LandEscape A r t
R e v i e w
PHILLIP ALTSTATT ESTHER COHEN MILES RUFELDS SAMANTA ARETINO JOSEPH SMEDO YAEL OMER MYUN YI RASKE JASKE EVA ATHANASIADOU
ART
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SUMMARY
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
C o n t e m p o r a r y
A r t
R e v i e w
Raske Jaske
Miles Rufelds
Myun Yi
Yael Omer
Phillip Altstatt
Samanta Aretino
United Kingdom
Canada
Korea
Israel
USA
Argentina/Spain
My work comes from concerns for the environment, which stimulates a passion in me to make artworks from something which would otherwise end up in our bins and then into landfill sites. I believe we have forgotten our relationship with nature. We created our synthetic world and we dump leftovers around us. I believe we must protect the environment/land-scape from pollution and then the natural, clean nature will bring back health and joy into our lives. I strive for my artwork to have an aesthetic appeal and originality and through them I attempt discreetly to connect the viewer with my life's philosophy – the necessity to think and act towards the improvement on ecological state.
Miles Rufelds is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Miles’ practice maintains a formal and conceptual emphasis on video, but branches as well into photography, sculpture, media, and audio. Rufelds’ work contemplates the increasingly complex ways that EuroAmerican cultures relate to fictional things - images, videos, products, and ideas - under contemporary capitalism. He has exhibited in various channels of the Ontario arts community.
Exploring the natural world around me and focusing on my role within it, I strive to illuminate the tension bet-ween nature and humans through art. Using found materials I challenge the integrity of the materials within spatial boundaries. Whatever the material, I find myself testing it, searching for its limits with a structural balance, much like an explorer gingerly traversing a glacier in high summer.
Since the very beginning of my life as an artist I was attracted to sound as a mean to express my self. When I started using sounds, it was more of a tool of documentation, in order to highlight real life episodes and bring them almost as is into the art scene. These could be intimate conversation took place in the public transport system, or a bunch of construction workers singing about their love. The recordings ended up woven in installation.
I am inspired by the bigness of the world and the even bigger depths of imagination. This inspiration drives my ambition to its limits. When conceptualizing new work, I often encounter criticism because it is difficult for others to imagine the inventiveness that will go into the execution of the final product. In order to achieve the seemingly impossible worlds that I create, I have to start with the mechanisms that allow me to contort reality.
Gifted with a strong affinity for cityscapes and color, many of Aretino’s photographs focus on women, children, and urban landscape. However, her work never comes off as something simply dedicated to a cause. With clever and skillful framing, Aretino forces her viewers to care about her subjects and take an interest in them. Although they appear frequently isolated, there’s an implication of the world around them that makes them more than lonely, existential figures.
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Yael Omer lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
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Miles Rufelds lives and works in MontrĂŠal, Canada
Myun Yi
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lives and works in Seoul, South Korea
Samanta Aretino
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lives and works in Madrid, Spain
Joseph Smedo
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lives and works in Detroit, USA
Eva Athanasiadou Esther Cohen
Eva Athanasiadou
Joseph Smedo
Israek
Greece
USA
My paintings are inspired by rituals, narratives and cultural aspects evolving the relationship between the wild and the man-made. The drawings portray a deep rooted contemporary debate on cultural legacy, heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day. The pictorial motifs are at once symbolic and poetic, drawn from personal as well as collective memories.
In my project deals with a treaty which already started research from secondary education. Impetus for this study was the treatise of Plato on the Allegory of the cave. Plato attempts an incision in bipolar shape sensible conceivable. The sense and intellect are a basic principle in most research fields. This is evidenced in the field of biology, philosophy and psychology and refers to the empirical (sensory) knowledge of the world.Empirical knowledge based on commonly accepted cause - and - effect relationship. In quantum physics are different views concerning the validity of the aforementioned relationship.
My approach to creating art is through deep introspective exploration. The events we experience throughout our lives leave a permanent mark on our souls whether it be good or bad; it still remains there, sometimes hidden away. I have made a conscience decision to attempt to purge myself of these marks through my artistic creation process. I feel that this allows me to free up space to allow new marks to be formed down the road. So far this process has served me well. It reveals everything from new born butterflies to releasing some ghosts that have haunted me for way too long.
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lives and works in Thessaloniki, Greece
Esther Cohen
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lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
Raske Jaske
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lives and works in York, United Kingdom
Phillip Altstatt
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lives and works in Sacramento, USA
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.
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Yael Omer Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel
An artist's statement
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ince the very beginning of my life as an artist I was attracted to sound as a mean to express my
self. When I started using sounds, it was more of a tool of documentation, in order to highlight real life episodes and bring them almost as is into the art scene. These could be intimate conversation took place in the public transport system, or a bunch of construction workers singing about their love. The recordings ended up woven in installation. Over time, and with much greater focus since starting my MFA studies, I was attracted to a more abstract interpretation and expression of what I hear. My currents works are still predominantly triggered by the surroundings - I find myself forced to react at or after the fact in way of reconstruction. My first and main role is documentation. These documents will then constitute the evidences and voices of the events I was attracted to and found some interest in. The events or details might be trivial, but for me they are a major discovery. These are pieces of reality that are lying unused beyond their basic functionality, but the way they crossed my path arouse something within me. Usually these moments will have a self-explanatory narrative that will tell its story at the moment of revelation. Most of the times these will be routine urban scenes. The relevant materials are finding their way into my recording devices, and from there to
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my archive on my mac. The sounds and voices are usually a realistic documentation of an event, but at times might be pre-manipulated if I know in advance what I intend to do with them. However, these are not ready-mades, which will find the way into my final composition as is. Their combination at this point seems random. At this stage these are nothing more than coded symbols that function as links to an experience, or memory. In my studio, I will listen to the archive materials, and mark the points from which I can start my journey. The sounds and visions that were recorded and archived will go through a series of manipulations and interpretations, to create meaningful sentences. The abstract and chaotic is gathering a form, a meaning, and usually will be directed into a semantic field that is an echo to the basic experience I was triggered by. These compositions, creations, are filters through which I can express my views about my experiences, and the processes we are going through. These sounds are telling something about the world, they have an opinion, they might agree or protest, and eventually they are transforming a reality into an alternate one. Through the sound, I sale to fictitious locations, to emotional experiences that portraits the places I lived in for several minutes. Yael Omer
Preparation for Flow, sound installation, 2013
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LandEscape meets
Yael Omer An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
Multidisciplinary artist Yael Omer's work accomplishes an insightful exploration of direct experience to walk the viewers through a multi-layered experience, inducing them to elaborate personal associations and interpretations. Her style rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as coherence, while encapsulating a careful attention to composition and balance. One of the most impressive aspects of Yael Omer's work is the way it 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 Yael and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background? You have a solid formal training: among your studies, after having received your MA of General Literature, you attended Graphic Design, Film, Writing and text studies and you later earned your MFA from the Haifa university. How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you
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Yale Omer, photo by Sivan Shavit
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Construction, part of City series, 2009
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relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?
During ten years of language and literature studies I was completely overwhelmed by texts. I was totally absorbed by words. But when the gaps I was filling between the written words started to get more interesting than the words or stories themselves, I felt the need to add the visuals and other experiences to accompany the narrative. The obvious choice was Film. There I started researching the visibility of things, compositions, cinematic expression etc. For seven years I was an autodidact artist, with no formal art studies, then I have decided to add MFA studies. But I’ve dealt with sound way before meeting Prof. Uri Katzenstein in my MFA studies, and combined sound with texts from the very beginning of my way as an artist. The main influence my studies had on my art making is probably related more to the conceptual and philosophical aspects of art, rather than the tools or mediums I use. The first work I had ever exhibited was a short text on a plain A4 page. The last one was a sound work exhibited in a dark space, with no visual components. This process of zooming out from the very detailed and precise to the abstract was fuelled at least in part by researching and exploring several disciplines. I guess the process helped me to unchain myself from any specific tool of expression, so that the conceptual need informs its tools of 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
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http://www.yaelomer.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work: in the meanwhile, would you like to tell our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, would you tell our readers something about the evolution of your style? Is there a central idea or theme that connects all of your work?
There is no single work process that is common to everything I do. Sometimes I seize the moment, and on other occasions I am researching some phenomenon I find interest in. When reacting to what I hear and see, the process can be either very short, even immediate – just taking a picture at scene, or very long and laborious – when composing a sound track based on recording I have made over a long period or time. Usually I will not work on one specific project but will hover over several spots in my studio going from the computer to a painting to the sketchbook. It is like reading several books in parallel, where every one of them is stimulating you in a different way. I am not sure if my style has evolved that much over the years. Texts were evolved into story telling, ready made recordings into compositions. But abstract forms were always a very natural way of expression to me, and my works tend to be lyric and very emotional. And I can definitely say there is a main theme that can be observed in my works, both on the aesthetic and conceptual levels, which has its roots in the action of observation, usually on the weak, dirty, noisy. Places and people with no glory,
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Impressions, sound and painting installation, 2009
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You Liar, sound installation, 2008
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no perfection, damaged or incomplete. Urban scenes. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected FLOW, an interesting trans disciplinary 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 works and the actual places you are referring to is the way you provided the results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of FLOW, would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration?
Andrei Tarkowski’s work had a major influence on my artistic motivation. He resists putting the art making process into the deadly vice that definition can be. He creates worlds, not replicates them, and invites his audience for a stay. What caught me in Tarkowski’s work is the experience of sound and visual floating and flowing to infinity, and enabling his audience to experience a unique and special moment. In my work Flow I am trying to bring the audience into the world of artistic creation. What triggered Flow was a car wash machine I went through, a massive and noisy experience that left its mark on me for a reason I couldn’t tell at the time. Several months later, I stumbled upon the term “Flow” as was explained by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in a TED talk. According to Csíkszentmihályi, Flow is a completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate experience in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing. In flow, the emotions are not
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just contained and channelled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. For an artist Flow is heaven. Unlucky as I am, my creative process is an endless combination of “flows� and blows... The car wash machine is a representation of precision and perfectly ordered tasks and actions, leading to the ultimate result. I felt like breaking it. It had to become something more familiar to my work process. I have these moments of flow, but I also have all the others. In a way, FLOW is my first and to date the only self-portrait I have ever made. When the TED talk came out of the car wash tunnel, I found myself looking at the mirror. As you have remarked, in flow, the emotions are not just contained and channelled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand: at the same time we have appreciated the way it also leaves space for the spectators to become emotionally involved in what you are attempting to communicate. Can you talk about what you’re trying to communicate with the elements that you have incorporated in FLOW?
I am playing the audience into eternal Ping-Pong match, that stems from the tension between disguised forms and failures to understand them, and sudden brief attachments to something familiar. The composition is long, slowly evolving, and hence demands extreme concentration, which is by construction impossible. Therefore the audience is constantly trying to identify what he is facing / hearing / experiencing, and either succeeds or fails to do so. There is
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Berlin, photography
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tension or fight between what gets through and reveal itself, and the rest that cannot, and that tension leads to a constant feeling of frustration due to endless interruptions. Any new element that is being brought into play creates hope for a resolution, and then again retracement and bewilderment. The audience is captured in a riddle that will never be resolved. This is how I am experiencing the art making process, and what I have tried to convey to the audience in that work. You have underlined that your compositions are filters through which you can express your views about your experiences: we like the way your process of interpretation and manipulation of your archive materials allows you to go beyond their intrinsic ephemeral nature to provide the abstract and the chaotic with a form and a meaning. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensible part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
My works are not a result of a philosophic aspiration, and definitely not of a philosophic argument. My observations might have some political roots, but my works are all about emotions. My works are going through me, and they cannot exist if they will not surface from within me. My relationships with the world are a necessity in order to bring the inner voices to surface. When I travel the city minibuses and being captured by anonymous conversations people tend to have on their cell phone while commuting, I am hooked to a political action. My reaction would not be direct,
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at scene. Instead I might record the conversation, probably because it triggered something that was already living inside me. My inner voices or sounds are finding emotional counterpart in the noise of a coffee machine, a bus going by, a conversation etc. The art making process is giving them a meaning. Once created, the political aspect that was obscured or hidden can be discussed. Otherwise things are in a state of camouflage. The day-to-day reality is covering the political drivers of our lives. From the occupation of the Palestinian territories to the psycho-cultural structure of the Israeli who cannot stop himself from discussing the most intimate details of his life over a loud cellphone conversation in public. The political stratum is where I find myself processing the reality; and meeting those realities is a necessary component of my art making. Your work has many different aspects. While some works seem to concentrate on problems of sound and form, others, as You are a friend of mine, are based on language or literature. Where does this wish to work with so many different media stem from and what is their inner connection?
I feel close to many means of expression, but I would not call it a “wish� to work with many media; it is more of the inevitable. First there is the idea, a thought, and then I check how this thought will be best expressed. For example, my work You Liar started with a very short recording of construction workers singing about lost love or betrayal. It ended up in a massive
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Excerpt from Impressions, 2009 sound and painting installation
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Excerpt 38from Impressions, sound and painting installation, 2009
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installation, made up of four meter high scaffolding built inside an almost dark red room, a floating bad assembled from construction site used boards, and a heavy smell of cement that was intensified by humidifiers which made the air thick. And then there was the soundtrack of the construction site, and the workers mourning their lost love. It didn’t make any sense to leave the soundtrack naked fighting for the listener attention. The visitor had to be overwhelmed by the experience. I guess my painting is probably more related to immediate emotions. It is linked to the nerves. It is intimate and minimal. It is more sketchy rather than figurative. All other media and forms of expression can be used in practically every work, and usually support each other. Another interesting work from yours that has particularly impressed us and on which we would like to spend some words is entitled Underdance, that you have presented first at the Haifa University in 2012, and since at several galleries and events. We like the way it combines formal research with improvisation: how did you developed its main idea? And in particular, how would you define the roles of chance and improvisation in your approach?
Underdance is about the relationships, or the lack of relationships, between the external day-to-day roles we play in the world, and the “duties” we have to mother nature. It is about how my aspirations and efforts and success as an artist are all wiped out and swept away when the world is assessing how I play my role as a woman, a mother. It is about
two parallel destinies: the one we wish for ourselves as modern women, and the one that the prehistoric role is setting for us. The soundtrack is accompanied by oscilloscopes which represent graphically my voice and other sounds woven into the composition, but are in fact a monitor the humankind is attaching to my womb while demanding I will play my part. Improvisation can play part in my creative process. I am attracted to the sounds and occurrences that the industrialized world I live in brings with it. I feel like these are little gifts left especially for me. If you can clear all the white noise, you are left with the little gifts. These anecdotic evidences are forming my reality, defining my orientation and are helping me to materialize observations I have made. And that process has nothing to do with chance. Other than that it’s all about improvisation. The Berlin series could be considered as an exploration of the interstitial point between the figurative feature of urban environment and the abstract nature of the process of manipulation: while exhibiting a captivating vibrancy, this stimulating body of works seems to reject an explicit explanatory strategy: rather, you seem to invite the viewer to find personal interpretations. How do representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?
When I was three and a half years old, my parents found out that I can barely see anything, due to sever myopia. It happened to be that my brain captured the world in a very abstract way in the very first stages of its evolution…
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Painting 1 of 2, 2016
apparently this tendency towards abstraction didn’t go away even after I had my eyeglasses on…
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Abstraction is very natural to me, but at the same time I am not creating for a mere aesthetic aspiration. The political
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Painting 2 of 2, 2016
attitude defines a form, needs a form. Being understood by my audience, in an emotional or logical way, is important to
me, and hence the importance of representation. The balance is between an aesthetic language that gravitates to
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Painting, 2016
abstraction, and a political stance that wants to be heard and influence.Taking things out of context is enabling
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attentiveness. If the audience will be able to create a coherent connection between the particles of sounds he hears and its
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real source, the tension will dissipate and the emotional bubbling will be over. The need for abstraction or near abstraction is related to the need to capture the audience attention for long enough time and to pin him to the current moment and place, until the emotional process is completed. 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". Why did in your opinion photography become so important in the art world?
Photography starts to attain its real powers on me when the linkage between the object and its interpretation is broken. I find photography less appealing when it aims to document reality to trigger some emotional reaction. Ruff’s photography of the twin towers made a very powerful statement about the role of photography as a mean of documentation, or the end of that role. In my photography I am presenting reality that is stripped down to an image without any cultural or sociological biography. It has no place or time, there are no places to attach it to, and the object is always trivial. And in that sense it is very similar to my sound works. I am documenting, but the end product is not a document but a statement. What I find appealing about photography is that unlike sound, where I am bound to finish the work in my studio, photography is a fatal action, one off. Unlike sound where I am fully aware of the work process in my studio, in photography I leave room to the element of surprise.
Over these years you have exhibited in galleries and museums in Israel, and lately overseas and over the web. 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?
I will never choose to exhibit just to fit what the audience might be attracted to, or prefer. My works are born in a completely segregated environment even if they are triggered by the external. That is a very intimate process. Having said that, in many of my works there is a need to create an experience, usually emotional, and language or tools are selected to best fit the world I am creating, in order to enhance the experience of the audience in the micro-system I have created for them. The language is chosen not to interpret or to make the experience more accessible for the audience, but to create the correct setup to best convey the ideas underneath the installation or work. Sound works are sometimes more challenging because the abstraction can be extreme. In order to give the compositions the time to work their way to the audience’s ear and heart, there might be a need for an anchor in place or time. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Yael. Finally, would you
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Snapshots from Line 4/5, sound and video
like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
In my latest works I have dealt with an emotional work or thought processes that
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were transformed into somewhat abstract sound tracks. The nature of these tracks lead me to think it would be interesting to see how those compositions will be interpreted by other
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artists using their body – dancers or performance artists. An interpretation like that will give my work a more defined form or structure again, and this process of dismantling and assembling is almost a miracle.
Collaboration of that kind will be the most welcomed next step for me. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
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Miles Rufelds
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iles Rufelds is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa in 2015. Miles’ practice maintains a formal and conceptual emphasis on video, but branches as well into photography, sculpture, media, and audio. Rufelds’ work contemplates the increasingly complex ways that EuroAmerican cultures relate to fictional things - images, videos, products, and ideas - under contemporary capitalism. He has exhibited in various channels of the Ontario arts community, such as Cambridge’s Idea Exchange, Toronto’s Gallery 1313, and Ottawa’s PDA Projects, and shown his videos in Canada and the USA. Miles Rufelds
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LandEscape meets
Miles Rufelds An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Multidisciplinary artist Miles Rufelds' work rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as rigorous formalism, when encapsulating a careful attention to composition and balance. His works questions the relationship between human and inanimated things and accomplishes the difficult task of going beyond a symbolic narrative strategy to challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters. In Nonparticipant, which we'll be discussing in the following pages, he explores the relationship between subject and landscape in an age in which globalisation and commodification impinge on every aspect of our lives. One of the most impressive aspects of Rufelds' practice is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the ubiquitous connections between human microcosm and socio-environmental macrocosm: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Miles and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to
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elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts, that you recently received from the University of Ottawa. 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?
Hello to you as well, and thanks a lot for having me – I’m thrilled to be able to participate in such an illustrious publication as LandEscape. My artistic background is a bit of a scattershot, to be honest: I started my BFA with a background in painting and drawing, transitioned toward interactive, New Media art during my degree, then wound up working almost exclusively in video by the time I finished. Doing a BFA was an essential experience for me, but since moving away from the University, and its emphasis of firm mediatic divisions, I’ve become more and more comfortable combining various different aesthetic strategies with relative freedom, which I think is essential in the contemporary artistic landscape. In terms of my cultural
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Nonparticipant II Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:01:42 (loop)
substratum, the most important factor that I think shows up in my art is the relationship that I’ve always had to cinema and television. Watching television and movies, playing video games, exploring the internet, and
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ultimately just consuming video-media were veritable pillars of my epistemological development, and were unquestionably essential to how my aesthetic sensibilities were formed. It took me a while to identify, but I think
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thought process fundamentally defined by commercial media. You are a versatile artist and practice maintains a formal and conceptual emphasis on video you have gained the ability to cross from one media to another, as photography, sculpture, media, and audio: your approach reveals an incessant search for an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.milesrufelds.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such a multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.
that throughout all of my art making, past and present, there’s been a desire to understand and explore, or at least manifest, the bizarre and kind of perverse phenomenon that is having a
That’s absolutely the case. The ideas that I’ve been grappling with in my recent work – the relationships between humans and products, products and the world, the epistemological influence of media images, or the political blurring of reality and fiction – are all circulated throughout the world via a whole constellation of aesthetic strategies, manifest across every medium available, at all times. While my research into the philosophies of advertising and consumerism is very much ongoing, it became clear to me early on that capitalist manipulation is advanced equally through objects, images, sounds, and ideas, and that any investigation I might pursue could only
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Nonparticipant I Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:01:42 (loop)
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be properly carried out through mixtures of all of those forms. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Nonparticipant, a stimulating series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of this interesting transdisciplinary research project is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis around the with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Nonparticipant, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?
I started working on Nonparticipant when I had just begun to acknowledge and explore the bizarre way that vegetable objects are able to appear as both object and subject to human beings – vegetative matter seems to fill this liminal space between commercial product and living thing, kind of like pet-store animals, but even more bizarre – and how art works can activate or make clear the strangeness of that relationship. The post-Enlightenment, Euro-American attitude towards the non-human world – its treatment of all non-human things as dead matter that exists solely to be manipulated by the human subject – is something that I’ve always taken issue with in my work, and was definitely an inspiration for Nonparticipant. There could have been many outlets for these ideas throughout European art history, but Romantic landscape painting has a particular theatricality and grandiosity to it that I find kind of humorous. I’ve also always found it interesting that the very
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Nonparticipant III Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:01:42 (loop)
notion underlying Romantic “sublime” painting, or conversations of the sublime in general, is one that fundamentally acknowledges a power in the natural, non- human world so strong that the autonomous power of
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the human subject is overwhelmed or rendered null. The Nonparticipant series was my way of wrapping this whole set of ideas into a kind of tragicomic meditation on the history of Western art, progress, and ethics.
Your inquiry into the relationship between subject and landscape accomplishes the difficult task of subverting with consistency the hierarchical relation between the
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Nonparticipant VI Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:01:42 (loop)
natural grandieur of historical works and contemporary environment, to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols that challenges the conflictual relation between Classicism and Contemporary, going beyond mere
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symbolic strategy. 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
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I can give. As I was saying earlier, the only cultural “tradition” that I feel I have rightful claim to is being a child of the video-media generation, which is an extremely new phenomenon when seen in relation to general art history. I think that in some ways I adhere to the ethos of the early Video Art “canon”, which generally concerned the disruption of passive spectatorship, but the state of the video-spectacle even 50 years ago was immensely different than it is now, and it occurs to me that an artistic medium essentially born in the frenzy of 20th century industrialization must necessarily operate with a more fluid relation to tradition than older, more historically-routed practices. The statics you selected for Nonparticipant have an intrinsic seductive beauty due to the aesthetic conversation between the stillness of the landscape and reminders to human presence: in particular, this aspect reminds us of the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc Augé and invites the viewers to a process of self-reflection that may lead to subvert our almost stereotyped interpretive systems. How did you balance the juxtaposition between these aspects of Nonparticipant?
your opinion about it? Moreover, we would like to know if in your opinion there's still a dichotomy between Tradition and Contemporariness?
That’s a very interesting question, but I’m not sure how satisfactory an answer
I think the idea of the non-lieu, or the non-place, is a beautiful association to make with these works! That certain spaces, objects, or subjects have fallen through the cracks of our inherited EuroAmerican aesthetic canon is absolutely at the heart of the series. The forced associations between triumphant, arthistorical landscapes and these spaces of
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contemporary banality, or between dramatic human subjects and these pathetic vegetable objects, are a way of illuminating the fluidity and contingency of the terms that comprise aesthetic esteem. The videos’ restrained, itchy movements are kind of the final element of subversion – each individual feature of the historical painting is irreverently replaced, and reassembled in a form of image that is fundamentally moving and changing; the mutability and dynamism of aesthetic, artistic discourses, contrasted with the ostensibly eternal – what Barthes would call “Mythologized” – schema of Western art history. Another interesting work from your recent production that has particularly impressed us and on which we would like to discuss is entitled Cinema of Expanding Things: e have really appreciated the ay this video shows unconventional aesthetics in the way they deconstructs perceptual images in order to assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a process of self-reflection. Would you shed a light about the role of metaphors in your process?
The idea that video media, particularly cinema and television, might be the past century’s most stable form of collective imagery is one that I find very interesting. As for metaphor, though, I think I tend to approach art, as both creator and observer, from a perspective more akin to Deleuze’s idea of the “assemblage” than to metaphor. I’ve long felt that the notion of the assemblage more closely
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Mining Company/Garbage Day Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:11:29
resembles the artwork’s lifecycle than metaphor does, as it allows the materials, images, and subjects of an artwork to be seen as agents in their own right, influencing one another in an irreducible way, and, importantly, giving the audience credit as a
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fundamental element of the work’s generative capacities. While all of my work might not adhere to the assemblage model, it’s definitely the artistic methodology I feel closest to.
video with an uncomfortable, uncanny atmosphere: how di you conceive the balance between the functional aspect of sound and the visual unity for the narrative of this project?
Sound plays a crucial role in Cinema of Expanding Things and provides this
This is probably really obvious to anyone who’s seen it, but Cinema of
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Mining Company/Garbage Day Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:11:29
Expanding Things is a completely shameless reference to filmmaker David Lynch. Lynch’s idiomatic use of image and sound, as well as his tendency to make unapologetically opaque work, has a kind of antagonistic relationship with the whole of cinema
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that has always had a great influence on how I’ve conceived of art making. The combination of dark, languid images with a subtle, drone-like score is a tactic that Lynch repeatedly uses in his films to instill the general sense that something in the presented scenario is
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Your work in general, and in particular your Mining Company/Garbage Day, provides the viewers with an immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience in your process?
Making video pieces that are to be shown in galleries or public spaces necessitates an entirely different approach to viewership than work intended for theatres or broadcasting. Cinema and television influence my work in a big way, so I do construct each production in a more-or-less linear fashion, providing the most complete experience to those that might stay to watch the piece from beginning to end; time-based works, though, have a very different relationship with audiences than any other type of art, because they fundamentally demand that the audience give up their time, which is a commodity of ever-increasing value in the late-capitalist world. I’m fully aware that most people will not sit and view the entirety of any given video piece, so I work with equal care to try to make each shot or moment function by itself as a compelling experience. It’s a balance that I’m still very much trying to navigate. very off – uncanny is a great word for it – which was very much the tonality I had in mind for Cinema of Expanding Things. Borrowing the strategies of a cinematic iconoclast to problematize the logic of cinema seemed like a perfect opportunity.
Over these years you have showcased your works in various channels of the Ontario arts community: one of the hallmarks of your art is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So
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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?
Audience reception is absolutely something I think about while I’m working. Aside from the presentational, experiential concerns that I just mentioned, a tremendous amount of thought goes into the imagery and material of each work. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m working with ideas like advertising or cinema, which are fundamentally tied to a relatively public aesthetic lexicon, or if it’s unrelated to the medium and I’m simply neurotic, but I spend a great deal of time laboring over the aesthetic and cultural signification inherent to of each material or image I make use of. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Miles. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
Once again, thanks a lot for speaking with me. I’ve always found it difficult to answer questions like this, because my relationships to the ideas I work with change so radically and so often. I find that any new book, film, article, essay, or exhibit can flood me with an entirely new spread of questions, so every far-
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Mining Company/Garbage Day Single channel HD video; 16:9 aspect ratio; 00:11:29
future artistic plans that I make tends to fall by the wayside. There are a number of sculptural, video, and photographic works that I’m presently on the cusp of finishing. I’ve also definitely been
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thinking more and more about digital forms of art making, such as digital graphics, 3d modeling, or simply internet-distributed content. I suppose I’ll just say that the research and
creation is always ongoing, and that you can always follow the progress or contact me through my website, www.milesrufelds.com.
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Raske Jaske
Field 22
Myun Yi
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he scenery I am looking at is a vestige of evolution that has undergone a long evolution, and at the same moment, it is an endlessly repeating eternal time. I am pondering about the relationship between it and the limited human life on the border of instance in various methods, and I am trying to tell a part of it through my artwork.
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LandEscape meets
Myun Yi An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Seoul based artist Myun Yi's work explores a variety of issues, ranging from the notions of landscape, cognition and memory. In Eternal Frame, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he unveils the connections between our perceptual process and the elusive nature of the reality we relate to: his direct approach draws the viewers into a liminal area in which staticity and dinamism find an unexpected point of convergence, creating a compelling and multifaceted aesthetics. One of the most convincing aspect of Yi's approach is the way it condenses the permanent flow of associations in the realm of memory and experience: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production. Hello Myun Yi and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you studied music composition and you are currently engaged in music and video: how does this experience impacts on the way you relate yourself to
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artmaking? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum dued to your Korean roots inform the way you deal with the aesthetic problem in general?
I majored in Western music theory and composition, and the field of study I especially took interest with was the theory and works of composers of contemporary music in the late 20th century. Their ideologies and ideas, as well as their diverse ways of expression laden in their works greatly influenced my composition after I finished my studies. A few years back, I felt that there was a limit to specifically express my ideology and identity through mere composing. The first video artwork that came to production during this time was the “Field.� It earned the opportunity to be showcased in the 11th Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul and the 18th Jihalava International Documentary Film Festival in Czech, and the experience prompted me to continue working until today. The first thing that came into my mind when I thought about the relationship between the cultural basis as a Korean and my work was my way of understanding and using the text (language). This is because this matter of language is the most crucial and
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Afterimage
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considered motivation in my music and video works. Since South Korea is part of the Chinese-speaking country, a lot of Korean words contain Chinese meanings. (Up until Korea had its own text called, “Hangul,” Chinese was the main language used in the country). The Chinese character is an ambiguous one, in which a letter’s meaning can either be expanded or diminished in different situations, thus I believe that Chinese character is an important component in understanding the religion, philosophy, and culture of East Asia, in other words, the East ideology. On the contrast, my mother language, Korean, is like music that contains tone and pitch, where Korean’s emotions and status can be delicately expressed the most. For example, among the works, the work “허”(Empty) contains various meanings such as, vacant, meaningless, weak, sick, reside, hole, and gap. I understand the tone of the word “허” when I read it in Korean as a state of detachment or a feeling of loss or grief. I design my work with the idea that came to be in the process of conceptualizing and mixing together the characteristics of the meanings of two languages. I actively use this in all the aspects of creating an artwork – ideologically and technically (screen, editing, music, sound). The visual 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 into the expressive potential of video and sound combines together figurative as subtle abstract feature into a coherent
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balance. We would like to invite our readers to visit http://yimyun2013.wixsite.com/ yimyun in order to get a wider idea of your
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work and before starting to elaborate
and set up? In particular, would you
about your production: in the
shed light on your main sources of
meanwhile, would you like to tell to our
inspiration?
readers something about your process
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Field
My works can be divided into two: works whose subject is my personal emotions or state (Postcard, Flicker, Eternal
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Frame, Windows) and works whose subject is social problems and issues (Field, Empty, Lease, Afterimage, Hole).
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mostly produced intuitively and spontaneously. On the other hand, the latter ones are produced specifically and systematically with a subject gotten from newspapers or TV news. If there is anything common between the two, it would be that humans do not become the main figure, the subject of the works. I rather try to contain the universal problems humans are faced with through a scenery only, through a fixed gaze at one point. If I have chosen a subject, then I take a long time in doing the process I mentioned above on language. I walk, meditate, and gaze at one point for an extended period of time over and over again. The subject’s overall ambience, material, and idea become compressed into one word through this process, and this is the point where natural shooting happens. The compressed one word, then becomes the title. Then the shoot video is produced in many methods through computer screens. Sometimes I zoom into the screen and take a closer look at each subject or zoom out the screen and survey the entire scenery. I at times change the video’s layer and play speed in many ways using the computer effect, or I would watch the video without the audio or listen to the audio without the video. I repeat the process of expanding and compressing the subjects and ideas of the work several times and complete the work.
The former usually tackles on the concept of Eastern ideology and psychological problems, and they are
For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Eternal Frame and Empty, a couple of interesting works that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What
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has at once captured our attention of your approach 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. While walking our readers through the genesis of Eternal Frame and Empty, would shed light on 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 come up with a specific image or have a visible model in mind when I work. And sometimes, I do not look for a certain place and shoot. Rather, I try as much to eliminate the images or sounds that come to my mind during the initial period of working. This is because I believe that any place has its own story and aura. I just wait and see until I can feel it, and I try to give my ears to their stories. If the stories are fitting to the problem and the subject I have been having in my head for a long time, I begin to shoot, listening to the story quietly. It is like a coincidence that comes to me or that I find at the end of long meditation. The Eternal Frame is a visual expression of my pondering on human life, an expression which used the concept of East’s belief in the rebirth, and the Empty was a work made to commemorate the sinking of the Sewol ferry ship in Korea that happened a few years ago. We like the way Field snatches the essence of emptiness and anonymity, reminding us the notion of non lieu elaborated by French anthropologist Marc AugÊ: artists are always
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Windows
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
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of our inner Nature... what's your view
I try to feel the movement detected
about this?
amid tranquility. So I gaze at one place for a long time, steady my breath, focus
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Windows
on the surrounding sound and smell, and feel the passing wind. The scenery has been constantly talking to humans for a long time, but haven’t we just lost
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the ability to hear it, that our ears are closed to its words? Before it, we will be able to sensitively feel and react to the space and relationships among the
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Drawing from accessible and evokative elements from universal imagery, Fields inquires into the notion of landscape as a redevelopment area that exemplifies the ideology of urban ecology, to provoke direct relations in the viewers and accomplishes the difficult task of going beyond the surface of communication. We find this aspect particularly interesting since it is probabily the only way to raise awareness about the unstable notion of identity, concerning both the individuals and thier place in our ever changing societies: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, what kind of reactions did you expect to provoke in the viewers?
I do not think that everyone should be actively interested with social problems. But I believe that anyone trying to express his/her thoughts through any means should ponder about the various social problems along with his/her concerns. Artists are the people who raise questions. They should pose endless doubts and questions to themselves as well. In this sense, the artwork should be different from media (news, journals, critique, and others) and works that are for entertainment.
things around us, as well as our inner self.
The desire to make change becomes my motivation of work. But I try that it will not become a one-sided forcing of my thoughts or act of agitation. Of course I try to be careful that my works will not be using unnecessarily stimulating methods. I want to throw a question, “How should we think in this situation?” instead of saying, “We have a problem and let’s solve it this way.” Coming to an
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easy answer – this is what the artists should be cautious about. I offer the least guideline to the audience, and I hope that they will have their own self-time, meditation time without any teaching or forcing of thoughts, at least for a few minutes, during the running time of my works. Your cinema reveals a remarkable attempt at a subtle abstract narrative cinema: in your films you often approach the sheer lyrical quality of visual music. How did you develop the combination between sound and your visual style?
I believe that all the creatures in this world as well as objects have their own unique vibration and sound, and I try to listen to the sound coming from the shooting site as I carefully look around the place. At times, the sound becomes a story, a song, or a rambling, or sometimes, a humming. Then I use them as music to my work, and with the obtained sound at the place, I minimize the artificial touch to make it sound natural. I composed an orchestra or harmonized songs out of the completed nine works of mine even when they are being played together at the same time and in the same place. If I have a chance, I wish to try out for showing. Your performances are pervaded with a subtle but effective narrative, and we have particularly appreciated the way Flicker explores the boundaries of cognition to capture non-sharpness of physicality with an universal kind of language, capable of bringing to a new level of significance the elusive but ubiquitous relationship between
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Postcard
experience and memory: what is the role of memory in your process? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your
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previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
I intentionally intervene in the time of the work and manipulate the flow. I
either lengthen or shorten the shoot video, cutting or jumping into another time frame and changing the linear structure of time. I believe that the
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Postcard
visual distortion that comes along in this process is similar to the human’s memory. In the work, I make use of the visual effect and work on the flow of time
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carefully and delicately, visualizing the form and phenomenon of time. Personal experience matters little in this because as I have mentioned above, my works
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began with a simple question – How can humans be conscious that they exist? I pondered on this question in a psychological approach and tried to express it. The below is the work’s author’s note. The moment the successive visual information disappears, the boundary between the reality and dream is gone and the human’s perception between the absolute perception and relative perception breaks down. Memory flickers like a flashbang, causing optical illusion. Dizziness strikes in and the spatial sense becomes dull. Confused. Consciousness fades. What am I being conscious of? Your art is rich of references. At the same time, your filmmaking and composing style is very far from what is generally considered 'academic'. Who among international artists and directors influenced your work? Can you tell us your biggest influences in art and how they have affected your art?
Since my work was centered on composing for a long time, I lack in the understanding of theory and technique on photo or video. Thus, I enjoy looking at the photos published in a news article or uploaded by amateurs in the internet. I look at each of them closely, imagining what story it has to tell.
begin by trying to prioritize the idea gotten from the concept of language. When I was working on “Flicker,” it
On the artists who influenced me, Gyorgy Ligeti, the main contemporary Hungarian musician of the 20th century, and Isang Yun, Korean composer who lived in Germany, influenced me. They lived in the same time period, giving and receiving influence to each other, and they completed their own distinct music
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grammar. Their music philosophy and technique takes a significant part in my works. One of the hallmarks of your practice 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?
My works that are normally composed of one scene are not a striking, ideaheavy, and interesting videos. There is hardly a camera movement or change in scenes. The change in the frame is repetitive, slow, and minute, that it looks like a photo. So I know that the audience may become bored. But I hope that my audience who looks at my video would stand for a while and wait and experience the stop-observation-idea process at least for a short period of time. For me, the direct participation of the audience is experiencing the three stages. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Myun. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
I am not so sure yet. I still continually doubt and ponder about myself, my
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perception of the world, and the working method to expose those. Only, it might be that continuing to produce the works without stopping would be the only way to check my work
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evolving. My works have been made public through the website. And I want to continue sharing my future works as well. I am happy and thankful that I can
introduce my works in the LandEscape Art Review. An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Dario Rutigliano, curator landescape@europe.com
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Samanta Aretino
The digital photography of Samanta Aretino sings with untold stories. Gifted with a strong affinity for cityscapes and color, many of Aretino’s photographs focus on women, children, and urban landscape. However, her work never comes off as something simply dedicated to a cause. With clever and skillful framing, Aretino forces her viewers to care about her subjects and take an interest in them. Although they appear frequently isolated, there’s an implication of the world around them that makes them more than lonely, existential figures. Aretino emigrated from Buenos Aires, the country of her birth, to Spain in 2001. She says this experience greatly affected her work and made her look at the world in a different way, with the knowledge that there are many ways to live, create, express, feel, and relate to people. Aretino’s photographs reflect this understanding: they're an exploration of the world and how people navigate through it.
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LandEscape meets
Samanta Aretino An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Visual artist and photographer Samanta Aretino'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, she invites the viewers to extract a narrative from images of women, children, and urban landscape, to challenge their perceptual categories. One of the most impressive aspects of Aretino's work is the way it forces her viewers to care about her subjects and take an interest in them providing the apparent staticity of an image with an autonomous life and aesthetics: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Samanta and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you studies at the School of Art Arroyomolinos, you eventually degreed from the School of Photography of Pedro Menendez de la Cuesta, ArroyomolinosMadrid. You later nurtured your education with specialization courses with various artists, including Alain Perdomo. How do these experience influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does the relationship between your cultural
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substratum dued to your Argentinan roots and you current life in Spain inform the way you relate yourself to the aesthetic problem in general?
Hello and thank you for the warm welcoming! I consider myself as a constant learner. I believe Photography offers me so many ways of expression through many techniques and modes of exteriorization, that make me interested in all of them, always investigating new forms languages in my work. The emigration of my country opened new perspectives, new ways of seeing and living life. The education we receive delimits us a path. Get out of the way and get lost in unfamiliar territory opens multiple visions of the world and the people who inhabit it. Changing our position, seeing culture from other point of view has taught me that there many ways to live this life, to create, to express, to feel, and to relate with people, and that's what I want to reflect on my photographs. The visual language of your works seems to be the result of a constant evolution of your searching for new means to express the ideas you explore: your inquiry into the expressive potential of photography combines together figurative as subtle abstract feature into a coherent balance. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.samantaaretinophoto.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: in the
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meanwhile, 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?
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My process and set up depends on what I want to tell in that moment. When I want to reflect a reality, always taking into account that will be a reality from my
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subjective photographic point of view, I try to go into the issue to portray, know the subject, to capture their stories in an emotional and direct way. The last work of
this kind was performed on the island of Lesbos, Greece. I entered as a volunteer in a refugee camp, working with the, photographing their reality, life in such
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camps and ties created with volunteers. That took me a great inside job, before and after that mobilizing experience.
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However when I want to create my own reality, giving free rein to the possibilities offered by photography, my preparation is quite different. Sometimes ideas come to
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ideas appear suddenly and creations are developed independently, and the result ends up being something totally unexpected. Really I enjoy the experience of getting lost with the camera in everyday scenes between both of my city and remote places, talks with people and get carried away by that point of chance that photography has. For this special edition of LandEscape, we have selected Overlayed scapes, an interesting series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article, whas at once captured our attention of this project 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?
This is a series of overlapping photographs of different landscapes mainly from Asia (India, Cambodia, Thailand, and China). Recently I also made some scapes from New York City. In these images I want to reflect the experience of life in these cities maelstrom of feelings, overlap of people, traffic and lights that come together in a colorful, varied landscape and constantly moving. In this work I make photographs in a very intuitive way, leaving me be taken by these experiences, by the explosion of stimuli. I have no preset image previous to the making, I don´t choose the subjects previously. The images simply are emerging as the movement of a dance to the beat of the music surround. me in any situation of everyday life and then try to bring those ideas to photography posteriorly. Sometimes while I am carrying out a previous idea, other
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 AugĂŠ: artists are
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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?
As a photographer, I always look reveal what is behind what everyone sees at first glance. It is one of the main photographic exercises performed frequently, see one place, one person in a different way and show that in photographs. In the series of double exposure photographs named “Passing by” I want to reflect the relationship between people and nature. People and places. Sometimes it seems striking to her the way we pass by on earth, as if us and the rest of the living creatures; or as if us and the environment were separated worlds. At other times, we modify the places for our use no matter what damage we can promote. That´s why she has fused the personages and the nature escapes so that people and nature became one. In other portraits the changes we made on the surroundings “passes through” our existence. Each image presents an amalgam, represents the cosmos we take part of. We like the way your Passengers series 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?
Direct experience inevitably tinged work of every artist, both in the means by which it
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is expressed as in the subject for which he is interested. Although we do not use our experience directly, always underlies our artistic works. But sometimes it is when we turn
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away from that experience when we get amazing results for ourselves We have been strucked with the idea of immediacy you communicate through the pieces of your Mujeres // Women series:
what messages did you want to convey through this captivating project? In particular, do you think that your being a woman provides your photographs with some special value, some additional meaning?
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I think there is so much injustice and lack of equality around the world, and I think women suffer more as a consequence of that. I want to tell people about this. I am interested in women's stories across the
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world. This series is a homage to women and their figths. Being a woman doesn’t affect mi photographs directly, it may affect the way I choose this kind of matters
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figurative approach. 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?
Photography is an art from it´s creation. SO its importance in the contemporary art its importance in art goes together than any other artistic discipline.It has a challenge against the avalanche of images created daily. But capturing an image does not mean telling a story with her. That's where it differs photography as art merely unconscious shot While encapsulating elements from reality, your works capture non-sharpness 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?
I don´t use photographs as documentary elements, as memories. I prefer to express that memories generates abstracts images.I think the way my memory travels, shifts, moves towards moments of my life, both in adolescence and childhood, where different emotions are mixed, compose those images. The image generated by this movement is not static, it is not defined. I can´t see it completely because it is distorted by the same memories and the new experiences.
to photograph, seeing this issues from inside. Passing by shows a stimulating combination between abstraction and
Over these years you have exhibited in several occasion, including your recent shows at Castillo Hubertendorf, Austria and at Carrousel du Louvre, Paris. 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
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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?
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Samanta. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
In the moment of creation I don´t think about the audience that will be viewing that images. I don´t use an specific language in order to be read by certain viewers. I just work from inside. In the moment to show that images, I do think in the audience that will be envolved in certain exhibitions, so that it can be adapted to the visitor experience and to give coherence to a group of images that are displayed together.
Thank you for this interesting interview. Nowadays I have some projects in proccess, always related to human diversity. I expect to keep creating from inside and keep showing it worldwide.
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An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
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J oseph Smedo Lives in Farmington Hills, Michigan and works in Detroit, Michigan
An artist's statement
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am an artist from Metro Detroit. I make my artistic expressions through in a variety of ways; sculpture (both stone and metal), abstract paintings, and photography. I currently have a Fine Arts degree from Schoolcraft College. My work has been displayed in an ever growing list of galleries throughout the country. I have also had the honor of being published in various international magazines and books. My approach to creating art is through deep introspective exploration. The events we experience throughout our lives leave a permanent mark on our souls whether it be good or bad; it still remains there, sometimes
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hidden away. I have made a conscience decision to attempt to purge myself of these marks through my artistic creation process. I feel that this allows me to free up space to allow new marks to be formed down the road. So far this process has served me well. It reveals everything from new born butterflies to releasing some ghosts that have haunted me for way too long. The mind can be a beautifully scary place to truly explore; I suggest you try it from time to time, who knows what you may find.
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LandEscape meets
Joseph Smedo An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Ranging from photography and abstract painting to sculpture, artist Joseph Smedo's work explores the liminal area in which subconscious extracts elements from direct experience, to draw the viewers through a multilayered aesthetic journey. In his works that we'll be discussing in the following pages he encapsulated both traditional heritage and unconventional sensitiveness, to trigger the viewers' perceptual parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Smedo's practice is the way he shows that mind can be a beautifully scary place to truly explore: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Joseph and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a Fine Arts degree from Schoolcraft College: how does this experience
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influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to the aesthetic problem in general?
*During my time studying at Schoolcraft College, I had the privilege of having two amazing professors; Robert Bielat and Melissa Machnee. The fundimental skillset that their mentoring has passed on to me allows for an extremely diverse choices of mediums that I can manipulate into the visions I have in my mind. I am able to approach design concepts through multiple sensory levels, in order to convey my story being told in the piece. Pandora’s Box, for instance, was originally planned to be a cast bronze piece and later in the design phase, I chose to hand carve it out of limestone. The coldness of the stone, the surface feel and the physical weight, added an emotional element that could not have been accomplished with bronze. I know it always drives gallery curators insane
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that I encourage the viewer to pick up certain pieces of mine on display. I truly believe that they often need to hold the piece in order to more deeply process the message embodied into the sculpture. Stone does not change with time, bronze patinas as the days march on, and steel rusts, rots, and falls away. Each medium serves an important purpose in the art of story telling. I am fortunite to have been exposed to the technical skills needed to harness the power held inside all of those mediums. Your art practice is marked out with a particular multidisciplinary approach, involving abstract paintings, photography and sculpture. Your visual vocabulary shows an interesting combination between figurative and abstraction, you combine into coherent balance. We we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.facebook.com/mipointof view/# in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.
*Unlike many artists, I do not work in series. I find they idea of taking a solitary concept and extrapulating it
out into a series of pieces laborious. In many traditional art schools that is the norm expected of students and in turn, the students later career they tend to continue the series formula. I prefer to take a concept and create a single sculpture, painting, or photograph. If I do not successfully accomplish the concept into physical form on my first attempt, I trash it and start again; either in a different method or medium until it meets my standards. As your readers browse through my facebook art page they will see how individual and unique each and every piece truly is. 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 capable of 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". How do you conceive the narrative for your works? In particular, how do you
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come up with the ideas for your pieces?
*The narrative told through my pieces is a direct representation of my personal life experiences. I am a safety director by profession. I am also a trained fire fighter and emergency medical technician. My artwork is often a biproduct of tramatic events I was involved in. The process of creating art has a theraputic and cathartic quality that helps lay the demons of those memories to bed; allowing for some closure. “Ghosts” playing directly into this, the iconography is that of tortured souls trapped. “Pandora’s Box” shows that some things can be hidden away but never really forgotten. Deeply introspective imagery without blatant directed symbolism is how I try to tell my stories. It is too easy and trite to simply create a piece that requires the viewer little or no effort to uncover the message. Sure, at a glance you may feel that you have grasped what I am telling you but it takes effort in order to see the forest through the trees. In your sculptures, you work with both stone and metal: what fascinates us about your pieces is this diversity of materials that you work with and how you accomplish a perfect balance them together. How do you manage to merge contrasting materials into a
cohesive whole? What kinds of connections do you make in between the materials?
*The first time I went to Mexico and saw first hand some of the ancient temples carved from stone. I wanted to know how they constructed them; the tools they used, the techniques, and how to get the various textures. Growing up in Detroit, steel was all around me, in the signs on buildings, the bridges, the fire escapes......everywhere I looked there it was. Somethings were shiny bright metal, some dull and painted while others rusting away into nothingness. The elements of each medium can be used together to create a menagerie of layers upon and within the sculptures. Steel has a higher melting temperature than bronze so I can pour the molten bronze and once cooled, the steel and bronze are permanently joined. After I can patina the bronze to almost any color I choose. The steel can be polished and clear coated or I can let it rust. The combination of the varied finishes and mediums can best be seen in my piece titled “A Silver Lining” for it consists of three types of steel, bronze and stone. A crucial aspect of your works is the 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
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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 has drastically changed over the last 1520 years. With the addiction to electronic devices an ever grown demographic of the world’s population is so disconnected from the physical realm. I often see people taking their phones out to take a picture of a beautiful work of art or a video of a concert instead of simply appriciating that fact that they have the priviledge of being able to be there in person to experience it. The trend of people taking pictures of their food and sharing it on social media is disturbing to me. People need to put there phones away, enjoy the meal in front of them and embrace the company they have sitting at the table. Sorry, I digress. As each new day passes, I put less and less effort into thinking about who is going to see my work and what they think about it. Instead I focus on why I am creating art in the first place. Creating artwork is not so much of a “want to do” but a “need to do” activity that helps balance out my existance. Yes, I am humbled each and every time anyone takes a
moment of their time to acknowledge anything i have created, be it a positive compliment or a negative critism. By them taking a moment to stop and experience a thought and/or emotion because of something I made proves to me that I did something right. There is though a sense of self worth that words can never express that happens when a person decides to give their hard earned money to purchase a part of me. I will remember till the day I leave this life, the very first person that said I would love to own that thing you made and reached into her purse to grab money. It was $5 for a photograph I had printed at the local store; she saw it while I was going through the prints to see how they turned out. German 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". As a mixed media artist, do you agree with this statement? And in particular, why did in your opinion photography become so important in the art world?
*Photography can definitly be a fine art discipline. Light is a pallete of colors to be maniputed, distorted, and used to one’s heart desire. As a photographer for over 20 years, I can
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vouch for how much work goes into creating the perfect photograph. Natural and artificial lighting, filters for the lens, setting the frame rates and exposure lengths all play a key role in creating a true fine art photograph. I am still on the fence with some photography though. Some photography is so digitally modified that I personally classify them as graphic design, which is still a form of art. In your artist's statement you have remarked that "your approach to creating art is through deep introspective exploration". Your approach conveys both descriptive and metaphoric research: the compelling narrative that pervades your pieces invites the viewers to a multilayered experience. In particular, Silver Lining communicates a concrete aesthetic from symbols, working on both subconscious and conscious level. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion, personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
*I can only speak on my own creative process. For me, personal experiences are absolutely indispensable to the formulating of
subject matter for a piece. As for the physical portion of the construction; the years of trials and errors have shaped my methods, most of which are non-traditional in the eyes of academia. For example I often grab a sharpened screw driver instead of a masonry chisel simply because I do not have traditional tools readily availible so I make due with what I have on hand. I do believe there are people in the art world that can easily create without personal involvement, but I unfortunately, am not one of those people. Creating art is my therapy! Recently I had the honor of being a contributing artist for a book themed around this. It is called “Healing from Psychiatry : An Artists Perspective”. The book is full of beautiful stories told by artists around the world that benefit emotionally and mentally by the artistic process. State of Union seems to convey a subtle symbolism: we daresay that it has a hidden political message. How would you describe your personal iconography, and is there something you can look back and see consistently in your work?
*”State of the Union” can be interpreted in a few different way by the viewer. One can see it as a statement directed towards the current political atmosphere; they
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could also see the oppression faced daily by the skilled trades. I want to leave the meaning up for personal interpritation, the title was left ambiguous enough to start one’s mind on a journey. “Gluttony” is another sculpture that the title sets the tone but does not necessarily provide an answer. (here we have reserved space also for Gluttony) Over these years you work has been displayed in an ever growing list of galleries throughout the United States and one of the hallmarks of your art 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?
*Crucial; not at all. I have done a few pieces based on a theme set forth by a gallery for an event. Other than that, audience reception does not cross my mind. Like I stated earlier the ability of the audience to unplug is the largest hurdle any artist or curator faces today.
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Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Joseph. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
*As for future projects I have a cue of sculptures in the works. I have no logic for the reason why, but it seems like my sculptures are growing larger and heavier as time passes. I have made a conscious decision to pick up my camera more often this up coming year also. I have also created a design that combines a large steel sculpture that will incorporate multiple abstract paintings; something I have never attempted before. Aside from my personal solo work, I am involved with multiple large scale art centered events in Detroit; Theatre Bizarre, The Damned Exhibition, and Breaking Borders. If any of your readers are in Detroit during the time frame of when these events are happening, I highly suggest attending; they will walk away with amazing memories.
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Eva Athanasiadou Lives and works in Athens, Greece
An artist's statement
D
uring of my studies at the School of Fine Arts of the university of Western Macedonia, I was interested on the issue of the influence of science in art. Judge necessary theoretical documentation on each project and trust more an approved scientific position, although it may be related. In my project deals with a treaty which already started research from secondary education. Impetus for this study was the treatise of Plato on the Allegory of the cave. Plato attempts an incision in bipolar shape sensible - conceivable. The sense and intellect are a basic principle in most research fields. This is evidenced in the field of biology, philosophy and psychology and refers to the empirical (sensory) knowledge of the world.Empirical knowledge based on commonly accepted cause - and - effect relationship. In quantum physics are different views concerning the validity of the aforementioned relationship. Therefore, according to the distinction between experience and concept , we arrive at the crossroads of modern physics that investigates a space Non-Euclidean Geometry and subjoins the basic solid properties not perceived by the five (human) sences.
As far as I concern on the implementation of the idea I conceived , I had to come into contact with people from different scientific research fields and further the first attempt was unsuccessful for the conformity of the project. I had experimented with a variety of materials in recent years . Dominant role played my participation at the
jewel's lesson. I search out among different materials , what would combine a solid structure with the possibility of incurvation and distortion. With greatly preoccupied aesthetics of the material and its resistance in time and vibration. The material best responder my expectations is:the acrylic glass (Plexiglas). Particularly interesting i appreciate the involvement of light (natural and artificial) in visual projects,as the light has the property deteriorates optical and structural form of the material. In the course of my research and the final project, I included the mirror because of its properties. But Dominant role played by the cube concerning the symbolism and its uses. In the report, the five sides hanging from the roof using chains. At four sides are fitted with double-sided tape and fishing line, within dimensions 0,90m x 0,90 m which have the appearance of a common mirror but within them have led film which creates illusion to the viewer. The extension of sides of the cube are approximately 0,65-0,70m. Each side consists of a wooden frame thickness 30mm and width 55 mm as well as a cross inside wood, same size. The gaps have been filled by polystyrene (extruded polystyrene) and the frame is pressurized externally with MDF. The base is reinforced internally with greater thickening in the woods that are fitted inside the frame at 130mm.
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LandEscape meets
Eva Athanasiadou An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
Multidisciplinary artist Eva Athanasiadou's work rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as rigorous formalism, when encapsulating a careful attention to composition and balance. Exploring the expressive potential of the combination between different materials, she focuses on the acryl glass for its capability of capturing light to investigate about language, meaning, and transformation. One of the most impressive aspects of Athanasiadou's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the ubiquitous connections between microcosm and macrocosm: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Eva and welcome to LandEscape: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background? You have a solid formal training and you degreed from the School of Fine Arts of the University of Western Macedonia. How do your studies influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, what is your
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main interest as creative? Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?
Hello! Before we begin I would like to thank the LandEscape for hosting on its pages. The title of “artist’’ is just a title for me. I think my studies did not affect at all my choice to deal with art. Since I can remember myself I wanted to communicate with alternative ways. For me art is communication. Your works interact with viewers even when you are not there to support them. However, my studies in art was a way to enrich my knowledge and share my concerns. My main interest concerns the knowledge of my inner world (selfknowledge) and outer world (Cosmologyontology). I have chosen to deal with conceptual art because it triggers my mind, my expression and creativity. It also helps me to both understand better myself and the world around me. This is subjective. Art is a liberty and I find it difficult to fit in ‘’molds’’. If I was trying to give a more specific answer I would say that it is both. You are a versatile artist and over these years you have gained the ability to cross from one media to another: your approach reveals an incessant search of
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an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit https://www.facebook.com/anartisticrefle ction?fref=ts in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.
Yes when I investigate something I make use of as many angles as possible. The Interdisciplinary opens you new horizons in the journey of expression and leads to reliable conclusions offering you a comprehensive knowledge. Thanks! Here is an opportunity to say that, if someone believes that we have something in common and wants to work on a future project with me, please don't be hesitate to communicate in athanasiadoueva@gmail.com For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected Beings & Cubes, an interesting work from your thesis, that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of this interesting transdisciplinary research project is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: when walking our readers through the genesis of Beings & Cubes, would you shed light on your usual process and set up?
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I’m glad that an autonomous aesthetic can attributes the results of my research. The truth is that I have affected by my research in experimental psychology and many times I am in questioned if the messages which someone sends, perceived without being misrepresented their content. On the occasion of your question, I want to share with readers that as many projects started spontaneously without conceptual status, I did neither completed nor I completed after I tried to find the root causes. So according to my conclusion, the project is a result of transfer of an idea into a sensory perceived situation, which explains why I express with as much as tools dispose and I am not faithful in a material or a technique. Reminding us of Manfred Pernice's works, Beings & Cubes shows the intimate symbiosis between art and abstract geometry, taking advantage of the creative and expressive potential of Sculpture to provide an abstract idea with a tactile materialization. How does representation and the tendency towards abstraction in order to capture a wide variety of meanings find their balance in your work?
Indeed. The beings and cubes consist of two parts as you have noticed, the cubemirror with strict geometry and the series of sculptures that were placed inside cubes, are semantically sculptures, abstract geometry. Using consciously the cube, a ultimate shape that builds the world (according to the alchemists), triggered a series of Visual stimuli, in fact, they do not correlate random with the cube, with the
notion of internment. Such a powerful and stable shape can bring out the lead into obscurity a series of polymorphous sculptures. I believe that it is necessary in my work to leave space to the viewer to fill mentally in the forms and create new levels and impressions by the project. When inquiring into the distinction between experience and concept, your exploraton arrives to the crossroads of modern physics that investigates a space Non-Euclidean Geometry: what has at once captured our attention of your approach 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?
With perfectly expressed this view. Paul Klee once said '' the art does not represent the visible, but it makes visible. ‘‘ I try to convey in my works the path of my thinking. Plato rejects the artists because they mimic the imitation (the objects according to Plato is faded imitations of ideas). What I want to do is to leave the world and feel objects to replicate the concepts in my projects. This gives them an oddity because ideas
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have no material substance, found in our minds. The result though is subjective in terms of imitating the idea, opens a dialogue with the Viewer by focusing on personal perception. When inducing the viewers to relate themselves to the properties not perceived by the five human senses, you draw the viewers to an aesthetic experience marked out with an open reading, with a multiplicity of subtle meanings. We daresay that you are not attempting to establish any unified sense of the world: associative possibilities are of greater importance. How important is this degree of openness?
What fascinates me is that every spectator is confronted with the internal images and beliefs about the world. The power of thought might form its new conditions. Everything around us is thoughts that made acts of ... But what happens when reverse cause and effect relationship? The arrow of time? When art can contribute to the understanding of relativity? The answer is art, this controversial field which associated both with philosophy, physics, psychology and other scientific fields. It is very important for the man to understand that truth is independent of the observer. Many people claim to be sure of what you believe, at the same time scientific evidence the break. I once read that '' science is belief in ignorance of experts ''. All I can say is that we have to learn a lot more. Your works seem to move from experience to produce an augmented experience: so we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative
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process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
I don't think that this cannot happen. Every creative process involves the creator of and integrally personal experiences. Even when trying to disconnect, manifested its effort. I have some doubts about the topic of copying works. I do not think that it is a creative process but technical. (But even this personal experience is). Your work provides the viewers with an immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience in your process?
The vision is the most powerful sense of man in General. In addition, we live in an age of image. The review is directly connected with the aesthetic concept, based mostly on visual experience. When I decided to deal with the subjective perception, like to work with people suffering from blindness. Exactly why the viewing experience would not have color and format in their minds. Also, their criticism is transparent and thoughtful. Unlike common superficial opinion, this derived from the shallow knowledge of vision. The art must ''be'' in public space, not as a decorative element, but must cease to serve interests and becoming useful in every conceivable viewer. Over these years you took part to several art exhibitions, both solos and group shows: one of the hallmarks of your art 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
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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?
In my course, in the world of art, is understood that we must do something more than a '' beautiful '' project. Might the impressive and elegant works to act as magnets for the world, but the request is not their personal aesthetic. This regard I also support.Ι prefer not to adapt my work to the public but leaving the audience to adjust to this. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Eva. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see the development of your work?
Was a great pleasure and honor for me to share with you my thoughts. At the moment I am working in secondary education and I have the opportunity to be taught by my students, observing their reactions to interdisciplinary art. However I am interested in Psychology and special education. I deal also with writing and photography and i want to combine them sometime. About the project... I have to close the chapter that opened my diploma work (beings and cubes) but everyone can find on my page or write together with a common project. Thank you for your time and hope to meet you and close once! An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
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E sther Cohen Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel
An artist's statement
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y paintings are inspired by rituals, narratives and cultural aspects evolving the relationship between the wild and the man-made. The drawings portray a deep rooted contemporary debate on cultural legacy, heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day. The pictorial motifs are at once symbolic and poetic, drawn from personal as well as collective memories.
In a detailed and refined painting technique, if it is oil on canvas, or drawing with a simple ballpoint pen on paper I deal with the act of mapping and the definition of actual and symbolic boundaries. I am interested in investigating the
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domestication of nature, while documenting the process of growth and withering in the wild, I correspond with the old masters paintings and botanist drawings in a criticizing and contemporary point of view. Through my body of work I invite the audience to observe closely and consider questions regarding identity, evolution and pertinence and bring to mind the dialectics between local and global, the planted and the uprooted, east and west, indoors and outdoors, nature and culture. Entangling past and present, charted pathways and unrestrained nature. Esther Cohen
The valley of tears
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LandEscape meets
Esther Cohen An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com
photography: Avi Amsalem Tel Aviv based artist Esther Cohen's work is a successful attempt to capture a wide variety of concepts, ranging from the theme of the domestication of nature to the symbolic notion of border, developing an evocative visual language capable of communicating with the viewers' inner sphere. In The Map series that we'll be discussing in the following pages she encapsulated both traditional heritage and unconventional sensitiveness, to trigger our perceptual parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Cohen's work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of exploring the multifaceted nature of the relationship between man and nature, to represent both realistic and imagined space: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Esther and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and you graduated from the Hamidrasha School of Art: how do this experience of training influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to the aesthetic problem in general?
Thank you, I am glad to take part in LandEscape.
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Poppies observing the Negev desert, 27detail
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Lentil Plate
While I was an art student, in the second year of my studies, the establishment moved from a city in the center of Israel to a quite remote country side area. In retrospective, I believe that the relocation influenced me mostly. I used to visit, on a daily
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basis the plantation of agriculturist relatives of mine who lived close to school. They grew carnations among other plants and vegetables for export. I found the plantation a great place for inspiration. All of my art production related to my daily habits. The pro-
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cess of growth and decay captivated my thoughts, and I started to investigate the domestication of nature, inspired by rituals and narratives from everyday life. The relationship between wild nature and the man-made fascinated me. My drawings portray a deep rooted contemporary debate on cultural legacy, heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day. I carry with me experiences from places i lived in as a child, In Israel and abroad, and it comes into realization in my work. The pictorial motifs are at once symbolic and poetic, drawn from personal as well as collective memories. You are a versatile artist and the results of your research convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.esthercohenart.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production. You draw a lot from elements belonging to universal imagery works stimulate the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. How did you decide to focus on this form of painting? And in particular, do you conceive this in an instinctive way or do you rather structure your process in order to reach the right balance?
I usually work in series. Each of the series stands alone, but also relates to, and in a way continues its predecessors, forming a thematic continuity between series, exhibitions, moments in time and places. In my early works I painted with oil or acrylic on canvas but after becoming a mother this process was too long and conventional for me. I stared to draw with
a pencil and ballpoint pen on paper for circumstantial reasons but it soon became my identified practice. I take a lot of inspiration from my home, daily rituals and ceremonial motifs, for example, in my early series of work “Lentils and Rice” (oil painting on round canvas) I depict the domestic ritual of sorting through rice or lentils, on a plate, in a meticulously realistic manner. Sorting through legumes, a painstaking chore which I partook with my mother in childhood home, on old European plates we used, at the time we lived in London England, to this day actually, is articulated by the equally painstaking painting of each and every grain of rice or lentil, documenting each stage of the slow ritual, contrasting the fast and instant pace of modern times. The series recreates the repetitive, restricted circular sorting motion of manually transferring rice from one side of the plate to the other, in to order dispose of pebbles and other inedible elements. The motion of the paintbrush over the canvas maps the action of the hand sorting through lentils or rice, developing into broader cultural aspects as the painted images morph from decorative flowers to thorns and insects, threatening the hard gained order, and referencing 17th century Flemish Vanitas paintings. The series of drawings on paper-doilies continues this motif. For example, “TelAviv in Delft Blue” portrays Tel-Aviv’s skyline panoramic view, alongside decorative flowers of the almond tree blossom, which is unusual to this coastal strip. This work corresponds with the famous painting “View of Delft” (1658 1660) by the great Flemish artist Johannes Vermeer. I consider it to be a modest contemporary
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homage, drawn on a simple paper doily, a
craft. The blue ballpoint pen drawing cor-
disposable item, a reminder of the hand-
responds with the typical blue delftware
made embroidery, a traditional feminine
ceramics, and in a way, brings together
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the dialectics between high and low, art and craft, feminine and masculine, east
For this special edition of LandEscape
and west, past and present.
we have selected The Map series, an
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Pines in Lebanon
extremely interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of you exploration of the
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relationship between nature and man is the way you have been capable of creating a concrete aesthetics from direct experience: when walking our
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The act of mapping, the rebellious wildflowers and references to Vanitas paintings also appear in the “Flowers in Blue and Black” body of work. The realistically rendered blue and black indigenous wildflowers - daffodils, cyclamens, anemones, poppies, lupines, are drawn with a ballpoint pen on old maps of Israel/Palestine or on circular paper formats. The choice to use ballpoint pen, an available household item, and the readymade map formats dictate the blue and black linear characteristic of the drawings (emphasizing the wildflowers’ rich texture). The decision to draw with an ordinary ballpoint pen, in my eyes, speaks to the dissonance between wild nature and familiar serene domesticity.
Poppies observing the Negev desert
readers through the genesis of The Map series would you tell us something about your usual process and set up?
The motif is strengthened by the decision to draw “simple” flowers that grow in the wild without human interference. I “strip” the flowers of their natural colors and transform them into “unified” blue and black specimens. These detailed drawings of flowers bring to mind early 20th century botany handbooks on one hand, and on the other, still life painting tradition, specifically floral paintings. By drawing and portraying the process of growth and decay in the wild, I am conducting a contemporary dialog with the “impossible bouquet” of ancient floral paintings. In the past, the flowers were imported from exotic countries and brought together in the painting although they did not grow or bloom at the same time. Therefor 17th century paintings were actually a fiction floristry. The flower, throughout the history of art, has symbolized evanescent beauty,
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Operation protective edge
the transient fleetingness of life on earth (“Memento Mori�). The flower is the embodiment of temptation and
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beauty as well as of pain and death. Transience, as a motif, in my work, manifests itself in the choice of flowers, and
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the decision to draw them on old geographical maps. Looking at these maps provides a win-
dow into the past, to places and borders that no longer exist, to the wide-open fields which have over time become ur-
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ban or industrialized zones, and to the altered names and functions of sites. The works it seems, do more than merely confront us with our mortality; they emphasize the evolving process of perception and points of view. Rather than towards an explanatory strategy, your approach seems to be oriented to provide the viewers of a set of fragmented but at the same time evocative images that works as an Ariadne's Thread, that invites the viewer's eye to spend a considerable time on a variety of patterns, which suggests us the idea that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?
I like your reference to Ariadne’s Thread...The drawings invites the viewer to trace the places on the map and at the same time try to find the connection to the painted motifs, and to the viewer’s’ location, physically and symbolically. The linear manner in which the flowers are rendered is patterned according to the way flowers grow naturally, contrary to topographical lines and charted boundaries on maps. The way the drawing trespasses over the mapped borders, representing loss of control, and in my view, creates an explicit and a subliminal conflict between order and chaos by drawing within lines and outside the lines. The act of drawing redefines the map, creating a new code to decipher, one that traces the fields of blossoming wildflowers stubbornly surviving, season after season, demanding their ability to reappear. The drawing distorts the
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Inula Viscosa and Boswellia
map’s scale, as the flowers are drawn in life-size, and therefore suggest a new method of representing reality. Allegorical of Jorge Luis Borges’s map, the flowers cover the map, creating an absurd dynamic between the signified and the signifier. Through my body of work I invite the audience to observe closely and consider questions regarding identity, evolution and pertinence and bring to mind the dialectics between local and global, the planted and the uprooted, east and west, indoors and outdoors, na-
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Stalk of grain
ture and culture. When developing an universal kind of language, you capture the ephemeral 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?
Squill
When I was a child, my mother used to work in a book publishing company which among others printed the formal “Atlas for school�. We used to receive a package of new books during the holidays season, as a gift from management. The package was wrapped with
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damaged Atlas paper sheets that were out of order from the printing process. The package combined the corners of the geographic sheet together, the world map altered completely… it was very interesting for me to see, how accidently, for example, Africa “touched” South America and Europe “united” with Australia…I used to save the most interesting sheets of the "wrapping paper”. I believe that was actually the beginning of my maps collection… I currently work on a new series “Atlas for School” which brings together old Atlas book papers in a Hebrew version and in English and Arabic version, sharing various floral motifs, some planted and some uprooted. The drawing enables to trace and contemplate the territorial entanglements of the land we inhabit, and the ways in which the borders have rapidly changed over the years. By painting and drawing on maps, I erase and override the map’s original function, transforming it from a structured consensus of symbols, to a personal narrative. This series of work also reflects a family ritual: My family goes on hiking trips during the seasonal blossoming of wildflowers, to see the flowers at their peak, pending the inevitable process of their decay. I usually take pictures of the flowers and later relate to their location on the map. In my work I examine my
own personal rituals alongside the narratives and cultural heritage of being Israeli, taking into consideration questions regarding the resonance of cultural traditions passed down through the generations and their contemporary manifestation. Your art practice also challenges an inner cultural debate between heritage from the past and traditions that carry on to this day: despite the reminders to traditional figurative approach, your works is marked out with a stimulating contemporary sensitiveness. Do you think that there's still a contrast between Tradition and Contempoariness? Or there's an interstitial area where these apparently opposite elements could produce a proficient synergy?
The creation process is a journey for me; i observe the map and inverstigate it. In a way, its paths dictates the composition and the subject matter of the drawing, for example i investigated The Incense trade route of the ancient Mediterranean world. The Nabataeans tribes traded spices, incense plants and other luxury goods, stretching from Mediterranean ports across the Levant and Egypt through Northeastern Africa and Arabia to India and beyond. Some of the Incense plants are still known today, while others extinct. Some were used for rituals and religious reasons and some for medicinal and cosmetic use. In my body of work, “Filigree and Various Spices” I focus on fragrant flowers such as Frankincense, Cassia, and Lavender that were part of the Incense trade route, weaving them
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Atlas for school series
into detailed drawings of traditional Filigree Jewelry. Filigree, an ancient Mesopotamian craft dating back to 3000 BCE, derived from Latin words Filum (wire) and Granum (grain of wheat/barley),
uses thin threads of different widths and orbs made of precious metals, gold or silver, woven into an intricate and dense mesh of tapestry. A piece of jewelry is thus created from a thread. In my draw-
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ing technique, fine lines drawn with a ballpoint pen mimic the laborious filigree process. From a line or a wire, a creation is formed. This Jewelry was once served as ornaments, as status symbols and a means by which to accumulate wealth. It also often served as talismans for protection, fertility and long and good life blessings. The design of the jewelry is based largely on floral motifs, drawing
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from nature as a source of inspiration and reflection, and part of a deep understanding of life cycles and the blossoming and decaying process. The Filigree jewelry tradition was widespread in Yemen and India and is deeply rooted in the culture of these countries to this day; it was also favored in 17th century Europe. My choice of filigree ornaments as a motif derives from a bio-
graphic 19th and 20th century Yemeni connection. I draw jewelry in detail on circular formats, so that the entire series, when hung, resembles beads strung on a winding chain, light and floating, yet rooted to the Land and its pathways. The earth motif as a life source yielding both wheat and barley, and aromatic spices the material and the ethereal, is accentuated by these drawings imposed on
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maps from various periods. The aromatic flowers, associated with religious ceremonial incense, alongside rampant wild flowers and biblical motifs on geographical maps, in a way that at times the motifs merge into the lines on the map and at times dispute them. The jewelry, the spices and the sheaf appear to ‘hover’ over the pictorial space, defying the laws of gravity, and emphasizing the dissonance between the earthly and the heavenly. The floating sensation creates a rhythmic dance-like movement within each work, and from one work to another, forming a winding linear chain between them. Your investigation about the relationship between tactile feature and the abstract nature of ideas and probes the capability of a medium to explore a variety of constructed realites: while questioning about the disconnect between physical experience and the immateriality, you seem to refer to the necessity of going beyond symbolic strategies to consider the relationship between reality and perception, but that we should focus on the nature of the medium in order to understand the way it offers a translation of reality. Do you agree with this analysis? Moreover, I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion, personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
The reading prism of my art is through cultural codes, some are contemporery and some are from passed times. These codes are part of my mizrahi heritage and culture
and part of my everyday life, so i beleive that personal experiance is a part of that. I agree that i examine the relationship between reality and perception, i actually make a translation of reality as you mentioned. i beleive also that our instincts, our concious is tuned with nature, but somehow, through modern times we grew apart. In my body of work I wish to create a delicate yet critiquing synthesis between natural motifs and man-made shapes, between the regional and the historical, personal and collective rituals. For example, in “The Valley of Tears” (it is the actual name of this valley) drawn on the border between the Golan Heights and Syria. Among the Druse villages in that area you can’t miss the beautiful cherry blossoms …It is also known as the Vale of tears (Latin: Vallis Lacrimarum) is a Christian phrase referring to the tribulations of life that Christian doctrine says are left behind only when one leaves the world and enters Heaven. I visited this area many times, watching Syrian land from a far. Among the beautiful view there is great sorrow, I painted weeping cherries that symbolizes the victims of war in this area, and the separation of Syrian druse families due to the border line today. It is a very sensitive and charged spot; many painful battles occurred there and unfortunately they carry on to this day in Syria. The imagery in my work announces its presence over and over again on the paper, entangling past and present, charted pathways and unrestrained nature.
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The political element is present in your works, but on a subtle level: rather than conveying open criticism, your exploration of the domestication of nature seems to use it in order to provide your works with
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an historical feature: for example, your borderless drawing of wild flowers on a map that does not recognize man-made political boundaries seems to reveal your interest in hinting the direction, inviting
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the viewers to a process of self-reflection. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play
in the contemporary society?
If there is a scale between the politic and the poetic, I consider myself to be more poetic‌ I believe that art should have a
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statement; an artist needs to stay true to himself and raise questions and perceptions of conflicts regarding his/her time. I truly don’t see the point of making art that does not deal with a broader point of view,
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besides one’s self. My art reflects my evolving experiences, heritage and knowledge; I don’t use the term politics as part of my creation process at all. But I agree that the element is present in a certain
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sense. For example “Poppies Gazing the Negev Desert” is a series I created following the 2014 “Tzuk-Eitan” War (Operation Protective Edge) which was a very hard period. An introspective gaze is inherent to the drawing. The poppies turn their petals towards the map, “observing” it closely, navigating a winding twisted path. The growth and creation process on the map is at the same time a process of erasure and decay; the drawing erases the lines of the map. I allow myself and the viewer to meander along its’ trails, to observe the markings and the flowers that germinated as a result of the creative process, to consider questions of identity and affiliation, the natural world and the manmade, nature and culture. Over your career your works have been exhibited in several locations, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Haifa Museum and the Petach Tikva Museum: 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?
As the nature of visual art, I aspire to view the esthetic qualities of language, in addition to verbal meanings or instead of it. I draw on maps in English Hebrew and Arabic. The maps series invites the audience for a voyage. There are several ways of reading the map I draw and I believe that people around the world have more shared experiences and rituals than they think. For example, “The Braid of Grain”
drawing portrays the ritual of making braids from the last wheat stalks left in the field after harvest, hanged on the threshold of the farmer’s home as a talisman, to bless the land, hoping for good produce in the following year. The braid resembles similar rituals from other cultures worldwide, like the Welsh or Moroccan braids. Since the beginning of the "agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution", more than 10,000 years ago, humans started this strong bond between nature and handcraft. In my drawing the braid is drawn on an Arabic version of the Atlas. I received it from a colleague artist, he and his brother learned from this book in school, and I left their original remarks and notes on the paper, so in a way my drawing corresponds with them. It was interesting for me to receive his Arabic version of the Atlas, although I actually can't read Arabic, the edition was slightly different from the Hebrew version I used in school, this piece is a part of a wider series I currently work on. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Esther. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
I look forward exhibiting the new Atlas series in 2017, as a large scale installation. In the future, I hope to continue my research regarding the connection between text and imagery, especially of ancient languages and their relation to natural and local elements. Thank you so much LandEscape team! for this opportunity to study and show my work, it was a great experience.
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Raske Jaske Lives and works in York, United Kingdom
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y work comes from concerns for the environment, which stimulates a passion in me to make artworks from something which would otherwise end up in our bins and then into landfill sites. I believe we have forgotten our relationship with nature. We created our synthetic world and we dump leftovers around us. I believe we must protect the environment/landscape from pollution and then the natural, clean nature will bring back health and joy into our lives. I strive for my artwork to have an aesthetic appeal and originality and through them I attempt discreetly to connect the viewer with my life's philosophy – the necessity to think and act towards the improvement on ecological state. My previous Lithuanian language and literature studies brought many metaphorical meanings into my artworks.
I consider art as a magic device, which has a power to rock people’s minds. As a result, I employ my imagination and skills in order to create unusual artwork which are intended to involve the viewer on an emotional and intellectual level and encourage them to ‘think outside the box’ and look at the world in a different way: the garbage/rubbish/waste/leftovers after recycling can breathe a new life and can be a part of the wonder in your eyes.
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LandEscape meets
Raske Jaske An interview by and
, curator , curator
I was born and grew up in a small beautiful spa town, Druskininkai, in the south of Lithuania. As most of my generation, I attended University straight after Secondary school. After four years of study I was holding in my hands BA Lithuanian Philology and Teacher qualification paper, I realised that I have zero desire to jump into the shoes of a teacher. I wanted to expand my outlook, to explore the world, so I packed my luggage and I came to the UK. For a while I did all sorts of jobs and I started to feel the inner need to change something in my life. I enrolled into Access to HE Diploma Art & Design, which led me into BA (Hons) 3D Contemporary Crafts degree. Those four years were the most significant point in my life as it opened gates for me into exploring the art world and at the same time I started to develop myself as an artist. It’s no doubt that my previous (literature and language) studies have a massive impact for me as a person and also as an artist. I always adored the power of words, sentences, texts and their thrilling ability for people to reach the essence by reading between lines. At this point, visual art also stimulates viewers’ imagination and lets them step into that open space where through the details, hints and the other links they can dig
Christopher Reid
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Raske Jaske
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beneath the artwork surface. I like to entwine words (artworks names) with images as I
believe they supplement each other and build on the artworks’ implication. Overall, when I
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think about myself as an artist, I must admit that the collision of my life experiences from Lithuania and from the UK matured me as an artist. I enjoy and feel the need to work mainly with recycled materials. Being born in the country, which at that time was under Russia’s rule, I have very vivid childhood memories, how by working hard and being creative we very successfully coped with all shortages. My uncle from different parts and scrap bits made vehicles, my mum over a night was making carnival costumes for my sister and me. So basically, this daily creative environment planted a seed in my mind that everything has a potential to be reborn into something else. Thus, by living in the UK I have got a chance to look at life from a different angle: the unlimited supply leads us to consumerism, which step by step is destroying our planet. My interest into ecology keeps growing and I feel the necessity to discreetly address the environment issues by creating my artworks and expanding a potential use of second hand materials. Perhaps from this very unusual creative way my artwork questions an aesthetics’ boundaries. I don’t aim with my creativity to please everyone, I intend to attract at least some people’s attention by unconventional use of retired materials, to experience their unexpectedness and through this feeling to comprehend that beauty does not have limits, basically an aesthetic value appears beneath the artworks’ surface.
My creativity is based on completely free expression. I never press myself into any media frames. My life philosophy - to think and act towards the improvement of the ecological state – stimulates my creativity non-stop. I don’t even notice myself when by observing my daily environment I instantly think how one or the other item could be reused, recycled and reborn into something new. I choose to use an unlimited variety of media as it gives me a perfect possibility to discover the potential of waste, to express and convey my ideas and at the same time to expand the perception boundaries.
As with all of my works, the collage FREE, COOL & RICH naturally caffeine-free and ethically sourced, 100% organically grown INNER ITCHING OF Landscape came from a concern for our environment and my belief that artworks have a power to stimulate our awareness about life, ourselves and our living environment. As I specialize in creating artworks by recycle/upcycle, reclaimed and second hand materials, after the creation process, I also ending up having waste. There was a leftover of cardboard, so I decided to
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preserve its visual waste appeal, highlighted it and use this cardboard as my collage background. In a pile of interesting images (which I collect constantly from all sort of sources) I chose a few landscape images and together with the other motives, which draw my eyes attention, I instinctively, only by trusting my inner sense for aesthetics, weaved those images a story. I gave metaphorical name to this collage, as I would like to believe it encourage viewers to dig beneath the collage’s surface and find their personal connection with it.
I think the way I chose to work (giving myself completely to freedom) very naturally drives me towards abstraction. When you don’t push yourself into any frame, you tend to work more from an unconscious mind, which can take you to a new territory. I like to leave encoded links and hints towards the meaning of my work, but also I tend to give that space for viewers to step in and through their emotional and intellectual capacity to connect with the artwork. For example, collage a long lasting, extra glossy blend of ethics and intense taste has cotton picking and production from fabric images, which together with the metaphorical name of the artwork, could direct the viewer towards the theme of how cotton production appears into our lives. But through an
‘ethically dirty’ way. Experimentation with media very naturally pushes existing boundaries and lets the artist explore ideas in a very unconventional way. In most of these cases, the artwork draws and holds the viewers’ attention, but it is quite difficult from the first sight even to foretell the connection between the artwork, its title and meaning. As you notice, my collage The secrets of SPACE, Style & the Flexible story behind the picture is one of those works, which more calls for viewers’ personal emotional response to the work than to find its meaning. In most cases, I think that disclosure of the idea’s genesis shows how my artworks’ representation and their tendency towards abstraction find their balance. For example, by creating sculptural table A junction of the past and present I was looking into the differences between past and present from an environmental point. The top of the table represents the past, when people were living in close relationship with nature. Most of our ancestors were farmers, who had a contact with soil every day (the imitation of soil at the base of the table). There were joiners, who worked only with natural products (wood) and developed their joinery skills through generations. The leg of the table made from recycled waste – cans, my sculpture’s Unknown Planet Resident – Drakis beads represents the present: we lost connection with nature, we developed lots of synthetic products (tin, polystyrene, cement, bright coloured paints) and we became consumers who throws to the oceans and landfills tons of rubbish. Perhaps now, after revealing the ‘prehistory’ of this artwork, it is easier to see how this sculptural table represents the collision between past and present and how abstraction and representation balance my work.
, 2013 photo by
, 2012 photo by
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Naming the artwork is a very important process for me and sometimes it can take as long as the whole piece’s creation. In
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general, I tend to work in two ways. First, I have a theme in mind and then I search for images, items which by manipulating them
I could express and encode my idea. In this case, I usually know the core words for the artwork name but, of course, the last
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variation of name comes out when the piece is finished. Second way for creating artworks (especially collages) is my
favourite. I don’t press myself into any theme’s frame, I give my mind complete freedom to search, browse and notice the
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random images or items from my surroundings and then I instinctively combine them in an aesthetic manner. In this case, I
draw myself into the artwork and the artwork diverts me into finding the name for it. So again I flick through piles of magazines,
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leaflets, packaging and the other collected materials to search for the words. At this time, I manipulate words - I collage them into sentences, which, as you notice, turns out into long titles for my artworks. I absolutely love this process, as it enables me to twist the words, alter their connotation and from them create metaphorical meanings which direct the viewers to walk through their visual experience towards my ‘artwork reading’.
I think in our hurried age art has to take the duty to lead the viewers to contemplate the world and let themselves see from the other side. I think you are absolutely right by saying that artists are always trying to dig beneath the surface. Indeed, I think an artist has a capability to broaden our perception, boundaries and reveal our inner Nature. After all, an artists’ imagination combined together with a sensitive look on issues,
could stimulate them to discover an innovative use of materials and create that power, which through by an unexpected effect could rise a viewer’s emotions and develop their sensitivity. People with sensitive minds tend to think further, their minds becoming more penetrating and, as a result, they grasp the relationship between images easier. In this case, artworks reveal bigger pictures to the viewer and some audiences are capable to reflex themselves, to rethink about their relationship with today’s world. I would like to believe, that my works also encourage viewers to look at the world and themselves from a different angle. One of my sculptures I am beautiful! – your Globe basically examines the same environment pollution theme as the above mentioned artwork A junction of the past and present. Sectioned in half, our Globe’s (which we understand it as a round sphere) parts are stretched and they reveal that all our daily rubbish goes beneath the earth’s surface. This artwork also exposes and questions our modern world solution to this problem: do beautiful parks created directly above of landfills solve the pollution problem? Another of my artworks H2O letter to You with a smell of aromatic coffee conveys the controversy of people’s different essential needs and highlights the importance of water and humanity. The saucer is made from coffee beans representing Tanzania, the country, which farms the coffee beans we consume but struggles with even having drinking water for themselves. The ‘mix and match coffee cup’ states the fact that coffee has become an essential drink for most of us. The coffee tree is a symbol of life – it grows from the water infused coffee. The letter ‘My darling’ highlights the importance of water and aims to provoke a reaction in people’s hearts and minds.
, 2011 photo by
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Therefore, all three artworks seek to raise viewers’ awareness and make them question themselves: what is my role in this situation? What could I do about it?
Maybe I could reduce my consumption? Maybe I should buy Organic and Fairtrade coffee which is more environmentally friendly to our planet and also supports
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, 2010 photo by
, 2013 photo by
those who work very hard, but still are very poor?
It is very rare case when I search for a specific face or image. Most of the time I randomly choose images just by flicking through magazines, papers, leaflets, tickets etc. Basically, any image has to draw my eye and grab my attention, look interesting, maybe even a bit odd, and I have to see its
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potential to be used in my work as one of the ‘building materials’. The human faces in both above mentioned pieces were selected casually.
Collage is a fantastic freedom field for creativity without any boundaries, any limits. I absolutely love this art form as it enables me to create pieces basically only from waste, which otherwise would have ended up in a bin and then into landfill sites. By using only second-hand materials (cardboard, good quality magazines with interesting images, colourful packaging, tickets, envelopes, labels and all the other elements, which I can find in my daily life) I strive to assemble them so that a new created work would have an aesthetic appeal, which would urge the viewers to ‘think outside the box’ and discreetly connect them with my intention to show that the garbage/rubbish/waste/leftovers after recycling can breathe a new life and can be beautiful, too. In my opinion, collage has a potential to be one of the eco-friendliest art form, which could be very successfully used at schools to raise kid’s creativity and impart how they could contribute towards our environmental protection.
It is very interesting for me to know how the audience react to my work. If I could, I would like to be a fly on the wall…Ha…ha…ha… However, the audience reception has never been an issue for me while making decisions. When I am in a creative process I don’t have time to think about the audience, my only focus is experimentation and freedom. I think my works are quite unusual, so they should provoke viewers’ emotions, which could lead to them ‘rocking their minds’.
I feel a constant need to experiment with different second hand media, so I will definitely continue this way. I am planning to focus on reusing all sorts of packaging and fabrics. Also, I am thinking of ways to incorporate painting and drawing elements into my work. Furthermore, I just had a very successful first interactive art project Freedom Room. This has made me want to look for more possibilities of creating interactive art.
, 2014
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P hillip Altstatt Lives and works in
I
am inspired by the bigness of the world and the even bigger depths of imagination. This inspiration drives my ambition to its limits. When conceptualizing new work, I often encounter criticism because it is difficult for others to imagine the inventiveness that will go into the execution of the final product. In order to achieve the seemingly impossible worlds that I create, I have to start with the mechanisms that allow me to contort reality. I am as passionate about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ contraptions that precede the artwork as I am about the work of art itself. It is this limitless conceptualization that motivates me to continually dream without boundaries. Artists today are encouraged to focus on specific mediums; however, it is my belief that all disciplines inform one another drawing, painting, sculpture, story telling- and this is practiced in my work. It has taken a mastery of each of these disciplines to reach the art I make today. Accepting the challenge of representing the unseen magic in a visual world, I will go to great lengths to take my ideas to fruition. It is said, “Necessity is the
mother of invention”; this is true in my practice. At times this means in-depth studies of filmmaking, acting, photography, graphic design, bookmaking, or mechanical and electrical engineering. Like Alice’s dizzying adventure to discover who she is, my work takes a journey through many disciplines and areas of study before being fully realized. Content and Exploration. My focus as an artist is to draw attention to the magic that lies beneath the ordinary. A colleague once coined my work as a “re-enchantment of the everyday”. There is a dreamy quality that I push for in my work, but almost always with a highly representational style. The abstraction in my work is not visual as much as conceptual; in other words, I am not making abstractionist paintings. Rather, I am using abstract ideas to encourage viewers to consider the mystery behind the objects and places that they would otherwise take for granted. Discovering poetry in the world around me has always brought more personal joy than writing my own.
, 2015 8” x 5” x 6”, epoxy clay, enamel, acrylic, rebar wire, paper
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LandEscape meets
Phillip Altstatt An interview by and
, curator , curator
As the art world continues to become globalized, and the internet becomes increasingly more influential, I am frequently confronted with the idea of being a “self-trained” artist. I suppose this is something that I once called myself, before attending Sacramento State. I wasn’t taught some top-secret painting or sculpting technique that made me a better artist; what I do see as the major difference between then and now is that I was trained to be more thoughtful than I was when I started the program. Being encouraged to discuss your ideas, and being required to defend your choices, goes a long way toward making an artist more thoughtful about their work; for me, this meant a body of work that was far more intellectual than what I was making before. I was fortunate to work with a world-class faculty, who introduced me to philosophy readings within the context of being a maker. Through my studies, I moved from “painting pretty pictures” to building work that inspired dialogue and evoked emotions - first in myself, then in my viewers. I believe that we can all relate to the idea of a piece of literature or music touching something deep inside ourselves. In particular, I sometimes feel like a
Christopher Reid
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Phillip Altstatt
Phillip Altstatt
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, 2015 1.25” x 4.5” x .5”, epoxy clay, enamel, paper
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songwriter’s lyrics are about my own life, sung with the just the right amount of emotion so that it strikes an undeniable chord inside me. I am very interested in shared experience, which could explain the phenomenon that I am talking about. On the other hand, you have a beloved story, like ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, which strikes a similar chord; but I have never been to Wonderland. So, when it comes to solving the problem of expressing a complicated idea or emotion - or facing the difficulty of coping with unexpected loss - I take an approach akin to that of Lewis Carroll. I abstract those thoughts and feelings the way your mind might compress the events of a day into a segment of a dream.
I do not think I can say a multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express these ideas, I wouldn’t want to limit myself or anyone else in that way. More so, I would say that my work has become multidisciplinary out of a desperation to move the work forward. It is not uncommon to hear an artist say that they are unsatisfied with the results of their investigations; this is where I have found myself time and time again. The real coherence, and ultimately what I find most successful about my art, is that I try to respond to the work honestly; that is, I want to stay true to myself over giving in to any trends that I am exposed to in the art world. It just happens that the voice inside me has lead me to experimentation in a variety of mediums.
Phillip Altstatt
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, 2015, 12” x 7” x 4”, wood, epoxy clay, acrylic
, 2015, 12” x 7” x 3”, epoxy clay, enamel
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, 2015, 12” x 8” x 11”, epoxy clay, enamel
Phillip Altstatt
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A mentor once told me, “Young artists are always trying to find their style; the truth is, they couldn’t stop themselves from coming out in the work if they tried.”
This is a good place to start with this body of work. Landscape is the only way I conceive of putting the ideas together that lead me here. In a given environment, absolutely everything is affecting everything else around it. This is true as light moves through a space; or the way that a splash of one color in the corner of a painting gives the illusion of altering all of the other colors across the canvas; or the way that billions of disposable cups are making an impact on the health of our physical environment; or the way that the actions of somebody close to you has an effect on your life - all of these things are on my mind when I am in the studio. The overarching theme of SMALL revolves around objects that are “used up”. When the idea for a piece comes to me and I am compelled to bring to fruition, I often feel like I have to start from scratch. I think, “I really want this tiny accordion to look exhausted. How am I going to do that?” The first thing I had to do was learn to
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make a billow, then I had to destroy it in a way that was believable - using paper that was reminiscent of materials used in an actual accordion and not too delicate. This is a completely different approach than I have taken in other works that might be modeled on a computer and 3D printed, or sculpted using only a wire frame and epoxy clay. The place where I consistently begin is writing my idea down and describing the way I want it to look in words - I rarely sketch my sculptures ahead of time - then asking myself the similar question, “How am I going to do that?�
Memory is flawed, and for a long time, I have used this to my advantage in my artwork. Early in my studio practice, when I focused strictly on two-dimensional work, I spent nearly a decade training myself to capture memories of landscapes that I would later draw or paint in my studio. The result was a unique capturing of a moment. The only natural details that made it into the work were the details that I could remember; which were doubtlessly skewed. By the time those details made it to the canvas, they were affected by emotions, mood, and other memories. They were representational to the point of recognition, but abstracted in a way that was unavoidable. As I look around the physical world, it becomes more and more difficult to imagine that the vastness of the mind is contained in something
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, 2014-15, 1.5” x 1.5” x 2”, plasticine, resin, epoxy clay, paper
, 2013-15, 2” x 2.5” x 3.5”, 3D print, acrylic, nylon
, 2015 4” x 7” x 2”, epoxy clay, enamel, acrylic, rebar wire
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as small as a human head; even more difficult to figure out how all of the emotions and energy of a human life fit into a single body. If the universe is indeed finite, it’s too big to comprehend; the depths of imagination are at least that big. With my work, I task myself with squeezing everything on my mind and on my heart into a tiny sculpture - that’s the abstraction. The small objects take on a life of their own, a feeling that viewers can connect with; because the work is figurative in that way, there is an entry point for the viewer to unpack everything that went into it, for themselves.
Memory moves us in so many ways. I want to call it a love/hate relationship that we have with memory, but it’s so much more than that. Some memories haunt us, while others warm our hearts. Memories can bury themselves so deep that we are unable to access them, while others sit so close to the front of our minds that we cannot shake them. A moment in time can feel so familiar that it feels like a memory, causing déjà vu. I have childhood memories that, in my mind, happened in two different ways that are in conflict with one another. I forget though, too. I forget to take down flyers once they have expired. I tell
myself that I’m not going to go to the coffee shop and order a drink in a disposable cup because I am tired of contributing to unnecessary waste; but, then I wake up tired and forget that I’ve decided that - until I catch myself throwing the disposable cup in the garbage. I have forgotten about nearly all of things that I have lost or thrown away in my life. The video series, and ultimately SMALL, are as much about forgetting as they are about memory.
Can I just stop to say that this question has changed me in a way? I don’t think any person has ever interpreted my work in a way that aligns so perfectly with my intentions before now. Thanks for that. It is of my opinion that creativity is impossible without personal experience. What else would we have to draw upon without those experiences. Even if a person was pushing the boundaries of imagination, I only see those imaginative
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ideas as an abstraction of that person’s life experiences. The thing about constructed realities, is that they are strange because of the way they ride the line between recognizable situations and those situations that only take place in dreams and hallucinations. So in a way, even the ideas and themes that are most removed from direct experience, are such because of their relationship with reality.
This is an interesting comparison to make. These are all things that are being transformed by technology. The public sphere is less of a physical space where intellectuals meet and more or less a thing we call social media, which has opened the doors for a greater portion of the population to participate. Likewise, webbased apps, such as Instagram, put artwork in front of more people than ever before. Traditional “art in public space” is no longer limited to public sculpture and murals; rather, artwork is being shared with the public on multiple platforms. Philosophers have long thought of art as playing a critical role in public education of social issues; although this idea may have been mocked by post-modern artists, it is becoming more apparent that art does play that role in the public sphere - if nothing else, opening a platform for meaningful discourse.
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, 2015, 5” x 4” x 3”, paper, plasticine, liquid paper, permanent marker
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, 2015, 3.5” x 2” x 4.5”, epoxy clay, enamel
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The openness of the work to be read by the viewer is absolutely crucial to me. This is something that I have had to struggle with in the past. When you are an artist faced with criticism over the decisions that you make, it is difficult to defend the idea of “that is up to the viewer to decide”. However, the artwork moves me based on my life experiences; and as similar as those experiences may be to those of the viewer, ultimately it is their life that I hope to touch. If a piece brings me to tears because it is tough for me to face something from my past, I can’t expect the audience to shed tears over my loss; but if they can look into the work, search for meaning in it, and reach their own conclusions - then I have done something for myself and for them. That being said, there is a degree of openness. As I have discussed already, there are layers of thought and emotion that go into my studio practice; so, I am not just creating an object and asking the world to interpret it the way that they want. I am provided a multitude of already meaningful ideas that serve as jumping-off points for dialogue. It is this balance that strengthens the work; whereas, 100% openness would just cause the work to fall flat.
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, 2015 12” x 7” x 7”, epoxy clay, enamel
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handing you your drink. When I ask locals, “How can I find this?” or “Where can I buy that?”, the answer is always the same: “Taobao.com”. The industries that we support are pushing our planet into homogeny. I am in the school of thought that believes that the created object itself (be it painting, sculpture, digital art) is not the art, but only becomes art when the audience engages with it. This particular belief might, very well, play a larger role in my decisionmaking process than I ever realize. Come to think of it, you may have pegged one of the reasons that my work has evolved to be cross-disciplinary. The pieces that I have been most satisfied with, are those that change for the viewer as they physically engage with the work; objects that offer a different perspective based on the audiences physical location in relation to the thing itself.
I am currently traveling internationally. I started to feel the limitations of being influenced by only the surroundings I was familiar with. Companies like Starbucks and Amazon weighed heavily on my mind; I saw a problem with the world and I was part of it. I am now living in a remote part of China, a town so insignificant that it yields zero results on an internet search. Although there are some cultural differences, I am facing the same issues: the local coffee shops have a logo that is a blatant rip-off of Starbucks and they peddle out a seemingly limitless supply of disposable cups, which they insist on putting in a bag before
Look, I realize that readers must think I am whining about garbage polluting our world… and in some way, I suppose I am. But that’s not my real interest; my exploration is the repetitive nature that I face as a human being. Clearly I am aware of the problem, yet I still look forward to leaving my Chinese apartment and grabbing a subpar cappuccino from the fake Starbucks; I still go out of way to order stuff on Taobao.com (and trust me, it’s not really easy for a foreigner to do so). I expected my work to be influenced by a completely different experience that is shared by people of individual cultures, and inject my work with those things. What I am finding is that those “things” are exactly like our “things”. So, my future work is a mystery to even me. I would like to explore the idea of physically separating viewers from the actual work; I’m not sure if that means something like virtual reality, or if it is a physical barrier like a wall with a peep hole, so that viewers have to work to get a glimpse of the work - it is something that I must investigate before saying for certain. Thanks so much for the opportunity to discuss my work in such detail. It has been a pleasure, and I am honored that someone read my art so closely and understood it so well. An interview by and
, curator , curator