a white background, he had the desire to import the image onto his computer in order to create a sophisticated universe for his muse. It was the early 1980s and Feruch was one of the first artists to hop onto the digital bandwagon. His process included scanning his collages, reworking them on the computer, and printing them on aluminum sheets. In a constant back and forth between the physical image and the computer, he created his unique technique. His fantastical images were destined to lead Feruch into the world of abstraction.

Rich Smukler has blended his life-long passion for art and photography. His works have been featured in numerous museums, galleries and private collections internationally. While his cutting edge passion for graphic design has earned him accolades and awards for innovative style, his genre as a fine art photographer encompasses photorealism to abstract graphic design. A love of Tuscany has taken him back to bella Italia on many occasions, camera in tow, in search of yet another perfect moment. He has drawn inspiration from such greats as Miro, Kandinsky, Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Arno Minkkinen, Sandro Santioli & Cartier Bresson.

Hava Zilbershtein Israel

Hadassa Wollman Israel

David Feruch France

Rich Smukler USA

Rudy Kanhye United Kingdom

Alexandra Gallagher Germany

The search for language has always been a determining factor in my work. Even as I worked in Editorial and Advertising, my intention was that this signature became apparent in the work itself as well as in the trajectory of the process in which the work comes to life. My Photography is romantic, simple, lyric, yet direct. One finds traces of sophistication, which are derived from the technical precision with which the work is produced, but it is, in essence, pure. The identity of an organic and sensitive language is, undoubtedly, the force of a work, which is confronted at all times between the technique and the message. The power of images lies in their substance, in the rhetoric of beauty and the force of contradiction, an expressive mark of my work.

Memory being a component of photography, is a popular notion. That photography is something of an efficient trap of our surrounding reality. But memory, even the photographic kind, is selective and can lead astray . My work "Proof" is about the deception of photographic memory, the disability of photography to serve as a reliable source. I chose well-known historical photos and changed them through shooting and reprinting, in keeping with the photo's realism. The video art "The Same Sea", where the sun rises in the west, also conveys this. Through the creation of art, I have a dialogue with myself, but it is a conversation spoken out loud, and in the end, everyone is listening . Artists create out of an internal need, but every writer wants to be published. We want to exhibit, and get feedback on our work, not out of pretensions.

My work deals with the joy of discovery, the beauty of the mundane, and the impermanence of the world around us. There is something interesting to be found in the temporality of our world. My work exposes the absurdity of our daily existence, our inattentiveness to the world around us, and the fleetingness of memory and time. It highlights the mundane and relishes in the discovery (and rediscovery) of objects and spaces taken for granted, ignored, or forgotten completely. Texture, line, and shape come together in these spaces and objects like visual poetry. By connecting to spaces and objects and interacting with them—a personal mark is added to enhance, repair, or preserve them.

on the cover , a work by

Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.

JJ Harty USA

Ricardo Fasanello Brazil

Nadav Ofer Israel

Rudy Kanhye

Lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Rudy’s interest in the image as a field of narcissistic and inexistent spaces or non-spaces, in between reflections and [lost] partial

objects was exemplified in his serial works made in England, that were equally concerned with the loss of any kind of visual representation of the image itself.

What the image presented as void or elusive/ Rudy questioned the success of works of art that figure as performing a social interpolation - which proposed an over-identification within the status quo - or the symbolic order of a community - where the loss/destruction of the image, or the memory is re-enacted in terms of a collective memory.

In his photographs absence and presence often exchanged places in a way that induced melancholia as a ‘preferred’ thinking about the impossibility of a space of exchange, however as an exemplary position in [post]modernist photography. These works are composed along viewpoints that hold their distance from direct contact, often veiled or suggesting something missing [as in Antonioni’s cinematic montage for example] or no longer available to sight, or just out of sight.

(...) Rudy questioned the success of works of art that figure as performing a social interpolation - which proposed an overidentification within the status quo - or the symbolic order of a community - where the loss/destruction of the image, or the memory is re-enacted in terms of a collective memory. A break of the trauma of forgetting performed in

the use of simulacra [like opposing cinema to theatre and intentionally reframing the relations to the viewer position]. The photograph is staged in between these experiential and disembodied forms of engagement with a viewer or audience, once removed from an assumed role or identification. Some of Alfredo Jarr’s projects come to mind with the kind of work Rudy might find important in the future in relation to how his interest in photographic installations is to be constructed,his work is ‘politicised’ in the sense of dealing with 'projects' where there are indistinct representations / disappearances, or exclusions – presenting ideological silences by extreme reduction or concealment. Art and politics are in awkward relation.

The idea of voiding, [which initiates a political problem] of incorporating exclusions, or exceptions to the community, is also written in through Badiou's work on proposing an affirmative aesthetics. Rudy had studied some of these theories, suggesting material to help develop his own interpretation or to understand how to arrive at properly installed photographic works / texts in situ, in the ‘locus’ of a place, if the work itself is to be concerned the non-place or the amnesiac history, without documentation. Documentary photography and film poses the problem of fiction and imaginary within the assumption of ‘reality’."

Rudy Kanhye

LandEscape meets

Rudy Kanhye

Hi, thank you very much for having me, and giving me the opportunity to be part of this new edition.

I struggled to find my position when I was in France, and moving to England made me realize what my work was about in a way. And I thought that I needed that "institution" to help me in my demarche artistic. That cursus that I followed help me in the realization of bigger project, I did my residency in Albany New York in 2015 while I was doing the APD.

An interview by , curator and , curator

It helps me to focus on art really. the training I had is really important to understand where I come from and understand my work. By doing that I was able to see different art scene as well, and meet different people. And all that build my work in a way.

I find myself using book and other reading as a start of a project, or making a liaison in the work. And that influence my work every day. I think that you need to be aware as an artist of the history of art or philosophy to be able to product in modern time project.

I start to see more about the ideas I was interesting, and read a lot, try to learn different notion, situation, time and space, open form, postmodernism...That was very important for me to do that because, It gave me the freedom to work, to express myself and talk about idea in modern situation.

Rudy Kanhye

Rudy Kanhye

As long as I can remember I always been interesting with images, Photo, video, print... When I was in art school I focus on the video media and so photography too. It was for me the best way to express idea. We live in the generation of images, photography is everywhere and everybody do it. I like that idea of mass production common to everyone. I became really interesting on the representation of something, and that's why I found photography so powerful. It gives to see something else and there is a real relationship with the viewer. I have been really influence by Roland Barthes or Bergson on the idea of images, and I think that's why I use photography, it has a real potential of seduction.

It is true that I use photography a lot in my work but I am not considering myself as a photographer. I don't think I have a particular medium but try to represent in the best way an idea.

Rudy Kanhye scape Land

I am working without a proper protocol. I start by thinking of an

idea and how I can talk about it. I am always inspired by things I see, in the street or read. I think a lot before making something, and I think that the process of creation is

Rudy Kanhye

really important in my work. For Talking picture, I really wanted to go back to a pictorial approach that I haven't been doing really. I wanted to talk about images on different

level of comprehension, and I find a book in my room call Talking Picture. I had that book for 5 years and I just looked at it for a while and I decide to use it. I was interesting

Rudy Kanhye

on the photography of that book, important photography of the history of photography. But for me it was more about the hierarchy that those photography embodied. And I decided to break in a way that hierarchy of noble images, using painting as an abstract tool creating

a new esthetic of the image, a new photography. Creating a new dialogue really.

Rudy Kanhye scape

The work of Thomas Demand is really

Rudy Kanhye

interesting in the way that he uses memory to recreate spaces that he encounters and take a photo of that model. I am Thinking of Siegfried Kracauer and his comparison between memory and photography. Memories are only incomplete fragments to the photographer and often without a spatial representation. They appear as fragments, though, only because a mechanical process like photography does not understand meaning and so cannot incorporate it. However, when memory fragments are associated with a common meaning they become a relational whole. My work is quite close to that idea and I think that it is important to consider that idea when making images.

I have been always interesting in the non-lieu, the heterotopia space, all those spaces in marge of reality. I think it's a real poetic idea to see the artist in that sense, and that can be reference with Baudelaire idea of the Flaneur.

For me it is really important to work with those space, and in that project that's exactly what I had in mind, reveal something, or maybe making it seen for another perspective. It's funny because I am re-reading Marc Augé’s book at the moment. I think those question are really important today.

Memory I think is what is base to my research in general. Memory is the most important aspect here I think, because it brings the inconscient on the first plan. A space and a time given is always reference in my work, as an action past, a moment of crystallization sometimes as Stendhal talk about. Those Heterotopia space are fascinating because they don't alienate concept and are ambiguous, they transpose idea at a different level of comprehension.

Rudy Kanhye

Rudy Kanhye

Images are the receipt of the work. They exist as a model, a seductive model. What I always try to communicate is outside the frame, in the process work. I am more interesting in the concept that the production itself in a way. So I often use a representation to evoke more abstract notion

Definite maybe not but always present yes. The environment is what makes the works exist, (studio, street, park...) in that sense yes the relation is really important. It is the starting point of a lot of my work. Work in situ or influence totally by the place where the idea come and evolving but related always with the first space of creation or instinct of a notion to elaborate.

Yes. I am not doing art just for myself and I am not doing art for doing it, it is more a urge that I feel. It is always important to consider the viewer, and work whit it. I am really close to the audience that see the work, without that idea, as an artist you can get lost in your bubble and separate yourself from the world. And that should never be the case, I try my best to reflect with modern idea and interrogation in all my projects. But of course yes, without the audience I will just be making art in my room (witch is good) but not good enough for me.

At the Moment I am interesting in the action of creativity, and the fact that everybody is creative in the day to day life. I am working on an edition gathering artist around that subject ( artists I met during school, residencies or other project.) with photography and text.

An interview by , curator and , curator

Rudy Kanhye

Hava Zilbershtein

AAfter twenty years of art teaching I

preferred to devote myself to art only.

In the last fifteen years I create my works by etching on zinc and aluminum plates. This technique is the most suitable to express myself because of the dramatic and powerful character of the black and white textures.

In my works I use figures and images made of lines and stains, situated in abstract and vague environment.

Hava Zilbershtein

Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

LandEscape meets

Hava Zilbershtein

Artist Hava Zilbershtein's work challenges the relationship between the viewers' limbic parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to produce new perceptions. Her figures are made of lines and stains and are situated in the liminal area that establishes a channel of communication between abstract and figurative. In her works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she walks the viewers through an unconventional, and multilayered aesthetic experience in which she accomplishes the difficult task of transforming a reality into an alternate one: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Hava and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background?

You have a solid formal training and you graduated from the "The Midrasha". How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Hebrew roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

The "Midrasha" art academy, where I studied in the 70s, and my mentor teacher Raffi Lavie were the first to impart me the language of art. Lavie also introduced me to a group of artists who strongly impacted the Israeli artistic world at those years. This group, called "New Horizons", formed the "Lyric Abstract" style: Their paintings were characterized by abstract nature but with some nature hallmarks remain in the painting. The group included the famous Israeli artists: Aviva Uri, Arie Aroch, Zaritsky, Stematsky and Meirovich, and later also Tumarkin And Uri Lifschitz.

After graduating from the art academy, I mainly affected by other 70s artists in an endless journey in galleries and exhibitions. I used to follow the working methods and the progress of "adopted" artists which corresponded to my temperament: Tumarkin, Uri Lifschitz, Ofer Lellouche and Igal Ozeri.

Nature is my images provider, on one hand I am tied to the nature (figures and proportions) but on the other hand I dismantle, delete and reassemble it the way I feel. I am creating a kind of havoc, releasing while contrasting, cutting and ripping, in order to create a new context and meaning. The images in my work are taken to dramatic and dynamic places, to disastrous situations such as tumble, storm, pain and escape.

The variety of materials, techniques and the different ways of print making, create enormous stimulations with

whom I am talking and sometimes "struggling". Sometimes they govern and I am dominated and sometimes the opposite. Familiarity with them is not easy, but the resulting surprises induce great pleasure.

The size of my works has changed over the years. In the beginning, the intimacy was more important. I was more interested by the texture of lines and stains. In the recent years, I had the desire to break out, conquer and work with large color surfaces and less with delicate expression.

Your approach is very personal and your technique condenses a variety of viewpoints, that you combine together into a coherent balance. We would suggest to our readers to visit http://havazil.wixsite.com/hava in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style?

I seek not only the What but also and perhaps mainly the How. I inquire and examine, through the print technique, the language of art, to discern such concepts as line, spot, shape and color

I put less emphasis on the subject. This is my way to create a struggle between stains, shapes and lines, between protruding elements accompanied by sharp almost pointy lines and minor elements accompanied by soft, round freehand lines.

The printmaking techniques allows me to create layered texture that intriguers me. Engraving, partial erasing and engraving again on the erased area creates layered and composite work.

The printing paper has a major part in the etching work. I typically use the type and color of paper that emphasizes the finesse of the printed work.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention is your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols creates a compelling non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

In my works there are horizontal and diagonal lines that create tension within the calmness of the composition. Typically the lines are thin and delicate but sometimes they become thicker and intense, emphasizing the dramatic narrative and the transition from the calmness to the stormy, from the "piano" to the "forte".

Spots and stains are sometimes in the background while they are light and faded and sometimes outstanding and dominant while they are dark and bold. They are usually almost abstract

Hava Zilbershtein

but on the other hand they are rather clear and expressive. Empty space in my works increases the strength, the tension and the contrast of the narrative.

Your works often encapsulate reminders to reality as figurative elements, still conveying an effective abstract feature: how would you describe the relationship between

imagination and reality in your process?

My work creation starts with sketching elements from the nature, the environ-

ment or from my personal experience while dismantling and reassembling them isolated from their natural environment to make them almost abstractive. Later, through connection to

Hava Zilbershtein

my inner emotions, I engrave the elements on the metal plate accompanied by expressive lines and stains using the available etching techniques.

A crucial aspect of your works is the the delicate tension between intuition and sensory information: the power of visual arts is enormous, but the role of the viewer’s disposition and attitude is equally crucial. Both our bodies and our minds need to actively participate in the experience of contemplating a piece of art: it demands your total attention and a particular kind of effort—it’s almost a commitment. What do you think about the role of the viewer?

The role of the viewer is to observe the work and trying to "feel" it rather than trying to "understand" it. The work leaves room for the viewer's imagination to complete the work to his own image.

Viewers with artistic sensitivity and engagement, understanding the language of art, will experience the work more intensely. Viewers wishing to fully experience the artistic works should learn about the artist, his work and his artistic background. Participation in gallery talks in front of the displayed works would also contribute to understanding the works and the artist.

Your works have on the surface, a seductive beauty: at the same time they challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters suggesting the unseen, establishing a channel of communication between the conscious level and the subconscious sphere: artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected

sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this? In particular, do you think that your works could induce a process of self-reflection in the viewers?

My works present a personal point of view of the nature. I am trying to dramatize the simple, banal and "pretty" objects (women, flowers, birds) to provoke and doubt the concept of "beauty", to stimulate the viewer thinking

Hava Zilbershtein

contemplation can lead the viewer to understanding the differences be-

that nature is not obvious and does not look the same to everyone. Such

tween people and to be more tolerant to others and the environment.

For many artists the act of producing a piece, the process, stays in the foreground of the work: but as artist

Gerhard Richter once stated, "it is always only a matter of seeing. The physical act is unavoidable". What is your opinion about it? In particular, how does a piece of art could reflect the human connection between the creator and the work?

The virgin plate causes me labor pains. Throughout the creation of my etching work the etching plate captures my state of mind. The engravings, etchings, erasures and the dilemmas between them encapsulate my mood. Throughout the physical process of creation that includes acid etching which is not fully controlled, surprising and unexpected elements are formed on the metal plate. Such incidents are called "art by accident". The result is disclosed only after the printed work leaves the press. This is the newborn. The creative process is for me a challenge that extracts all my abilities, talents and curiosity into the final work. There is no doubt that the creation process is very significant for me. Nevertheless, the artistic quality of the final product, which is not always under total control, is examined and reworked until it meets my criteria.

Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions and you have had eight solo exhibitions. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the

relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

During the exhibitions the audience showed great involvement and curiosity about the way my work is done, the motives and my unique printmaking techniques.

I do not consider and I am not influenced by the public opinion as an essential component of my decision-making process. I purely follow my emotions and intuition during the creation of my works.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Hava. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I continue to experiment with combining various etching techniques that stimulate me to develop my creativity. I sometimes affected by other's works, nature and foreign cultures that I encounter through my life.

The future of my work is uncertain and surprising also to me. I never know where my emotions will take me. It’s a big surprise to me and to the audience.

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Lives and works in Boca Raton, Florida, USA

R

LandEscape meets

Rich Smukler

As a young man I was exceptionally shy and introverted. When my parents gave me my first camera - a Brownie Hawkeye - I found immediate solace in viewing and hiding from the world at the same time. It became a close friend that allowed me to enter spheres otherwise unavailable. The way I looked at the world through a lens changed me.

An interview by , curator and , curator

Much of my work is highly intuitive, creating a canvas or backdrop of landscape allowing for a superimposition of personal emotion. These landscapes, whether sea, land or space-based, coupled with an endless spectrum of emotion, provide an infinite pallet of possibilities. To manifest these possibilities in an honest, new and stunning fashion is my challenge as an artist.

should sit for awhile as the subjective equivalence of the moment of the shoot dissipates into a more objective project. Once reasonably objectified, the process of editing requires a series of choices which one may consider, including balancing (crop selections), color enhancement or diminishment, or many of the other options available in the world of post-processing. But in the final analysis, something inside you says, that's it, It is done and I am pleased.

I would suggest that intuition is the starting point for a well balanced, well seen image which eventuates to a final product. It starts, of course, in the selection of the subject matter chosen when taking the image. And there it

For the most part, I am initially drawn to subject matter as a sensory feeling that this will somehow work in my particular world of aesthetics. My mind permits me to reduce objects to a combination of colors and shapes. Once this reduction takes place, I look for the most part for depth and

movement of these objects that populate my imaginary canvas.

I am pleased that you have been able to see this in my work and I agree that this perceived open quality is paramount to my aesthetic. I rarely attempt any political or philosophical statement or agenda. I do hope that an equivalence to natural beauty, however communicated, creates a positive force that inspires positive action.

I keep it pretty simple. That is not to say that I have turned my back on many of the techniques continually

being made available to us. Some of my expressionistic pieces are worked extensively in post-processing, while much of my fine art and travel photography is pretty straight, subject to minor tweaking here and there. I don't feel compelled, however, to stay out front with much of the newer technology. I am comfortable that the

tools currently in my toolbox provide me with the ability to fully express myself and still allow me to grow as an artist without sacrificing the core of my self-definition.

As mentioned earlier, I typically stay away from these type of statements unless the image cries out for it. This cannot prevent observers from placing a false equivalence on a piece, but it is not my intention.

For me, the creative process and personal experience are one. This is the subjective part of production. The selections made at the very moment

when I take a picture are a combination of thoughts and feelings. Post-processing is another story and requires a series of intellectual thoughts and decisions along with artistic subjectivity that push forward to a final product.

The original image sets the overall tonality of the piece. It can be manipulated, of course. But, I tend to stay close to the reason I took the shot in the first place, that something that was said to me, hmmm, this is pretty exciting. After working for years with images, you develop a sense for what might work well. Considerable failure and the

occasional happy accident will eventually provide you with a compass for what could be a successful image.

For many years I worked as a glass artist, my work being extremely abstract. My photography took on a

similar approach. Miro and Kandinsky have always deeply influenced the way I look at the world and my art. Each taps into a space within my artistic soul that is so meaningful.

Do I enjoy positive feedback from those who view my art? Of course!

Am I influenced by the what they say, or how they say it? Not in the least. I

remain open to criticism and listen carefully. On balance, I am purely interested in my passion for creating the best artwork that I can.

I am always polite to those who might be interested in seeing or acquiring my work, but can't be driven by their opinions.

That would surely derail the purity of the process.

First of all, thanks for the opportunity to express myself in your magazine. This is quite an honor. What is next for me? I really don't know. I try to keep an open mind with my camera close at hand. If I can be at the right place when the light is right, I will allow myself the possibility for continuing my photographic journey.

An interview by , curator and , curator

Hadassa Wollman

To graze and gaze in pastures of darkness. Vast, magical expanses, dim, deterring, threatening, albeit tempting

one to dive far and deeply into them. Wide fields extending beyond the known, an allembracing infinity attracting onwards and onwards to graze within it, in the visions beyond the imagination. A surprisingly different place inviting one to be drawn inside, to be swept away in the fields of darkness.

At first darkness is complete. One cannot discern a thing, opacity, opacity, opacity, and then comes one blue, deceptive, purplish, concealing secrets of deep red and gold. And then another blue, different, and anothe rblue, indigo, ultramarine... the darkness blurs and clears, shines up gradually, exposing and revealing how the illumined rises from the opaque.

One’s hands are drawn to touch the colors, all of them, layer upon layer. To act. The discovery is revealed by the action. Starting from the existing: colorful newspaper pieces, chromo advertisements, catalogues of different products, articles about cooking and tourism. Layer upon

layer, the eyes of the beholder change the colors, the shapes and the images. Torn bits are put together besides each other creating other things, apparently concealed from the eye, but hinting to further possibilities. An ice-cream cone turns into an illuminated window a letter from a restaurant logo ignites a flame that draws carriages of clothing and human figures, sweeping them to another invented reality. A new personal and private world created out of leftovers: magazines and local papers, junk mail on its way to the garbage. The magic of recycling.

The paintings in this exhibition are a selection from works created during the past three years, a period of discoveries and frustrations, deciphering and concealing, searching and losing. A time, as if of itself this world was created for me from the fragments; I dismantled and destroyed, invested in disassembling, and then found the place I had been searching for a long time, for a place to graze and to gaze, to wander and wonder within ad infinitum . Or at least for the time being.

Hadassa Wollman

An artist's statement

Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

Salja Jahovic

LandEscape meets

Hadassa Wollman

Artist Hadassa Wollman's work expertly captures the subtle nuances of her subjects' atmosphere through a variety of techniques including oil paintings, collages and drawings. In her body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she effectively challenges the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations, offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience.One of the most impressive aspects of Wollman's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to create a channel of communication between the perceptual sphere and imagination. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Hadassa and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training: after

having graduated in Hebrew and English Literatures, from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, you accomplished Art Studies at theeWashington University, St. Louis, USA. You later nurtured your education with a Master-class under the guidance of Maya Cohen Levy. We would suggest to our readers to visit http://hadassawollman.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works painted gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes from paper to canvas? How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Hebrew roots inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

First of all, let me thank you for your interest in my work. It is so exciting to see that works that I have created for myself, can be meaningful to others. I

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

have painted and drawn since my early childhood, but life took me to concentrate on the literature field, and for years I had to find my way between the world of words, to a world where words are not necessary. I have studied Hebrew and English literature, and worked for many years as critic editor and producer of literary programs at IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority), I also had my own program: a weekly literature magazine. All that time, at home, I continued with my art. But during a long stay in the USA, I took art courses at Washington University in St.Louis, and later, back in Israel, parallel to my literature activity, I had begun to dedicate more and more time to my painting. Some years ago, I started doing collages. They are made of small pieces torn of old chromo food, fashion, tourist, motor etc. magazines, supermarket advertisments and other garbage paper. It fascinated me how I could create from all these secondhand papers, a world of my own, a world that surprised and puzzled me a lot. It was a world that I could not totally understand, and it felt like a gift. Some of the collages I have "translated" to oil on canvas, changing the size, adding and subtracting details. I do not use preparation drawings or grid, I just look at the collage as I paint, kind of free translation. I see my work rather universal, in the sense that there is nothing especially local, except the bio facts of course, that it is done here, in Tel-Aviv, nowdays. As for the drawings, they are done in one shot. I start, and do

Hadassa Wollman

Hadassa Wollman

Hadassa Wollman

not put the pen down until it feels finished. I draw instinctively. So are also the drawings that involve Hebrew letters, the text is kind of automatic writing.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Interweave and Drowning, an interesting transdisciplinary research project that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Interweave and Drowning, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?

It is hard for me to answer this question, as my work is, as I have mentioned before, rather instinctive. I am enchanted by colors, and I see my work also as a kind of research and investigation of the color-field. Layer under layer, tones and shadows, painting and collaging is for me like wondering in an endless mystic universe. Sometimes I feel like Alice in wonderland, in the scene where she fell down and deeper, losing the security of the floor under her feet.

You draw a lot from natural and urban environment and the landscapes that you paint never play the mere role of backgrounds: how would you define the relationship between environment and your work?

I am fascinated by the night, by darkness. I guess this is the reason for the dark scenes in my works. I feel the options and the opportunities that the darkness offers me. Colors of light are so powerful and diversive

in the dark. And darkness itself has such a rich range of colors. I love how the city looks at night after the rain, when the lights glitter, that is why, I think, I am also attracted to water, another image in my works,

Hadassa Wollman

the playfulness of lights and shadows, the delusions that it offers.

When showing clear references to perceptual reality, your paintings convey a captivating abstract feeling

Interweave I

that provide with dynamism the representative feature of your canvass, as later and a dream. The

way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable

part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and

memory. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice?

In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?

It is not easy for me to define my work… but yes, I always try to keep a balance between abstraction and

representation. Abstraction, because it is essential for me not to reveal too much, not to be too literal, I think

you lose interest when everything is clear and solved. And representation is important to me as a context to

the unclear, mysterious, hidden, secret.

When we look at Depht, we are struck by the atmosphere suggested by the darkness that saturates the canvass. Is this a reflection of you? Can you describe to me how this

darkness that appears in your work connects to you personally?

Well, I guess that one's work reveals his personality, even sides that he is not aware to.

I guess my works reveal fears and anxiety towards life itself, feelings of insecurity, maybe the area where I

Hadassa Wollman

live, the troubled Middle-East, has to do with it too. But I wish that my works reveal also my search for beauty and harmony, maybe my need to calm and to overcome the fears.

We would like to pose some questions about the balance

established by colors and texture: we have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that saturate your canvas and especially the way they suggest the idea of plasticity.

How did you come about settling on your color palette?

And how much does your own psychological make-up determine

the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develope a painting’s texture?

You are right about my color palette. As I have answered earlier, I am deeply attracted to shades, tone and nuances of colors. There are so many greens and blues! Endless variations, it literally hypnotizes me, and painting is my attempt to go in and deeper to it. The attempt to solve something that cannot be solved fascinates me. Sometimes I feel a physical pain when I do not succeed to create a color that I have in my mind, when I fail to create it.

Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions including your solo at the Artists House, Tel-Aviv. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Here I would like to repeat the quotation that opened my catalogue: "There always comes a time when one feels the need to show one's

work to world, not so much as to be judged, but to reassure oneself as to the existence of the work, and even in regard to one's own existence."

Michel Houllebecq, from his book "The map and the Territory". The relations with the audience is to me always a surprise. During my exhibition in TelAviv, I put a notebook in the hall, for visitors' comments. I shall mention two of the comments. One visitor wrote that the dark scenes made him sad and he felt uneasy, another visitor wrote: oh, I would like so much to be there inside the painting, in this imaginary secret world! Relationship, or comments from the audience is to me a bonus, because I do my art to myself, I have to do it, cannot live without it.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Hadassa. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Recently I put some new works in my site (marked 2016). Some of them are bright, in contrast to my dark works. Also I plan to add in the site some new drawings, you are welcome to look.. and comment!

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

David Feruch

One day, as Feruch was shooting a beautiful girl against a white background, he had the desire

to import the image onto his computer in order to create a sophisticated universe for his muse. It was the early 1980s and Feruch was one of the first artists to hop onto the digital bandwagon. His process included scanning his collages, reworking them on the computer, and printing them on aluminum sheets. In a constant back and forth between the physical image and the computer, he created his unique technique.

His fantastical images were destined to lead Feruch into the world of abstraction. A series of four creations, Le Vent dans les Arbres were the first to mark the transformation. Exhilarated by this newfound freedom, his style exploded, and he created big black & white monotypes. To further his research he revisited drawing sculptured forms with charcoal, much in the same way some artists return to studying the nude figure. In this time of

intense exploration Feruch avoided colors in order to enhance his natural element and concentrate on forms and composition.

Once established in his new style, Feruch started to integrate colors and feminine forms into his art. The colors were first pastel and cool and the forms were gracefully gliding through space; then the colors reached a pick of brightness and acidity, like an opera singer attaining the highest pitch. Sometimes a subject would emerge from his process of abstraction and become more recognizable, such as in his allegoric series of Paris. In that series fragments of architecture and statues swirl around, twisted in a poetic embrace.

Recently the human figure had sparked his interest once more, but soon it would become assimilated into the composition, and be implied rather than shown. Feruch’s creativity swings in a constant pendulum between figuration and abstraction in order to retain its emotional essence.

Lives and works in Paris, France

LandEscape meets

David Feruch

I am the man who is walking aware that the world is going through talks to him. The times shared to establish a process that grows from its findings; it is path of a man foreign to his relation to others and submerged to his relation to the world.

An interview by , curator and , curator

A piece of art is born; it is an intuitive perception of the mind. The choice of your raw material and the realization has to conform to the rules of composition and of abstract dematerialization (of which you have to know how to stretch out the limits). Creation requires an intuitive continuous relation of construction and destruction and to master the technique that has to be incorporated and never be an obstacle. It is then, both instinctive and methodical. "Futuristic painters and cubists will apply themselves to put into practice the principles of the fourth dimension, but sometime with disappointing results.

On the other hand, in David Feruch’s work, you distinctly have the feeling of being drawn right in the middle of a distorted space just like if you really enter that fourth dimension? Indeed all forms seem to permanently transform through movement. They flit freely, weightless and even become transparent, the exterior and the inside intermingle. " Christian Schmitt

Aurelie Engel says : « Like Möbius ribbon reflect infinity, the Feruch’s arabesques are taking us always deeper toward a hypnotic trance. Sometime like in a dream to encounter a fragment of an identifiable reality, is it a mirage? Is it a clue to help us to decipher the compositions? Feruch like Scheherazade is leading us from pieces to pieces to look for a clarification. But we will have to come

with our own answers, the artiste remains enigmatic.” I am aware of the provocative disruption in the art’s world traditions this diversity of techniques arouse. An art work is unique the absence of reality is its place of birth and the effect of its form or the relation between the support and the color is intimate.

The evolution of the style is linked to the choices of the subjects; nature, urbanism, portrait, the fragments affect the choice of raw material and color palette. The format are also decisive, you have dare space. Each piece is unique in its construction as well as its making.

‘Under Water up to the Stars’ is a concept of progressive exhibition. The journey, the man with his relation to the world this planet that we must save. The making of these works are connected to specific places close to nature where/or the road is a path you must follow. To loved people and touched by a bare spirituality. Knowing how to look, listen, being a

receiver, we feed on theses instants. The visions born in our mind find an echo in nature. Each landscape, object, animal or human that we meet is the sum of matter’s particle. Each of these particles or sum can speak to us. They can also mingle from one nature to a being, to an object. This particular attention develops the

awakening and allows following a path.

Christian Schmitt says:

Like Delaunay, David Feruch as well set the color free. After his attraction for movement, his obsession for elevation and blue sky, it is the color that in a more global way becomes, in her turn, his favorite theme.

He claims for himself what Delaunay was saying: As long as art doesn’t free himself from the object, he remains representation. He sets free the color giving to the spectator colored pictures and emancipated of all obligation of representation. But liberation does not at all mean disorder, for the artist arranges his colors according to an organization that sometime resemble a grid. This grid structure can be found much more distinctively from cubism, the movement of De Stijl, Mondrian, Malevitch… But it was already around in history in the XV° and XVI° century, in the studies made by Uccello, Léonard, Dürer.

Tools are way that enables the artist to become. You owe it to yourself to learn your trade, knowledge’s transmission is important. Having been born astraddle in between two century has enabled me to be familiar with silver based pictures, laboratory’s work and Lubitsch’s movies but also with virtual reality of a world that doesn’t exist. Because of that I have found coherent applications to my artistic process. Indeed technological development is followed for each new discovery could be the keys of a new world to be discovered and explored. I have enjoyed participating to the ‘the Thonel D’Orgeix collection’ project where I realized a two minutes and thirty seconds on the destruction of a piece.

The relation between the artist and his machine is pretty close of the one Capitan Kirk has with his ship the Enterprise. The intuitive process of the man facing machine is a dialogue. I ask the machine to go along with me in my process and I share with her the means to go in the chosen direction. ‘Ding ding dong’ and the fruit of 15 years of multidisciplinary works which have gather around on a virtual platform to transform into a unique piece that will be printed over an aluminum plate

Aurelia Engel says :

The images are printed on aluminum plate, like water they reflect light that brush past. At first sight, those mirror surfaces are disconcerting, as a spectator we are not sure of what we see. Metal magnetize us and pull us away in turns. Like a living surface, the plates include in the work luminescence like a passing actor modifying them all the time. After a while this dissipation becomes bewitching and you fervently desire to go back in these animated creations to rejoin the reflections of our emotions and our soul.

‘DU TEMPS HISTORIQUE’ is built like a defragmentation process. The void is filling and the shapes affirm. There are also peaks. The background suggests a world of heights that we have

David Feruch

crossed over. The eyes intuitively are looking through the color. Light diffracts on the metal and reshapes the piece under our eyes. It is this strong first impression that we share but then the dialogue awakes once the first impression fades away and leaves the spectator with a dialogue beyond the metal . ‘DU TEMPS HISTORIQUE’ is also twelve color forms yet on the first plan lower right each of them is seized with a wire. They are forming the hours in the center of which there is a form composed by three needles like in a watch; hours, minutes, seconds. You can find as well this watch in the background on the top left. This vision is not immediate it can be missed because rhythm’s expression is stronger than the one of figurative representation.

balance of the image. I believe that reality occurs in abstraction like a resonance of our world from the Big Bang until now. In my images reality is a tendancy of abstraction

In White Lady, it is the lighting effects and the matter that speaks to us. Reality is the architect of image. White Lady is drawn from a series of several images from a work on the city and more particularly on the 14 district of Paris. (Gallery Sponte )

In Creation the movement is contained in the forms. The forms are declined from their most crude to their most dainty expressions, diluted this way the figurative expression very visible remains abstract by association of forms. Creation comes from a work on the silhouette “Around a portrait”

Once again it is the choice of raw materials that will ascertain the

This degree of openness is not as important as it seems, or if it is important one can say that it revolves on the universes of silhouette and movement, of form and illusion giving free rein to interpretation. It is also metaphysical thoughts about elevation and expression. They speak just as well as to a dancer, a storyteller or an actor. Form at the service of interpretation is a progressive work.

The mix of abstract and representative in ‘We Say’ is put in jeopardy in favor of the expression of feeling. In the balance between form and matter the optic illusion is created. The willpower expressed by words fades away. The plans succeed each other and stabilize.

‘Blue’ is placed at a more elevated level, it releases a calming, a

plenitude, words are gone in favor of a succession of universal symbols, banned iceberg from an underground cocktail.

David Feruch scape

The texture of a piece is paramount, it appeals to the sense of touch. You

touch with the hand or the eye. The matter of my pictures is usually texturized, you can find a bit of flat tint, the matter and the transparence have a resonance. The printing on aluminum plays on the colors, smooth or brushed support and light.

‘Stars’ and ‘La Genèse’ are images where the relation sets up between form and content. In each of these

pieces the forms are in movement. In ‘Stars’ the movement outflank the forms, we understand that they are not

finished and their invisible lengthening is felt strongly. In ‘La Genèse’ the color is given rhythm by the forms that we

can guess, the color like the ultimate act of creation, seasons, elements,

time each of his component travels along man who activate the creation.

David Feruch

Creation is a way to express oneself but it becomes for the one who has

decided to devote his life to it the expression of his being with which he is going to have to live with in everyday life. In the same way a baby is going to recognize himself in a mirror through the eyes of the other. The artiste needs recognition in other’s eyes, the mirror which will send back his image will be the one of his works. Beyond this spiritual necessity artist’s recognition allows him to devote time and to develop the means necessary for the accomplishment of his work, in this way for example to develop the means of creation as well as their conservation. Those issues can make without the recognition of your art by other the path chaotic and full of pitfalls.

Art is for everyone who wants to share the shelter.

I still have a lot of time to devote to the making of my works; I believe you have to dare space and head toward very big format but also very small one. I have buried myself in a never-ending story which is overflowing with projects to share, journey to travel to that can only end by certain death that awaits us all at the end of the path where your walking time is over.

An interview by , curator and , curator

JJ Harty

My work deals with the joy of discovery, the beauty of the mundane, and the

impermanence of the world around us. There is something interesting to be found in the temporality of our world. My work exposes the absurdity of our daily existence, our inattentiveness to the world around us, and the fleetingness of memory and time. It highlights the mundane and relishes in the discovery (and rediscovery) of objects and spaces taken for granted, ignored, or forgotten completely. Texture, line, and shape come together in these spaces and objects like visual poetry. By connecting to spaces and objects and interacting with them—a personal mark is added to enhance, repair, or preserve them. My work includes objects removed from their original place and put in a new context, shadows of obsolete

objects and empty or broken spaces unnoticed by the public and ignored by failing infrastructure. Through intervention, repair and preservation of these spaces and objects, a conversation is made with the viewer about the temporality of our existence and the beauty of minute, unnoticed, and ignored spaces around us. Everyday life is understood better through more fully interacting with the world around us. The ultimate goal is for the viewer to share in the moment of discovery and to enjoy the mystery of the spaces and simplicity of the work. The work invites the viewer to begin to investigate and interact with time and place in a new context—discovering new spaces and objects for themselves.

JJ Harty

An artist's statement

Lives and works in Dallas, USA

LandEscape meets

JJ Harty

Artist JJ Harty's work accomplishes an insightful exploration of the absurdity of our daily existence. In his body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he effectively challenges the relationship between the viewers' perceptual parameters and their cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations, offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience. One of the most impressive aspects of Harty's work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to create a channel of communication between the perceptual sphere and imagination, to urge the viewers to begin to investigate and interact with time and place in a new context. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his multifaceted artistic production.

Hello JJ and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training: after having graduated from the University of

Idaho with a Bachelor of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Art, you nurtured your education with a Master of Fine Art, that you received from from Washington State University. How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

I grew up in Northern Idaho and lived in the city of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho until I was 14 then we moved to the small rural farming community of Rathdrum, Id. I was the oldest of 6 children and there wasn’t much alone time in our house. As a result I spent as much time out of the house as I could - whether it was playing sports, tromping through the woods of the northwest or working at one of the local farms. During this time I also realized I had a talent for art. It was second nature to me and I was constantly drawing or painting to escape the fairly frantic environment of our home. I spent hours upon hours improving my techniques and my plan as a youth was always to go to university and get an education. Life sometimes

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

throws a wrench in your plans and while I never gave up art I did not return to finish my bachelor’s degree until I was in my mid 30’s. My non-traditional

undergraduate experience was crucial to my modes of thinking. . As an older student I was extremely focused on my education and because of my life

Christopher Reid

experiences I was open to to new ideas and was focused on how far I could push any concept. I had some amazing professors at university who mentored

me and pushed me to go beyond traditional approaches to art. This approach led me to an interest in space and its relation to my aesthetic approach

specifically the body, the space it inhabits and how the “personal bubble” or space fluctuates from person to person. Ultimately my graduate experience is

what really shaped how I approach aesthetics now. I began to see space in a different way and relate negative space to positive objects and how there was

something interesting and beautiful in ordinary negative or empty spaces. Just like art the every day relationship between positive and negative space is

important to how we approach the world around us. It may be unconscious but there are aesthetic cues that attract us to a space depending on our

wants, needs, personality and cultural background. Some of us prefer closed in space and some open. Some prefer color and others not. In my own

personal aesthetic I tend to be attracted to the gap between objects and the potential of filling or interacting with it.

Your approach rejects any conventional classification: it is very personal and condenses a variety of viewpoints, that you combine together into coherent balance. Would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? In particular, are your works conceived instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose preparatory schemes?

My process is both instinctive and preparatory. It depends on what I am working on at the time. If I am looking to install a new curb/urban repair I try to always be prepared with the necessary tools and materials and I sort of wander to find the right spot to install a piece. It’s all intuitive. It may take hours to find a spot or it could take 15 minutes. I don’t try and force it anymore - it has to be a spot that speaks to me in one way or another. There are many factors influencing my decision - the aesthetic of the space, the location, the culture of the area just to name a few. I am constantly scanning different environments looking for a space that speaks to me.

The body of work titled Explore is definitely more methodical and preparatory. I tend to be attracted to spaces intended to be clean or “perfect” like a gallery or museum. I search for imperfections in the space to enhance for the viewer. I also appropriate minute portions of work already in the gallery I find interesting, I have always been drawn to the

minutiae or imperfections in my environment. As I study and interact with these spaces/objects they become works of art in my mind. I did not create them - they are present through some form of intervention be it human or natural. In the moment I intervene and share the spaces with the viewer they take on new meaning. The magnifying glass creates not only a frame for the space but changes the nature of the space and draws the viewer in.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Explore, an interesting project that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your captivating investigation about the relationship between your painting and the actual places you painted is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Explore, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?

The work Explore is an investigation into the beauty of imperfection and the minute. This body of work is a direct result of my Guerrilla series (aka Urban Restoration) and my Broken series. In the course of searching for empty spaces to fill and objects to repair it brought up the question “Is it even necessary to fill or repair the spaces for them to be valid as an art object?” How can I intervene so the viewer sees what I see and is my intervention with the space enough?

JJ Harty

Bruce Nauman said “If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art”. The statement could be expanded: If I

was an artist, and I existed in the world, then whatever I was doing in the world must be art.

When inquiring into the beauty of minute, you allow an open reading, a great multiplicity of meanings: associative possibilities seems to play

a crucial role in your pieces. How important is this degree of openness?

We all see the world differently to a certain extent. We are influenced by

culture, religion, psychology, environment, etc. So openness is essential. I fabricate the apparatus and intervene with the space to bring it to the attention of the viewer. It is up the them to make decisions about the work and investigate it further. I want them to form their own opinion regardless of whether they reject or accept the work. Granted, I want them to understand and enjoy the work but by leaving it open to interpretation when a viewer experiences the same moment of discovery I did when finding the space and shares the moment with me it is all the more rewarding.

An important aspect of your work comes from the way you organize the materials, urging the viewers to unveil the connection between the past of the images and their new life: we daresay that one of the most convincing aspects of your practice is the way you unveil the connection between imagination and everyday life: your vision seems to speak of a kind an abstract beauty that starts from a mundane imagery but that brings a new level of significance to images. We would go as far as to state that in a certain sense your works challenge the viewers' perception in order to go beyond the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but the way we relate to it... artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this? In particular, do you think that your works could induce a process of self-reflection in the viewers?

I believe as artists we fall into a singularly unique position of being outside of what most consider normal. I mean this in a good way: there is an expectation we will push boundaries and attempt to create conversations between the work and the viewer. My goal is always to push the viewer to have an experience where they question their perception and expand their view of what art is or can be and to spark their imagination. The concept of human imagination goes hand in hand with how we see: it is intangible, subjective and varying in degrees from one individual to the next. Some have these incredible vibrant imaginations and are able to express them through their chosen career path from artist to engineer. On the other end of the spectrum there are those we view as having little to no imagination. The only real frame of reference we have into how someone’s imagination really works is to compare it to our own. I like to think my work sparks the imagination of the viewer and what better way to accomplish a change in their perception of art’s limitless potential than through a connection with their everyday experiences.

Your visual vocabulary has a very ambivalent quality. How do you view the concepts of the real and the imagined playing out within your works?

The line between what is real and imagined is thin. Our perception of reality is subjective. Rene Descartes

said “the very same thoughts which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep” I see the dichotomy of the the real and the imagined as one in the same. The “real” of the work is the actual space and the imagined is the magnification and framing of them. The image you see is a just accentuated distortion of the real to bring it to the viewers attention. Then again is it actually real? The work will come down the holes will be filled and no trace remains. What is important to me as the artist is what the viewer does after absorbing the image. They could simply move on and tuck the experience away in the back of their mind or it could enlighten their understanding of the world and spark their own voyage of discovery.

The way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language: you production could be considered an exploration of the insterstitial point between the figurative feature of daily life, objects and gestures: we have appreciated the way this work unveils the flow of information through an effective non linear narrative, establishing direct relations with the viewers: German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead".

What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the inner narrative for your works?

Much of my work is experiential to some extent. Part of its purpose is to touch some part of the viewers

unconscious and bring it back to the conscious. There is a experiential aspect to the work. Most of us have picked up a magnifying glass at one point had moments of discovery not possible with the naked eye. I can remember crawling around on the floor or ground (I still do) with my grandmother’s magnifying glass with delight and wonder at the new world I had discovered. This is where nostalgic element comes through. There is no real way to permanently regain those moments in time, only fleeting and often unsatisfying tastes of them. It challenges social constructs of what is normal. The work sometimes requires you to put yourself in a physical position you would not normally take in a public. Some adults will simply walk past the piece rather than engage with it. In contrast children who are not beholden to social norms almost always engage and are not concerned with putting themselves in an awkward physical position.

We have appreciate the investigative feature of the way you explore emerging visual contexts: are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating your works?

My only rule is that I do not create any space or object I intervene with. It has to exist on its own. I will not break or manipulate a space/object to fit my aesthetic. As I said it’s an intuitive process and serendipity plays a big part.

Besides creating the works that we have been dealing with in these pages, you also work as an adjunct professor

at Washington State University’s campus in Pullman: how does this aspect of your work influence your practice? In particular, have you ever

been inspired from your students' ideas?

Working as an Adjunct gives me access to the space and tools I might not have

access to otherwise. Some of my work needs to be done in a wood shop, metal shop, plaster/investment area or foundry. There is also something

wonderful in the interaction I have with my colleagues that drives the work as well. If I run into a road block I can always find someone to discuss

JJ Harty

technical or conceptual issues that may arise.

Working in a community of faculty and student artists creates a unique energy.

The relationship built through teaching someone how to take an idea and craft it into something physical is exhilarating.

There are also those rare dynamic students who set the bar high, not just for their classmates but for me as well.

Their enthusiasm is sometimes palpable and drives me to work harder and push the boundaries of my own work. Being

part of the problem solving involved in a classroom setting also has its rewards. When students encounter a problem

realizing their concept it is an opportunity to look closer at how I may be approaching a particular problem of

my own and through solving theirs I often come up with the answer to mine.

Over these years you have exhibited your work nationally including shows and installations in Maryland, Arizona,

Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and in New Jersey at the International Sculpture Center. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

One of the main components of my practice is creating a relationship between the audience and the work. The art object is almost always just out of reach of the viewer physically, they are outsiders looking in. By making work that requires more direct involvement with the viewer I take a risk. The success of the work relies on the viewer. This can be problematic as there is a museum/gallery culture that keeps the viewer at arms length. Because of this they can miss out on the moment of discovery so crucial to the work. The up side is there is usually someone who will take the risk and investigate the work from a more intimate viewpoint. The risk-taker breaches the invisible wall and creates a new dialectic within the space where others follow their lead and discover the truth of the work.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, JJ. Finally, would you like to tell us readers

something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I have various projects going at the moment, many relying on even more on audience participation. One is a longterm interactive project with objects from childhood with an emphasis on breaking adult social norms of the appropriate proximity between the viewer and the work. In a way it mirrors the concept behind Explore in that to truly have a complete experience with the work the viewer must put themselves in a somewhat awkward position similar to the position of a child at play. I also have a performance piece I am working on involving the ephemeral nature of objects we use everyday, my own personal attachment to those objects and the futility and importance of sustainability in our modern industrial society. Of course I will also continue to work on my Guerrilla installations and the Explore series. Its hard to say how the work will evolve. I tend to push a concept to a certain point where I feel it has run its course and then begin conceptualizing something new. The act of making is very fluid so concepts and aesthetics change during the creative process. I will say I have always introduced some element connected to the body and challenging invented social constructs and norms. I’m sure this will continue in future projects in one form or another.

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Alexandra Gallagher

A

lexandra Gallagher was born in 1980 in Bury Lancashire. Selling

internationally, mainly producing portraits, photography, digital and design work. Recently won second place in the Saatchi Surrealism Showdown and studying towards a degree in painting. Alexandra Gallagher's work celebrates the surreal and bizarre.

Between the realms of memory, dreams and experience, her work looks beyond our limits and often tells a story of inner imagination and thought. "I take influence from everything around me - like every artist.

Fashion, design, other artists, music, culture, society etc. Everything I see, hear and talk about. It all influences what I do. From a short abstract conversations with a strangers, to memories I have as an individual... we all have a story to tell, something interesting that is unique to all of us, as an individual.

I love people watching. Looking at people and seeing how I could translate that into a piece of artfrom my own perspective.

Lives and works in Lancashire, England

Alexandra Gallagher

LandEscape meets

Alexandra Gallagher

My background is mainly in painting, and oil painting in particular. I used to paint portraiture when I first started out, but I found it creatively limiting, and I was becoming frustrated which meant my work began to lack that essential spark. I needed to explore more conceptually, building on what I could do and to push myself further. I sort of fell accidentally into digital collage; it wasn’t something I had planned to do, but something that seemed to find me. It interrelated nicely with my existing skill-set and was a medium malleable enough to keep up with the way I think. My mind is always an indefatigable creature and I need a way of expressing that can match that, but the foundation of my art has always been rooted in painting. The rules and principles of painting, along with the history, give me the necessary parameters of tradition and structure.

An interview by , curator and , curator

All my work is by nature visceral and organic. I actively avoid the temptation to methodically produce work, as I prefer to to work in a more fluid manner, tapping into the impracticable space behind the mind. My practice is versatile simply because I love every aspect of creativity and I don’t want to limit myself. When creating a new piece of work, I choose the media and genre that best translates the concept. My work also reflects my constant self-teaching, my tenacity for learning and my passion for discovery. For my own sanity, I refuse to produce something in the same way, over and over, to a formula. I need to extensively explore, to delve, for the process to be all-encompassing. For me that is the quintessential part of my creative journey.

These pieces are part of a series of work that explores the concept of the Internet of Things as physical space, in which intelligence is widely distributed across a surreal, synthetic landscape, where you can be anything or anyone. People put so much of themselves onto the internet without really thinking, giving more of themselves up than they would face-to-face, yet everyone starts out on an almost level playing field. Religiosity, ethnicity, wealth, success, sexuality, appearance, gender, politics… none of it should matter and there is something for everyone, even the darkest and the most twisted. The common computer screen can be a metaphor for the window through which we view our worlds, humanity’s intellectual worlds, rather than physical real-space. I play with imagining and visualising this as a physical place, an allegorical Wonderland. Like a detached observercollector, I source and select images through web search engines, and rework them to tell new, possibly impossible narratives.

Like all people, I have my own story and a catalogue of experiences that make me who I am. I mine what I have lived through, but I don’t want to put these experiences into the world in a literal way. Some things are too raw, which open me up to vulnerabilities that I am loathe to reveal. I won’t be defined by my history, so I leave

abstract hints and implied nods which leave the viewer to extract their own interpretation using their own life stories. I have had many people write to me and tell me they can relate their personal stories to meanings they can see in my work, and I am always touched by those connections; the communion of consciousness, the basic endurances we all have as humans.

Alexandra Gallagher scape

My Sunshine Thanks Giving

The titles are part of the narrative, but I also like to have fun with them, to juxtapose a dose of complimentary humour. I love to put humour into my work too and try never to take myself too seriously.

Alexandra Gallagher

Apocho Beach

In the Light of My eye

Alexandra Gallagher

As individuals we each see the world in our own unique way, and I feel it’s important for artists to reflect and

challenge the way both we as individuals and as a variety of collectives see the world. Throughout history, artists have bravely held up a mirror to society and culture, to

challenge our inner selves and to highlight the things that people recoil from.

This is important, and is something that artists seem to do quite naturally while translating the way they see the world. I hope I achieve this in my work, but I also hope to reflect that feeling you get similar to dreaming; that everything seems familiar, but slightly precarious and unpredictable at the same time, the kind of discomforting otherness that stays with you for the rest of the day. I feel that is how life is; abstract, transcendental, formidable, yet joyous and remarkable.

As the pieces in this series are constructed from other people’s images that I come across, and these fragments of people’s lives are defined by their locations in the world, as well as the environment that surrounds them, they become a new form of material from which new impossible landscapes can be imagined. There ceases to be any true limitations or boundaries. The physical truths of these strangers’ real worlds are free to no longer exist.

Chance is very important; preconstructed elements only visually appeal when they find themselves intuitively in a position wholly defined by their neighbouring elements. I want my work to reflect that subconscious journey I am taking when I create. The opportunities provided by chance can often lead a piece in a whole new direction from where it started. I am often as surprised as the viewer to find what is actualised within a particular piece.

My own psychological make up has a lot of subconscious influence on my work.

I’m narrating a story through the filter of my own perception, which in turn is limited to my experience and environment.

It is then also distilled through the cultural and societal norms I am currently surrounded by. The style I have developed is an

evolution born of experimentation, although I have always adored colour. I very much enjoy communicating through colour, juxtaposing bright colours with a dark subject, or utilising the symbology of colour. I also secrete symbols throughout many of my works, so that the viewer may discover and interpret them, adding an almost covert depth and texture to not only the aesthetic, but the overall narrative theme.

I don’t feel there should be general constraints on the creative process; great things can happen when limits are strained, and as artists we should always push the boundaries of what we interpret and what we can do. Personally, however, I do prefer to keep things quite subtle, which is a selfimposed constraint of sorts (yes, I’m a contradiction), but only because I don’t like to shock or horrify, or to overly sexualise to the point of being explicit. I find that strategy somewhat tacky. I feel subtly can work far better, as the viewer is free to fill any gaps with their own personal fears or peccadilloes. That’s not to say that there isn’t a relevance in communicating or exploring life’s horrors, or sex and sexuality; it’s certainly not something I would shy away from, but the in-yourface approach has become such a clichéthat we risk becoming desensitised. It no longer says anything of substance or misses the point that was intended. Sometimes a message with weight can be conveyed with less.

Not at all. Art is subjective, that which one person may love and relate deeply to, another may loath it intently. I am aware that my work is not for everyone, nor is it for everyone to understand.

I have found that some people get very excited by my work , while others find it melancholic or jarring.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Alexandra.

At the moment I am concentrating on a new series of work called “Birds with Birds”, which has seen my work take a slightly different direction in aesthetic, but I’m really excited about the possibilities and I’m looking forward to taking the new work as far as I can.

An interview by , curator and , curator

R icardo Fasanello

Lives in Rio de Janeiro and works around the world

In the series FLUXUS, the element water is the connecting shaft between the two worlds. In addition

to acting as a link, water is a transforming agent creating images of two different realities. Working as a filter, water, acts to create images that are in between the worlds, a fine line of both concepts portrayed in this Project. Creating different realities always connected with a particular perspective, where the viewer feels in one of the two worlds but are not sure which is false or what is true. With images verging surrealism, this work design issues about our relationship with the water and with the world around us. In addition to our connection with our own existence, after all we live our first nine months involved in liquid. This project was all photographed with film and medium format camera.

The search for language has always been a determining factor in my work. Even as I worked in Editorial and Advertising, my intention was that this signature became apparent in the work itself as well as in the trajectory of the process in which the work comes to life. My Photography is romantic, simple, lyric, yet direct. One finds traces of sophistication, which are derived from the technical precision with which the work is produced, but it is, in essence, pure. The identity of an organic and sensitive language is, undoubtedly, the force of a work, which is confronted at all times between the technique and the message. The power of images lies in their substance, in the rhetoric of beauty and the force of contradiction, an expressive mark of my work.

Son of renowned furniture designer Ricardo Fasanello, he discovered his passion for photography at the age of fifteen as he contemplated the pictures his mom, a lover of this art form as herself, took from the pieces designed by his father in their studio in the bohemian neighborhood of Santa Teresa in Rio. At the age of twenty, Fasanello choose to embark on a four month long bicycle voyage which took him form Rio to San Francisco, CA, rather than attending college in Rio, a decision he considers to have given him the equivalent of a Bachelors and Masters Degree in terms of the experiences and knowledge he was able to acquire. In 1988

Fasanello began his career as a photojournalist working for Jornal do Brasil, where he worked for four years, until moving to New York in 1992. There, he worked as an assistant photographer to professionals such as Christopher Von Hoenberg, Claudio Edinger, until later becoming an associate photographer to Henry Bull Studio. Back in Brazil in ’94 he co-founded Strana, producing material for such Editorial Publications as; der Spiegel, Biography Magazine, Paris Match, Elle, Marie Claire, Veja, Época, Vizoo, among others. In this time he also worked as correspondent to the, now extinct, French agency Gamma.

Always a gypsy at heart, Fasanello decides to embark on yet another voyage in the late 90s moving to Cuba for six months and taking the opportunity to completely rethink his approach as well as his own perception of the medium in which he had developed his work. Since then he has developed several essays worldwide, in which the search for a sense of contradiction inside the image is always present.

LandEscape meets

Ricardo Fasanello

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Visual artist and photographer Ricardo Fasanello's work explores the aesthetics of reality to draw the viewers into a multilayered experience. In the body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he invites the viewers to extract a narrative from the image he captured, to challenge their perceptual categories. His approach encapsulates both traditional heritage and unconventional sensitiveness and allows him to produce pieces marked out with a strong reference to contemporariness. One of the most impressive aspects of Fasanello's work is the way it provides the apparent staticity of an image with an autonomous life and aesthetics: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Ricardo and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You discovered your passion for photography at the age of fifteen: you later began your career as a

photojournalist working for Journal do Brasil and you moved to New York in 1992 where you worked as an assistant photographer to professionals such as Christopher Von Hoenberg, Claudio Edinger, until later becoming an associate photographer to Henry Bull Studio. How do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Truly I see my experience in New York as another step in my development as a professional photographer. At the time, I was in the beginning of my career and I didn’t knew yet what path I would follow, so I see this time more like a basic studies to star to develop my taste in what I believe what is a good photography. I do think aesthetic is mostly a personal matter. I considered my work very aesthetic but I am not a slave of that. I believe the content is more relevant than the aesthetic but I still think the aesthetic can be a very useful tool for the development of the work.

The visual language you convey in your pieces accomplishes an effective inquiry into the expressive potential of composition, communicating coherent balance. We we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.ricardofasanello.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about the evolution of your style? In

particular, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?

Been someone that grown up in a very artistic family helped a lot. The relevance of form, design and again, aesthetic, it was a very strong subject is my family education. Since I started my career as a photographer, the chase for forms and balance was a kind of mantra in my mind that guide through my early days. When I decided to terminate the commercial part of my work, I understand that from this day on, I wouldn’t have more the possibility to compromise any of the aspects that it was important to me. For me the process in the work is the most important, I realize that work with analogic film, in most of the occasions, made me more aware of my work and the surrounds that I am involved it. Today I understand that my work became very mental photography, with a lot of explanations for my self but I believe that this same work, the image it self, speaks truly what comes from my heart and my imagination.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected FLUXUS - THE WORLD WITHIN ANOTHER WORLD, an interesting project that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of this work is the way the ambience captured by your shots provides this piece with a dynamic and autonomous aesthetic and it's really captivating. While walking our

Ricardo Fasanello scape Land

readers through the genesis of FLUXUS - THE WORLD WITHIN ANOTHER WORLD, would you shed

light to your main source of inspirations?

Ricardo Fasanello

Everything begun because for long time, I want to work with water. Everything came together when I was invited to go to Bonito (beautiful), a

city that is located in the front door of the Brazilian swamp area, in Mato Grosso do Sul, southwest of Brazil. The waters there are absolute

Ricardo Fasanello scape

transparent and this specific condition, fit perfectly into what I was imagining for this project, because since the beginning I want to put

together the two different worlds, the inside the water mix with outside, with the lush nature that is around in the Pantanal (Brazilian swamp). My initial

concept to this project it was to use the water as a morphic filter, acting directly on the construction of the images and helping me to create a

new ways to interpret the relation of the world in and out of the water. To accomplish this work, I had to build my own underwater housing, because

Ricardo Fasanello scape

I decided to use a middle format camera and you cannot find housings in the market for this type of camera. Once again, the process of the work is a fundamental part of my work, actually build a underwater housing it was the real beginning of this project, then the decision to use a 6x6 camera and then how the water was supposed to act in the construction of the final images. For me the result of all this series of photographs, is how we deal with the water and how this element could transform our perception of the environment around us.

The theme of landscape is very recurrent in your imagery and it never plays the role of a mere background: you rather seem to address to viewers to extract a narrative behind the images you select, to establish direct relations with the spectatorship. How would you describe the function of the evokative places you select for your photographs?

The landscape that you can see in my work, reflects the spirit in which I find myself at that time. Mostly reflects all the feelings and experiences that I am going through. I like to think that the locations chose me instead of me choosing the locations. I know that can sounds frivolous and shallow but isn’t, since I have been working very hard to be the most honest as possible to my self, I believe that the reason to be in some place at some specific time is more than my

personal desire. I do think is a reflection of my most deep desires mix with my tireless disposal to travel and see new places, meet new people and most important, have new life experiences mix with my most deep memories as well, memories that sometimes I don’t even know where they come from or even that I had them.

We like the way Silencio snatches the essence of emptiness and anonymity dued to human presence has reminded us the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc AugÈ: artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your view about this?

“SilÍncio” (silence) is in some way is a sequence of the project “Transitional Frames”, where I approach the loneliness of the photographer’s work and the middle of the journey. Usually people worry about the beginning or the end of a journey, but in this work, I focus completely in the middle of the journey. In SilÍncio I want to reach the silence of the loneliness. I spend a lot of my time by my self and my goal on this project basically it was to find the silence in a very remote locations, probably to listen my own thoughts and learn a lit bit more about my self.

I see the artist role not only to unveil what is in beneath the surface but

Ricardo Fasanello scape Land

show to the public, what are the multiple sides and angles that I can find around us, my particular point of view and try to give my feelings and emotion on the subject. I believe everyone can look what is out there but only who is searching will be able to see the different layers that exist on all things around us. On these days, people are not stopping anymore to observe what is out there, they don’t want to full experience anymore, being there is enough and often not even that.

With a consistent focus on the themes of urban environment, you seem to be inspired by your travels as well as the bohemian neighborhood of Santa Teresa in Rio where you spent your childhood. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It’s possible but isn’t as well. How can I say it's my work if I do not commit to it. I think the truly artist is the one that can reach the most deep thoughts and feeling in the most inside part of our heart and then bring out and transform it in a tool of communication through the element that you choose to use, photography, painting, music and etc… To be absolute honest to my believes, I have to question myself every

Ricardo Fasanello

Ricardo Fasanello

Ricardo Fasanello

moment. I have to be alert to never be dishonest with myself. I have to have doubts and always prove my self to myself, many times only through my experiences, I am able to know that I am on the right track, otherwise what would be the meaning of having so much experience if you don’t embrace it.

While encapsulating elements from reality, your works, and especially the ones from the Transitional Frames series, capture nonsharpness and bring to a new level of significance the elusive still ubiquitous relationship between experience and memory. What is the role of memory in your process?

A very important role. Memory for me is everything. I like to think that most of my work is a kind of reenact of my memories, everything is already there. I just have some glimpse from time to time, with images and a kind of déja-vu of many different memories. I realize that been a romantic, doesn’t help much but I cannot fight what I am. I think my work is a kind of rescue of my memories to bring up and show me the real Ricardo. I understand that my personal work is the most powerful tool that I have at my disposal to know myself deeply and I have been using a lot.

German photographer Thomas Ruff stated once: "nowadays you don't

Ricardo Fasanello scape Land

have to paint to be an artist. You can use photography in a realistic way. You can even do abstract photographs". What is your opinion about the importance of photography in the contemporary art?

This is a very delicate issue for me. We well know that photography freed the painters of the late nineteenth century, taking the function of recording History but when photography became widely used as another tool in Art, I realize that artists who use photography nowadays but who were professional photographers in the past tend to have a work that could be easily classified as part of the modernist movement, why? Because they still care a lot about the focus, the perfect exposure of the film or whether the horizon is crooked or not. Important issues but not when we talk about Art that we have nowadays. I see artists from another background, much freer and much more concerned with the meaning of work than technical details. I believe that photography has to go through a revolution within it in order to find itself again and thus free itself from all the bonds that distance it from its true potential.

Over your career you have had five solos and you showcased your work in several group exhibitions, including recent participation to Pocket

Ricardo Fasanello

Ricardo Fasanello

Ricardo Fasanello

Collection, at the Olympics Special Edition - Galeria Monique Paton, Rio de Janeiro. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Absolute not. And I know some people will freak-out, but I do my photography for myself and myself only. It’s my need or we can say, it’s my call. I have to do, I have to photograph to keep my mind as close as possible to my sanity and photography has a very important role on that. For example, I am already thinking about a new project, this work that will be another huge turn over in my work, is going to have people on it and in the same time the city that I live today, Rio de Janeiro. I know already that some people will say that this new work has some traces of social approach but absolute not. This new work is more about myself and my relation with my hometown that I have been refusing to photograph almost my entire life, I see a great opportunity to rebuild my relationship

Ricardo Fasanello

with Rio (my hometown) that has been apart for all this years. But when we talk about showing the work, that is a complete different relation with the audience, because I don’t think I have to please the public but I cannot underestimate their intelligence, I have to reach them in the level that we can communicate, that is my main goal when I show my work.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Ricardo. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

As I wrote in the previous question, my upcoming work is about my relationship with my hometown, Rio. But I can add that for me today, reach a new and bigger audience is my number one priority, in the pass ten years I have been working a lot but I didn’t have so many individual exhibition, for many different reason but the bottle line is that I want to show more and more my work and of course consolidate my name in a very, very competitive market. As most of the artist in the world, we need to eat, drink and most important, finance our projects that are to come...

, curator landescape@europe.com

Ricardo Fasanello

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder

Ricardo Fasanello

Nadav Ofer

LandEscape meets

Nadav Ofer

, curator landescape@europe.com

Visual artist and photographer Nadav Ofer's work explores the aesthetics of reality to draw the viewers into a multilayered experience. In the body of works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he invites the viewers to extract a narrative from the image he captured, to challenge their perceptual categories. His approach encapsulates both traditional heritage and unconventional sensitiveness and allows him to produce pieces marked out with a strong reference to contemporariness. One of the most impressive aspects of Ofer's work is the way it provides the apparent staticity of an image with an autonomous life and aesthetics: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Nadav and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. How did you start your journey into photography?

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder

Are there any experiences that have particularly influenced the way you conceive and produce your works?

Hello and thank you for inviting me. Starting off as a photographer (photography was my initial aspiration), my motivation was different from my current occupation. I intended to do documentary and journalism photography. I wanted to tour the world and capture war zones and remote jungle trails. It never happened. Instead, I enrolled to study photography. There, besides technical things, I discovered and learned the language of art, and it completely altered my interest in photography. At first, I engaged in direct photography, documenting places. I would walk around with a large camera and a heavy tripod, taking photographs. It was romantic. Working in a dark room also contributed to that notion. I felt I was doing good, interesting things, but the result was always a disappointment. It took awhile to learn how to quiet the background noise. It was a long process.

The language you convey in your works is the result of a constant evolution of your searching for new means to express the ideas you explore in your works: your inquiry

Nadav Ofer

into the expressive potential of photography combines together figurative as subtle abstract feature into a coherent balance. Would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you shed light on your main sources of inspiration?

One principle I have aquired, that has guided my work process, is minimizing. The act of reduction is the key element of the work, no matter if it is still photography or video work, no matter what the work is about. I always clean the frame from the unnecessary, leaving only the essential. Not just as an aesthetic ideal, I think it makes the work easier to comprehend. I do not think art should be an enigma. As a viewer, guessing the artist's intent is frustrating, and it is important to me that my intention comes through. I am inspired by good art. Interesting work drives me to create.

The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape, and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, has at once captured our attention of your work is its dynamic and autonomous aesthetics: in particular, it seems to communicate a successful attempt to transform staticity to

tension, and it's really captivating. How do you choose your subjects? Do you have an actual image or photograph in mind? Are you working from a typological model or is it more intuitive and experiential?

I do not have a specific or defined method to my work. Sometimes I have a clear idea, I know what I am looking for, and I set out in search for the material. Working on the "Scab" photo series, I knew what I wanted to do in advance. I lived in Jerusalem, in the heart of a city condensed with religion and politics, perhaps the most complicated city in the world, and I looked for its edges. Where it meets nature, desolation, the desert. The margins are less stifling and there is something about them that is undone. I wandered around these areas, and realized that they too are marred by politics.

The theme of landscape is very recurrent in your imagery and it never plays the role of a mere background: you rather seem to address to viewers to extract a narrative behind the images you select, to establish direct relations with the spectatorship. How would you describe the function of the evokative places you select for your photographs?

I think every photographer is a wanderer, by nature. Wandering is an

Tal Amitai-Lavi

investigative act. I usually look for places away from the city's noise, places that aren't complete nature and that hold a trace of human presence, beginnings or leftovers. They hold a sculptural .element, that I love, and are somewhat like documenting someone else's art

We like the way your works accomplish the difficult task of controling the experience of place to explore the aesthetics reality. In particular, the equilibrium concerning the composition of your photographs gives them a permanence to the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the images that you capture. So we would take

this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

The camera, more than a mirror or window, serves as a filter, distorting

reality and changing it. Photographers use this function to enslave reality into their needs. The camera has the ability to frame a detail in a certain place or occurrence, and to take it out of context. Finally, photography is a manipulation.

Nadav Ofer

As photographer Thomas Ruff stated once: "nowadays you don't have to paint to be an artist. You can use photography in a realistic way. You can even do abstract

photographs". What is your opinion about the importance of photography in the contemporary art?

As the curator of the Mapplethorpe retrospective, David Hockey said of the work: "It's nice, but it's just photography". From early on,

photography needed to fight for it's place in the art world. In my opinion, direct photography is limited. To me, as an artist, the ability to

document, is also the greatest weakness of photography. I try to transcend these limitations by self definition. If I am defined an artist, and not a photographer, my options are broader.

We like the way you have snatched the essence of emptiness and

anonymity dued to human presence has reminded us the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc Augé: artists are always interested in probing to see what is beneath the surface: maybe one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner

Nadav Ofer

Nature... what's your view about this?

Countless ideas emanate from observing the surrounding. Artists have a different perception of the world around them. Every outing to the streets is an attempt to bring forth an interesting happenstance out

of reality. To illuminate it, frame it, interpret it differently within the artistic creation.

While encapsulating elements from reality, your works capture nonsharpness and bring to a new level of significance the elusive still ubiquitous relationship between

experience and memory. What is the role of memory in your process?

Memory being a component of photography, is a popular notion. That photography is something of an efficient trap of our surrounding reality. But memory, even the photographic kind, is selective and can lead astray . My work "Proof" is about the deception of photographic memory, the disability of photography to serve as a reliable source. I chose well-known historical photos and changed them through shooting and reprinting, in keeping with the photo's realism. The video art "The Same Sea", where the sun rises in the west, also conveys this.

One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create a direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Through the creation of art, I have a dialogue with myself, but it is a conversation spoken out loud, and in the end, everyone is listening .

Artists create out of an internal need, but every writer wants to be published. We want to exhibit, and get feedback on our work, not out of pretensions. Recognition is on the other side of the artistic creation, but the creation process must be detached from that, and the artist's choices, all of them, must be intrinsic to the artist himself, without any thought of the viewers.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nadav. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

As an artist usually using still photography and video, I would like to get "off the wall" and fill the space. To create with other materials. Regarding photography, I think I'm diverting from direct photography, from documenting. Today I prefer to discuss the medium and create things which their basis is an idea. The aesthetic is a bonus.

An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com