Magazine #2

WINTER ISSUE 2017

magazine

PREFAB77 ANDREA SALTINI STEPHEN CALCUTT METTE NISSEN JOHANSEN MORTEN OVERGAARD SZILÁRD JUHÁSZ BJARNE STÆHR

We welcome you to the Winter 2017 issue.

Novam Artem is an art society that exists in order to present new art and cultures at the heart of you; the public - the hub.

Our goal is to inspire you, for you to seek out, indulge in and be awakened by the variety of works the contemporary art world has to offer.

We wish to provide the neglected and unknown international artists with a platform a voice to the laity.

We salute the diversity of a free artistic culture; presenting the thriving creative of today’s art world...

We’ve made this with an international outlook; collaborating with visual artists from all around the globe to dissolve all borders that might exist...

We’ve made this so that you, the reader of this magazine, can gain further insight into the often-unnoticed and flourishing creative universe that surrounds you...

With this, we encourage you to open your eyes; we hope you will explore more of the creativity that too often stays hidden in your everyday surroundings...

Enjoy

cover by bjarne stæhr editororial & design jakob hindhede tine louise brunk david sydenham general contact hello@novamartem.dk sales & marketing sales@novamartem.dk editorial contact magazine@novamartem.dk contributors prefab77 andrea saltini stephen calcutt mette nissen johansen morten overgaard szilárd juhász bjarne stæhr print christensen grafisk rentemestervej 56 2400 copehagen

Novam Artem IVS DK-37891584 Copenhagen Denmark All rights reserved!

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the publisher’s written permission.

SZILÀRD JUHASZ For many years Szilárd Juhász was a person who tried to suppress his love for art and his urge to create in favor of societal pressures and expectations.. But not so long ago, he decided to pursue the calling he felt for visual arts against all odds: to let his subconscious driven imagination guide his eyes and hands, so he could summon the non-existent and push till it feels alive, like something of it’s own accord.

Szilárd is not committed to a certain style while experimenting with different mediums, subjects and overall mood. There is a general recurring controversy in his pieces: creepiness, dirty textures, peculiar characters and subtle melancholia softened with a cartoonish look and a bit of humor.

“I don’t really think about what I draw or paint. I just focus on creating a base texture, a couple of lines and gestures - then I switch. There is a moment when my mind jumps in to solve the puzzle my subconsciousness prepared for it. And then the “Eureka” bolt hits in - filling me with pulsating joy and stimulus, which lasts throughout the remaining parts of the process when I make it recognisable, readable for everyone else to see.

And when it’s done, I know how it fits my current state of being and the message it bears.”

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STEPHEN CALCUTT “After school ended I occasionally painted with water colours. I painted pop stars for my family and friends and sold it to them, nothing truly creative. It was my way to cope with social situations and I could tolerate sitting around and chatting for hours whilst I drew.

I’d always dabbled in photography - particularly with the abstract. I’ve taken some good pictures, but nothing that made me feel it was something worthy of pursuing. However, it wasn’t until around mid 2016 I had what they call a light bulb moment. Finally, the artist inside me lit up! I found an approach that ticked so many boxes on so many levels. It felt unique to me.

My work as a domiciliary care worker in the city of Birmingham means I travel a lot and I often choose the public transport. Particularly the bus. And I had a compact digital camera. I had no practical knowledge of using a camera in manual mode but I found control of my photographs by using the manual focus, as I didn’t always want the focus in the obvious place. ​ I stand at bus shelters, designed to protect me from the elements. Over time, the windows have grown bigger, creating a better visibility of the surroundings. I was grateful that they were mainly made out of glass. You could see all around and see if the bus was coming without having to step out into the rain – fantastic! And I found it frustrating. I would be looking through these windows long enough to ponder the world.

Despite feeling it’s like a specially placed viewing platform, like glass tunnels in places; like the National Sea Life Centre where you may see a giant turtle or a shark swim past in close proximity the view from these bus shelters rarely offers such an exciting view. ​ It is often fairly mundane. They’re not placed in dramatic landscapes unless they’re needed.

No sweeping landscapes, no architectural feats. Though to be fair not all views are grim They can be peppered with the goings on of people enacting their daily lives. Sometimes, the goings on of the people around these bus shelters can be as entertaining as sharks and turtles. ​ I was annoyed that a lot of shelter windows were vandalized with scratches zigzagging, swirling, etched into the glass. Often so intense they broke up and obscured the view. Mostly they’re made of random lines of frustration or anger – nothing seems to be done to impress, unlike its spray can counterpart often does. ​ Then one day it clicked. I thought of taking pictures of the view through the bus shelter window with these etched lines in. Initially I didn’t focus on the lines specifically, and I had no interest in getting people in the shot. ​ It felt like instant art. In some ways like Pop Art. I love that my work imitates abstract and impressionist painters. I love that I take a vandalized bus window and through a kind of metamorphosis, turn it into a piece of powerful art. I love the way my art also fits into conceptual art. For me my work needs to pro me an emotional response, so I love it when people love my work, but I also love it when people get angry with it too! It needs to be at least 50 / 50.

If it’s all anger then it’s no good!”

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METTE NISSEN JOHANSEN

The eternal source of inspiration is for Mette Johansen the basics of the human as beings, as she asks the questions: What drives the individual through life Is it the traditional cultures or a wish for renewal?

“I examine cultures and their contrasts. Modern life vs our cultural background.

Differences and equalities are examined in the soul of my microscope. Why are we building up and tearing down at the same time? I’m fascinated by the unknown, the whole process of investigating and understand other people.

It is complex to be a human being. We make so many choices throughout life, sometimes our heart chooses for us and sometimes sanity chooses for us. The human is strong, can endure a lot, get wiser and go out into the world. We learn through life and we age with wisdom and peace in mind and leave life at last.”

In all of Johansen´ pictures, empty space plays a major role...

Empty space is where the observer gets to merge his or her story with Johansen´s.

The mood in the picture expresses the feelings that Johansen has in that part of the process where everything is explored and the pictures begin to take shape.

This is where the colours, the printing techniques and the expression shapes itself; at the same time as the cultural differences or the natural diversities interfere in the process.

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ANDREA SALTINI David Hockney once said ”When you are painting it’s now.

I like to live in the now. That’s all there actually is, isn’t it?”

Andrea Saltini draws from this as he says: “I guess that’s what we all do; carry our past in a present continuous.” ​ As a child Saltini enjoyed laying beneath trees. He liked to disappear in the fields and reappear as one that returned after a long journey.

Drawing people and animals - especially their face – he loved to reproduce everything for what it is!

Saltini’s art is more or less the result of a secret game of a child who does not know what to wish for or fear the most: to stay hidden or be discovered. As a secret that does not hide anything reprehensible it is simply ‘our melody’. As art enchants us it turn us into astonished witnesses of life.

According to Saltini we have to understand that art is not an alternative tool of communication to a message comprised by a formation of words that can be formulated in the way we speak, think and express ourselves. It’s a different way of communicating, therefore it cannot be easily translated. When it comes to art, do not read the book but look at the pictures!

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BJARNE STÆHR Bjarne Stæhr has been working as a professional photographer for 25 years, but art-photography has evolved and gained major ground only within recent years. And it becomes gradually more and more important to him.

“My performance is at its best when my mood is on the top or bottom, anything in between is waiting time. My inspiration is people around me, and the drive in my pictures is appetence and humour, performed in a photographic style to make it serious for the spectator, as the seriousness is the other side of the story.”

Behind Stæhr’s photo series you might feel an urge to look behind the person on the pictures and at the same time yourself.

Are we really what we seem to be or are we what others see?

How much influence do we have in how others perceive us?

Stæhr has been working with different angles of the same person; a person he has known for many years, and a person he has developed a romantic relationship to, as well as found a muse within!

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PRE FAB77 Peter Manning a.k.a PREFAB77 is a UK based artist who’s origins and influences are in England, California and New York.

Hi early training as a printmaker and designer for Her Majesty in the British Army was fundamental in influencing his early United Kingdom subject matter, moving on to New York to work in fashion and branding, which influences his current work. His fascination with portraiture and the female form stems from this latter period and is central to his imagery.

Living on Elizabeth street in Nolita in the transitional 90’s between rough and ready door dwellers to armed guarded jewellery stores, Manning fell in love with the layers of tags and posters that, over the years, created a neglected, urgent, idiosyncratic and incidental beauty. On his doorstep, and adding to this heady visual mix, art from Swoon, Faile, Obey, WK Interact started to appear; it was an epiphany and a calling that became an obsession.

His current work is a culmination of all his influences and obsessions. Weaving small pieces of popular culture; money, street-, religious-, musical- and political affiliations, into visually beautiful allegorical portraits, they express an abstract idea or convey a meaning not explicitly set forth in the narrative. It is like modern fable, a story or a warning, often political, sometimes anti-establishment but always beautiful.

The style is hard edged and stripped down; a dark world of Gangs, Goddesses and Groupies, is woven into a pure, rock and rebellion. A luxurious mixture of print, acryllic, spraypaint, wheatpaste and varnish.

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MORTEN OVERGAARD Morten Overgaard is influenced by an almost childlike energy as his work contrast the immediate and controlled – the random and the intentional.

“In my work, I like to use symbols and shapes originating from various visual cultures, in order to dissolve their original meaning. They appear side by side – edited, combined or entirely made up. On that basis, we can read them as something entirely new and imply new significance to them.”

Inspired by abstract expressionists, minimalists and even cave paintings, Overgaard’s work is a visual time imprint of memories, moods and emotions.

“I instinctively reuse and develop along the way.

Herein lies a pattern or tendency that is interesting to investigate, both as part of my creative process – and in relation to what people see in the images. - What exactly it is that we choose to dwell on, and what meaning or significance do we attach to the little things?”

The works outline figurative shapes in an abstract framework, in which the viewer’s own story co-creates the narrative meaning, creates the narrative.

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ON INSTAGRAM P. MANNING A.K.A. PREFAB77 A. SALTINI A.K.A. ANDREASALTINI S. JUHÁSZ A.K.A. JUHASZIL M. JOHANSEN A.K.A. METTE.NISSEN.JOHANSEN S. CALCUTT A.K.A. STEPHEN_CALCUTT M. OVERGAARD A.K.A. MFOART B. STÆHR A.K.A. PHOTOGRAPHER_BJARNESTAEHR

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WINTER ISSUE 2017