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Omen Magazine
is a showcase for multi-medium International creativity. It is a visual online magazine that is a homage to Art and Fashion that may not be necessarily mainstream. It will be a hybrid of talent from up and coming to famous.The focus is on the image, not the buzz. Omen wants to explore and expose to the cyber world, all the amazing work that is off the commercial radar.
www.theomenmag.com Cover Light mask and Concept by Andrea Splisgar in collaboration with Jorge Serio Portrait of Andrea Splisgar by Pedro Matos
02 Mário Correia - Graphic editor Marcus Leatherdale - Art Director / Art Editor Pedro Matos - Photo editor Jorge Serio - Fashion editor Frederica Santos - Production editor + Art Correspondents: Paul Bridgewater – NYC Amabel Barraclough – London Martin Belk – Glasgow Baptist Coelho - Mumbai Patric Lehmann - Toronto Jennifer Leskiw – Antwerp Muga Miyahara – Tokyo Hector Ramsay - Florence Elizabeth Rogers – New Delhi Andrea Splisgar – Berlin Jorge Soccaras – Barcelona + Fashion Corrspondents: Rebecca Weinberg – NYC Zuleika Ponsen - Paris
Chapter 13 A passing Glance By Andrea splisgar
Idea and performance andrea splisgar Photo and postproduction pedro matos Realized in lisbon, portugal, november 2009 With the precious cooperation of jorge serio Copyright der mond채ne tiger www.dermondaenetiger.com
A Passing Glance IN the midst of a deafening roar, svelte and tall, and dressed in black from head to toe, She passed me, wreathed in majestic sorrow, Jewelled hand lifted the hem of her skirt. Ladylike, and graceful, and statuesque, I shook like a fool, drinking from those eyes, Tempestuous as ashen,angry skies. A deadly joy, a sweetness full of risk. Lightening - gone dark! Slipping away from me, Beauty that offered life in one quick glance - Life seen no more, before Eternity? Elsewhere...to far! too late! Never, perchance... For you ignored me - or pretend to - Who could have won your love, as you well know... Charles Baudelaire
Michael Maier Barcelona www.m-a-i-e-r.com By Jorge Socarras Barcelona has a long history as an avant-garde artistic center, and continues attracting artists from the world over, as well as cultivating its own. Michael Maier came to Barcelona 10 years ago from Germany and made it his home, though he does not consider himself a “Barcelona artist” per se. His work itself would be hard to place, as it embodies so many stylistic elements, arguably making it all the more “Barcelonan.” Taken outside of geographical context, Maier’s digital paintings perhaps find their most apt locus on the Internet, where he has found a broad international following. I myself was first captivated by his images long-distance via facebook, their sensorial colorfulness and playful primitivism quite striking even on a pocket screen. Zooming in closer reveals a sophisticated harmony of figurative and abstract elements, the effect at once visceral and cerebral. Initial comparison to Jean-Michel Basquiat seems inevitable, but further contemplation conjures up aspects of Paul Klee, Wifredo Lam, Matta, or even Barcelona’s own Antoni Tàpies—all re-imagined for the digital age. Often wry and provocative as their titles suggest, Maier’s images nonetheless maintain an organic beauty and formalism. In “Green Boy” the pictorial space seems roughly split into four areas, all monochrome green with black overlines, each depicting an aspect of a male subject, and vacillating between eroticizing and deconstructing him. In the upper right quadrant, tense, nervous lines highlight the mans chest in bra-like fashion, verging on becoming a pair of voyeuristic eyes, while from the upper left, a young Adonis looks on as if dissecting his own beauty and maleness. It would seem Maier is updating the pagan fertility symbol of the green man, at the same time scrutinizing it under the homoerotic gaze. “Her Lipstick Will Kill You” presents the viewer with a more abstracted, less literal mélange of colliding and overlapping fragments, planes and layers, colors and scrawls. The effect is one of images on the verge of appearing or possibly having already decayed. The word “she” may be the only decipherable scrawl, and it lends the rest of the imagery the implication of a third-person-feminine – unseen, like the lipstick - a presence that defies the objectifying male eye/I. Has objective imagery been rendered subjective experience? Despite these psychosexual connotations, Maier insists that his work has no meaning, and that mentally interpreting it is useless. Rather than interpreting any external reality, he says that “he is obsessed with deconstructing the images and language of his fragmented inner world,” and that his work refers to “his own hermetic universe of symbols.” While perhaps its resonance could be partly attributable to the collective unconscious, Maier himself avoids placing his work in any theoretical context. Unabashedly open about his own sexual identity as a gay man, he denies this being a paramount factor in his work, but concedes there being gay elements in it.
I finally met the artist, and his husband Ximo, in one of their favorite spots in the neighborhood of Raval. Maier revealed himself to be warm, whimsically forthright, and quite at ease with Catalan ways. In fact I had too much fun with them for serious art talk. Thus I resorted to the Internet to ask him a few questions about his art. Even there he seems to keep his tongue strategically close to his bearded cheek. JS Did you always paint? MM Yes I always painted....As a baby I was painting with my one shit! Do you have a way you typically begin a new piece, or is it always a new process? It is always fresh and new! What informs your work? Nothing intellectual...it is more on a-non verbal basis. Your work gives the effect of being both controlled and free-flowing – is this any indication of the way you work? My work becomes only good when I am in the flow…control is hindering! When you are creating an image do you consider a viewer other than yourself, or are you simply concentrating on your own perception? There is no other viewer than me! At different points in art history, claims have been made that painting is dead – do you think there will always be new cycles in painting? (E.G., digital painting) Yes... Nothing is Dead! BCN continues to become more popular and international – as an artist do you have any positive or negative response to this? Barcelona is a wonderful city to live…I really love it here! Art you can make everywhere—sometimes better in the worst places! I didn’t ask what those worst places might be. I did, however, learn that for a long time Maier never thought of selling his works or having them hang on walls. “I never saw myself as an Artist. (What really is an Artist...?... strange word!)” Having painted since he was seventeen, he says that for many years he destroyed his paintings. “I love changes and destruction. (Because it is always a new, surprising, wonderful beginning!)” Perhaps Maier’s attitudes reveals a more fundamental aspect of himself as a Barcelona artist than he cares to admit - qualities of defiance, intellectual playfulness and willful mutability that are ultimately very much in tune with the city and its artistic history. In any case, his work speaks for itself.
MASQUERADE Phyllis Galembo NYC www.galembo.com Every child has their favorite holiday. For many it’s Christmas or Hannukah, because of the exchanging of gifts and treats; for others it’s the 4th of July, thanks to the fireworks and barbecues. For Phyllis Galembo, the honor was shared but both involved costumes and transformation. In the Jewish holiday, Purim, wearing a skirt covered in golden bric a brac and a veil changed you into a Biblical heroine; and at Halloween, you could throw a sheet thrown over your head and you became a menacing spirit. In Galembo’s elaborately staged earliest photographs, crepe paper streamers or cellophane grass and plastic eggs, transformed friends into birds of prey or a topsy turvy Easter basket. Cheap and found materials were reworked to create magical results. In 1985 Phyllis traveled to Nigeria on the advise of a friend. There she had the rare opportunity to photograph Preists and Preistesses in ceremonial regalia, in their ritual shrines. Here she witnessed the power of ritual clothing, objects and the related ceremonies. In the the ‘90’s Ms. Galembo collected hundreds of American Halloween costumes. This material became the book Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade. In 2004 Galembo returned to Nigeria to Cross River where she photographed masquerades at funerals, purification rituals, and harvest festivals. In Africa, masking, or masquerade, fulfills numerous purposes. Some are initiations into adulthood, others ensure fertility for the land and the community, while still others settle scores and disputes. Her continued interest in masquerade led her to return to photograph the Devils of Sierra Leone, the Makishi of Zambia and the greased bodies of the Ekpo masquerade of Calabar. From 1994-2009, Galembo photographed Karnaval in Jacmal, Haiti, examining the influences created by the diaspora of the African people through slavery. Phyllis’ next adventure - China. by Paul Bridgewater-NYC
In her upcoming book, Maske (due to be released in October by Boot Publishing), Phyllis has photographed in Haiti, Nigeria and Zambia. The images are beautiful, startling and sometimes frightening. Phyllis Galembo’s other books are Divine Inspiration from Benin to Bahia (1993), Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti (1998) and Dressed for Thrills, 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade (2003). We’ve included two images from Dressed for Thrills, Topsy and Jester Mask, to further illustrate how the African influence has been disseminated, even into American Halloween. PB
StoryTailors www.storytailors.pt / Fotografia_By Pedro Matos Conceito,Styling,realização e Make up Jorge Serio In colaboration With Mirage www.mirageimageproductions.com
Model Roxana Avram / Karacter www.karacter.pt / special guest Custodio Post Produção by Ginger Candy www.gingercandy.pt Pedro Filipe Hair by www.griffehairstyle.com Helena Vaz Pereira
StoryTailors
Shoes - “Mango” and “El Cavallo” Stockings - “o rei das meias” - Lisboa Walking cains - “Chapelarias Azevedo Rua Lda.” - Lisboa
JOSE MARIA BUSTOS aka DJ Bosco SINGAPORE www.visualmerchandisingasia.com As an artist it is my obligation and responsibility to comment on and reinterpret today’s social and political events from a spiritual and even a moral point of view, albeit metaphorically, thus allowing the viewing public to question, ponder, interpret and discuss the artwork and come to terms with whatever emotional experience the works might evoke in them. While each individual will experience these works differently, I have tried to remain true to the same artistic concerns – superstition, prejudice, disenfranchisement, suffering, exclusion, religion and spirituality – that have permeated my work since the early 60’s and it is my hope that through these works perhaps an element of any of these concerns might be transmitted to the viewer in some sense or another. With this group of large-format paintings my intent was to deliberately move away from the more decorative concerns of art and into my own world of dialogue and imagery.
ENCHANTED EAST VILLAGE SALLY DAVIES – NYC
www.sallydaviesphoto.com
The Lower East Side exists in a parallel universe in Sally Davies’ photographic series, My New York. A native of Canada, Ms. Davies has called New York home for 28 years; her interpretation of it is at once seductive and fresh. Building facades are secretive and beckoning. Brick walls and metal burglar bars form staccato patterns against glowing colors. Cars are stationary, hulking monuments. Graffiti constitute latter-day cave paintings. Doors have faces. Once-solid sidewalks are made of liquid or foam. Tethered to one of the ubiquitous parking signs, a bicycle is a fairytale steed awaiting its rider. My New York is a sublime expression of urban life where gaiety veils dereliction, artistic expression stands in for humanity, and one’s imagination takes a surreal stroll on Avenue A. - Wendy McDaris, Independent Curator, NYC
AFRO
DIVA Mirage
by
www.mirageimageproductions.com Fotografia e Pos produção_By Pedro Matos assistido por Frederica Santos Conceito,Styling,realização e Make up _Jorge Serio
AFRO
DIVA
Model Elizabeth Light Models www.lightmodels.pt Sweaming suit : “ Agua Doce” / Bracelets : “Nuno Baltazar” Sunglasses : “Dior”
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Andrea Splisgar Michael Maier Phyllis Galembo Jose Maria Bustos Sally Davies Storytailors Pedro Matos / Jorge Serio
www.dermondaenetiger.com www.m-a-i-e-r.com www.galembo.com www.visualmerchandisingasia.com www.sallydaviesphoto.com www.storytailors.pt www.mirageimageproductions.com