LandEscape Art Review // Focus on Graphics

LandEscape Anniversary Edition

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Anniversary Edition

Move Me, 2014 Installation/Photography by Annemarieke van Peppen

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Caroline Monnet

Christian Gastaldi

Nicolas Vionnet

Annemarieke Van Peppen

Ivonne Dippmann

Xiaohong Zhang

Canada

France

Switzerland

The Netherlands

Germany

USA

I explore whatever medium best serves my expressive needs. Each medium is a world in itself and has great potential for storytelling. It is also quiet liberating to explore different mediums, different avenues of my own personality and to truly embrace the history that comes with a particular medium. It’s almost a way of educating myself in terms of techniques while striving to choose the perfect medium for the perfect story. Lately I’ve been working at making concrete sculptures. They explore ideas of monument, architecture and minimalism. I try to challenge this industrial material to bring poetry and synergy.

I am a painter who takes colors from used, distressed material, for whom brushes strokes are tears of posters or magazines. Art is for me a process of sublimation. It is most challengingly achieved using plain, everyday life material not perceived as ‘beautiful’ because of their mundane functions. In my view it is impossible to separate the art you create from your entire life experience. No one has this freedom. We are products of past events, of interactions we have had with people in the places in which we have lived. Now, what are the driving forces, the triggering events that push you into creating?

Vionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly large-scale works play with space and expanse.

Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes. He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured surfaces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity.

Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environment. This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensi-ve glimpse of both these phenomena.

I think my way of working is pretty intuitive, I don't want to be destracted by technique. I always look for a certain directness and rawness. I like to bring my models, even if I am the model myself, out of their comfort zone, it often gives a reaction or emotion wich helpes me forming the image and the development of my concept.

Once I process the images, I like to work with my hands and experiment with materials and shapes. I think rawness and a particular way of repetition it is a common thread in my work.

My works generally starts from relatively small-scale drawings.

A starting point, because these small formats will later encounter a different situation, an exhibition space, a stage or a book.

They will transform themselves in order to adapt to a new room.

My ecological curiosity was first sparked resear-ching on climate change while pursuing a MA in International Political Economy.

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Nothing remains as it was and if Dippmann uses templates – which were originally used as illustrations for a book – and converts them into large-scale murals combined with colorful yarns

The lack of political will seemed to suggest there was a deeper ideological problem of perception towards the environment that science, despite its numerous findings, was not able to change.

Somewhere along this path of translation in a “hyper-technological” society, meaning gets lost in information.

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Annemarieke van Peppen 4 lives and works in Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands

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Nicolas Vionnet lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland

Christian Gastaldi

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lives and works in Paris, France

Ivonne Dippmann A

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lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Gerd G.M. Brockmann

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lives and works in Flensburg, Germany

Marta Wapiennik Gerd Brockmann

Myriam Dalal

Marta Wapiennik

Germany

France

Poland / USA

My work researches boundaries between fashion, art and society. I work in different participatory projects and countries as contemporary multidisciplinary artist to research with experimental materials getting a better comprehension of fashion and art as communication concept and I found a new visual language for me.Textiles are our constant companions.

They offer us a second skin and protection, express what we carry as a mood, serve as a reflection in the daily lives and give us the confidence that we are the person for whom we hold. Because our clothing style, our game with the enveloping our body betrays us and others, which put an individual behind the sewn, textile material.

Refining and redefining memory, death and the notion of material presence through my work, was initially triggered by a personal experience from which I started depicting the anxiety of existing, keeping a trace and the duality of living and dying that human beings still fail to abide to.Similar to Boltanski, I might, after all, be trying to prevent death, while seeking to add to discussions of personal and collective memory within the context of society and its narratives: from the culture of commemoration, the grieve, the aftermath of conflict and the many personal mourning agonies.

I am looking for answers, I have lots of questions in my head, also much conflict. But the last thing I would say about my works is that they are coherent and consistent. I feel like I am frequently changing my „creation routine”. Style… is the worst thing that one can have as a true artist.

Because what is style?

Characteristic quality? If one really is looking for the truth he/she will never know what the outcome of the research will be. Style is very predictable trait which I don’t want to have.

I always feel free while creating and I never try to limit myself. That is why I use photography, painting and I mix them. I treat photos as sketches and I am always surprised when they are appreciated by viewers.

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lives and works in Warsaw, Poland

Caroline Monnet

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lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Myriam Dalal

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lives and works in Paris, France

Xiaohong Zhang

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lives and works in Lodz, Poland On the cover Move Me, 2014, Installation/Photography by Annemarieke van Peppen

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, Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.

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LandEscape meets

Annemarieke van Peppen An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com landescape@artlover.com

Bergen op Zoom based multidisciplinary artist Annemarieke van Peppen's (Rotterdam, 1971) work explores the notion of identity in our media-driven age: her works could be considered as visual biographies of the ubiquitous consequences of contemporary technosphere and urges the viewers to rethink the dichotomy between physical and digital realms. In her recent MOVE ME that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she accomplishes an insightful investigation about the notion of self-identity to question and reframe our everyday relatiosnp with ourselves, to show that people can be human again: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Annemarieke and 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 graduated from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts: how does this experience influence your evolution as an artist? In particular how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

At the Academie for Arts & Industry (AKI, now Artez) teachers helped me to develop, deepen and explore my way of looking, I think

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it helped me thinking in a conceptual way. I was very young when I started (17 years) and left just before graduation. I can't exactly remember why I left back then, it probably had something to do with the rebellious character of me as a young adult.

When I left the academy I worked as a waitress to support myself, in the meanwhile I started working with polaroids en exhibited with that work. I had great ambitions and wanted to become a wellknown artist. After a while I kept asking myself; 'What do I contribute in this world? Is making beautifull pictures enough?' The small successes I had back than made me feel shallow and I was not satisfied. I changed course; First I travelled through Asia and Australia, the different cultures, way of living and surviving on a very small budget had an influence on my way of thinking. Back in The Netherlands my partner and I became fosterparents of children with a mental disability. Being a fosterparent demands empathy for the often weard behavior of traumatized children. This learned me to view people in another perspective. Not judging the book by its cover, knowing that in the end we all have a backpack wich makes us react the way we do. The combination of all the above is probably the matrix of my work and I'm happy to say that I find satisfaction in my work again, because in a very small way i feel like I contribute.

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Your approach reveals an incessant search of organic investigation about the relationship between our being human and the pervading technosphere that marks out our mediadriven lives that affects our unstable contemporary age. The results convey together a coherent and consistent sense of harmony and unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.annemariekevanpeppen.nl in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process and set up, we would like to ask you how did you develope your style and how do you conceive your works.

I think my way of working is pretty intuitive, I don't want to be destracted by technique. I always look for a certain directness and rawness.

I like to bring my models, even if I am the model myself, out of their comfort zone, it often gives a reaction or emotion wich helpes me forming the image and the development of my concept. Once I process the images, I like to work with my hands and experiment with materials and shapes. I think rawness and a particular way of repetition it is a common thread in my work.

For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected MOVE ME, an extremely interesting installation, that consists of 40 portraits which are currently displayed in the Markiezenhof museum in Bergen op Zoom hat and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article.

When walking our readers through the enesis of this project, we would like to ask you what is the role of chance in your process: how much improvisation is important for you?

Although it seems that all the pictures were taken by chance, they are very thoughtful and directed. These photos are the result of the fact that my models, now much more than twenty years ago, had difficulty relaxing. Beacuse of selfies and social media, people are so much more aware of how to look at their best in an image, they tend to draw a portrait look, a look that is totally not interesting for me. One of the things I made them do to relax is letting them move their faces. In this movement I saw them

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precisely in a way that I found very powerful and magical, I started to deepen and explore it. Of course you have to make a lot of pictures just to catch that one movement and look, but I always know in advance what I want and when I have the right picture.

You draw a lot from your personal experience and MOVE ME could be considered a successful attempt to create a body of works that stands as record of existence and that captures nonsharpness, going beyond the elusive relationship between experience and identity in our globalized mundanity. Even James Turrell’s obsession with light and color is often associated with his early experiences as a pilot... So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I believe a creative process can never be disconnected from direct experience. In my opion everything you do, listen to, taste and touch are ingredients and part of all inspiration. You allways need input to be able to create new work, wether you are a chef, an engeneer or an artist. My brains are constantly getting new imput and thus new ideas, it never stops. The challenge is to filter and focus.

MOVE ME also inquires into the interstitial space between personal and public spheres, providing the spectatorship with an immersive experience that forces such a contamination the inner and the outside: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space?

Although I don't make my work with an audience in mind, once it's ready I need public. I hope my work will challenge people to have a reaction, this may be an emotion, a confrontation, dislike or a sence of magical experience. It does not really matter what

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kind of reaction, as long as there is a reaction, as long as it moves people. Public is ultimately essential. I also like to communicate with the public, I am curious as to what it does to them and hope they challenge me in their turn with their questions or remarks to me. For me art in public spaces doesn't have to please, as long as it moves people.

Your photographs seems to be the result of a lot of planning and thought, but at the same time they convey a sense of spontaneity that is a hallmark of your style. You seem to be wanting to move beyond standard representation, capturing a trascendental kind of universality: creating what at first appears to be a typical photographic portrait but subvert its compositional elements, making the viewer realize that your work has a different message. How important is it that people bring their own character to portraiture and not just the character that you as the photographer impose on them?

Each portrait is a days work, I talk with the models, set them at ease, be in contact with them, which is important to me. I obeserve them, looking for a certain look, their strength or vulnerability, which they show when they're talking to me. Such calls are often deep and intense, a bond arises in a relatively short period of time. Once in front of my camera that bond is important so the models trust me and surrender themselves to me. At that point their personal character is no longer relevant to me. I see them like sculptures I can shape and I portray the way I have in mind. Perhaps, it ultimately shows a part of their character. It touches me that they are willing to share so much with me, a unique and precious encounter, I still see that in the portraits.

Your incessant search for the imperfection also accomplishes an effective investigation about the relationship between imagination dued to the way we reelaborate our personal substratum and the universal imagery we draw from to create an immediately fruible

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set of symbols. 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?

We are flooded with imagery and everything is so momentary that I plea for more depth. I don't know if language should be added. I allways hope my work is challenging enough that it raises questions, so subtitles are not necessary.

During my exhibition at the museum I was artist in residence, I could communicate with the visitor, personal contact in my opinion is the best way to tell your story.

When inquiring about how we show ourselves as we want others to see us seems to convey a subtle but effective socio political criticismYour work conveys a subtle but effective criticism concerning the materialistically driven culture that saturate our contemporary age. But while artists from the contemporary scene, as Ai WeiWei or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to express open sociopolitical criticism in their works, you seem more interested to hint the direction, inviting the viewers to a process of self- reflection that may lead to subvert a variety of usual, almost stereotyped cultural categories. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense or did you seek to maintain a more neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?

I dont think my work is political. I can be surprised about current social developments. My point of view is not that important, but I want to invite to reflect. I get irritated when we follow everything blindly. I believe we continuously have to think critically and ask ourselves or our environment why things happen. I don't judge, I'm also often struggling with how certain developments evolve and how to relate to it. I think an artist has the responsibility to help people view differently, with a broader perspective, whether it involves meaningless images or developments in society.

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One of the hallmarks of your practice 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 decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

How the audience receives my work should have no influence on the process, as I said before I beleave it is my responsibility to help the audience reach a broader view. It is my interpretation that may invite to an emotion, action or conversation. Once I'm into account in advance with the public, I have to ask myself if I make pure and honest work. While recognition is nice, it is also dangerous, as soon as I make work to please I have to do something else. It should never be a trick for recognition.

I'm not sure what you mean by :in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

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

I just spent half a year as artist in residence in the musum, working on the community art project. 7 days a week I have been in the spotlight, I have met hundreds of people and portrayed them. Tommorow I'll go for a month to Bali to relax and let everything settle. I look forward to the peace and silence of my own studio when i'm back. Now that I'm almost 45, I love it that I've lost the ambition I had in my twenties. I want to start again from scratch every time, not working towards succes, but staying close to me, myself and I.

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

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Nicolas Vionnet Lives and works in Baselh, Switzerland

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ionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly large-scale works play with space and expanse. Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes. He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured sur-faces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity.

Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environ-ment. This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensi-ve glimpse of both these phenomena.

Vionnet uses the same approach and the same strategy for his installations. Irritation and integration. A fundamental confrontation with the history of a place leads to a subtler and more precise intervention of the object. Take for

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example his man-made grass island at the Weimarhallen Park (Weimar, GER), which ironically inten-sified the park’s own artificiality.

In ‘Close the Gap’ (Leipzig, GER) he bridged the space between an old-town row of houses with a printed canvas image of the now much frowned upon prefabricated buil-ding. A reference to changes in time and aesthetics.

Nicolas Vionnet lives and works in the Zuricharea. He graduated from the Hochschule fürGestaltung und Kunst Basel. He graduated in2009 from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimarwith a Master of Fine Arts degree after studyingon the university’s Public Art and New ArtisticStrategies programme.

Vionnet has partici-pated in various exhibitions at home and abroadsince 1999, including at the Kunsthalle Basel,the Neues Museum Weimar (Gallery marke.6)and the III Moscow International Biennale forYoung Art.

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LandEscape meets

Nicolas Vionnet An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Vionnet's work explores the relationship between the Self and the collective consciousness, highlighting the unstable relation between these apparently opposite aspects. In his works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he unveils the connections between our perceptual process and the elusive nature of our bodies' physicality yo accomplish the difficult task of drawing the viewers into a multilayered experience in which they are urged to rethink about the stages of the soul, spirit and body from before birth to afterlife. One of the most convincing aspect of Vionnet'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 Nicolas, and a warm welcome to LandEscape To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any particular experiences that have impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks?

I grew up in the region of Basel, Switzerland, and have completed my education at the University of Art and Design Basel and at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. During the first few years I have

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been mainly dealing with painting. Decisive for my current artistic practice was my twoyear stay in Weimar, where I graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategy master’s program.

During this time I was given the chance to realize my first major interventions in public space. It was an exciting and very intense time where I mainly learned to perceive my environment in a completely different way, to react and to undertake artistic interventions.

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

The principal approach in nearly all projects is quite similar, but the final work can differ greatly. In the context of an exhibition I often get a proposed specific place or I have the freedom to choose from a range of different locations in public space.

My process usually begins with photo tours and walks where I am trying to become familiar with a place. Important questions for me are: how do the citizens use the place, what is its function and what role does it take in everyday life? Are there any

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special circumstances or other conspicuous issues? In the next stage I start an exhaustive research, go to the library or the city archive and try to clarify the historical background of the site. During this period I normally have the first clear ideas and I start to do visualizations with Photoshop. If an idea is strong enough and can survive for several days or weeks, I move to the final phase where I start to test and to work with the needed material to finally realize the work.

Now let's focus on your art production: we would start from A New Found Glory and Men after work, one of your earlier pieces that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://www.nicolasvionnet.ch in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects?

What was your initial inspiration?

The first project you mentioned, A New Found Glory, was realized together with my friend Wouter Sibum from Rotterdam.

We both graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategies program in Weimar and since then, often working together as a duo. For example we realized the work Colour me surprised as part of the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art in 2012.

A New Found Glory was conceived one year later in a closed public toilet known as the M¸llloch (litter-hole) next to the Herdbr¸cke at the Donau in Ulm. For years, this non-place is closed off for the public. It gathers more and more garbage and is overgrown by weeds and wild flowers over the years. We were looking for a funny

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Nicolas Vionnet

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response to the still unresolved problem and decided to install a fountain in the middle of the forbidden zone. A fountain that was only just visible for the passersby, but once looked into the hole reveals to be filling the space completely. Thus, not only surprising the passersby - at the same time also a touch of festivity and glory returned to the old city wall in Ulm. The second work, Men after work, was a minimal intervention that I have realized in the project room of WIDMER + THEODORIDIS contemporary in Zurich. The room consisted of a long, dark passage, which finally ended in a courtyard in the heart of the old town of Zurich. On the one hand, I was referring on the exhibition title Men at work. On the other hand, the small but noticeable road construction warning light has flashed in unfamiliar red light through this dark alley and had a magnetic effect on passersby. I have to underline that we only know road construction warning lights with yellow appearance in Switzerland. Therefore the red light was irritating and many of the passers-by saw it more like an indication of a red light bar.

Furthermore I found the idea of a road construction warning light very charming and narrative: it is clocking-off time; the light is set to red. Come on in!

One of the features that has mostly impacted on me of Jacuzzi, is the way you are effectively capable of recontextualizing the idea of the environment we live in, which is far from being just the background of our existence: you Art in a certain sense forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive environment... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

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It is indeed the case that my work tries to sensitize the people for their immediate environment. My works are often restrained, unobtrusive and directly embedded in the landscape – my work would not be readable without a specific surrounding. So it is always about this dialogue, the positioning, interaction and what can come out of these situations. This forces the viewer to perceive the environment from a new perspective.

Unimportant and inconspicuous becomes suddenly important and intrusive.

Now to your question: Our experiences shape us throughout life. I see this like a simple classical conditioning. Our experiences are a key factor of how we perceive our world and how we behave in certain situations. You thus always have an impact, even if we are not always aware. In this sense, I don’t think that a creative process can be really disconnected from experience.

Multidisciplinary is a recurrent feature of your artistic production and I have appreciated the effective synergy that you create between different materials, as in the stimulating Extent of reflection: while crossing the borders of different techniques have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

I must admit in all honesty: Yes, I actually work with synergies, but it was never intended to do so. I very often rely on my gut instinct and just try to bring the work to a coherent state.

One advantage of your mentioned interdisciplinary approach is that a work, through the interaction of different techniques, automatically focuses on several aspects and thus can be read on

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Nicolas Vionnet

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several levels. However, I am not consciously looking for these multiple layers.

In 2011, I have realized the installation Out of sight, out of mind in a former Stasi prison in Chemnitz, Germany. The work consisted of a huge mountain of shredded paper, with which I have filled a former interstitial space knee-high. As additional audio-element there were hectic noises of steps and shredding machines. The whole work addressed the last days of the Stasi shortly before the fall oft he wall in 1989.

The Stasi tried to destroy as many secret documents as possible. Even today, there are thousands of bags with shredded paper remnants that are now reassembled laboriously by hand. A hilarious story. In this sense you can see my work as a staging of the last hectic hours of the Stasi in 1989.

Another interesting work of yours that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Warum Denken traurig macht, and which is a clear example of what you have once defined as "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment". By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I can recognize such a socio political aim in your Art: a constant stimulation that we absolutely need to get a point of balance that might give us the chance of re-interpreting the world we live in... and our lives, indeed...

My work often focuses on the topics of integration and irritation. In other words, I'm trying to integrate something new into the existing environment and thus to irritate at the same time. However, the confusion should be subtle. The phrase "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment" describes my conviction that the artwork itself may never be dominant.

Indeed, there should be no hierarchy.

Ideally, there is a balance between work and environment. This balance allows the

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viewer to perceive both components simultaneously.

The installation Warum Denken traurig macht in my view is an oddity among my works. This project was shown in the socalled art box, a typical white cube in the shape of a container that is shown in different locations in the city of Uster. Due to the physical presence oft the box, there was already an existing hierarchy, which I could not prevent. However, I wanted to follow a particular path. Many artists before me have used the box a simple white cube to showcase their existing works. In no case I wanted to do the same. I have decided to give the box a new residential function and to turn it into a retirement home. The whole room was papered, the walls were decorated with old family photos and at the door there was a cloak hanging. In between, the phone rang and you could hear the radio.

The people have actually thought that the box is inhabited.

By the way: the work's title referred to the same-named book from Georges Steiner, an American literary critic, essayist and philosopher During these years your works have been exhibited in several important occasions, both in Switzerland, where you are currently based, and abroad: and I think it's important to remark that you took part to the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist...

By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

Absolutely. An artist needs an audience; I

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think that's probably one of the most important things. I want that my work can be seen! Art is destined to be shared! It is not that much important to me that I can sell my work, however, I am more interested to exhibit my work in a professional context and on a regular basis.

Sales may of course also have a negative influence on the artist's way of working.

Many artists argue that they are completely independent - I see that as utterly false.

Let's be honest: If you feel a large interest and for example you can sell a complete series of works at once, there is a high probability that you go back to your studio and start working on similar pieces again. I think this is quite normal.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nicolas. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I would like to thank you for your interest.

My work is currently shown at several locations. At the Kulturort Galerie Weiertal (Winterthur, ending on September 7,2014) I present two installation works in a magnificent park (one of the works is the above mentioned Jacuzzi). Furthermore I participate in a group show entitled Small Works at Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, New York, July 18 – August 22, 2014). There will be a group show entitled Trovato, non veduto at Ausstellungsraum Klingental (Basel, November 1 – 16, 2014). Moreover I am very excited to do another project together with Wouter Sibum (Rotterdam). We will present a major intervention in the sea as part oft he 4th Biennial Aarhus exhibit called Sculpture by the sea. This show will start in June 2016. You are cordially invited to visit my website www.nicolasvionnet.ch, where you can find more information and all exhibition dates.

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Christian Gastaldi Currently lives and works in Paris, France

An artist's statement

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am a painter who takes colors from used, distressed material, for whom brushes strokes are tears of posters or magazines. Art is for me a process of sublimation. It is most challengingly achieved using plain, everyday life material not perceived as ‘beautiful’ because of their mundane functions.

I was born in France, on the Mediterranean Sea shore, in an ‘Island city’ penetrated by salty waters. I did not study Art. Instead, an engineer diploma allowed me to live and work abroad.

In 2005, the artistic project became an absolute necessity. Studios were put in place and moved around with me (Levallois, Luanda, Courbevoie, Baku, Frontignan).

2011, Redfox Press published a book in their ‘C’est mon Dada’ collection

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on my visual poetry work ‘Poems from inaudible voices’.

2012, I realised a commissioned work on a wall of 2.4 m by 7.5 m, for a new hotel in Barcelona. Two solo exhibitions in Barcelona and Baku (Azerbaijan) in the Center of Contemporary Art. 2013, one of my work makes the cover of the Art and Literature American RiverLit. 2014, participation with HLP galerie to the Art Fairs in Cologne (Kölner Liste, Cologne Paper Art, Art Fair).

Five pages article in the Art magazine ‘Art dans l’AiR’.

My work can currently be seen at the ‘Galerie Plurielle’ in Sète (France), ‘Galerie HLP’ in Cologne (Germany) and at ‘Die Hamburger galerie’ in Hambourg (Germany).

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us le Pont CLIX - 2013 - 41 x 33 cm

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LandEscape meets

Christian Gastaldi An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe,com

Focusing on the expressive potential of juxtaposition, Christian Gastaldi invites the viewers to a captivating multi-layered experience: in his collages, his refined investigation about the relationship between Memory and Experience urges us to unveil the intimate connections between the reality that we perceive and the ambiguous dimension of our inner world. Gastaldi's most convincing aspect is the way he accomplishes the difficult task of creating a concrete aesthetic that engages viewers, while conveying emotional and rational approaches into a consistent, coherent unity. I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to his refined artistic production.

Hello Christian, and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You are basically selftrained, so I would like to ask you if there are any experiences that have particularly influenced your evolution as an artists and how do they impact on the way you currently conceive and produce your works.

In my view it is impossible to separate the art you create from your entire life experience.

No one has this freedom. We are products of past events, of interactions we have had with people in the places in which we have lived.

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Now, what are the driving forces, the triggering events that push you into creating? You may not be aware of what they are, at least immediately, and you also may not be the best placed to understand what they are! This perception comes through time, as small hints, feelings that you perceive and that sometimes fail to materialise into clear concepts. Interviews help in that respect, forcing you to put into words vague feelings, imprecise sensations.

I was born in France, in Sète, along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in a city surrounded by salty waters, almost an island.

Sète is a place where most inhabitants are a mix of French, Italian and Spanish origins, as I am. I came to think that the geographic setting has a strong influence on people.

Sète is a place that gives you the irrepressible need for freedom and the desire to discover what lies beyond the horizon. So, I studied and worked abroad (Holland, Brunei, Argentina, Angola, Azerbaijan…) coming back regularly, as if in exile, experiencing the joy and sadness of departures. As described by Fernando Pessoa in Oda Maritima: ’O mistério alegre e triste de quem chega e parte’. Living abroad, doing geosciences research and practicing sports provided me with the emotions I needed. Then Art became a necessity. I needed the emotional rewards of the creation process, the entire mobilisation of body (soul and flesh) into a transcendent experiment. I had no choice, I had to create.

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If now one looks at my work, it may not be obvious at first sight, but I am a painter. And the fact that I do not use paint is a detail. I conceive my work as a painter. The graphic and chromatic equilibriums of the work are paramount.

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

Through the years, I became fond of literature, of the rhythm and musicality of sentences. I did not care so much about the stories, but the style was critical. ‘Voyage au bout de la nuit’ of Louis-Ferdinand Céline and ‘L’amant’ of Marguerite Duras are great examples for me of what can be achieved through style. This is what I want to achieve in Art.

How does a writer arrange the succession of words to resound with the inner self of the reader? How can the rhythm of written words create transcending feelings? I have similar questions in mind when I do my work. How can I create rhythm and equilibrium in a frozen frame? How can I arrange linear elements to create movement? How will the picture be balanced if I accumulate elements in one place? ... In addition to Rhythm and Equilibrium, the material used is critical. The transcending nature of art is reinforced when working from mundane material, from elements that contain dismissed traces of life. That’s the reason why I work from used magazines, newspapers or distressed posters recovered from illegal billposting places.

The time spent to create a piece is variable with the nature of the material used and the size of the piece. I generally spend more time collecting materials or finding the places where posters can be collected, than

doing the work itself. I try do a sketch before starting the work, by arranging the paper elements side by side on the floor before going into the gluing process. But this is impossible when I work on a piece which is purely focussing on rhythm from typographic elements, like ‘Sous le Pont XCII’. In that case, I put together the elements of typography I want to use and start straight away without knowing exactly where I will end-up, except that the direction was clear: I had decided, in this case, not to use any vertical or horizontal lines. I wanted to create a piece that flows.

In 2013, when I did a commissioned work for a hotel in Barcelona on a 2.4 m by 7.5 m wall, it took me a day to do the initial compositional sketch on the floor, then 15 days to finalize the work on the wall, out of which, one day was spent to complete the final half square meter without destroying the equilibrium of the entire wall!

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from your Landscape that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your blog http://christiangastaldi.centerblog.net or your website http://christiangastaldi.webgarden.com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production... In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

Landscape was my first series. At that time I was mostly working from torn magazines.

The series started with the intention to study how the chaos of juxtaposed paper blocks and the usage of bright colours could be organised to create forceful, yet harmonious, landscapes. In the process, I sometimes deliberately unsettled the composition to see how it could later be recovered. As the series progressed, the colours became fainter and

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the works moved from figurative to abstract until I discovered Nicholas de Staël landscapes.

It disturbed me. I had evolved towards the type of abstraction and cold colours he had used. So I stopped.

The choice of the theme had also to do with the fact that Landscape is a ‘classical’ subject of painting. I decided that, if starting in Art, I had to confront myself with classical topics right from start. Even more so with the unusual type of material I used. Before the Landscapes, my earlier subjects were even more classical: Christ and Madonna!

The picture ‘Monocromo azul (casi)’, though part of ‘Monochromes (quasi)’ series, is conceived as a landscape. It is a tribute to my Mediterranean origin.

An important aspect of the way you organize your works in series comes from the original place you pick the materials: the bond between the past of the images and their new life unveils the subtle but ubiquitous connection between Imagination and everyday life: your vision seems to speak of a kind an abstract beauty that starts from a mundane imagery but that brings a new level of significance to images. I would go as far as to state that in a certain sense your works challenge the viewers' perception in order to going beyond the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but the way we relate to it... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some information and 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?

My work should certainly force the viewer to reconsider his environment. As I pick-up elements, visible in everyday life, under other functions (and therefore with other meanings) I take the viewer to question the perenniality of the messages, of the images. Displayed in a

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MPL00 - 2012 - 7.5 x 2.4 m - Reception room of hotel Vincci Bit (commissioned work) - Barcelona, Spain

canvas they acquire a new function. To keep the viewer totally free in his re-interpretation I systematically destroy the original messages and images. They are reincorporated in a new chaos of onomatopoeia, the Babel world of today.

Using everyday life material not perceived as ‘beautiful’ you establish an effective symbiosis between Memory and Experience that takes an intense participatory line with the viewers. While creating such intimate involvement, you

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seem to remove the historic gaze from the reality you refer to, offering to the viewers the chance to perceive in a more absolute, almost atemporal form. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process...

Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

As we discussed earlier I don’t think it can be. And I would even say it should not. Art without the projection of the personality of

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the artist is a negation of Art, a senseless activity. There are already so many of those meaningless activities in our surrounding environment, not to add Art to this list. I believe in Art as both a product and a source of emotions. I cannot conceive it as a pure intellectual activity. Of course thinking goes into a piece of art but it is for the benefit of the creation of emotion, not as a substitute, a justification by itself.

Experience is the soil that feed the art. I started late my artistic activities. Maybe I

needed more time than others to assimilate life experiences.

I daresay that your visionary approach to re-contextualization that emerges with a particular energy in Sous le pont has suggested me the idea that environment acts as cornerstones for a fulfilment process that has reminded me of German sculptor and photographer Thomas Demand, when he stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological

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narrative elements within the medium instead": what's your point about this?

And in particular, how much do you explicitly think of a narrative for your works?

The environment, and the way it expressed itself into the material, is critical to my work.

My series from distressed posters are organised by the places where the material was collected. The characteristics of the place and of the people that live there, are influencing the specificities of the colours and typography used. They provide a humanity to the medium that I want to reveal in the creation process. So it is right to say that, in that case, the environment provides the narrative elements of the creation.

I have also experienced in my work, that I sometimes use a narrative analogy to help structure my creation. A strong tear, through stack of posters, will be perceived as an analogy of a sea shore line, separating two physical worlds, like in ‘Sous le Pont CLIX’.

I have appreciate the investigative feature of the way you explore emerging visual contexts: in particular the posters that you used for MAR-POI, a project that I have to admit is one of my favourite of your wide production, have been collected in Paris subway stations and show an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between colours associations and arrangement of textures.

Like many art forms, collage can borrow elements to create new art: your main sources are tears of posters or magazines: in your opinion are there limits to what can or should be used to create collages?

In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating collages?

The only acceptable limits in Art are those that you imposed to yourself. Those constraints are a stimulus to the creation process. Any material, in particular in

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collage, can be used. I am an admirer of Rosalie Gascoigne’s work, and of the old painted wood she used in some of her creations. My current preference is for material which has been exposed to life. The ‘MAR-POI’ series originates from old posters collected at the Paris subway station ‘Marcadet-Poissonniers’ undergoing refurbishment. At that occasion, the recent posters had been removed from walls, leaving to the surface old posters, hard to remove. They were several decades old. The passing of time had given them specific textures and altered colours. They had a fragile beauty that interested me. Only small elements could be recovered, difficult to manipulate. In that case my work is on subtlety. If most of ‘Sous le Pont’ series can be seen as, as you said, energetic, sort of fights within canvasses, MAR-POI is a caress. In MAR-POI 10, I decided to use only colours elements. No line, no letter, no figurative element. A pure chromatic palette. In doing so, I am, more than never, a painter. The challenge was to find an arrangement of colours that vibrates with the perception of textures.

Softness of the tears, conveyed the fragility I wanted to achieve. I particularly liked the fainted colours that reminded me of old Japanese prints and the manner they were later interpreted by Van Gogh and Gauguin.

The associations expressed by the juxtaposition process seem to avoid any precise politicized meanings: however, it's almost impossible to deny that giving a second life to images -and sometimes to the concept behind them- could be defined such a politicized practice itself. By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naïf, I have to admit that I'm sort of convinced that Art -especially nowadayscould play an effective role in socio-political questions: not only just by offering to people a generic platform for expression... I would go as far as to state that Art could even steer people's behaviour... what's your point about this? Does it sound a bit exaggerated?

I totally agree with you that giving a second chance to images (and elevating them into

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pieces of art) is a politicised stance. Even more so when there is no explicit political messages imposed on the viewer. I find a bit obscene, even if the word is a bit strong, to have messages on a canvas. As a viewer I want to be free to think on my own. It also distracts the viewer, steers him to the trivial, when what is essential is to emotionally react.

My pictures do not have political intentions.

But, by the choice of material, I would like to

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contribute to making people proud of themselves. They are much more capable than the politicians or the society want them to believe. Seeing elements that they are familiar with, in a new context, could help them rethinking their role in society. Will it steer people’s behaviour? I would like to be as optimist as you are!

Thanks a lot for this interesting conversation, Christian. Finally, I would you like to tell us readers something

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about your future projects. Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

Currently I am for a month in an artist residency in Moncontour in France. My intention is to work on large formats on the MPL series. Then I will customise a cow for the Paris ‘Cow Parade 2015’, go to Sète for the opening of the ‘Transformations Urbaines’ exhibition at Galerie Plurielle (JuneOctober) and install a solo exhibition at a

winery in Var, south of France, during JulyAugust. In October, I will participate to the Salon Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. Before that, I will most likely go back to Montréal (Canada) to work with OXYD Factory on the second phase of our common project where we combined old car parts with distressed posters into creations focussing on textures.

An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

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Ivonne Dippmann Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

An artist's statement

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ince the beginning of my work the artistic discourse is situated very much within the aesthetics and appearance of my environment”, says Ivonne Dippmann of her own work.

However, she changed her environment constantly. Born and raised 1981 in KarlMarx-Stadt, former East Germany, a city that has changed its name twice within fifty years. No place that would guarantee consistency, unless for a constancy of change and loss.

Since Dippmann has left her hometown, she made stations in the United States, in the Basque country in Spain and lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Berlin. The origin can not explain what happens in her work, and it would also be one-dimensional to look for a simple and simplistic basis in this bundle, which defines it – technique, expression, style and color, a will and political passion which seeks for space and its power being transformed into images.

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Nevertheless, the place where a drawing, graphic or other image of work is produced, plays a special role. Ivonne Dippmann generally starts from relatively small-scale drawings. A starting point, a beginning, because these small formats will later encounter a different situation, an exhibition space, a stage or a book.

They will transform themselves in order to adapt to a new room. Nothing remains as it was and if Dippmann uses templates – which were originally used as illustrations for a book – and converts them into largescale murals combined with colorful yarns stretched within a space, it creates a unique effect. Because she phrases a no man’s land, which is both politically and geographically allocated. A paradoxical everywhere.

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LandEscape meets

Ivonne Dippmann An interview by Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Hello Ivonne and a warm welcome to LandEscape. I would start this interview with my usual introductory question: what in your opinion defines a work of Art? By the way, what could be in your opinion the features that mark an artwork as a piece of Contemporary Art? Do you think that there's a dichotomy between tradition and contemporariness?

Honestly, Art? I don't know. A more colorful, overpriced version of the New York Times? Good Art for me is characterized by attitude and having something to say. It derives out of curiosity, playfulness, a very own opinion and the capacity to take responsibility for. Essential a good sense of humor! Contemporary basically means today, so I guess Contemporary Art should talk about your own time and generation in an eloquent and unpretentious way. Tradition for me preserves values and rituals that influence social structures and norms, publicly and in private. Contemporariness is somehow a different basket. I associate this term more with trends in the fashion industry. Unlike tradition it comes along very unpredictable, eccentric and a bit overrated. But a well executed contemporariness may transform into a tradition one day?

Would you like to tell us something about your background? Besides your studies in Visual Communication at the University of the Arts in Berlin, you have attended classes in Israel, Spain and in the USA, where, among the others, you attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

How have these experiences impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks? By

the way, I sometimes I wonder if a certain kind of formal training could even stifle a young artist's creativity... what's your point?

My studies were an unforgettable 10 year life experience. I received my MeisterschĂźler in Visual Communication, cross studied in Experimental Media Design and finished with a Master in Fine Arts in Israel. Coming from East Germany, I saw my "education plan" as a free ticket to conquer and explore the world, not just creatively. Being a student at the University of the Arts Berlin, I have spent 70% of my time abroad. By learning within different creative fields and manners abroad, I created considerably, with a clear agenda attached my personal "box of tools". These skills now define the spine of my daily work flow and led to a personal freedom and artistic independence. It was a very privileged time and experience. I don't believe in a formalistic discourse of "art education". The outcome is very hollow without significant substance! In my opinion it is of relevance to have a life first and with it, hand in hand, a good education which will help to sharpen your qualities, to find your own language and to have the opportunity to encounter great people on the way. I am drawing since I am 5, I guess the only though very comforting consistency in my life so far.

Now let's focus on your art production: I would start from Broad street line and Aktivisten und Westarbeiter 1 & 2, that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article. Would you tell us something about the genesis of these projects? What was your initial inspiration?

A&W was based on a collaborative project with the German author J. Kuhlbordt, now living and working in Leipzig. I produced a series of black

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and white drawings for his upcoming publication "Stoetzers Lied - der Gesang vom Leben danach". Stoetzer is a character who takes on everything that rolls him over: politics, economics, art, history. Out of statics he is commenting the movements, the decay of the past and the arrival of the new millennium. It is a philosophical interwoven volume of poetry, that addresses with humor and sharpness the complex approach to history. I connected to his work right away since we shared common grounds by being raised and educated in Karl Marx - Stadt. Aktivisten und Westarbeiter works with the former qualities of my hometown, which has been the center of textile production in East Germany. I basically grew up in the middle of cotton and wool. The center pieces of the two installations in A&W 1/ 2 were made out of yarns of different colors of VEB POLAR KarlMarx-Stadt, taken from my personal archive of my family. All the drawings and wall-paintings were based on the drawings for Kuhlbordts book.

My works are oftentimes inspired by texts, by works of authors I collaborated with for their own publications (J. Kuhlbrodt, C. Wagner or R. Winkler). I also use dialogues from movies (I had a great Woody Allen time in Jerusalem), the everyday talk outside, dreams and outside observations which I write down separately.

Broad street line is a textile project, executed within a 3 month apprenticeship at the FWM in Philadelphia. Out of my own designs, I created a two (Broad street line) and a four way repeat (Hallah). I printed 3 months straight and it was a pleasure experimenting and playing around with techniques, shapes and colors. As in A&W the initial design was drawn out in one of my sketchbooks (Book 05 PH2012, Broad Street Line). Some of the printed fabrics were used for designing the fashion line "Hallah", a project in collaboration with the Berlin designer Kunji Baerwald. It was very much a last minute project for a shooting planed to be included in an art book publication (Ivonne Dippmann - My hostilities Are Distributed In A Justified Way, 2013 Revolver Publishing).

As you have remarked in the starting lines of your artist's statement, "the artistic discourse is situated very much within the aesthetics and appearance of my environment"... I can recognize such a socio political feature in your pieces, and even though I'm aware that this might sound a bit naĂŻf, I'm sort of convinced that Art these days could play an effective role not only making aware public opinion, but I would go as far as to say that nowadays Art can steer people's behavior... what's your point about this? Do you think that it's an exaggeration?

Art talks about time, to some extend it embodies history, which is more less an archive of "steering" peoples behaviors. I think the power of art is that a piece of work keeps on communicating without you. It shapes time historically and provides a peek into someone's personal agenda and perception.

By showing a specific selection of art to the public, institutions create an archive stuffed with experiences, remarks, thoughts and insides, defining and redefining a "Zeitgeist" within an era or time period. By walking through a retrospective feels like flipping through someone's fotoalbum which is for generations to keep and remember. My personal decisions or choices can be seen as a summation of experiences based on the people I met on my way and whose works and personality touched me somehow.

Another interesting pieces that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words are from your Les Modes Personnels project: by the way, as our readers can view at your website, http://www.ivonnedippmann.eu/index.php?id =123, multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice: I would go as far as to state that you seem to be interested in creating a multi-sensory, kinetic and relational art experience... while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only

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way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

I think "disciplines" how you call it or a medium are simply tools to execute an idea. The more you have the more freedom you experience in expressing your thoughts and ideas. LMP just happened by going through old fabrics and towels made in former East Germany at my parents house last summer. I found those old, worn out crystal salt bags from my grand father in our basement and wanted to make something out of it. Since I planed a shooting for documenting "Broad street line" anyways, I thought why not including a recent line of textile work? I had an apartment to work in and a printing place at a friends design firm (Zwoelf Medien Berlin). Since I had no budget, I could not hire a model / make up person in Berlin. As I was looking desperately, a friend just commented on fb: "Why don t you do it yourself?" So based on the circumstances I did everything myself and I had a very patient and passionate photographer.

I see LMP like a series of drawings, it flips through shapes, material and movement in real time. It is one of my favorite pieces so far, it really came out of nothing and says everything.

Your pieces La vie c’est moi!, Wir sind viele (we are many) and especially the interesting Reformation clearly show that your art practice is strictly connected with the chance to create a deep involvement with your audience, both on a intellectual aspect and on an emotive side... I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Well I guess this phenomena of being disconnected from a direct experience is called "conceptual art"? I am not a fan. It feels like a dry dessert. I personally admire artists who work passionately hands on, going through a work period which requires time, involves physical movement and transpiration on the way. My drawing routine is the spine of my daily life experience and vice versa. It is a safe place I can always go back to. I started literally "shooting"

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myself by documenting myself in relationship to my work or to a specific environment. It helped me to establish a connection with a new place.

It caught the way I felt. For La vie c’est moi!, Wir sind viele (we are many) I was meeting a friend in Paris who works by chance in the Louvre, Paris. He gave me a tour in the Museum after everyone left, no lines, no crowds, no school classes. The place was empty and while walking with him through this impressive collection of art, I felt the urge to make a work there. Two days later we got the permission to photograph for 10 minutes. Of course I did not find the room I wanted, so I chose the center hallway of the old Masters. The piece goes together with a 3 m x 6 m written wall work, containing excerpts of dialogues of the war movie Lakonia in combination with expressions of a crossword puzzle. The works mentioned are not performance pieces, I see them purely as a documentation of a work.

And I couldn't do without mentioning E/Scapes - the disappearance from landscape, an extremely interesting collaborative project that you have established with Andrea van Reimersdahl... I personally find absolutely fascinating the collaborations that artists can established together as you did, especially because this often reveals a symbiosis between apparently different approaches to art... and I can't help without mention Peter Tabor who once said that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between two artists?

"We believe that interdisciplinary collaboration today is an ever growing force in the art-, fashion- and design world. We believe that our traditional distinction between these fields is rapidly breaking apart, making room for crossplatform projects that question the authority of each classification. We strongly believe that most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project." Those 3 lines are

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taken from a recent proposal for an interdisciplinary workshop "The Art of collaboration", drafted by a colleague of mine (Marek Polewski, Floor5 Berlin). There is not much to add.

For me to collaborate means an enrichment of my quality of life as an artist. I do only collaborate with people I like and get along with well, based on a mutual understanding of work attitude and respect. Collaborations are a great opportunity to learn and to have an artistic dialogue on a daily basis. I don' t want to be surrounded with my own state of mind and work always, so I decided to collaborate at least once a year in whatever field, rhe more diverse the better. E/Scapes is an ongoing textile based project in collaboration with the Berlin artist and designer AVR who I met by coincidence through a friend. What finally brought us together is the empathy and the immediate use of textiles and the material related printing craft. We are still looking for funding in order to finally execute this project in the coming months.

9) During these years your artworks have been exhibited across your country and abroad, and you recently had the solo CADAVRE EXQUIS in collaboration with the French painter Asnaby at Blick Gallery in Tel Aviv... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or better, the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist... By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? Do you ever think to whom will enjoy your Art when you conceive your pieces? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

Awards and grants provided me with the financial basis in order to live and to execute my art work as I do. Without this support system I would not stand where I am now and I am grateful for that. Regarding feedback,I think you are better off if you don't give a crab. It doesn't really matter what people

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think of you. I did not become an artist in order to get compliments or to be liked.

My audience should enjoy the ride and remain critical and opinionated. To push myself further, I appreciate honest, constructive critique. Business is something different.

Therefore it is a lucky win, if you are represented by a gallerist who is professional and trustworthy. A genuine relationship?

Never!, therefore the art market is too chaotic and biased.

Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts Ivonne. My last question deals

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with your future plans: what's next for you?

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

Well, on one hand I am looking for a studio in Berlin in order to have a home base for production and meetings. On the other hand I would like to spend some time in Paris for collaborating on a fashion project, creating exclusive designs for a brand or label.

Ongoing projects are the fundraiser for the project E/Scapes - the disappearance from landscapes, which can be accessed through both of our websites. There is a show coming

up at the Kulturforum Alte Post Neuss next year and of course, worthwhile mentioning my recently published art book "Ivonne Dippmann - My hostilities Are Distributed In A Justified Way", 2013 by Revolver Publishing Berlin.

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

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Gerd G.M. Brockmann Lives and works in Freiburg, Germany

An artist's statement

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y work researches boundaries between fashion, art and society. In the last years I worked in different participatory projects and countries as contemporary multidisciplinary artist to research with experimental materials like blood, inner tubes and chains, to find new borders between fashion design, art, ephemeral concepts and space, getting a better comprehension of fashion and art as communication concept and I found a new visual language for me.

Since my studies at Istanbul I'm working between two countries and I've got inspired by both worlds to forge a unique connection between apparently contrary features of Turkish and German culture. The dissolution of boundaries, the fusion of both concepts is at the core of my works.

This allows glimpses at a union of opposites. The pieces references duality concepts, combining masculine and feminine elements. Textile structures play with borders and opposites,

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combining art and design. Embedded in space, the disciplines flow into each other and I like if shape, texture and the materials or structures create an expression in space.

For me it's relevant to see the impact of a body in a space. Be aware of textiles as a second skin and the combination of both to create a fugacious sculpture. When can you perceive the body in combination with textiles as a sculpture and where is the border? Has the body to be complete, or is a head enough for an artistic reflection?

I follow those and more questions in my installations and concepts to reach a new reference between design, art and contemporary visual language in fashion.

For this purpose I use textile materials and ephemeral concepts as a base for a bodily transformation and searching for new connections between the disciplines and the space.

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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie 2 FL/Germany /Wood Concept Design & Craft by Korbinian 2Petzinger

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LandEscape meets

Gerd G.M. Brockmann An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

Gerd Brockmann accomplish the difficult task to capture the essence of human experience and immediately conveying it into though-provoking installations: far from being an end in itself, the captivating sociopolitical criticism that marks out many of his cretions, as the interesting Here's still Light, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, urge us to question the reductionist tendencies that pervades Western culture, highlighting paradoxical situations od modernity and always showing us unexpected but ubiquitous points of convergence, in which the viewers are urged to explore the unstability of contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Brockmann's multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Gerd and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview I would pose you some qustions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you after earning your Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art & visual Media, you eventually refined your education with a Master of Fine Art & visual Media, with a major on Textile & Fashion, that you received from the Flensburg University.

Among the remarkable experience you did over these years, I think that your Erasmus year at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul has to be mentioned as well: how have these experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? And in particular, do you think that being

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exposed to a wide, international scene may have informed the way you conceive and produce your works today?

Hello LandEscape and thank you for the Invitation. Yes, my Studies at the University of Flensburg gave me some basics about the combination of textile, art and visual media concepts and I learned to use my experiences from the early years.

In the 90´s I finished an apprenticeship in an old tradition house (since 1899), near Hamburg and I learned a lot of things about fabrics, garment, sewing and all that stuff in a really “old-school” way. It was the intense beginning of my new work periods. Between ephemeral works, the body as media, textiles as second skin, nature and environment as artistic space. I was able to use my “old-school” experience as well as my science from the university basics at Flensburg´s art and textile departments, to create new works and my new research projects became a short time later reality. In the same year I realized a small project at Istanbul, after I meet the members of a small independent art space at the Contemporary Istanbul Fair while showing my portfolio to the galleries. And step by step my works got an international touch and I started to work between both countries and I love the cultural exchange, the idea to develop a new visual language for me that includes both cultures.

The hallmark of your approach is a multidisciplinary symbiosys between several visual viewpoints, that you wisely

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condens into a coherent unity, providing a dynamic life to your pieces: before starting to elaborate about your works, I would suggest to our readers to visitI http://artprojectbrockmann.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. Have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express the concepts you convey in your works?

In the contemporary art world of the modern era it is essential to enter into a symbiotic relationship with other disciplines to develop yourself as an artist and to create a new visual language. Through the networked world of fine arts mutated into a global activity and in this age of globalization it is essential to get new realms by fusing art, fashion, photography, design and craft, to create new perceptions for the observer. My work is characterized as a new form of public in art and at the same department it offers an insight into the geopolitics of the art system of the 21st century. To survive in today's art market, it is necessary to develop critical tools to allow the viewer a glimpse behind the curtain. The multidisciplinary symbiosis as you call it allows me to develop a broad-based oeuvre as an artist and is actually the only way some of my concepts had been realized.

For Example, THE SUPLENESS PUCK´S‌ The artwork to us viewers, is a different experience to my interaction with the work the artwork itself is performative - it is not really a photograph, nor is it really a sculpture. It is an action, and it is an encounter between two people; one a viewer, and one the performer who is wearing the costume, their body moving slightly with each breath, and shreds of fabric moving with a small breeze. This is such a harmonious amalgamation of costume becoming installation; installation becoming performance; performance becoming

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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Detail Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie FL/Germany

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sculpture; sculpture becoming a photograph; photograph entering the online sphere. With elements of identity removed; masked faces and wrapped figures, my work seems to have created a repeated motif - a human captured in time and captured (encased, even) within various mediums. It is a tension which exists in the work, and in the characteristics of the mediums used.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from "Here's still Light", an extremely interesting body of works that I have to admit is one of my favourite project of yours. I like the way your careful exploration offers a rigorous but at the same time lively visual translation of the issues that affect contemporary societies: far from being an end in itself, this work reveals the importance of the ongoing social process that leads its creation, and that it's intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intense interplay with the viewers.

While conceiving Art could be considered a purely abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I 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?

I believe that one's personal experience accounts for a huge part of any of my works and the mentioned “Here’s Still Light” concept merges to this experience with the experience of all 20 team members to become a great social sculpture. A separation of the creative process of one's own experience, I think indeed possible, for me however, not desirable. In today's society it´s in my opinion very important that new experience spaces and projects for

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KING NOTHING Concept by YILMAZTÜRK&BROCKMANN FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla Yilmaztürk

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Univocal reference, 38x42, 2010

ONE MOMENT YELLOW SILENCE FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla YilmaztĂźrk & Aykut YilmaztĂźrk

underestimating groups exists and that we learn to provide and handle socially disadvantaged, to bring them into contact with art and to experience what we can learn from each other. Would I disconnect all from each other, I would deprive myself of my own feelings and the transience, the social or creativity would no longer reach me and I would be

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separated from the social relevance of my work and would be immune to any resonance.

When I was preparing myself for this interview I have got to know that the term social exclusion first originated here in Europe, where we experienced a considerable emphasis on spatial exclusion, that sometimes resembles to a

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form of confinement. The nature of your insightful investigation about marginalization of the elderly people from public sphere reveals an admirable sociopolitical criticism: I have appreciated the way you do not just restrict your analysis to a mere reportage of the situation, but you stimulate us to react to this loss of potential concerning not only wisdom

but also talents that need a whole life to be improved... Although I'm aware that the following assumption might sound a bit naive, I'm convinced that nowadays Art can play an active role not only in exposing and interpreting sociopolitical issues, but also and especially to offer us an unexpected way to solve them... what's your point about this? And in

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particular, how can an artist give a move to the contemporary unstabile society?

In my opinion spatial and social exclusion are only a small part of an ever-accelerating society. We all develop different mechanisms to this new society order to come to the company and manage the age affects us all.

In my time the immortal youth in which I found myself up to my twenties I have recognized this instability of society and was helpless at that time and I could do nothing about it. With the maturity of years and the courage to address people if they would work with me on something together I brought this process in motion. It was possible to actively involve art into sociopolitical criticism. The interactive and participatory has long been a part of the art market ... but this “Here´s Still Light” concept is now to be filled with socio-critical content and to find a platform for this artistic social process was the challenge for me. I was very happy to found my team after a two years research and set it up at the Nexus Gallery in Denmark to give this work the worthy setting. Who will assume responsibility for new and innovative ideas in the world of social exclusion ... unless we artists? How can an artist change something in the modern unstable society? I guess, with new and surprising ideas and the hope to change something, and if it happens only in small… it's a start!

There is a very special synthesis between me and my partner and very talented Fashion Designer Nejla Yilmaztürk. The YILMAZTÜRK & BROCKMANN Concept was born in January 2012. After the work for a Gallery in Istanbul, we decided to work as an artist couple between the border of Fashion Design and Fine Art Concepts.

And I couldn't do without mentioning "Ego Has Fallen", that has provided me of the

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EGO HAS FALLEN Pic by Artist

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GRAND ELIXIR SECRET OF SECRETS…THE URBAN ALCHEMY - Pic by Artist / Model: Korbinian Petzinger

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same sensation I received the first time I had the chance to get to know Boltanski's Exit. Although each of your projects has an autonomous life, there's always seem to be such a channel of communication between your works, that springs from the way you juxtapose ideas and media: as Thomas Demand once said, "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this?

EGO HAS FALLEN has certainly parallels to Boltanski's work “Exit” to pull, since this dimly the likeness of a human being gives and gets a mood of melancholy forth the leaves appear the presence of the past as irretrievably past. The memory work thus becomes a part of the work.

This work contributes similar Boltanski's “Exit” not only a media criticism in itself but also an institutional critique that affects society as a whole.

In my decision-making process of the artistic work and the implementation of ideas, this only partially plays a role. I think about it if I move into a different cultural process, working with a new group, or as usually, if I work between two cultures. Then I try to do research with great respect and it makes me aware of during the process as the context that could affect the visual language to the viewer. The process with my HOMECREW..Like, I call my team of the Here's Still Light project, was like that and that’s why it took two years to complete. Working with the elderly women from the Danish and German culture in considering the old war history required a cautious approach and found expression in the work "War is over".

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Marta Wapiennik Lives and works in Cracow, Poland

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owadays I am creating works guided mostly by intuition and emotions. I am trying really hard to give the most from me during the process of creation which has become more important for me than it was few years ago. I think this is the best way to deliver powerful and strong images that can move the viewer. I find inspiration in colors, textures, surroundings and nature. I treat photographs as sketches for further exploration. Modifying reality in them has become some sort of language which suits the best to my feelings and a way of perceiving the world.

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Marta Wapiennik An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescap@eurpe.com

Multidisciplinary artist Marta Wapiennik's work explores the notions of memory and perception: her works could be considered as visual biographies that draws the viewers through a multilayered experience. In her body of works entitled The illusion of reality that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she urges us to recontextualize elements she draws from universal imagery. One of the most impressive aspects of Wapiennik's work is her successful attempt to trigger the viewers' most limbic parameters, to challenge their perceptual categories: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Marta, thanks for joining us and 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 graduated from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, in Cracow: how does this experience influence your evolution as an artist? In particular how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

Hello, thank you for having me. I studied at the Graphic Department, I mainly focused on improving my skills in drawing and painting. I wanted to master those crafts and this was my aim. First year was hard but on the second year I went to the

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prof. Włdzimierz Kotkowski’s (let him rest in peace) drawing workshop and he opened my eyes to many ways we can see the subject that we are working with.

Basically whatever I do in art I begin with some sketch/ drawing I have in my mind.

It’s not very strict, It’s changing constantly, probably that’s why I use many layers on my photographs. I often see in a multilayered way. I evolved very slow during my studies, due to my problems with health I was excluded from the social life, art life. I had to change workshops frequently because not every teacher understood my situation. This gave me the (not necessaliry wanted) opportunity to find myself in completely new situation - for example: when I decided to do my diploma in the Poster Workshop, I found out that I am not wanted there. My last chance was to turn back to the Screenprinting Workshop run by prof.ASP Marcin Surzycki, where I stayed and developed my idea of „The illusion of reality”. That’s also the title of my additional diploma works made in Digital Photography Workshop led by dr Lech Polcyn, who helped me in solving problems that were quite new to me then.

You can say that I ended up in this area of art partly by coincidence, but it was a good fortune. There were lot’s of difficult moments at the Cracow’s Academy of Fine Arts which is seen as a conservative one.

In my opinion it’s true although they are trying to change it. Still one can quickly learn how to paint well, or draw there rather than gain knowledge about

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computer programs. Which can slow the process of developing talents especially at the Graphic Department. Nevertheless students are very smart and pick up all technology news by themselves at their homes. Does my cultural background plays some role in my art ? I don’t think so. I was always inspired by foreigners: Hockney, Richter, Stella, Rauchenberg… they have energy that can move the viewer. They are fresh and for everyone. Polish art in my opinion is very much connected to our history which was not a happy one so artworks can be also let’s say - heavy. There are exceptions of course but my nature tells me to run away from it and look for something what brings the NEW. Your approach reveals an incessant search of organic investigation about the realm of emotions and the results of your practice convey together a coherent and consistent sense of harmony and unity: before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.martawapiennik.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process and set up, we would like to ask you how did you develope your style and how do you conceive your works.

Incessant search - yes, everyday I am looking for answers, I have lots of questions in my head, also much conflict. But the last thing I would say about my works is that they are coherent and consistent. I feel like I am frequently changing my „creation routine”. Style… is the worst thing that one can have as a true artist. Because what is style? Characteristic quality? If one really is looking for the truth he/she will never know what the outcome of the research will be.

Style is very predictable trait which I don’t want to have. I always feel free while creating and I never try to limit myself. That

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is why I use photography, painting and I mix them. I treat photos as sketches and I am always surprised when they are appreciated by viewers. For me they are mostly „not finished works of art”. This is the reason I digitally modify reality that is

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captured on them to emphasize my point of view.

For this special edition of LandEscape we have selected The illusion of reality, an extremely interesting series, that our readers have already started to get to

know in the introductory pages of this article. When walking our readers through the genesis of this project, we would like to ask you what is the role of chance in your process: how much improvisation is important for you?

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The Illusion Of Reality

„The illusion of reality” tells about how what we see everyday can be perceiving.

What is reality to us? For everyone it’s something different that’s for sure. But do we ever try to examine, question it? Check what is the truth and what is not? Or do

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we just accept the things as they are because it’s more comfortable. Basically the genesis of this project was my inspiration - the topic of deconstruction.

In a short story - a way of thinking that make us verify our thinking method

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copies of reality put in the exact same places they were taken from, only destroyed. Should I call it an improvisation?

No, it was planned. But I use „accidents” in my paintings - always.

You draw a lot from your perceptual reality and The illusion of reality could be considered a successful attempt to create a body of works that stands as record of existence and that captures non-sharpness with an universal language. Even James Turrell’s obsession with light and color is often associated with his early experiences as a pilot... So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

It cannot be disconnected. At least I put everything I have experienced with my senses into my art. It happened that the most important for me is sight so I communicate with people through images. I wouldn’t be able to create artworks that don’t contain the truth. Arists work with their souls so what they have inside they can only give to others. If one tries to fake it, then it’s not art at all. I like to think that some people really show create works that reveal a hidden part of themselves, unnamed, that sometimes even they cannot understand. Like fears, desires, dreams etc.

nowadays. I would reccomend to search for the name Derrida, philosopher. The project was also an outcome of my combination of paper folding, print and photography. It’s not all done digitally, only by little part. They are real folded

Your photographs seems to be the result of a lot of planning and thought, but at the same time they convey a sense of direct spontaneity that is a hallmark of your style. You seem to be wanting to move beyond a standard representation and the way you manipulate the images you capture unveils a trascendental substance, making the viewer realize that your work has a different message. How important is

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the character that you as the photographer impose on your images?

Thank you for such a kind words. You exactly guessed they way they are made. They are as planned as spontaneous. For example I wake up and there is a nice wheather and I feel like going to the park to take some pictures (a plan). When I’m there I just run, walk, sit - do whatever I want to feel the place, space, atmosphere. At the same time I photograph anything that catches my eye. I don’t think a lot during the process because that would take a lot energy from the shots. I learned to go with the flow. Later I work on the digital modification. Transcendence is very important for me. I wish I could show more in photography - give more - like smell, wind, temperature, all the ingredients that move me. As a fragile person I am very sensitive to any change in my environment. I found that my paintings reveal more from my spirit than any view I can capture by the camera so I decided to combine them. That gives this „style” you mentioned. I still treat them as sketches and try to keep them fresh. I don’t really care about the „high quality” of the photographic structure - let’s call it that way. For me photos are basic grounds to start my work from. I destroy them multiple times: pixelize them, solarize, desaturate, increase the color, cut whatever gives me provocation, excites. If I feel it with my guts, I know that my work would have the character. It’s hard to describle what could lead to „ you must see it ” reaction, which would be the best reslut you can achieve. Staying very close to the topic of my interests, makes me very aware of any tiny detail that might weigh on the quality of works, like light, texture etc.

As the late Franz West did in his early installations, your work shows unconventional aesthetics in the way it deconstructs perceptual images in order to

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assemble them in a collective imagery, urging the viewers to a process of selfreflection. German multidisciplinary

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artist Thomas Demand once stated that

psychological, narrative elements within

"nowadays art can no longer rely so much

the medium instead". What is your

on symbolic strategies and has to probe

opinion about it? And in particular how

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The Illusion Of Reality

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do you conceive the visual unity and narrative for your works?

Generally art in postmodern times has no easy way to get to the viewer. Peaple change, times change, technology changed it all, also the way we live: fast - faster, cheap - cheaper, consumptionism over good education… all those things made humans got lost in my opinion. What to believe in?

Who do we trust? No time to even think about it. Since I was I child I felt everything around me is going to fast. I am very slow person and I like to look at things from the distance because then I can get clear image. This is how I see it - we live in a such a way that doesn’t allow most people to relax and focus on things that really matter.

There are too many things around us for example: colorful commercials on walls, newspapers, in television. Many symbols are just overused and they have lost their prior power and meaning. Nobody sees them in this crowd. I would even call it a visual mess. What works in that environment are elements of persuasion, also used in commercials - not without a reason. If people don’t know what they want, they would be more likely to listen to „good advices” or „touching stories”. What govern nowadays are emotions rather than a clear mind. When it comes to my works I don’t prefer to use narration because I want to make the viewer feel something more than understand. This is the aim of my creation process. I was thinking about using symbols but nowadays it’s pointless. Harder part is to find what would work better than them. Every artist finds his/ her way to achieve this goal. To be seen. Visual unity is good for series but looking on the whole collection of works that I’ve done so far that wouldn’t be the best way to describe it. It’s important not to be labelled and assigned to some certain modus operandi.

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You also produce stimulating paintings: while marked out with an intense abstract feature, your recent pieces also convey references to reality and seem to speak of intense struggle. We have really appreciated the consistent balance between such abstract feeling and reminders to perceptual process: how would you describe the relationship between experience and the process of abstraction that marks out your practice?

I am painting because I really love this technique - I use oils on canvas. This gives me much freedom and happiness during the process, you can say that I do it for my own pleasure. When I came back to painting after 3 years of break I wanted to start exploring tha unknown which was for me abstractionism. I used to paint a lot before but only still life or nudes. They were appreciated works but I didn’t feel good with them. It seemed for me that this is not enough I could give. I truly wanted to break out from this cage of realism. As I was working on my diploma in screenprinting, focused on art without narration, I had the opportunity to rethink the ideas concerning creation that I used to follow previous years.

That was very stimulating time for my mind.

Your paintings are quite elaborated and the dialogue established by vivacious colors and abstract texture is a crucial part of your style: in particular, the effective combination between intense nuances of tones sums up the mixture of thoughts and emotions. How much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones you decide to use in a piece and in particular, how do you develop a painting’s texture? Moreover, any comments on your choice of "palette" and how it has changed over time?

Interesting question. To be honest I started with only gray tones, that was 10 years ago. I think I was afraid of color, I didn’t know how

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Body Illusion

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Body Illusion

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to use it, how it all worked on canvas so I preferred to stay safe. They were nice works but they looked like from XIX century because I used too much oil and I didn’t clean my brush properly so they even get darker with time.

Seems funny now. I knew that this wasn’t going anywhere and I needed change. I worked hard and I had a good teacher before my studies - painter Agnieszka Sajda (runs Salwatorskie Artistic Studio with Filip Konieczny in Cracow) who had the patience and believed in everyone. With her support I managed to evolve grom gray to nice monochromatic pastel tones, still delicate but it was huge progress back then. As work with canvas was getting better I managed to got to the Academy with high scores for my exam painting. And that was the best I did at Matejko’s building. Something bad started to happen since I became a student a spirit died.

Especially after one proffesor told me that there is no need for me to explore color because I am doing so well in gray and monochrome. I have lost my power, changed workshop but the general atmosphere was not pushing me to work on myself or develop anything. With other circumstances mentioned before in interview I was not able to paint at all to I did only the little just to pass examination.

I was depressed but maybe that’s why I am so lucky now to create what I have always wanted. I feel like I am putting all my heart in my works. Like in photographs I want my pantings to have a nice textures that catch viewer’s eyes. My palette is always the matter of my intuition. I wouldn’t be far from the truth if I said that sometimes I am surprised by the outcome of mixing colors. I use many different objects to transfer the paint on canvas, almost never brush. I just got bored with it. I seek out for new marks to provoke, raise curiosity and engage more. I don’t use any thinner anymore, after many years of living in the terpentine’s fumes I got allegric to it and I can’t stand the smell. Moreover I like the texture of oil paint

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itself and working with it is fantastic. This is perfect tool to express myself through colors and all the nuances you mentioned.

Does it show my personality? Maybe it shows my everyday struggle. I find it hard to balance myself and there’s a big conflict under the surface. I make art because I must get rid of the overflow of emotions and thoughts. It can be said that they combine images in my mind that I am trying to recreate on canvas. The viewer can imbibe this energy.

Over these years your works have been internationally exhibited and you are going to take part to Pre-During-Post Contemporary at the Bayer Gallery, in Stara Zagora. One of the hallmarks of your practice 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?

Before entering the world of art I read a lot about it. Among many important notes I made, one was that the good artists always talk as a voice of their generation. I carefully listen and observe what are current issues, what seems to be the main problem among the people. Sometimes it shows in my works. I suppose this is the reason you were interested in series „The illusion of reality”. It speaks about the times we live in. Works with lack of common sense are not available, not possible to understand or translate. On the other side too much narration creates many fake assumptions, thesis, there is no place for such things nowadays. What is

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crucial for me? I would say to address simple, strong, straight messages that as many people comprehend, digest as possible.

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

I am enjoying painting a lot so I will definitely continue to explore this area. I think I’ll only take bigger canvas. I miss drawing with coal so maybe getting back to this might be a good idea. Recently I’ve been wondering what it would be like to work with textiles and create some nice structures. Also making a short video with sound seems tempting. I am switching from one project to another before even making any decision - as you previosly noticed - I like to plan. So now I am searching for something, My work evolves in a direction that is impossible to predict. It depends on what will happen in my life. People I meet sometimes inspire me to do new things. For example I’m collaborating with USA illustrator and Pratt Institute professor Cheryl Gross on a project „Freak Show” that is a mix of her illustration and my photos. You can find a digital version of our book on my website. We are looking for a publisher, maybe thanks to this opportunity you gave me to talk about my work somebody will notice us. Hoping for it.

Future seems to be interesting so please stay tuned.

Thank you very much for the interview!

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

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C aroline Monnet Lives and works in Outaouais, Québec

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elf-taught multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Québec, Monnet uses cinema, painting, sculpture and installation to demonstrate a keen interest in communicating complex ideas around Indigenous identity and bicultural living through the examination of cultural histories.

Her work is often minimalistic while emotionally charged and speaks to the beautifully intricate limbo of indigenous peoples today.

Monnet has made a signature for working with industrial materials, combining the vocabulary of popular and traditional visualcultures with the tropes of modernist abstraction to create unique hybrid forms. Monnet is

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always in the stage on experimentation and invention, both for herself and for the work.

Monnet has exhibited in Canada and internationally in such venues as the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and Haus der Kulturen Der Welt (Berlin) for the Rencontres Internationales, Toronto International Film Festival, Aesthetica (UK), Cannes Film Festival (not short on talent), Smithsonian Institute (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art and Arsenal (Montréal). Monnet lives in Montréal where she is the artist in residence at Arsenal Contemporary Art Gallery.

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LandEscape meets

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

Multidisciplinary artist Caroline Monnet work accomplishes the difficult task of providing the viewers of an Ariadne's thread that unveils the hidden but ubiquitous relationships between oral histories, ancient life ways, and generational legacy. Her evocative storytelling urges the viewers to investigate about the relation between reality and the way we perceive it: capturing the ephemeral nature of experience, she materializes it into a coherent and permanent unity.

One of the most convincing aspect of Monnet's practice is the way she creates an area of intellectual interplay between perception and memory, that invites the viewers to explore unstability in the contemporary age. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production.

Hello Caroline and welcome to LandEscape: ranging from painting, sculpture and installation to film and video, multidisciplinary is a crucial feature of your work, that shows an incessant search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of viewpoints you convey into a consistent unity. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for producing your works? In particular, have you ever happened to realize that such synergy is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

The way I produce my work depends on the

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project itself. I usually don’t approach a film the same ways I approach a sculpture let say.

But I agree that there is always a form of personal interaction with the work. I am interested in creating works that have meaning and evoke feelings.

This is why most often I research intensively before I actually start making the work. It is part of the process and acts as the foundations of the works.

I became a multidisciplinary artist out of necessity really, because film and video was just not enough for me to express certain ideas

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and concepts. I believe it is the idea that dictates the medium chosen, not the other way around.

I explore whatever medium best serves my expressive needs. Each medium is a world in itself and has great potential for storytelling.

It is also quiet liberating to explore different mediums, different avenues of my own personality and to truly embrace the history that comes with a particular medium.

It’s almost a way of educating myself in terms of techniques while striving to choose the perfect medium for the perfect story. Lately

I’ve been working at making concrete sculptures.

They explore ideas of monument, architecture and minimalism. I try to challenge this industrial material to bring poetry and synergy.

My interests do not necessarily vary from one medium to the next. I believe each works influence each other and constitute a larger plunge into the thematic I have been exploring since the beginning of my art production.

As an artist you are basically self-taught, however you hold a B.A in Communications

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and Sociology that you received from the University of Ottawa and the University of Granada. How did these experiences inform your evolution as an artist? Do they influence the way you currently conceive and produce your works?

It’s true that I studied Sociology and Communications. I think it is difficult to know what you really want to do in life when you are asked at 17. I have always been interested in art, in people and society in general. Because I don’t come from an artistic family and I did not have artist friends as a teenager, I never really thought I could make a career doing art. It is only later, in my early twenties that I started seeing things differently and knew I wanted to work in film and visual arts. However, I believe my sociology background has had a huge influence in the work I do. I think it is nice to arrive to the art world from a different angle.

My interest in society and in people is engraved in the work I do still today. Art for me is a powerful tool for education and empowerment. I still believe the artist or the filmmaker has somewhat of a responsibility in our society. The artist expresses a point of view on the world and can therefore help in sparking debates, sharing ideas and challenge our own ways of organizing our communities. Making art is a constant study of the world, others and myself within that. In the end, it is not so different from any sociological endeavors.

I became a filmmaker without really expecting it. I had studied sociology and communications and worked briefly for the National Broadcasting Corporation as well as a documentary television series. I made my first film IkwĂŠ in 2009. I was living in Winnipeg at that time and came across a small grant opportunity to direct and produce my first film.

It completely changed my life as I had finally found something that I was passionate about.

Filmmaking to me is a way of encompassing all forms of art. It speaks to performance, music, painting, photography and sound. It is collaborative, creative and challenging. As a self-taught filmmaker, I think I just try to do my own thing. I don't encompass myself into a style or a box. Because I have no formal

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training, I tend to follow my instincts and figure things as I go. Each film for me is a new challenge, a new opportunity to get better and refine my own style. Concepts and story often dictate the style of the film but I believe each film is filled with the same sensibilities, vulnerability and esthetic. As I grow as filmmakers, so do the films. I am more ambitious now than I was five years ago, but it’s because I am always up for new challenges in creating narratives. I also believe that my dual practice in visual arts has a huge influence in the way I envision my films.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from Gephyrophobia, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What mostly appeals to me of this work is the way you blend a minimalistic gaze on urban spaces and a suggestive composition: I find truly engaging the way you subvert our perceptual parameters and I have to confess that it suddenly forced me to relate myself to your works in a different way. Would you walk our readers through the genesis of this interesting work? What was your initial inspiration and how did you develop it?

Gephyrophobia is an experimental film, shot on a bolex 16mm that was commissioned by the WNDX festival of moving image in Winnipeg (Canada). At first, it was supposed to be a silent film, but when the images came back from the lab, there was no way they could remain without a soundtrack. I truly believe that sound is crucial in creating a mood and therefore an experience.

With Gephyrophobia, I was asked to capture the pulse of the city of Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada, in a way that resembled the first experimental documentaries of the 1930’s.

This is why I approached the project as a kind of city symphony.

The incredible Frères Lumières composed the soundtrack. This was our first collaboration and

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they have been composing most of my films since then. I love how they captured the essence of what I was trying to do with sound. On one end, the more government run city of Ottawa, more square, desolate, and on the other end the more catholic lower class driven reality that exist on the other side of the river. They played with multiple layers of instruments, which fits perfectly with the minimalist black and white look of the film. The film might be minimalist and elegant in form, but encapsulates layers of meaning that you have to understand for yourself.

Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Portrait Of An Indigenous Woman, that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/113858061. As most of your works, this piece is open to various interpretations: in particular, your exploration of indigenous identity allows you to capture from small gestures a peculiar beauty and communicates me a process of deconstruction and recontextualization both on a formal and on a semantic level. What is it specifically about indigenous identity, which fascinates you and makes you want to center your artistic style around it?

For me, Identity is an endless topic. It is all around us and often the most interesting thing in the world. My earlier work was narrated from a first person perspective and identity was at the center of the work. More recently, I’ve moved away from a personal specific identity obsession, but the work is still grounded in documentary foundations to evoke different realities.

With Portrait of An Indigenous Woman, I wanted to portray the reality of being an Indigenous woman from various perspectives. Too often as indigenous woman, we are put in categories. I wanted to challenge these perceptions by letting a group of women speak for themselves themselves. The project started in December 2014 during a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.

We have already examinated the way your work investigates about social issues from

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an identitarian aspect: in Roberta, that I have to admit is one of my favorite work of yours, you focus on the osmosis between social conformism and the intimate sphere: but rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations.

While conceiving Art could be considered an abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the concepts you explore.

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

I am a firm believer that I can only speak about the things I know. My own personal reality is always intrinsically weaved into my work.

Personal experience is a stepping-stone in creating the work I do. Roberta is a fiction film, but it is also based on the memories I have of my grandmother when I used to spend time with her during the holidays. I wanted the main character (Roberta) to be beautiful, eccentric and likable. I remember thinking that my grandmother was the most amazing and exciting woman.

Only later I realized her eccentricity was hiding something deeper. She was hurt and displaced.

Memories also feed imagination in my opinion.

The authenticity of the story comes from a direct experience, but the fiction behind it allows for further possibilities in storytelling.

The film tells the story of Roberta who left her native reserve to follow her husband in a suburban area in hopes of a better life. There she finds herself alone, far from her family and friends, and turns to amphetamines to cure her boredom. I used humor in order to talk about a dramatic subject and to make fun of a conformist lifestyle. My character is an indigenous character, but any woman of that age could probably identify with her. This helps in braking conventions and stereotypes. By showing this reality, I believe I’ve created a

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new story in the world of indigenous cinema.

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

Presently, I am artist in residence at the ARSENAL gallery of contemporary art in Montréal. It’s a great space showcasing amazing artists. I feel very lucky to be there and have the chance to be part of it. I have been producing sculptures that revolve around personal materiality. These works are somewhere between architecture, installation and sculpture.

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On the filmmaking level, I am developing a few new projects, including my first feature film, in collaboration with Daniel Watchorn. I don’t want to talk too much about it as it is still in the very first stages of development, but promises to be challenging and exciting ride. Once again, I feel like this project will aim at challenging preconceptions of indigenous realities while trying to establish understanding between different communities.

I hope my work can continue to sustain itself and evolve as much as it has been evolving in the last recent years. I am always on the look out for new opportunities and I hope I can start reaching bigger audiences with both my film and visual art practice.

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Myriam Dalal Lives and works in Dallas, USA

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efining and redefining memory, death and the notion of material presence through my work, was initially triggered by a personal experience from which I started depicting the anxiety of existing, keeping a trace and the duality of living and dying that human beings still fail to abide to.

In the book “the possible life of Christian Boltanski”, Catherine Grenier asked Boltanski whether he thinks art’s main purpose is to retain something from childhood, the artist replied saying that art is an attempt to prevent death and the flight of time.

He then added that art is always a sort of defeat, a struggle one can’t win: “Starting a portrait of your brother from scratch every day, you’re not

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going to make him immortal: he’s going to age, he’s going to change and the portrait will never be him.”

Similar to Boltanski, I might, after all, be trying to prevent death, while seeking to add to discussions of personal and collective memory within the context of society and its narratives: from the culture of commemoration, the grieve, the aftermath of conflict and the many personal mourning agonies.

Being both emotionally and conceptually engaged in the topic, my work seeks to develop and communicate the experience through various visual perceptions.

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LandEscape meets

Myriam Dalal An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Myriam Dalal's works accomplishes a multilayered exploration of the notions of memory, death and material presence, drawing the viewers into a liminal area in which subcounscious and conscious level cohexist in a consistent unity. Her projects trigger the viewers' perceptual parameter to raise questions about the elusive relationship between universal imagery and the way we relate ourselves to the realm of experience, creating an unconventional and captivating narrative.

One of the most convincing aspect of Dalal's approach is the way it condenses the non-sharpness quality of memory with a tangible language, walking the viewers into an area of intellectual interplay that urges them to explore unstability in the contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Myriam and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after having earned BA in Fine Arts you nurtured your education joining the Masters in fine Arts program at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in Beirut, where you eventually degreed with distinction about five years ago, with specialization in Artistic photography.

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your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your Lebanese cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

I’ve always wanted to be a “painter”. I was three and my parents started noticing the very little –arguable- “talent” that I had.

Honestly, I don’t think it was because of my remarkable doodles, but what got me hooked up, practicing ever since, was the appreciation I always received when I showed them the sketches. Putting my three year old reasoning into Hegel’s philosophy on arts and aesthetics, I think what I wanted was to visually communicate with a broader audience, in an attempt to restore my existence.

My academic background played a fundamental role in rooting the research, and versatility of both medium and concept in my work. As for the connection between the social context of being Lebanese and my work, I’d like to say that, as a human and an artist, my universal being is deeply and undeniably affected by my merged memories and experiences in this sociocultural environment.

The distinctive feature that marks out your multifaceted production is a successful attempt to condemn into a consistent unity the notions of memory, death and material presence: your approach reveals an incessant search of an organic balance between the emotional

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I also feel the anxiety of my concept.

The combination of both easy to connect to, personal and emotionally elaborative thoughts, with the universal and conceptual nature of the visual work that I present isn’t the only way I found to express the ideas I explore, but rather the only way I chose. I’m not interested in elitist approaches to contemporary art.

We would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from leaving soon, an interesting multimedia installation that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. This project challenges the viewers' perceptual parameters to rethink the elusive relationships between memory and the way it is triggered by sense: when walking your readers through the genesis of this captivating project, would you tell us something about the role of memory in your work and why you have centered a relevant part of your practice on it?

Myriam Dalal

sphere and an autonomous conceptualism. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between several viewpoints is the only way to express of the ideas you explore?

The fascination I have for death is every series’ trigger. (I think I share this fascination with every human being.) From that point on, I question every facet of a subcategorized death panel. I question but

When losing a loved one, memory works in the most repetitive pattern, unlike the saying that time heals wounds.

Those now burdening wounds keep surfacing even when they’re mostly unwelcome. The human senses are scientifically blamed of the involuntarily triggering of these memories and must be hypothetically shut to escape to forgetfulness.

“Leaving soon” exemplified my personal anguish which transitioned to a nationwide scale, by losing collectively as victims of suicide bombings in Lebanon since 2013.

I used all five senses in my installation to emotionally trigger the viewer’s memory.

Other than in “leaving soon”, memory’s responsibility in parallel to death has taken a significant part of my practice because of its abstract nature and the absurdity of its involvement in death and its reasoning both individually and collectively.

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After all, everyone wants to leave something behind in their quest to immortality and memory ends up being their medium.

Leaving soon has been recently exhibited at the Ayyam Gallery that has been transformed into a site-specific installation: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space?

When curator Rania Monzer from Ayyam Gallery Beirut suggested we disregard the gallery’s space and build a dark room in which the installation fits, “leaving soon” surpassed its initial impact solely because this meant that any given viewer is not asked to step into a gallery to interact with the work, but rather enter a neutral space, free to maximize the experience with all five senses.

In my opinion, and as I previously explained, the more people I can connect to, the closer I am to being an artist and in that sense, the public sphere and the integration of viewers in the work itself is crucial when no space limits are forced.

Another interesting work from your recent production that has particularly impacted on us ad on which we'll be pleased to spend some words is entitled Consuming Memory in which you have accomplished a compelling investigation about the idea of consumption, that pervades our contemporary societies and especially the Lebanese one, that is caused by the constant fear of being held back towards history. We have been impressed with multilayered feature of this work, which gives permanence to the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the notion of memory. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Genuine is a virtue of art. In “Consuming Memory” I tried to convey a personal theory in which I connected consumerism to collective

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Leaving Soon, 2013

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memory in an attempt to visually translate and question the pattern of Lebanese collective memory. I wouldn’t call it direct experience but rather personal interest and approach submersed in a socio-cultural background.

For instance, in my series “Souvenir”, I visualized the feeling of suicidal patients whose memory is generally diagnosed with selective impairment. The creative process here wasn’t triggered by direct experience but still lies under the socio-cultural context of the subject itself which was elicited after reading in a recent research conducted by a local NGO, that one Lebanese citizen commits suicide every three days.

Consuming Memory has impressed us also for the way it raises questions about our contemporary societies, often subverting the perceptual parameters that affect the unstable sensibility: many artists from the contemporary scene, as Judy Chicago or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to include socio-political criticism in their works. It is not unusual that an artist, rather than urging the viewer to take a personal position on a subject, tries to convey his personal take about the major issues that affect contemporary age. Do you consider that your works could be political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?

I don’t look for answers, I’m not a scientist and I don’t make judgments because I’m in no position of favoring doctrines that end up serving as propaganda. My work was never about making statements that favor or criticize a socio-political matter; it rather raises questions.

It’s neither up to artists to increase awareness, given the fact that campaigns do that efficiently; nor irritate the world with their political statements.

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Artist Mona Hatoum doesn’t portray the Israeli regime’s atrocities committed in Palestine in “Present Tense” for instance; she rather succeeds in incorporating the viewer in thoughtful questions of identity, heritage, borders and history.

Artists shouldn’t play any role in contemporary society other than maintaining an authentically true and genuine approach to their world.

We definitely love the way Ra’is El Teiboot questions the abstract feature of images, unveiling the visual feature of information you developed through an effective non linear narrative. In particular, playing with the evocative power of parts of human body, Ra’is El Teiboot, establishes direct relations with the viewers: German photographer and sculptor 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?

“Ra’is El Teiboot” which translates into “How to Make the Coffin Dance” was based on a non linear narrative form because it served the purpose of a DIY self explanatory photo book which is supposed to teach the reader how to perform the culturally familiar middle eastern coffin dance in eight different steps, as performed by the dancers, actors and performers chosen to take part in this catalogue.

Several art movements argued over whether art should hold symbols, tell stories or question psychological connotations, whether in film making, photography or literature. But I think the approach that serves most in communicating the subject, should determine the technical means to it.

The performative nature Ra’is El Teiboot of triggers primordial parameters concerning our relation with physicality: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never

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art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

Both the book and the YouTube video projection presented in the installation of the photo series “Ra’is El Teiboot” (how to make the coffin dance) integrate the viewer in the work physically, because I thrive to make the most of this interaction with the viewers while articulating my visual thought.

Richter’s remark on communicating art, explains better his use of the verb “used for” in the quote you just presented: “Art serves to establish community. It links us with others and with the things around us.” Only in that sense, I think that the “functional” aspect of art can be implicated.

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

I’m currently working on two new series: the first “Contemporary Memorial Portraits” in which I explore how time and technology led to the popularization of a sadomasochistic performance, that of taking pictures of dead bodies right after accidents’; and how this once practiced sign of fearless remembrance of the dead -by taking the corpse’s last portrait photograph during the Victorian erahas now shifted to “democratically” exposing pictures of anonymous dead bodies to all.

The second series “Days in Qana” explores the time and space repetitive feature and memory’s relevance and registration mechanism on nearly 106 civilians who lost their lives in the small southern town of Qana in Lebanon after an Israeli airstrike in 1996.

I can’t visualize the progress of my work yet, but I hope I get enough time and exposure to see it evolve.

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X iaohong Zhang Lives and works in the Whitewater, WI, USA

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andscape painting was regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting, The classical Chinese landscape painting are rolling hills and rivers of native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer, rubbed brushwork.

Emphasis was placed on the spiritual qualities of the painting and on the ability of the artist to reveal the inner harmony of man and nature, as perceived according to Taoist and Buddhist concepts.

My creative focus has been on the Traversing Medium and Reappropriating Motifs in Contemporary Art with continuous investigation of traversing traditional art form of Chinese landscape ink wash painting through the concept of contemporary western art setting.

I have focused on exploring digital 3D skills. I want to blur the institutional and historical boundaries between traditional Chinese ink wash painting and Western graphic practices by using western 3D graphic skills to re-figure

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the traditional Chinese ink mountain painting. I have used the 3D software Maya to recreate the mountains, water.

Beside my investigation of re-figuring the traditional art form of Chinese landscape painting, I have been also reappropriating motifs. Mountain, river, tree and water have always been popular subjects for Chinese landscape. Much of my work often interrogates historical, social and political themes from a Chinese perspective. I tried to insert modern industrial chaos into the traditional peaceful vision. It is a very interesting mix. I want to address environmental and social issues that have been brought by China’s social, economic, and cultural development.

I have been working on a series of projects to epitomize the notion of inclusion by signifying the fusion of East and West aesthetic values through the lenses of culture, language, ethnicity, religion, and politics.

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LandEscape meets

Xiaohong Zhang An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Xiaohong Zhang accomplishes the difficult task of a establishing an effective synergy between painting and movement, creating an area in which emotional dimension and perceptual reality coexist in a coherent unity. Unlike artists such as Carsten HÜller, she does not let the viewers in the foggy area of doubt. Recently focusing on China’s environmental problems, her evocative imagery invites us to investigate themes investigating the relation between reality and the way we perceive it. One of the most convincing aspects of Zhang's practice is the way she creates an area of intellectual interplay between the heritage of her Far Eastern Identity and her current experience in a pluralistic society, . I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to her refined artistic production.

Hello Xiaohong and 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 hold a MFA from Southern Illinois University: how did this experience influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, you are currently an Associate Professor in Department of Art and Design at the University of WisconsinWhitewater; do you think that teaching and daily relations with your students informs the way you conceive your works?

My name is Xiaohong Zhang. I came from a small town in Northern China. I was traditionally trained in academic art forms that include Chinese brush painting, western style

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drawing, and foundations of graphic design in earlier 1990’s period. We did not have today’s computer technology during my undergraduate studies when I lived in China. I started to learn about computers in 1999 when I studied at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. During those three and half years in graduate school, I experienced intensive digital techniques and computer software and training. I even took programming classes like C++, database, etc. The entire evolution of an artist for me is a gradual transformation out of instinct and eagerness to learn the new things.

The intensive teaching preparation and selfstudy of new media arts became a trigger to change my work styles over time. I used to integrate my 2D digital graphic skills with my fine arts background. Recently I started to work with the 3D in which I use 3D software Maya to rebuild the urban landscape view by incorporating traditional mountains, water and also contemporary industrial subjects like cranes.

Teaching and daily interactions with my students has informed the way I conceive my works. It has changed my working process and the way of creating new projects.

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

My creative focus has been on “Traversing Medium and Re-appropriating Motifs in Contemporary Art” with continuous investigation of traditional art form of Chinese painting through the concept of contemporary western digital art setting. In other words, I am always trying to use the new media technology to deliver the traditional aesthetics.

The detail of mountain and rock is the interaction result of water, ink and color on rice paper. It is very similar to western

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watercolor working process and I immediately used the software function to create a traditional Chinese style mountain after I learned it.

The preparation time for completing a new work is considerably longer for me now. It can be a month or up to a year. The preparation includes software proficiency and creative thinking and iterations.

Now let's focus on your artistic production; I would start with Across The Divide. Our readers have already begun to get to know you in the introductory pages of this article. I would suggest that our readers also visit your website directly at http://facstaff.uww.edu/zhangx in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

Across the Divide Project is a platform for Chinese artists and scholars teaching in American universities to share creative practices, research and teaching through exhibitions, symposiums, and other related events and activities. It focuses on a shared cultural identity over differing geopolitical convictions under the large frame of Chinese culture.

In 2002 Professor Yu Li at California State University, Long Beach, initialized the Across the Divide forum. He initially established connections with 14 Chinese artists who were teaching in universities across the United States. After oneyear of careful and extensive preparation, in 2004 he successfully held the first exhibition and symposium to open a public dialog on their cultural positions in American society.

Inspired by Professor Yu Ji, in 2011 I collaborated with my colleague Michael Flanagan to host an international traveling exhibition Across the Divide and a related Symposium in the Crossman Gallery at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, United States. The 2011 Across the Divide exhibition at UW-Whitewater included twentyfour contemporary Chinese artists who were working in academia across the United States.

With an emphasis given to artwork that blends

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cultural influences drawn from both Eastern and Western aesthetics, the exhibition presented both experimental and traditional approaches that artists have applied in their studio practices to explore their personal cross-cultural perspectives in relationship to the changes that have been brought by China’s current social, economic, and cultural development.

The entire Across the Divide project has been slated to elevate awareness of the Sino-Asian immigrant experience, Chinese art and educational practices, and highlight the value of global visual literacy in the Eastern and Western education systems.

The investigation about shared cultural identities effectively accomplished in Across the Divide reveals the connection between different cultural spheres which describes such a real-time aesthetic ethnography: you seem to be drawn to the structured worlds we inhabit and how they produce a self-defining context for our lives and experience... A relevant feature of Green Blue Mountain that has particularly impacted on me is the way you highlight the inner bond between Man and Nature: you invite the viewer to appreciate the intrinsic but sometimes disregarded beauty of geometrical patterns, bringing a new level of significance to the idea of landscape itself. Like Jean Tinguely's generative works, this piece raises a question on the role of the viewers' perception, forcing us to going beyond the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but also our inner dimension... I'm personally convinced that some information is hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need 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 is your point about this?

My landscape works, including Green Blue Mountain, have been deeply influenced by the philosophy embedded in classical Chinese landscape paintings. Landscape painting was regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting. Classical Chinese landscape paintings often involve depictions of peaceful scenes of

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rolling hills and rivers in the native countryside rendered through softer, rubbed brushwork.

Emphasis was placed on the spiritual qualities of the painting and on the ability of the artist to reveal the inner harmony of man and nature, as perceived according to Taoist and Buddhist beliefs and concepts.

In China the world is composed of two basic opposing forces, namely Yin and Yang.

Mountains and Water Painting comes to show how the balance of Yin and Yang appears in nature. The imposing mountains protruding to the sky are the masculine power of Yang while the gentle clear water is the feminine energy of Yin. Ink that composes form embodies Yang, while Yin appears as the empty and bare paper representing mist, water and sky - both forces are prominent yet delicately blended together.

My landscape work is based on retaining its inner essence while updating its subjects and media. Viewing my landscape work, it is clear that depictions of nature are seldom mere representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the mind. Green Blue Mountain addresses China’s environmental problem of excessive urban development. As the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power accelerated, with no clear historical parallels, so has its unprecedented various pollutions endangered the ecosystem.

Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollutions pose not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. The work uses traditional Chinese painting styles to show Chinese metropolitan areas surrounded by industrial building trash and wrapped in a toxic gray shroud.

The ambience created in Spring Mountains has reminded me the concept of Heterotopia elaborated by French social theorist Michel Foucault. I find very impressing the way it highlights the signs of absence, urging us to rethink the concept of Space and Identity. The

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multilayered experience suggested by this work gives hints of something else happening or going on, almost on a subliminal level from ordinary reality.

Could you explain this point to our readers?

Ancient Chinese artists are not addressed as a group the way we are today for people with fine art skills. Painting skills are a social symbol specifically for highly educated and privileged class. Generally artists have a dual identity – politicians and fine artists. Song Dynasty emperor Zhao Ji is a good example.

He was the emperor, but also was one of the most famous bird-flower artists in the history of China.

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My Spring Mountains has retained the peaceful vision from the Chinese tradition.

Meanwhile I intentionally changed the subject and media. Traditional trees become modern industrial cranes. In the midst of the chaos caused by extraordinary urban development, the red cranes became the intruder to the peaceful vision. The red cranes here are symbols of modern industrialization in China and its dire impact to the environment.

The impetuous way modern technology has nowadays come out on the top has dramatically revolutionized the idea of Art itself. In a certain sense, we are forced to rethink the intimate aspect of the

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materiality of an artwork itself, since just few years ago it was a tactile materialization of an idea. I am sort of convinced that new media will definitely fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology and I will dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other. What are your thoughts about this?

I feel technology plays an important role in the history of creative art. It is the part of art making process. 40,000 years ago when Asian and European cave painters made paintings on cave walls and ceilings, mineral-based pigment was the only available “state-of-the-

art” medium at that time. Gradually canvas, oil paint and bronze became the “new media” and have been used and accepted by all artists.

The invention of camera and photographic technology completely changed the art world.

Realism is no longer the ultimate goal of artist.

Today's digital media, which is commonly referred as the “New Media”, becomes the de facto technology. I'm interested in breaking down the arbitrary division between traditional art and new digital world. I believe infusing digital technology will become the major trend of art creation in the future.

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