ISSUE 2
24 ARTISTS DOING THEIR BRIGITTE AMARGER HENRY / BRAGG ANASTASIOS VELOUDIS THEODORA PRASSA CAMILA LOBOS DIAZ LYNSEY CRYSTAL RASHMI BIDASARIA KATE ANDERSON LUCY CLAYTON SAM RICHARDSON KATHRYN DESFORGES AMY JACKSON SÈVE FAVRE RONIS VARLAAM WILL FICE ANESKA KOSINSKA BO COSFRANZ HELENA GARCÍA HERMIDA LATIFAH STRANACK CAROLINE STREATFIELD MAL LEYLAND ORNA ADORAM RITVA GEORGIADES
ISSUE 2 OWN THING TOGETHER These artists work in a wide variety of media and styles: in two, three and four dimensions; with paint, mixed media, film and photography, installation and performance - it cannot be possible or fair to identify them further in this small space - we invite you to spend time with each artist in their pages, the vitality of the work on offer will surely find a landing place in any gallery or show space today.
The SOLO Showcase Magazine is an artist-led initiative to introduce and promote contemporary directions in the UK. We are pleased to present this second collection of twenty four who amply demonstrate the vibrancy of current skills and effort available to UK audiences today. These individuals from all parts of the UK and eleven or more countries of origin have arrived onto these pages and enrich the diversity of our initiative; each speaks with a unique voice and each identifies their vigorous direction of travel in their developing practice. We should note further that much of the work on show has been completed in the strained conditions of Covid-19: their contribution here is evidence for their strong identities and professionalism. We constantly strive to widen our community and include artists from a wide range of backgrounds, working in a vast array of media whether traditional or contemporary. The SOLO magazine serves to provide a voice to our network and highlight individual art practices to galleries, institutions, and eventually, to the general public.
Amarger Brigitte Amarger Since 2008 I have been working predominantly with medical imagery and new technologies, in lifesize scale murals, sculptures and installations. My work unquestionably fashions a reflection about humanity, its place in the society, the traces it leaves, the memory, the fragility of humanity and nature, and the consequent interdependence of the two. I have a deep-rooted interest in the scientific and medical world and I question that body that expresses our complexity, mystery and fears, now and for the future. Through various textile techniques, playing with anatomy, I seam together imagery from X-rays, cutting, transplanting and reconstructing the body, exploring the relationship between a surgeon and an artist, with needlework suggestive of incisions like surgical intervention. I wonder about the semiology of communication in its cultural and social dimension and these intrusive conventional signs in our contemporary society that become kind of tattoos, dangerous new scars in mutation, the normalization of hybridizations, artificial intelligence, networks, net world… I am also playing with the aesthetic factors of transparency, reflection, luminescence and reveal, by day or night, unexpected superimposed layers bringing some kind of unexpected magic effects and interactivity with the viewer. This diversion of materials, and more particularly of the support of medical imagery for artistic purposes and memory ends, is essential for me. Sensitive to ecological issues, I find in my artistic practice a double direction, highly symbolic: create artworks by recycling discarded materials.
Brigitte Amarger (b.1954, France) is a Paris-based visual and textile artist, post graduated from Applied Arts High schools and Arts University of Paris, France (1978), fine and fiber art teacher in a Paris High Arts school (1979-2015). She is best known for large-scale X Ray installations and discarded materials artworks that testify the extraordinary creativity of this artist and its constant quest to find new ways and new forms of expression. Since 1978, Amarger’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and notable group exhibitions in contemporary art spaces and museums. Brigitte’s work has been included in private and public collections worldwide, featured in various publications and received numerous distinctions. She presents at textile art conferences, publishes articles and is a jury member. Last solo exhibitions: 2019 ‘’ D’ Äme Nature ’’, Carré d’Art, Montgeron, France. 2018 ‘’ Naturoscopies ’’, Galerie de l’Ecu de France, Viroflay, France.
www.brigitteamarger.com Email: brigitte.amarger@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/brigitte.amarger (33) 06 87 20 88 31
Circulations X Rays, road maps, paint, threads. Size: 84.6 x 25.6 inch
Homo Algorithmus X Rays, electronic circuits, reflective fabrics, e-textile materials. Modular installation of 45 bodies. Each body 215 x 65 cm
QR Code Tattoo 2 X-Rays , reflective material, nylon thread.
Henry/Bragg Julie Henry / Debbie Bragg “This is a silent scream to all the people previous in our lives who’ve passed judgement on us because of the dark places we’ve been through drugs, prostitution and abuse.” Amanda, Susie, Maggie and Lynda, part of the collective An Untold Story - Voices ‘Absence of Evidence’ is a collaborative work between art duo Henry/Bragg and a group of former street sex workers in Hull honouring 14 of their fellow workers who died. From the outset of this collaboration, the women were very clear about what they wanted to achieve. “We wanted this to be a journey around the old spaces we shared, a mapped memorial to friends and other women we know who haven’t made it.” The images in this body of work, at first glance, seem innocuous; ordinary places that could belong anywhere. But these places hide a thousand untold stories. These are locations where the women worked and where serious violent crime against street sex workers took place. From 2014, in an attempt to clean up the streets in the run up to becoming UK City of Culture in 2017, Hull Council started targeting street sex workers. The threat of punitive measures has driven the trade further underground, creating more dangerous working conditions and increasing violent attacks against the women. Over a period of four years, 14 women known to the group died from murder, suspected murder, overdose and the health complications of street working conditions. The work consists of 14 photographs, taken by both the artists and the women, one for each of the women who died. They are accompanied with fragments of conversation recalling their time working on the streets. The work has been exhibited on billboards and posters in both Hull and London, and as a silent walking exhibition with 14 people holding the prints for 14 minutes to honour the lives lost. By placing the work in a street setting it reaches a diverse audience and provokes discussions around the decriminalisation of sex work.
Henry/Bragg are artists Julie Henry (born Cambridge 1959) and Debbie Bragg (born Kent 1974). They highlight subjects such as the erosion of working class culture and the rise of global consumerism, shining a light on overlooked members of society. They take the familiar and displace it in order to present it back to the viewer as a mirror to themselves. Their interest is in people and their work is a socio anthropological approach to social groups, usually involving 6-12 months participant research. This is an organic process as they develop a relationship with their subjects, making them co-participants. Their work to date has given them the opportunity to work with a diverse range of people from football fans to the Women’s Institute, old Mods to talent show contestants, pigeon fanciers to ageing punks. The work is often shown in a non-gallery setting, but gallery shows have included ICP, MOCP, Martin Gropius Bau, London Art Fair, South London Gallery and J Hammond Projects.
www.henrybragg.com Email: info@henrybragg.com instagram: www.instagram.com/HenryBraggArt Twitter: www.twitter.com/HenryBraggArt Facebook: www.facebook.com/HenryBraggArt www.absenceofevidence.co.uk 02075154914
‘Hessle Foreshore’ from Absence of Evidence series (2019). Photograph, 20 x 24 inches, Direct to Dibond UV print. Photography, film and social intervention.
‘She’d Gone Back’ from Absence of Evidence series (2019). Photograph, 20 x 24 inches, Direct to Dibond UV print.
‘Two Little Boys’ from Absence of Evidence series (2019). Photograph, 20 x 24 inches, Direct to Dibond UV print.
Veloudis Anastasios Veloudis The outcome of my practice occurs as a by-product of my ongoing efforts to explore and understand new radical approaches on mind, body, and spirit. These concepts, informed by studies on a philosophical, spiritual, and scientific realm, have always been a vehicle for my personal transformation and as a result - the source of my inspiration. My work is interested in a visual depiction of my vision of the unseen and complex map of human emotions and reality interpretation. New revolutionary scientific discoveries - from fascinating highresolution images of space from NASA to the researcher’s depiction of the vast complexity of the human brain are usually an inspiring foundation in order to inform my creativity. My art practice has been drawn constantly towards abstraction and non-literal, metaphoric forms and action painting working with a variety of tools, from acrylic and paper collage to photography and video. Duality is ever-present in my work - combining dynamic geometrical shapes with organic, free-flowing forms as a result of action painting. The colour palette is ranging from vivid and serene tints to monochromatic compositions, and playful experimentation with light and form. The process of creation is a constant challenge of balancing the coexistence of contradictory elements - a constant effort to take advantage of any spontaneous, irrational outcome arising from my practice in order to transmute it to a source of inspiration. Moreover, the sense of motion and free flow is present in most of my work, as a constant characteristic of all things and a natural part of life force. My work is an effort to balance between tranquillity and chaos. Through my practice, I am seeking to raise a question, an awareness, or argument to the way we feel, think and perceive our reality.
Anastasios Veloudis was born in 1980 in Greece. He studied fine arts, structural engineering design, graphic design and in 2013 he received his Master Degree in Digital Media Arts from the University of Brighton. Veloudis has been part of many exhibitions around the world and selected for the 15th Biennale of Young Artists in Greece. His work is part of the collection of the Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art in Greece. He is interested in a visual depiction of the vision to the unseen world of human emotions, reality interpretation and sexuality. He practices with a variety of tools, from acrylics to photography and video. “The process of creation is a constant challenge of balancing the coexistence of contradictory elements. A perpetual effort to take advantage of any spontaneous, irrational outcome arising from my practice in order to transmute it to a source of inspiration.” Veloudis currently lives and works in Brighton and London.
www.veloudis.net Email: info@veloudis.net instagram: www.instagram.com/anastasios_veloudis Facebook: /www.facebook.com/AVeloudis 00447739408432
09201901 Working towards abstraction with a variety of tools, from acrylic and paper collage to new media
Prassa Theodora Prassa My research addresses how time and contemporary life in a post productive era affects not only the artist’s work but also its materials. I avoid using traditional ways of imaging, manipulate references and like to resort to abstraction in dealing with concepts and materials. I work through various mediums such as video, textiles and collage. I use everyday life materials and images in a multidimensional way by creating a new dialogue with the viewer. I manipulate the original meaning of materials from the one we are used to know in our daily life to create different interpretations. Collage is a technique which I use primarily but also as a process when creating a work, I either create digital collage for printed textiles or recompose images in the process of a new project. Repetition is often identified in my work, such as in pattern repeat, textures, video and structures.
Theodora Prassa was born in Greece and is currently based in Nottingham, UK. She studied with the Erasmus programme at Hildesheim University, DEU 2014 and obtained graduate and postgraduate degrees (both with Distinction) in Fine and Applied Arts in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR, 2017, and an MA (Distinction) in Textile Design at Nottingham Trent University, 2019. She has been selected for a residency in Artcore Gallery, Derby, UK, 2020 and won the 3rd prise in VIVA Film Festival, 2018, Sarajevo, BH. Her works have been screened and exhibited in various Festivals and group exhibitions in UK and internationally, such as Shift Biennale, Edinburgh, UK (2020), 18th Athens Digital Arts Festival), Athens, GR (2020), 3rd Art and Science Festival, Thessaloniki, GR (2019), GradCAM@Research (programme) Pavilion Venice Biennale, ITA (2017), Pera Museum, Istanbul TUR (2016), European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, DEU (2016), Hellenic Foundation for Culture, Odessa UKR (2016), Metro Manila PHI (2016).
www.theodoraprassa.wixsite.com/work www.vimeo.com/theodoraprassa Email: theo_prassa@yahoo.com instagram: www.instagram.com/theo.dora.prassa/ +44 (0)7951580009
Structural narratives Mixed media installation, laser cut on cardboard, digital printed wallpaper
Lobos Diaz Camila Lobos Diaz My work, mainly three-dimensional, aims to make the socio-political context visible, exploring the relationship between power and visibility. I make installations and sculptures that deal with the dichotomy of visibility. I understand the phenomenon of becoming visible as a conjunction of time and space, but mostly as a very fragile moment. Through my practice, I explore how art makes visible those elements, which the dynamics of power moves out of our range of view. I understand my works as gestures that reveal the space and its particular conditions. From this emerges the interdependence between them and the space that surrounds them. I address interactions between space and human relationships (micropolitics). My practice works with the idea of context as a symbolic space, where projects are not simply placed but from where they also emerge. My current research is developed in the intersection between art and human geography. Extrapolating my previous research around periphery, marginality and invisibility into global processes linked to migration, power centres and costs of progress in less developed countries. I am interested in the frontier as a concept and borders as materiality. I am currently developing visual and conceptual research on the ideas of homeland, nation, and territory. I assess these throughout the deconstruction and resignification of existing national symbols. Outside of the traditional exhibition space, I am interested in creating projects that directly focus on local communities and public participation, which result in converting different geographical spaces into a neighbourhood, territories into communities. Staying connected with the ideas of homeland, nation, territory, and migration, I forge communal art spaces and shared experiences that help to build the cultural identity communities and sustain it.
Camila Lobos lives and works between London and Santiago. She obtained a MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2019). She is a winner, among others, of the Chilean National Cultural Council Grant (2020, 2019, 2016); Slade Bursary 2017 (UK); “Art and technology” Award, Telefónica Foundation 2013 (CL): Yitzhak Danziger Scholarship, London (2017). She has been recently appointed as the new AIR at Carpintarias Sao Lazaro Lisbon (2020), awarded the Gulbenkian Grant by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2020). She was granted a Residency programme at Berlin Sessions, (2020, Germany). She has been commissioned by Tate Modern Museum to develop a special edition of Christmas cards (2019), by the Chilean Ministry of Culture and Arts to create the Socially engaged project “El lugar de la visibilidad” (2017) and in 2016 was awarded a grant and an AIR programme by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her work has been widely shown individually and collectively in Latin America and Europe.
www.camilalobos.com Email: camilalobosd@gmail.com instagram: www.instagram.com/ camilalobosd +56993563705
Territory Installation and Sculpture
Existencia en el borde Installation and Sculpture
All the countries that I know, or a story of celebration and decay Installation and Sculpture
Crystal Lynsey Crystal I capture all my images in derelict urban places and natural environments which, whilst currently devoid of humans, have been touched by their presence. I am endeavouring both to show the impact of humans on the natural environment and nature’s resilience and its ability to evolve and survive despite human ecological destruction. That theme develops organically within each work. The images I choose and the way I create the collage comes from a subconscious place and I rarely finish a piece within the constructs of the original idea. There is also a sense of escapism I experience, exploring the hidden and mysterious places I find which I endeavour to portray through the fictional worlds I create within them. The miniature aspect of the work also reflects the fragility of humanity. Despite its impact on the planet, the works are designed to demonstrate its insignificance in terms of time and space.
www.covertreality.com Email: lynseycrystal@live.co.uk instagram: @lynseycrystal.art 07772 731 261
Slope Original photographs using phone camera. Photoshop adds images to base photographs.
Space Hob Original photographs using phone camera. Photoshop adds images to base photographs.
Solar Original photographs using phone camera. Photoshop adds images to base photographs.
Bidasaria Rashmi Bidasaria Kaarigari (Craftsmanship in Hindi) explores the celebration of a craftsman as a front runner in his craft. Hand Block Printing, a 500 year-old traditional craft in India, is now becoming redundant due to advanced digital printing systems and is requiring craft individuals to realise the worth of continuing it. Kaarigari is aimed towards delivering recognition to the artisans towards their work by highlighting their individuality, to feel a sense of pride in this ‘mechanical’ work that they do. The project records the nuanced signature movements and translates them into patterns that become each artisan’s individual signature, an impression of their time, work and body. The block printing artisans print on an average of 10 hours continuously everyday. Thousands of stamps that print almost as a muscle memory. The monotony and the mundane routine is quite tiresome. Upon working with them and observing them, I realised that each artisan prints very uniquely. There is a notion of performance/dance that is complimented by their movements, their signature move. I began to record those little nuances of movements to translate them into patterns, using analogue techniques like light & motion study and digital tools - Long exposure photography and Virtual Reality. The patterns on the textile illustrate the movement of the artisan on his printing table - specifically finger points of individual artisans. (Pink/Yellow - Left hand, Blue - Right Hand). These dots are representative of their swiftness, skill, dexterity - their signature.
Rashmi Bidasaria enjoys blurring the boundaries between different material media to find new interpretations that are often inspired by her native roots and cultural understanding. Through her work she aims to bring together a network of designers, researchers, technical experts and the citisens to a common platform. Her practice is shaped by her background in architecture and product design and her work extends from spatial experiences to objects and artifacts. She likes to engage with people and communities and enjoys the process of uncertainty and discovery with them. Her work highlights multiple collaborations that reflect in the way she conducts research with a sinusoidal process where she learns to make, explore and make again. Her works including ‘Kaarigari’ and ‘Dross’ will be exhibited at London Design Festival 2020, Hebei International Industrial Design Festival 2020, and the Dutch Design Festival 2020.
www.rashmibidasaria.com Email: rash.bidasaria@gmail.com instagram: www.instagram.com/rashmi.bidasaria/ Twitter: twitter.com/RashmiBidasaria +91 9986355844
Finger Impressions of Block Printing Artisans Materials -Mohair Wool, Paper, Rubber, Recycled Plastic, Cotton & Metal yarn. Media -Photography, VR
Anderson Kate Anderson My work is about connected and heightened memories that cross visual borders. From my first involvement in an Arts Festival exhibition in 1977 to the present, in my self-built studio in SouthWest Scotland, ideas have evolved from Painting and Sculptural roots to a very individual fusion of techniques. Commissions and work in colleges have partly supported my survival. My own projects for exhibition or publication often examine key symbolic devices that may lead to unlocking contemporary truths.These can range from the implicitly narrative in screens and 3-D pieces to semi-abstract oneoff wall hangings. Drawing and written work continue to be a part of this constant re-evaluation. I love that we are wired to cross-cultural myths where abiding symbols can be requisitioned and reclaimed. Thoughts are recycled using methods that are part build-up and part excavation. I reference literature, history, religion, and my own life experience. The mediums I use require a shift of perception for me. Assembling borders in a map of lines and contours where embossed features rise gradient-like from the surface, or taking the viewer into a painted depth of field that is entirely personal. The tessellated techniques I use intensify the core design. Stone, smalti, vitreous glass and ceramic make appearance with my own moulded materials, not more incongruous than our multi-layered times. That some symbolic themes evolve, repeat and diverge in our conscious and unconscious time is marvellous to me. I try to interpret them visually perhaps believing they contain a sense of place. Lament of the Super Blood Wolf Moon was made in response to its occurrence in January 2019, and to celebrate the triad of eclipses of that year. I went outside when the night seemed unnaturally still and silent with anticipation in a theatre-like intensity. I did ‘blind’ sketches in biro as the pewter light dimmed down. These moons are rare portals where time and memory, reality and fiction coalesce.
Born in London, Kate now lives in South West Scotland. Training was at Hammersmith and then Maidstone College of Art and Design where she graduated with a Ist Class Honours in Fine Art. She received a PostGraduate Commonwealth Award (M.A.) for Sculpture, taking this up at the University of Shantiniketan, founded in rural West Bengal by the poet Tagore. During this period she wrote a collection of poetry while travelling to research temple sites in South India. She has designed and taught block courses in Painting and Mosaic across the UK and has also run studio based workshops. Her work has been shown in America, France, India and U.K. Solo exhibitions in Scotland were based at the University of Glasgow in Dumfries, and Mill on the Fleet Galleries in Galloway. She has been published in the BAMM research journal ‘Andamento’ amongst others. Educational projects include Sulwath Connections’ Dark Skies. She is currently working on a collection of mosaic mixed media, and text.
www.andersonsart.co.uk Email: kateanderson1029@btinternet.com www.bamm.org.uk/user/960 www.axisweb.org/p/kateanderson www.spring-fling.co.uk www.weareupland.com 01557 330415
Lament of the Super Blood Wolf Moon Modern Mosaic and Mixed Media relief. 92 cm x 49 cm x 5 cm
Clayton Lucy Clayton Through a process driven practice, I explore the instabilities that surround the term “nature.” What is nature? What does it mean for something to be natural? In a society reliant on single use products, and non-biodegradable materials, in light of this to what extent is our current “nature” natural. The once successful co-existence in the beginning of the Holocene, often referred to as the huntergatherer period, has seemingly become disproportionate, and humans have encroached upon nature. Unbalancing what is natural in the process. This illusion of a non-definitive line between humans and nature is questioned within my work. I’m interested in the way human intervention has created this cold state of concrete, a lifeless material that is slowly destroying the earth. I consider concrete as a metaphor for the non-biodegradable objects that remain on our planet long after their function. In ‘The Artificial & The Natural’ I render the material disconnected from its functionality, and structural purposes, and the instabilities of concrete begin to show. Through this there is a correlation between the human detachment from the natural world, and how nature is becoming more and more man-made. Standing the piece on a roll of artificial grass is to question the stability between humans and nature’s co-existence, and the uncertainty we face heading into an unsustainable future.
Lucy Clayton currently lives and works in Leeds, and has recently graduated from Leeds Arts University with a B.A. (Hons) in Fine Art. Lucy explores both nature and the un-natural via the medium of clay and hyper materials such as Concrete. Lucy has recently exhibited her work at Sunny Bank Mills in their ‘’Ones to Watch’’ exhibition, showcasing the work of young, up and coming artists. She has also been approached by Ludvig Rage Club to feature in a book, displaying the work of talented sculpture artists across the European art scene.
www.lucyclayton12.wixsite.com/website Email: lucyclayton12@hotmail.com instagram: @lucyclaytonartt 07756323182
The Artificial & The Natural The main mediums I work with are clay and concrete.
Richardson Sam Richardson In a recent series Dust, I present a methods of capturing water through the photographic lens and the frustration that comes with trying to do so. This is a work that explores the physicality of water using both sculptural and photographic techniques, encapsulating the ripple of waves and everything in between. Water; like trying to catch Dust.
Sam Richardson is a Fine Artist based in Manchester, whose practice primarily involves photographic imagery. Currently approaching her third year in BA Photography at Manchester School of Art, her focus is to question what a ‘photograph’ is; testing the limits in photography. Photo-sculpture is something in particular that she chooses to focus on when working, exploring physicality and touch.
www.samantharichardson.co.uk Email: samrich98@icloud.com instagram: www.instagram.com/ @samrart 07512321897
Dust Photographic prints
Desforges Kathryn Desforges I am a UK-based artist exploring narrative and conceptual representations of place. I am driven by a preoccupation with ordinary, overlooked and in-between places - particularly places on the peripheries – which often manifest themselves in my work as isolated structures. I am fascinated with what cannot be seen and what is hidden beneath. Work is made as a direct, emotional response, or as a bringing-together of fragments, exploring dissonance, tension, harmony and balance. My approach to creating work is fluid – sometimes urgent and spontaneous, sometimes thoughtful and considered - and always keeping the physical act of making at the core of my practice. Using a range of processes in combination including print, drawing, painting and collage, results in a unique visual language which I use to explore this multi-faceted theme. Print is an integral element of my work: “It is the physicality of printmaking which resonates with me. Idea, material, process and aesthetic become interwoven through experimentation, the importance of each constantly shifting. Process echoes idea, and moments are captured and physically set into the surface of metal, wood or stone through a conscious manipulation of the material – carving, scratching, sanding, layering - removing the image from its origin so that it becomes something new and other, allowing the viewer to interact with the work from their own position.” An artist residency in Japan learning Mokuhanga (water-based woodblock printing) in 2018, has been a major influence in my more recent work, moving from using the wood as a matrix for printing from, to using the wood as a surface to paint and draw directly onto, taking my work in a new direction.
Kathryn grew up in Devon and after studying Fine Art at Kingston University moved to sunny Yorkshire where she is currently based. Her work is held in the Tate Library artist book collection amongst other private collections. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the New Light Prize Award touring exhibition and the Flourish Award for excellence in printmaking, and she has recently been selected to exhibit at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. Kathryn has undertaken artist residencies at Intaglio Printmaker (UK), Mi-LAB (Japan), and a Postgraduate Fellowship at Leicester Print Workshop. She currently works from her studio in West Yorkshire, and her practice is continually informed by her work as a printmaking instructor technician.
www.kathryndesforges.co.uk Email: katedesforges@gmail.com instagram: @desforgery 07761827116:
A Way Through Printmaking, drawing, painting and collage
Jackson Amy Jackson I am a conceptual artist and responsible investment professional, which I describe as an important part of my activism. Recognising the tragedies of the human condition in the Hypercapitalst Era, I seek to challenge critical environmental and socioeconomic issues. Key themes include climate change, capitalism, social media, mental health and critically, how these themes are inextricably linked. I realise ideas using a variety of mediums, techniques and aesthetics. The art often exists beyond the ‘white cube’ and as part of our daily lives. As a conceptual artist, the idea takes precedence to the medium. I create street art, installations, digital art and participatory events which encourage us to pause and reflect. My work engages with stakeholders through borderless participation and aims to create a net positive impact with minimal environmental footprint. Cleaning Squares for example, is a series of happenings taking place from 2005 to present. Daily dice are rolled to determine time and location and perfect squares, the length of the artists feet are cleaned and labelled. This darkly humorous street art and performance piece comments upon mental health, the state of the planet and the art world itself. It forces us to question if we need more ‘stuff’ in the world. HDR Nature is a series of photographs which comment upon the ludicrous qualities of the modern age. Living life from behind the plasma has become second nature and seeing the world on a screen is now everyday. Natural beauty is only validated when it is Instagrammable, somehow compromising its integrity. All of my objects of art are conceptual in nature, treading lightly and consciously on the planet. Though they comment on grotesque art movements it takes a departure from them. Stepping back from the making of the celebrity YBAs (a product of the greed emerging from 80’s capitalism) my work takes solace in minimalist conceptualism and shares a new aesthetic to consider. Amy Jackson is a British artist based in East London. Jackson studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford, 2005 - 2008 and later returned to The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment to study Sustainable Finance. She is a conceptual artist with 15 years’ experience blending philosophy, nature, and science to create meticulous immersive experiences in traditional galleries, and unconventional spaces. Her work includes street art, happenings, photography, painting, and found objects. Jackson explores issues such as climate change, consumerism, mental health, social inequalities; and critically, how these themes are inextricably linked. Her work often exists outside of the ‘white cube’; and inside the communities it touches. Amy’s experience spans art commissions for Kensington + Chelsea Art Week to public speaking on climate change. Her work has been featured in the Times, Art World Magazine, Modern Art Oxford, Time Out and Tate Britain. www.thisisamyjackson.com Email: hello@thisisamyjackson.com instagram: www.instagram.com/thisisamyjackson Twitter:www. twitter.com/J_Amy_Jackson Facebook: www.facebook.com/AmyJacksonArtStudio/ +44(0)7850857565
Cleaning Squares Conceptual art: comprising found objects, photography, digital art, installation and performance.
Favre Sève Favre Passionate about the concept of integration, I concentrate on transcending the classical boundary between the artwork and the viewer. The key words that support my concept is being interaction (be together), variation (be different), activity (be active). My name for this experience is « intervariactivity». I want to integrate the viewer into my art in a direct and tactile way. I combine this experience with a strong digital focus and physical way, through works on canvas, in situ installations, performances, happenings, or digital works and projects. My interactive artworks engage the public in the artistic process in order to have an impact on their way of thinking about art and concepts. My goal is to enable the viewer to understand the research and questioning that an artist asks himself during the process of experimentation and creation. My works are mostly built on canvas because it is a classic medium. Among the materials I also favour, paper occupies an important place because it is flexible and part of a rich tradition. The choice of techniques is varied; however, I have a predilection for mixed media processes. In addition, there are, on my website, for some of my works, interactive virtual duplicates with which internet users can create a composition and then participate in art projects whose aim is to question our tactile relationship between the real and the virtual. The work that emerges from the encounter between my work and the viewer is plural. My artworks thus become personal, variable, changing, permanently reversible and therefore multiple. Each painting, although unique, contains several paintings because each modification made by the spectator induces a new design of the artwork. This is why some paintings are compared with their combinatorial mathematical calculation so that the viewer realises the multiple components of an artwork. My aim is to generate a multimedia flow of experiences, interactions and relationships with the public.
Sève Favre lives and works in Lausanne in the french part of Switzerland. She studied art history at University of Fribourg (CH). She continued her education at the Ceruleum Art School in Lausanne. For two years, she was in charge of the curation of the Olsommer museum, and designed several exhibitions for this institution. In 2005, she created her first modular artwork and developed this concept while teaching visual arts in high school. During several years she maintained both careers, teaching and private commission for artworks. Today, Sève has devoted herself exclusively to her artistic practice and exhibits in Switzerland and abroad (Hong Kong, England, Belgium, Italy). During her last solo exhibition at the Gutenberg Museum in Fribourg (CH), she created a monumental installation which was selected for the 14th International Arte Laguna Prise in the installation and sculpture section and will be presented at the Arsenale in Venice as part of the exhibition of the finalists.
www.sevefavre.com/en Email: info@sevefavre.com instagram: www.instagram.com/sevefavre Twitter: www.twitter.com/sevefavre Facebook: www.facebook.com/sevefavre +41787454799:
Self Intervariactif Portrait: Deconfined Masked Mixed media (ink, pastel chalk, acrylic, paper...) on canvas
#IntervariactifSerials Day 24: Art Project on Social Media Mixed media (ink, pastel chalk, acrylic, paper...) on canvas
#IntervariactifSerials Day 28: Art Project on Social Media Mixed media (ink, pastel chalk, acrylic, paper...) on canvas
Varlaam Ronis Varlaam I usually work in series. These 4 paintings are from my latest series: SUBTITLED. Each painting consists of a figurative section and the title of the painting rendered in pictographs. As we attempt to perceive what we are seeing through language, is it possible that we actually shape the words so that they correspond to the image of the object seen, the action observed or the sensation felt? As words are spoken, the mouth makes shapes as if to illustrate the words; pictographs are created and words become visual representations of their meaning. The shapes on the paintings are transcriptions of the shapes the mouth makes while speaking the words (and just after the words are spoken). In some cases it takes time to realise what a shape represents or to accept what it is. I think the theory applies to between 30 and 60% of words. I have used this idea before in a series based on the first 19 lines of THE WASTE LAND by T.S.Eliot. The series can be seen on my website www.ronisvarlaam.com. At the time an article about my series appeared in THE INDEPENDENT’ It was entitled ‘What happens when you say “kiss”’. I believe that my theory illustrates the visual qualities of the English Language but also the subliminal messages given by language.
RONIS VARLAAM has studied filmmaking at the London Film School and has produced and directed several documentaries for television, mainly Channel 4. Gradually his interests moved to art in general and now his practice includes painting, photography, videos and conceptual art. He often works at the interface of opposites e.g. Abstract/Figurative, Subjective/Objective, Looking/Perceiving. He is also interested in the visual qualities of language. He is both an abstract and figurative painter and he believes in the primacy of painting. He has taken part in more than 40 exhibitions. He has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize and selected for the Creekside Open, the Discerning Eye and National Open Art exhibitions. He has also taken part in events at the Venice Biennale and the Louvre. He has been featured in more than 20 publications.
www.ronisvarlaam.com www.vimeo.com/ronisvarlaam Email: ronisvarlaam@hotmail.com instagram: www.instagram.com/ronisvarlaam Twitter: www.twitter.com/ronisvarlaam Facebook: www.facebook.com/ronisvarlaam +44 (0)7830253234
In The Morning Oil on Deep Edge Canvas 80 X 80 X 4 cm
Only Love Remains Oil on Deep Edge Canvas 80 X 80 X 4 cm
What Is The Point Oil on Deep Edge Canvas 80 X 80 X 4 cm
Keeping The Snowman Warm Oil on Deep Edge Canvas 80 X 80 X 4 cm
10 Coneptual Artworks
Fice Will Fice My practice places itself within a contemporary debate surrounding gender and class, depicting an aspect of young manhood obtained directly from photographs within my immediate circle of friends. Taken directly from Instagram, these primary and secondary materials are connected through an established criteria of painting and camera. The selection of images consisting of diverse compositions of young men. The figures in my work occupy a distant temporal space moulded by a sense of emptied time, where young men perform such behaviours found between a period of adolescence and adulthood. Through thin, washed out applications of paint, the construction of the painted image is questioned as I layer my paintings to reposition subject matter in an assembly of forms, where the work operates as a body as opposed to a single unified image.
Fice has exhibited in South London and Leeds during his three years of study and has recently been featured in the Guardian alongside 16 other graduate artists.
www.willllf.com Email: willllf9@gmail.com instagram: www.instagram.co/willllf 07403268520
Stargazing Oil paint on stretched canvas.
Kosinska Aneska Kosinska This painting is dedicated to supporting ecological awareness of the natural environment and its preservation. Also to promote positive social change and celebrate the natural world. ‘Coexisting’ focuses on the outcome of water pollution caused by overconsumption and overproduction in manufacturing. Depicting the careless spills on the shore across the globe. Our most conventional plastics that enter the waterways every year are non-biodegradable and multilateral mixed polymers. They are joined by heavy metal pollutants such as aluminium sulphate, lead, mercury and many more. The Oceans are already topped up with chemicals and debris. The water acidification, offshore drilling and ocean noise pollution are systematically decreasing wildlife habitat followed by the city and industrial waste discharge. Tons of rubbish end up as marine litter e.g. cans, bottles, bags, coffee cups, take-away soft drinks cups and cartons. As is known the polymer industry has been growing subsequently since the 19th century. The most common are thermoplastics and thermoset like bakelite produced since 1907 - the first plastic made from synthetic components. A lightweight and durable that could be moulded into many shapes. Fossil-based polymers exist in our daily lives in various forms as fibres (Polyester, Nylon, Acrylics) plastics (Polyethylene, Polyvinyl chloride, Polystyrene) and rubber. It has been proved that oxobiodegradable and enzyme mediated plastics, enable only fragmentation not degradation, subsequently letting small fragments to remain in the environment. It means that we have to think ahead and come up with better ideas. Furthermore it seems this could be achieved to certain degree by reducing plastic pollution and investing more in future bioplastics. Let’s not forget that simple solutions are usually the best and being genuinely mindful of our plastic consumption would be definitely the right way to move forward. A London based artist. Kosinska’s practice involves working in varied media such as painting, animation and sound, more recently developing oil painting techniques. Her work is related to affinity to the natural world with awareness towards other living organisms and encourages the long term respect for the natural systems we coexist with. She has displayed works in exhibitions over the last few years including Bermondsey, Hackney and Chelsea. Her studio space is based in South London.
www.aneskakosinska.tumblr.com Email: aneskakos@gmail.com
Coexisting Oil paint on canvas, 3ft x 3ft.
Cosfranz Bo Cosfranz My work is based on the concept of extending tangent lines from corners in order to create a contrast between the organic and geometric aspects in each piece. The organic aspects of an artwork may be shapes drawn from observation, or they may be created through the unstructured use of colour. A geometric framework is then imposed onto the image by continuing the lines that meet at the corners in the composition. Each piece thus results in a tension between the organic and the geometric layers. My practice is an exploration of how people experience the world, in particular our relationship with rules. I am motivated by the experience of how individuality can grow within a rigid framework of laws and expectations, and how, in turn, this regulatory framework can be shaped by creativity. I apply these ideas to my process, by combining an intuitive approach with a strict set of rules for the creation of each painting.
Bo Cosfranz was born in Yugoslavia in 1987. She moved to London in 1993, where she currently lives and works as a fine artist. Her focus is on painting, with a style developed through a background in textile, printmaking and sculpture. She regularly exhibits in group shows and artist-led fairs across London and the UK, and enjoys connecting with other artists at such events.
www.cosfranz.com/ Email: info@cosfranz.com instagram: www.instagram.com/cosfranz/ +447791780641
Lustres 4 Painting, in particular acrylic on canvas.
Stranack Latifah Stranack Within my brush marks, relatives’ faces, rubbed marks and symbolic boats are often highlighted, repeated and reworked. In pursuit of a fleeting moment, I re contextualise and reframe the presence and absence of family members and belongings, my hazy memories kept close and eternally captured on canvas. Partially revealed, I attempt to collapse my present reality and bring the past to life, forever layered in washes of paint, helping me work through subconscious emotions and fears. My complex cultural identity is mulled upon frequently, through depictions of the sea- a site of healing and trauma, Kanga cloth patterns and a full moon of hope. I search for a lost time, imagining my ancestors sailing alongside me on mysterious dhows, clay and coffee pots metaphors for family, and the colour blue symbolic to many ancient cultures, becomes my timeless symbol for life, rebirth, heaven and earth. Born to parents from East and West, I have always been fascinated by cultural hybridity. When my father got cancer, I was sent to boarding school speaking basic English. They believed that by forbidding me to converse in Arabic, my assimilation into a proper English girl would be complete. This and other factors, caused me to become further isolated from my Middle Eastern identity, and in my work I try to grab hold of this struggle, depicting my paternal relatives and childhood in Oman, prior to my father’s death. Tales of his family are retold to me through my Welsh mother, and this has had a big impact in the way I make my art, and the subjects that I choose to deal with. Understanding the dynamics of exile and migration, is for me, a direct consequence of my upbringing, and I realise that my mixed heritage has been a rich source of material to work with, though at times it has also created numerous questions within me about my sense of belonging and place in the world.
Stranack has an incredible ability to powerfully penetrate the roots of our shared humanity: the connections that universally bind and the urgent conflicts that divide us. Complex emotive and urgent humanitarian subjects are examined through a lens of beauty, anthropological intelligence, and an ocean of compassion,by an artist who has lived through them in her own life and, of course, the life path of her ancestors. Through her imagery, she explores what it is to be human. Weaving innovative narratives over mixed media and fabric covered canvases, she tells moving and cathartic tales of ancestry and family across displacements of culture, time and loss. Her work explores the creative process of hybridisation that emerges when cultures collide and connect; giving rise to a new sense of universal identity that expands self-perception. She invites her audience to explore human resilience and vulnerability, feeling out how inextricably connected we all are.
www.latifah3rayoflight.com Email: latifah_s_art@outlook.com instagram: www.instagram.com/ latifah_s_art Twitter: www.twitter.com/ latifah_al 07931920927
Oh my true friend, I am not alone Oil paint, acrylic, spray paint, canvas, charcoal, pastel, oil bar
Having you close was keeping me sane... I paint onto raw canvas & fabric offcuts, priming & gluing them to create a new surface to work into
García Hermi Helena García Hermida In my paintings, I generate mystical and magical spaces, in which to place the viewer. By means of a figurative Asian tradition, I incorporate archaic vegetation of great personality and graphic richness. A confident and elegant brushstroke that moves all through the image, building a neoromantic world. my paintings are intense and intricate landscapes whose inhabitants are often distorted in scale and shape, making the subjects appear more real. My paintings start as photographs or videos that I make, this photographic element is usually only a part of the composition—a reference to a memory or something that involves perspective or dimension—. However, the contrast between the plane photographic object and the traditional elements, endows all the painting with a pop atmosphere, a theatrical nuance in which I ironicise about the complexity of contemporary aesthetics.
In 2013 Helena García Hermida graduated in Fine Art from the Complutense University of Art in Madrid, Spain. She then moved to Chengdu, China, in 2015, where she obtained a MA in Traditional Chinese Painting from Sichuan University. In 2019 she moved to London, where she currently lives and has her studio.
www.helenagarciahermida.com Email: helena.g.hermida@gmail.com instagram: www.instagram.com/ helhabahita 07742214788
Beautiful sisters by the river Oil on canvas, 152.4 cm x 121.9 cm, 2020
mida
En flor Acrylic on canvas, 116 x 356 cm, 2019
Streatfield Caroline Streatfield I am a British painter and my work investigates ideas around memory, history and identity. In a recent series, I explore my own familial narratives and maternal Eastern European heritage. My figurative paintings are set against the backdrop of wider socio-political histories and allow me to engage with a world that is both familiar and foreign to me. The western side of my heritage colliding with the Eastern side. A dream state. I want to express the universal feeling that some children of migrants have of nostalgia and this is at the forefront of my paintings. The imagining of visiting an unknown country and going back into the past to meet the ancestors, in a way to make up for lost time.In day to day life these feelings are lived out through a subconsciousness longing to understand my ancestors.I wanted to show an intimacy that comes from a place beyond time’ Through appropriating traditional techniques, pivotal moments of the 20th Century are the backdrop for significant personal recollections. These recollections both personal and handed down via word of mouth also reflect the universal human condition.
Born London, 1969. MA Painting, 2019. Wimbledon College of Arts, London. BA Art in the Community 2002, Reading College and School of Art and Design. Reading. Selected shows: Threads, Sept 2020, Openhand OpenSpace ,Reading. MA Painting (2019) University of the Arts, London. Affordable Art Fair 2020 to represent Made in Arts, London. Ingram Purchase Prise finalist 2019; Open Hand Open Space Member artist since 2019; recipient of the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust Award, 2018; shortlisted for the National Open Art prise, 2019.TM Lighting Gallery, London,2019. The Nunnery Gallery, London,2019.
www.carolinestreatfield.co.uk Email: carolinestreatfield@icloud.com instagram: www.instagram.com/CarolineStreatfield 07703142323
The Lament Oil paint I make my own canvases and use a distemper ground of raw pigment and rabbit skin glue.
The Milk Maid Oil paint
The Table Cloth Oil paint
Souvenir for Millais Oil paint
The Longing Oil paint
Leyland Mal Leyland The ‘Forest Breathe Series’ is the result of my attempt to capture the experience of walking through a forest. A daily walk that takes me through a forest during every seasonal change inspired me to work out how to capture this magnificent experience. How to capture a feeling similar to entering the grand spectacle of a cathedral for the first? For me walking through trees and nature is akin to experiencing a cathedral indeed I have come to refer to the forest as a Cathedral of Nature. Taking a picture of dense growth, twisting vines and irregular branches always remains disappointing and fails miserably to present the forest in the way we experience it. Presented here are four images that represent a body of work made over two years while walking the same path from my house to Newlands Corner set in the north downs of the Surrey Hills. Like artists of the past observing their surrounding landscape, I became more and more obsessed with the grand scale, and the grand detail, of nature. And like those older artists, I found it necessary to abstract and adjust. All my works are composite images taken from my immediate surroundings to build an experience more akin to the reality of a memory. A memory experienced.
Malcolm Leyland was born in Whiston, Lancashire, Uk. He now lives and works in London and the South East of England. He has exhibited in London and notably at The Lightbox in Woking. Art school trained, a career as a professional photographer in still life advertising, and now fully dedicated to fine art, Malcolm has never relinquished his passion and dedication to the development of the medium of photography. His current experimentation with composites provides him with new dimensions and new possibilities. After a life-long discipline of making the perfect singular image within the confines of a single frame, he has now expanded the physical boundaries and visual limitations of the photograph. He believes, the closer the ‘photograph’ gets to abstraction, the ‘truer’ it becomes.
www.malcolmleyland.co.uk Email: mal@malcolmleyland.co.uk instagram: www.instagram.com/malcolmleyland Twitter: www.twitter.com/malcolm_leyland Facebook: www.facebook.com/leyalnd Mobile: 07838195150
Forest Breathe Mist #3 Composite archival prints on paper
Forest Breathe #4 Composite archival prints on paper
Forest Breathe #8 Composite archival prints on paper
Forest Breathe #9 Composite archival prints on paper
Adoram Orna Adoram My works are originals multi-layered acrylic on canvas combines the practical world of industrial architecture materials with symbols and concepts from the spiritual world. All are transformed together onto the canvas. I am working mostly with recycled building materials such as paint, plaster, industrial colour, glue, glass, and more which derive from the architecture world. Abstract works, characterised by the harmony of colours and shapes, are minimalist yet powerful. The works present a combined world of contrasts between time and place, past and present, material and spirit, moments of mercy, and emotional range. A profound observation will reveal the layers of colour, life, places, situations, emotions, and experiences which join and complement each other.
Israeli artist, studied in NYC, working in Tel Aviv, exhibiting around the globe. Over 100 worldwide solo and group exhibitions - Permanent collection of Modern Art Museum Harabin China, JMA Gallery Vienna Austria, The National Art Museum Cluj-Napoca Romania, Museum of the Americas (MOA) Miami Florida, Mega art Rome, Jaffa Museum, Rothschild 35 Tlv, Ein Hod, Efrat gallery Tlv, Horas Richter Jaffa, Hanita Museum, Amiad Amalia Arbel Tel Aviv, New York art expo 2019 and many more galleries in Israel and around the world. Member of “Impact”, the Professional Visual Artists Association, Israel NOAPS association Works sold to private people and large co-operations worldwide • Parsons School of Design-New York 1983-1986 • Students’ Art League in the years 1984-1986 • Avni School of Art Tel Aviv 1983 • Painting studies with the leading artists in Israel
www.adoramorna-art.com Email: adoramorna.art@gmail.com instagram: instagram.com/adoramorna.art/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/orna-adoram
Love Letters Acrylic on canvas mixed media mostly recycled building materials, paint, plaster, papers, pigments
The Almond Tree Acrylic on canvas mixed media mostly recycled building materials, paint, plaster, papers, pigments
Georgiades Ritva Georgiades Originally from North Finland, I made my home in the UK in 1969 where I later attended the Surrey Institute of Art & Design. After attaining a degree in Fine Art, I participated in group exhibitions and Art Fairs. I mainly work in mixed media collage, and enjoy experimenting with different materials. This can range from acrylic paints, inks and paint markers, printing, stencilling, paper cutting and occasionally hand stitching on paper. I am drawn to strong colours, and lose myself in my work, and find great inner peace from creating. My art is about yearning and searching, and is an ongoing journey without destination. It is one where I can use my inner thoughts to create images in abstract, or more realistic form depending on my mood.
www.ritvageorgiades.co.uk Email: ritvag@icloud.com 07754003800
Blue moment
Mixed media collage, acrylics, acrylic inks
Playtime Mixed media collage, acrylics, acrylic inks
Angels in our midst Mixed media. Collage on mount board with acrylic inks, torn and cut paper and feathers
SOLO ARTISTS DOING THEIR OWN THING TOGETHER. Individual, but not alone in our efforts to bring our work to an audience. Together, but not collectively working together.
ABOUT
As individual artists we came together as SOLO to help each other promote, support, inspire, network, and make our careers more meaningful, purposeful and progressive – to succeed in our efforts in everything other than the effort of creativity. Everything SOLO does promotes the individual. Our activities are focused on how to reach an audience for artists. Our aim is to organise, invent, and build various platforms to showcase as many artists as we can. This is our 2nd showcase magazine, we hope you will enjoy the freshness of the work offered. We are selective in our processes, but at our core, we are democratic - inclusive and a voice for all. The direction we take will be for the benefit of each participating artist. We are a not-for-profit group and welcome new active participants.
Email: hello@soloprojects.org Instagram: www.instagram.com/soloprojectslondon7/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/SOLOprojectsLondon/
This edition has been produced by: Mal Leyland, Ronis Varlaam, Qanitah Malik, Katie Mundy, Aldobranti, Aneska Kosinska.
Copyright & Artist’s independence:
Each artist owns the copyright of their works and images must not be reproduced without prior written permission. SOLO does not represent any of the artists, and each gallery is free to contact each artist at their discretion. SOLO does not claim any commission or contractual intent.
Issue 2 Publlished Oct 2020
24 ARTISTS DOING THEIR OWN THING TOGETHER
