2009 ISSUE 19 / JULY 2013
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TRIBE MAGAZINE ISSUE 19 3 Rodrigo Illarraga
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TRIBE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 19 | JULY 2013
COVER: Sophie Willcox
EDITORS NOTE A new beginning.... tribe is pleased to announce that we have merged with community interest publishing company THE WORD MACHINE. Not only do we have new friends to play with, but we also move to a new, dedicated office. With the business moving forwards, we have many exciting and new projects underway with a variety of partners. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the volunteers that have helped tribe to get to this stage, many of whom, I hope, we can renew acquaintances with again very soon. Mark Doyle editor in chief and founder of tribe
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Artists have given permission for their work to be displayed in tribe magazine. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder(s) If you would like to contribute art or articles to tribe magazine, then please send us an outline of your article to our main contact email. If you would like to submit your artwork, then please send us up to 8 samples of your work to the submit email. We have a rolling submissions policy and accept work at all times and throughout the year. Further details can be found on the contact section of our main website, or by emailing us at: contact@tribemagazine.org To submit work directly: submit@tribemagazine.org (C) 2013 The Word Machine
tribe: international creative arts published by The Word Machine, Thorn Park Lodge, Plymouth, PL3 4TF
ISSN: 2050-‐2352
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[art] 10 Ross Moore [video] 28 Another Robot [photography] 46 George Holroyd [illustration] 56 Mr Mead [article] 80 THE MONSOON EDITION by Sarah Ahmad [article] 92 EXPLORING AESTHETIC PLEASURE by Mark Nathan Willetts [design] 98 Sophie Willcox
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Editor in Chief
Mark Doyle mark@tribemagazine.org
Marketing & PR
Editors-at-Large
Writers
Contributors
Publisher
Steve Clement-Large steve@tribemagazine.org Helen Moore helen@tribemagazine.org Emily Pickthall emily@tribemagazine.org Marianne Jarvis marianne@tribemagazine.org Richard Thomas richard@tribemagazine.org Hope Grimson hope@tribemagazine.org Sarah Ahmad sarah@tribemagazine.org Glyn Davies glyn@tribemagazine.org Mark Nathan Willetts, George Holroyd, Ross Moore, Another Robot, Sophie Willcox, Mr Mead, Caitlin Mclintock, Agata CzeremuszkinChrut, Gavin Rutherford, Joot, Pascal Janssen, Rachael Gallacher, Rodrigo Illarraga, Sylwia Kubus, Gerard O’Brien Simon Petherick simon@thewordmachine.org
MAU MAU
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Rachael Gallacher TRIBE MAGAZINE ISSUE 19
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ROSS MOORE
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Ross Moore is an artist based in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. His work is characterised by use of distinct colour and form, across a varied range of subject matter and themes. INTERVIEW: MARK DOYLE rossmooreart.co.uk
How did you start as a painter? I knew I wanted to paint from an early age, when I was in primary school in Birmingham. I can remember drawing a deer that I got high praise for and also an eagle which was framed up on the school walls for years. It’s funny just recalling those images as I am visiting painting animals again with some recent work. I then went to Moseley Art School in Birmingham which I think confirmed my path as a painter. It was the only council run (not private) school in England that gave an intense arts education from the age of 11. Imagine that happening now! We had some great teachers including one who worked with Tom Philips in an art grouping called Dorothys Umbrellas. There would be drawing, painting, printmaking-pretty well all of the fine art disciplines. Sadly the school no longer exists. From there and via a year at Wolverhampton Poly, I eventually ended up at Bretton Hall - home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Although I have never stopped painting, I have variously been a coalman, ran a theatre company and went to Ghana to study West African drumming, something I ended up teaching for 20 years. How would you describe your work? What are the main sources of inspiration for you? The subjects for my work are all drawn from life. As soon as the first mark on the paper is made, it becomes a balancing act between what is seen and what is made visible. I have always liked that Klee quote about making the invisible visible, it makes more sense with each new piece. Form, colour, line and texture all have to be given space as well. My
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inspiration can come from the landscape, figures, animals, anything really. I took a photograph of a dead rabbit a few months ago and it took a month or so before I felt ready to paint it. That image had such poetry to it, dead, but caught mid flight. As well, it is a lovely retort to the vogue for sodding hares. I am so sick of hares. Beuys said it all with hares. Finish. How do you create? Do you go through a set process or does it change with each picture? My process usually starts with a drawing and that can be directly from the subject or from a photograph. I take loads of photographs and sometimes one of those images will ‘make itself known’ and I paint it. Other images will sit with me for weeks until they are ready. Once the drawing is finished I will start with the colour (which my wife calls it crayoning in, haha!). I use inks and dyes as I found watercolour a bit too vapid. Some inks are water based while others are emulsion or shellac based and both have a unique finish. I play with that, sponging the ink dry with kitchen paper or layering colours. Lately, I have been enjoying just drawing without it being a preamble to a painting. I tend to use sanguine pencils mostly for that. The art world can be quite rarified - how have you found it? Is it a generally supportive world or a dismissive one? In general, the art world has been quite supportive, especially from other artists. The artists I have been fortunate to meet are generally not precious about sharing information, ideas, tips and so on. My dealings with galleries have also been good and again the owners have been quite encouraging. Yes, sure they have to make a dollar and you have to haggle percentages sometimes but most gallery people see it as in their interests to cultivate a good working
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relationship with their artists. I haven’t entered the rarified London scene and I don’t actually think it has the clout it used to mainly because of the internet. There is so much information out there and artists can seriously look at exhibiting, competing and sharing pretty well anywhere without having to go through the ‘London set’. I have just had an enquiry about exhibiting some of my pieces in a gallery in New South Wales, something that would have been a difficult undertaking 20 years ago. How has the internet changed the way you engage with your audience? Frighteningly! I have my own website, Facebook page, Twitter, a Saatchi portfolio, an ArtGallery.co.uk page and an Artists Studio Page. Not only is it time consuming updating each individual site, it’s time consuming making sure they don’t clash, so if I upload a new painting to my website, it affects which other sites I put it on. I will tinker at the web aspect during the week and spend a half-day just working on uploads, reworking and so on. There is still the face to face engagement with the audience at a show but the internet has given art a much greater reach. I still try to exhibit to a broad church of people. At a local level (here in Holmfirth) I have paintings in a gallery, a vineyard, a pub and the doctors surgery. What should good art do? What should it communicate? I am always a bit skeptical about big words like good and bad because there will always be exceptions and what’s good for one person… I think that the bottom line is that art ought to communicate something. The liberalising effect of the internet, while it has so many positives also has a negative in that anybody can put up anything. And there is a lot of utter crap that is so terminally underwhelming, it doesn’t provoke anything.
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What's next for you as a painter? What are you working on? I am always finding new challenges as a painter. Sometimes they are ones that occur during a painting-like struggling to paint a lamb the other day and they are the most stupid shape, all legs with a head. Sometimes, the challenges are more broad, wondering (and worrying) that the work is moving in the ‘right’ direction. If I think back to 5 or 10 years ago I would never have imagined my work looking like it does now. I was making big
semi abstract pieces on canvas using paint, ink, gold leaf, all manner of materials. I am looking forward to working more with the human form, portraits and nudes and because I have no clear picture in my mind of how they will look, it becomes a tantalizing prospect. <
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MAU MAU mau-‐mau.co.uk
Gerard O’Brien
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Joot jootdraws.com
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ANOTHER ROBOT
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AR specialise in making creative music videos, promos and short ďŹ lms. A graduate start-up, they are fast gaining a reputation for high quality work in Plymouth, UK. INTERVIEW: AURORE PLAUSSU
anotherrobot.co.uk
Can you introduce yourselves? We're a video-production company from Plymouth, creating music videos, mainly. Last April 2012 was when we've launched it as a business. We've all graduated from Plymouth University in September 2011 and then we've talked about if we had any plans to start a business. It's been very quick after the college! How hard is it for freshly graduated students to set up a video company? I think it's hard for everyone who doesn't have a background in business. We can make videos every single day but without making any money from it, so we had to make it commercially viable and talk about costs etc. So it was hard in that sense, but we all work quite well together and it's also something that we love doing. Is it important for you to know each other to be able to work together? Yes, I think you need to be able to trust everyone, especially when starting a video production company because there is so many times where we all sit in a room and talk together about our ideas of what to film. So is it really about team spirit? Yes, definitely. I think through university you naturally pop together with people you actually like, so we ended up working on a few projects at university and we've realised that we were a good team. So we thought we'll take it to a business environment. I guess some people would say it might be hard with your friends but we're quite honest with eachother so it's not too hard. In our filming style we have the same kind of ideas so that helps, instead of having ideas that conflict with each other's.
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Is it hard to be both an entrepreneur and a creative film-maker at the same time? It's quite a fine line between what we love doing and other things that we have to do. Because we want it to be a viable business. I'm sure that there is people out there who can do solely the filming or solely the business but we try to treat as business, something which is a business. And we could just be three friends making music videos for bands that they quite like, but we have to work on any project now. And we'll bring some creativity to each project individually, even if we get something that we may not like in terms of music. So there is decisions like that regarding business and creativity. You work with a lot on independent music bands. Does it allow you to have more freedom compared to working with music labels? Yes, I think independent bands are quite similar to us. They're bands which are starting out so they need us to help them with the video and we need bands to help us with the music. We have a lot more control in
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terms of independent music bands instead of bands that already work with record label, and they're very creative as well. Why do you specialise in music clips? Because we all love music. But in terms of filming for music videos, you're given a track and you have three minutes to get accross an idea, or to try to get across the characters if you're doing a story. It's nice to do something quickly because the pace is quicker. And you can be as creative as possible because the film doesn't necessarily need to make sense. You make a two hour film and it all has to make sense. If it's a music video where people are jumping around, if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter, as long as it matches the music. It's not all focused on dialogs. What about your collaboration with music bands that ask you to produce their music clips: How do you get on? Some people come with ideas that they definitely want or some people come and literally say that they've got a song. It's quite
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collaborative, as long as we can come up with ideas and explain them to the band. For the band is their music and their video, and they've got to show it to people, so you need to listen to what they want. We have bands that come back for new music videos. Most of the bands are taking time off for their music video, so they don't want it to be a stressful experience. They want to pay for something they can look back on, something they can feel relaxed with. We're relaxed, so it works well that way. How important a music video is for a band to get promoted? For the majority of the bands they put their videos on Youtube, Vimeo and then Facebook, Twitter or music blogs and channels that are musically relevant to them. Having a music video is also a way to book more gigs in, so they're sent out to promoters to show what the band has done. How do you get the inspiration to make a music video? Do you spend a lot of time listening to the music? Yes, it depends. We watch a lot of music videos and listen to a lot of music in our spare time. So when a band sends us a song, we would listen to the track quite a few times and all listen to it individually and come together like â&#x20AC;&#x153;which bit did you like?â&#x20AC;? to then write an idea on that. Sometimes you'll get an idea straight away, and other times it would take a little while. So we'll listen to the track again, sometimes we ask for the lyrics and a lot of the time we ask the band for what kind of style they like. Because you can approach a band with an idea and they might not want something like this.
Is it difficult to set up an music video production company in Plymouth? As a musician myself I would say that Plymouth is quite strange with music. I think it's a kind of a weird little city where bands pop up and then go or explode. But we're not just a Plymouthbased company. We work with bands from London, from South West Cornwall. I think we've done even more music videos for bands outside of Plymouth than in Plymouth. But in terms of being based in Plymouth, location-wise it's very rich: you've got the sea, you've got urban city... The thing about Plymouth is that in London you've got ten bands which sound the same but in Plymouth you'll have one band that stands out a little bit and it works because they're not influenced by these bands playing gigs every single week. It works that way for us. But then again, there is not as many bands as in London, so there is not as many music videos to be made. How is the music community in Plymouth? There is a very tight community in terms of music but also in terms of arts and you can get help for anything. A lot of people help each other because they want each other to succeed. <
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Pascal Janssen facebook.com/pjanssen.art
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Agata Czeremuszkin-Chrut czeremuszkin.com
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"We pass through the present blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at what we are actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is lifted, can we glance at the past and ďŹ nd out what we have experienced and what meaning it has." - Milan Kundera Several years ago, I was diagnosed with Essential Tremor, a progressive neurological disorder which can cause debilitating tremors and loss of coordination, when the symptoms that I have had since adolescence eventually worsened to the point that I began experiencing diďŹ&#x192;culty in performing simple everyday tasks. The series, "And I" is a diary; a collection of glances which illustrate a reality distorted by frustration, embarrassment, and a growing sense of social isolation. It serves as a visualization of the impact that Essential Tremor has on me and my closest relationships as I continue to come to terms with the new realities that I am presented with. GEORGE HOLROYD
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George Holroyd georgeholroyd.com
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MR MEAD
Helen Moore recently spent some time with students from Helston Community College in Cornwall, UK. She set the students a task to interview creatives of their choice for a feature in tribe. One of the young people, Caitlin McLintock, decided to interview illustrator Mr Mead. INTERVIEW: CAITLIN MCLINTOCK IMAGES: MR MEAD
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Caitlin: Hello Mr Mead! How was your holiday to Norway?
progression is leagues above most other countries.
Mr Mead: It was great thanks, I miss the snow!
Caitlin: I have a friend who loves Asian culture and I can see why. Are there any Japanese artists that inspire you in particular?
Caitlin: Did you enjoy being away? Mr Mead: Well it was desolate. I like that kind of thing a lot. Gives you perspective.... Caitlin: Would you ever move away from Britain?
Mr Mead: Koji Morimoto is a heavy influence, and has been for years. He is 'un manga', has a bit more of a European twist to it (kind of ). He has really original and dark imagery that I can't get enough of; he did 'Mind game' the film.
Mr Mead: Yep, I would love to! Caitlin: Where would you move? Mr Mead: Japan for a bit, maybe Canada as I have heard the art scene is amazing out there... Caitlin: Why Japan specifically? Mr Mead: The art scene over there has always really inspired me, and I think the whole culture is just more interesting and open to new things. The level of artistic
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Caitlin: Is he what inspires you to use mechanical and clockwork components? Mr Mead: Nah, that has just been with me since I was younger, no idea why. I think it stems from a fascination of things trying to impersonate real movement, the jerkiness is a great aesthetic to me. Having said all that I am ashamed to say I own nothing clockwork, but soon I shall...
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Caitlin: What shall you soon own that is clockwork? I watched a program about a man who had a dead man’s arm sewed on, freaked me out a little... Mr Mead: Well I would like to own a bio mechanical clockwork bird, but I am not sure they exist! I would like to get into that line of work though, so expect to see proper clockwork 'Mr Mead' bird one day! You should check out 'The Cat with Hands' by Robert Morgan. It blew me away (and all his other films). Caitlin: I’d buy one! I love them in the Mr. Weatherville work you did. Is that why Mr Weatherville has a possibility of being developed into a book? Mr Mead: Well part of a series of short stories, yes. I feel that it needed a lot more fleshing out. It’s just a shame I can't write properly myself as it would have been done ages ago!
Caitlin: Do you have an interest in literature then? Mr Mead: Well I have an interest in getting into that industry as I feel there is a lot of scope there for developing large projects etc....I love reading. Caitlin: Is this why you may have called yourself Mr Mead? It reminds me of Dr. Suess like you are a creator rather than an illustrator. Mr Mead: Well it is definitely a flattering comparison! I think the idea behind the Mr Mead name though was a separation between the images and the creator as you say. I don't think it matters who makes these images, I think by giving myself a name like that it frees me up a bit to just be the 'behind the scenes' and focus on the work more, and people can interpret it however they like. Caitlin: I agree. Did you use it while you were at university?
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Mr Mead: Nah, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only recent. The practical reason behind it was that I used to do totally different work, and it was a perfect way to split the two in half. The only times it gets in the way is when I am in shows with other artists that don't have that kind of name, and it sits weirdly with that. Caitlin: I just think it makes you more interesting than others, did you enjoy university life? What would you say is the best way to get into the course you did? Mr Mead: I loved university, I only wish it lasted longer. I did BA Hons Animation production and the only way to get into that course was to create a solid portfolio to show your drawing skills. Caitlin: I struggle to fit drawing into my college life sometimes...
Caitlin: I have lots of older stuff but not too much recent. Mr Mead: Sounds good, you should try a few different things, always helps. Caitlin: One more thing, where did you want your career to take you, and what kind of legacy would you like to leave behind? Mr Mead: All I want is to remain diverse, I want to try as many different avenues as I can and keep pushing myself as hard as I can until I am satisfied with where I am at. As for a legacy, I think I am a bit young to be thinking like that. But I hope to leave an army of clockwork birds behind! < mrmead.co.uk
Mr Mead: True, I understand that. Trouble is that you have to get all that stuff right to be able to make your personal work good. I have always been rubbish at realistic drawing, and it has hindered my other work a lot.
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Lee  Connor leedavidsonconnor.tumblr.com TRIBE MAGAZINE ISSUE 19
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Japanese illustrator Keita Sagaki has a distinctive style of illustration. He talked to us recently about this unique take on his art.
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Sylwia Kubus
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THE MONSOON EDITION TEXT: SARAH AHMAD sarah@tribemagazine.org
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IT
is precisely thirty minutes past twelve in the afternoon on a Wednesday in the humid midst of a twenty first century July day. Sounds of a constant hammer, of a driller, which sometimes stops to rest, a growling plane between a cloudy day and ample light to write and think. Last night came too early, dark clouds at seven, more rains and puddles, thunder and shuddering purple light. People are always on their way, in the midst of darkness or in light, a grey car parked diagonally opposite my house,
suddenly a man in a white shirt and khaki trousers emerges from within, so precise in his thinking, he knows where home is, walks up and into. I wonder what all this is about, the grey clouds, the purple light, the white and khaki, the grey car, the angle, the stairs, the way to home, the way back, avoiding the wet patches, a black umbrella, and the sound of a growling jet. It might be of a day one is happy in, gloomy in, it might be a uniform, might have thought about it early morning, might have missed the sound of the growl while the driller played, could have stepped on a puddle while thinking, might have been grey because that was what was found, a map of a place he can never forget and a place he often calls home. A world so similar, of grey clouds and rains, four wheelers and puddles, white shirts and offices, stairs and stops, yet lives so diverse, thoughts of a certain part, of a certain person, of an experience so unique. A man in the alley way, taking shelter from the rain, capturing a picture, he might paint what he saw or frame the little picture in his pocket, like him many people in various parts of the city are painting their woes and writing their daylight, many people in midst of this crowd of yellows and blues are creating images of palatial canvasses, some have a camera packed in their backpacks, some have watercolours and pastels, some with a few twigs and sand and stones, experiences of people in different lives, yet on that rainy day, one night, seven oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock too dark, a man, many others, in similar white shirts, painted aprons, worn out canvas knives, worn out days, thoughts longer than the night, people larger than the space. As we travel around this city, the city of Delhi in India, a place I have always called home, we often find people creating things, unique powerful images of art, and often these people have stories, they have art to live by, people to talk to, and those thoughts mirrored in their life.
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He describes himself as a voyeur, “I see people, things, listen to music and trip on drugs,” says Anshuman Sen, “that is how my life is artistic, so it doesn’t matter how I react,” he adds. “I could write a poem, play the Tabla, make a Yantra, or just stare at the sky.” Anshuman Sen who is an avid explorer, observer and a photographer, also has a studio space in Hauz Khas in South Delhi, yet it is during his travels that he meets his subjects, that he experiences moments he captures, he treads on paths he writes about and brings art in everyday. He explains how art has a bearing in his life, “there is a paradox of human life that haunts me. We think we are free to do what we want. But our freedom is defined by the law of the land. So we are not actually free to do anything, even if I'm not hurting anyone and all my activities are consensual,” he goes on to add, “I can't smoke a joint legally in a park, even though I'm not bothering anyone. So am I free to do what I choose, legally. Art dulls the blow of this paradox. It's the only time I feel I can do whatever I want to do. It's a mask that I wear in front of the people I can't show my face.” Anshuman Sen has a very profound and an almost abstract view on art and life, which is often mirrored in the photographs he takes, pictures he paints and little snippets of poetry he pens down. Ask him his views on the Art and Design scene in India and he promptly replies that he does not have a view on anything that he wants to have a view on. “But I can tell you what I like,” he says, “Zarina Hashmi's woodcuts. Naga sadhus at the Kumbh. VIYA Home. The movie, Bypass.” He has authored a travel book ‘Tranquil Journeys’, exhibited his works and also collaborated and worked with several art, design and travel magazines as a photographer. Anshuman Sen’s most recent works includes ink works inspired and drawn from his travel to the Maha Kumbh mela, ‘Himalay Darshan’ a permanent marker work on ceramic tiles, ‘Lipi’ and passages of poetry. In another part of the city, another artist, paints life on larger than life canvasses and brings little tubes of paint to life. On a cloudy morning I yearn to talk to her to learn her unique perspective on art. For Mekhla Harrison, art means a medium of self expression. She paints powerful things and thoughts, often expressing what she firmly believes in, an art so personal that it delves deep into her experiences, her life and ideals. Mekhla Harrison is a painter and printmaker, always experimenting with different materials and observing how different materials react uniquely in various mediums. “I love nature and I often bring the outdoors into my art, by using natural things like tree leaves, sand and natural pigments,” she states. She is inspired by the works of Vincent Van Gogh, Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer. She is quite sceptical about art in India, and many a times cannot connect with the way art is promoted or practiced in her country. “Indian Artists have a lot to offer, yet art in India is manipulated by a small group of people into something that is pretentious and lacks depth. It is something that
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is controlled and conditioned by curators and thus lacks a sense of freedom, a freedom that was found in art movements like Avant Garde,” she explains, “it needs to evolve, and be born out of eras and experiences and not be dictated by.” Mekhla Harrison has always had the presence of art in her life, through the canvasses she paints and the things she teaches. She uses watercolours, to oil colours, charcoal, natural pigments to pastel; painting, printing and framing her thoughts and experiences into voluptuous symbols, speaking of strength and spirituality, a sense of softness and lightness suffused with stronger world views. Some of Mekhla Harrison’s works include, ‘Earth’, an oil on canvas painting, ‘Back to the Womb’, a lithograph, a charcoal on paper rendition‘Symbol of Mankind’ and many other pieces portraying her personal statement of a life and an art of her own. Often on days like this, behind closed doors and open windows are sudden spells of rain, lisping joy and a being, holding on to moments that go by, drops of soft wet skies into canisters and bottles, into white crisp sheets, light loathe of brushes, bubble drops of colour, wet tin covers, now circles of painted floors, reels, blocks of lens held on, and often when on days like this one is left free, one lives. The day turns into a drop of sun and little spots of heavy clouds, as I take a little speck of an artist’s words today. Atul Sinha has just about begun on another day in his art’s journey to imbibe from an array of thoughts and images of daily life. He opines, “No matter where one comes from or one does, everyone is an artist in their own right, the way a driver drives a car or a musician plays his music, all of us follow a different form of expression.” Atul Sinha, a sculptor, painter and a traveller, has found art in the oddest of places, where many might not tread, behind rocks up in the hills of Uttarakhand (a mountainous Northern region in India), beside rugged rough roads, outside doorways in stray pieces of barks and chips and joy. “Travelling is my inspiration, it takes me to places, it makes me think. I take in things I drive by, memories and experiences, people and forms,” says Atul Sinha. “I have always looked around for interesting things, on my trips and treks, like many years back I found bullets and beads during an educational trip, back then I was drawn towards making little pieces of jewellery like earrings to dramatic costume jewellery,” he reveals. Atul Sinha has tried his creative sense at many things, at the pottery wheel, as a tea planter and now as a sculptor and painter. “The sculptures were often made of stone and sometimes baked, and often while transporting the pieces from the studio to its abode, a little chip and crack was always a concern, so someone advised me to use wood, a material that could endure more and commute well,” he states. Many of the works that he has made in the recent years include bold orthodox sculptures, both
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figurative and abstract, wooden pieces endowed with a powerful sense of life and distress, sculpted bronze human figures, little and large pieces of distressed wood, metal and zeal. He believes that art in India has become quite fabricated and often it has lost a personal touch. “We need to exhibit and promote it, yet sometimes marketing gimmicks can dull the beauty and honesty of art and the artist’s thoughts,” he says. He has travelled in the cold and during hot summer months to the northern hills of India and shares this great passion for art and nature with his wife, Mekhla Harrison. They have exhibited their art at many renowned art galleries and have widely shared their thoughts by teaching at many art institutes and schools in India. This day, they lead me a little into their world, through the stories they hold, individually painted, yet a similar light, spirit and passion for life brimming through their narratives. The patches have parched, the clay is wet, the canvas dry, when someone builds a framework of time, they come in, in grey and khaki, tie their aprons, hold a brush to their hearts, press a tool between their dry paint fingers, a day has almost passed by, another to delve in, the wet clay now into the kiln, the dried canvas in their studio, another globe of clay, water, dust and paint. Pieces of glass, tubes of black and sunny bottled colours, Nigareena Haidri Ahmad paints another panel of glass today, she lays it down on the table, cleans it through and just a little while apart a glow of transparent, yellows, greens and blues streams down through someone’s window in Delhi. She is an artist, who pursues her art on glass, terracotta, and also on fabric, churning fabric lamp shades into glass like gleam. “My paint work is defined by the form it resides on, a tall round vase or a cubical lampshade, the paintbrush freely directs itself towards and around the shape.” Nigareena Haidri Ahmad has shared her art experience through many exhibits and also through her own art and design store in Noida, India. These were just little parts of a whole, fearless stories, in paragraphs and lines; the artist still stands today, in that room, with a brush, the one to paint, the one that was wet and now is dry, paint still surprises itself in many ways, moments still need to be captured, thoughts that need to be bottled, encapsulated means and ends that meet again. The artist still has got a lot to do, the stories they only begin, a little travel plan, that was
Opposite: Mekhla Harrison Back To The Womb
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there today it is engulfed in sand and wind and paint; the artist still has got a lot to say today, still needs to go the distance in its dreams, the dreams of wildflowers and rainbows, of wild days and porcupine roads. The sun has once again opened the skies blue, the rains which left drenched thresholds have gone, yet those days of wet air still stay, the artist might have a new place to go today, a gallery to exhibit art in, a friend to meet and a street to walk on; the stories they once shared with me I have written down, brought together on white blank pages, on that one compelling rainy day. <
Opposite: Nigareena Haidri Ahmad Fabric lamp shade and canvas with stained glass effect on fabric 88
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Gavin Rutherford gavinrutherford.com
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TEXT & IMAGES: MARK NATHAN WILLETTS
EXPLORING AESTHETIC PLEASURE
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A
esthetic pleasure as a concept is something which I have dwelt upon in the past. To narrow things down for this article; I have chosen to focus on paintings, however much of what I cover can be applied to the other areas of art, which I shall also partially touch on. Aesthetics being the deep subject that it is, with all it’s contradictions and loose ends, has never been truly agreed upon
by the many philosophers and artists over the centuries. I have decided to take a look at what it is that gives us pleasure from art and how differently people view things. Another concept I shall touch upon is how aesthetics affects our judgement and decisions. I will explore ideas given by previous artistic philosophers and try to draw this in to my overall opinion. Aesthetics means ‘pertaining to the sense of the beautiful’. Nietzsche managed to identify two orders of aesthetics; one Apollian is the ideal, beautiful, ordered, something presented as if for our pleasure. The other is Dronysian; this is engaged, ecstatic and frenzied, driven by one’s individuality, energy and desire. But where does our definition of aesthetic pleasure derive from? For instance why does a full green forest landscape generally appeal more visually opposed to a dank and desolate one? Perhaps the visual pleasure is an extension of humanity’s instincts of self-preservation i.e. to survive in the past our ancestors would have eventually realised that the site of green pastures would equal furtile land on which to grow food or hunt for it. Possibly this has been embedded in our sub-conscious down through previous generations. Also perhaps as society has changed, so has the survival instinct and in turn the awareness of one’s surroundings has been enhanced, causing the enjoyment of new things such as the architectural wonder of New York’s skyscrapers. The enjoyment can differ between people as American artist/philosopher Paul Ziff once said ‘a person’s perception of an object can be affected by one’s tastes and preferences, psychological disposition, anxieties, desires, values and knowledge. The actions one performs in relation to the object or the conditions under which one experiences the aesthetic object.’ Cases of taste can stem from a person’s cultural background. For instance a typical British male’s idea of
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an aesthetically beautiful women would generally be that of a supermodel with a symmetrical face etc whilst in certain cultures values are derived by other visual aesthetics such as a facial tattoo like those worn by the Māori who are indigenous to New Zealand. An abstract example of differing viewpoints is given by Professor Paul Oskar Kristelle ‘to the traditional Masai, the ability to estimate and admire cattle is very important, to the Inuit or to a rapper it is probably not.’ Marketing is an area, which uses aesthetic content to influence the public’s desires. For instance packaging is not only used to contain a product for transport and protection, but also plays a huge part in the sale of the product. Although usually discarded afterwards, at the point of selection the aesthetics of the packaging helps us to choose from the variety offered. Aesthetics is also used for advertising as a link is generally made between the aesthetic quality portrayed and the quality of the product. Andy Warhol brought to our attention the fact that packaging can be art, with works such as ‘cambell soup’ demonstrating the simple aesthetical artistic value that could be derived from common everyday products. I feel from an aesthetically emotive perspective that a general shortcoming of artists in general, myself included, is to fall into the trap of ‘descriptive painting’, this is when forms are used not as objects of emotion but as means of conveying information. Portraits of psychological and historical value, topographical works, pictures that tell stories and suggest situation, illustrations of all kinds belong to this class. According to British art critic Clive Bell ‘they are not works of art as they leave untouched our aesthetic emotions, because it is not their forms but the ideas or information suggested or conveyed by their forms that affects us’. Photographs in a similar way provide an illusionary
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conveyance of capturing what a person has seen, as whilst photographs might trigger a memory in the viewer or allow insight into a particular situation, they often don't allow for the humanistic element of what was felt at the scene. I feel that one movement to arise that truly managed to capture the emotive aesthetics of life were the ‘impressionists’, whose focus on capturing this vitality was more important to the artist than detailed representation. Through the use of small flecks of paint rather than flat planes, they managed to re-create the natural exuberance they experienced from the original scene. All paintings use lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. Clive Bell calls this occurrence ‘significant form’ this is the quality that is common to all works of art. Clive Bell stated ‘the distinction between form and colour is an unreal one, you cannot conceive a colourless line or a colourless space, neither can you conceive a formless relation of colours.’ This raises the question, why are we so profoundly moved by certain combinations of lines and colours? Maybe art is capturing a glimmer of what life actually is i.e. the human soul can never be accurately defined or recorded, but is mostly regarded as a thing of beauty. Perhaps in some way life is captured in the oils on a canvas or in the curves of a clay pot, and that is why it evokes an appreciation for the aesthetical value from people? Allen Carlson states ‘nature typically provides us an environment, rather than objects for perceptual inspection’ i.e. to isolate individual characteristics of nature (a tree etc) is not to appreciate nature aesthetically but only some manipulated portion of it. In a way this is contradictory to my statement.
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Paul Ziff ~ “when one looks at a gator basking or a mound of dried dung, is one at once cognisant of the fact that not one or the other is man made? And does such cognisance at once preclude all possibility of aesthetic attention to the gator basking, although not man-made it is remarkable in design and structure.” In this Ziff raises a question which I think I have already answered, what separates everyday artefacts i.e. the alligator, from works of art? As mentioned before, I believe it is the human involvement that possibly invokes our own emotional empathy, which leads us to emotional delight. As to Ziff’s earlier statement ‘one’s knowledge’ I believe there are two further splits to aesthetics, the obvious and the meaningful. For instance I have struggled for years myself as an artist to grasp what it is that makes a good piece of art. As a child I used to prefer the purely descriptive paintings as opposed to abstract and impressionism. However after attending numerous lectures over the years, reading various books and visiting art galleries, my knowledge has increased and thus my tastes have changed, I still enjoy descriptive, but find that I now get something more from Impressionist paintings, I find something inside me reaching out to the aesthetic values prevalent in the swirls of the paint strokes laid down on the canvas. I recently gasped upon seeing a real life Monet at the MOMA in New York, as the relation of the physical paint strokes on the canvas to one another; brought about something spiritual in me, bringing thoughts of wonderment and connection to the original artist; as I admired his craft and pondered over his thoughts and feelings through his painting. It could be said that through art, what the artist is trying to do is enhance the aesthetic appearance of the natural world, however as Carlson pointed, this is just pulling out a single aspect. Also as Ziff questioned ‘what if the Henry Moore statue at Lincoln centre was not man-made, and was simply a natural phenomenon?’ Which is a very good question.. if it were still exactly the same in structure but had
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been naturally formed. Would it be viewed any differently? With lack of aesthetic pleasure? In all honesty I believe that it would be viewed differently, as Kristelle points out ‘something being art often does matter to us, as does our own ability to appreciate that something as art’. This lends itself to my belief, which is that when an artist recreates a scene he is not simply representing the visual appearance, which could be done with the use of a camera, he is actually humanising it. The fact that he has followed it through the different processes of painting and has exerted part of himself into the work such as his sub-conscious feelings towards the scene, it is possibly this human interaction that we sense and are emotionally respondent to, causing us to feel more attached to the art. This can be applied in some degree to all art whether it is sculpture, drawing etc. As Nietzsche once said, ‘Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood‘ <
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SOPHIE WILLCOX Sophie is a self-directed & conceptual graphic designer, with strong interests in fashion brand identity and editorial design will be further explored when the next stage of her professional career transpires. The designs produced are always contemporary, up to date and continuously breaking the boundaries of traditional design. TEXT & IMAGES: SOPHIE WILLCOX behance.net/sophiewillcox
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creative process always starts with lots of structured research and plenty of experimentation, for me, developing an idea becomes much easier without having an initial outcome in mind; this way you are free to play with different processes and materials as much as needed without limiting yourself to one idea. Some of my best work has derived from what started as an average concept.
THE
Colour is important, the chosen palette must feel new and refreshing. I'd like to view my work as contemporary collage, steering away from the more recognised 'vintage' feel. I wouldn't like to umbrella my work under a specific style, usually I try to push towards a more surreal feel executed within the designs. Great design is always noticeable, even to the untrained eye. Attention to aesthetic detail is a necessity, with a colour palette that will emphasise the design's original intent. Design must show functional hierarchy, be neutral to its surroundings and in the words of Dieter Rams; self explanatory.
technology, in my opinion, design needs to adjust to it's surroundings, wether this being technology, fashion, architecture and so on; graphic design can be seen as traditionally 2D, however recent research has unearthed a possibility to use sensory activity to gain the audiences attention by amalgamating touch, taste, smell, sound & sight in to one design would be highly noticeable (but probably very costly). The key tools of my trade are as follows: the Mac, the Adobe suite, a good set of fineliners, some lovely paper, a reliable printer, an endless supply of graphic design books and a cracking cup of tea. At the moment I am working collaboratively with the Library of Independent Exchange on an on-going publication project. However now uni is over I am looking to settle into a functional design studio hopefully around Bath, Bristol & the southwest. During this time I am hoping to expand the TRYBE scarf brand, while strong interests in fashion brand identity and editorial design will be further explored when the next stage of my career transpires. <
Design is certainly essential to modern life, the average person has a certain need to keep up with the on-going evolution of
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