Issue #2: Light and sound
the only shape
THE LIttle friends of printmaking paolo domenico dorothy shoes
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The Light & Sound Issue It's here! The long-awa ited second issue of theonlyshape is ready for your kind eyes to grace it's pa ges. We've got some fantastic submiss ions for your eyes and ears, and som e awesome feature articles showcas ing some incredibly talented peop le from all over the world.
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contributors...
ALEX CASTEELS // AN GHARAD HARROP // ARA MAS RIDGE // CARO GO CATHERINE ASHLEY NZALEZ // // DAMIEN GOLBIN // DANIEL ARAB // DEBORA JOHN BURRAGE // KAI H BESANA // TLIN BECKETT // Carlo S Paolo Espiritu // LIZY LAUTERBACH // LEON KAY // NATHALIE THERY // GA LATEA MANCINI // OLL WRIGHT // SEAN DAG I MOON // SARA AN WOOD // TIM PEN NELS // XANDER ASH a special mention WELL to suzi corker for
magazine and selling
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Dorothy Shoes
Illustrator & Fine Arti
st
The weird world of Dorot
hy Shoes, in pictures
Paolo domenico
Digital Artist & Ill ustrator
Italian illustrator's am
azing surreal scenes
little friend printmaking s of
heroes of the silky
We talk trash with Milwa
sophie thouvenin
screen
ukee's hottest export
Photographer
French photographer's
seth fitts
world in miniature
Illustrator & Fine Arti
st
Seth's adorable creatu
OS Gemeos
res and peaceful still life
Patricia Armocida Ga
Oneironaut duo's folklor
llery
ic meanderings
tirelessly promoting the first issue of the 20 copies in a week . thanks suzi!
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photography
Our inn erL aby rin ths
lyrical messages of human imagination and longing fragments of dramatic scenes in a single, silent frame the frustrated idealist is a constant motif juxtaposed images are timeless fables ineffable moments hovering between the real and the surreal. characters in a series of monologues shedding a subjective light on its deepest shadows giving the unconscious a human face.
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Opposite: Daedelus Above: Dreyfus' Nightmare Left: Le petit rat du Larson Opera All images Š Dorothy Shoes
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Dorothy Shoes is a nervous insomniac, a black tea addict, and a part time voice-over actress. If that sounds like a bizarre entrĂŠe, then it's wellsuited. Her photography is a half-shut eye on hidden emotions, the inner labyrinths of the soul. She's a story teller, and be sure, her highly-staged and elaborate photographic fables are most carefully considered, a conscious decision for the unconscious mind. Based in Tours, France, but exhibiting in locales as exotic as Indonesia, Canada, Ukraine and New York, Dorothy is a woman who loves to travel. Curating her emotive menagerie of work is a labour of love, but for the self-taught photographer, it's all in a days work. Natural light and highly charged imagery is her bread and butter, and it's the shaky equilibrium between the mundane and the fantastic, the coherent and the crazed, that echoes throughout her work, giving the subconscious a human face. Dorothy's work can be seen here: e: monologues@orange.fr w: www.dorothy-shoes.com facebook.com/dorothyshoes
Main: Contre Nature Top: Mondanites Centre: La Guele du Loup Bottom: Rainy Day All images Š Dorothy Shoes
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Glowing It began in her eyes; magma awoke deep in craters, tinges were spotted in a glance as her eyelids flashed with flame and her hair blazed like beaches bathed in sun. The brightness spread from face and head to arms and legs, to tips of toes where glow worms thought they’d found a mate and soon all her skin grew luminous, so she’d lie at the lakeside like a fallen moon, adoring her reflection in the still night water. She’d wander the moors and find hares dumbstruck as she danced with the dragonflies and in the open fields she stole the stares of all the sunflowers. When she strode the cliffs the ships all lost their course and swarms of moths would flow behind her like a living cloak. Her love spared nothing, her heart as wide as light.
Poem by Sean Dagan Wood. www.seandaganwood.com Above Stills taken from improvisational dance piece by Angharad Harrop. www.angharadruth.co.uk
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feature: fine art
A recipient of the prestigious Special Mention of “Premio delle Palme 2009” Città di San Vito dei Normanni, Paolo lives and works in Modena, Italy. He works mainly in digital media. With a history in advertising, he started to work as freelance illustrator in 1992. First, working with many advertising agencies for print campaigns and communication, and later in the world of children’s illustration.
e: paolo@domeniconi.it w: www.domeniconi.it
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Top: "Stillness", Centre: "Silver River Tien Ho", Bottom left: "The Boat", Bottom right: "Prajapati" "Silver River" and "Prajapati" are presented by courtesy of the publisher, Sinnos Editrice, Italy.
Paolo domenico
Top Row: Catherine Ashley / www.catherine-ashley.tumblr.com/ Rest: Nathalie Thery / www.issuu.com/thery
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feature: Screenprint
say hello to my little friends... OS: Good morning! How are you both? LFOP: We're fine. It's windy here today... Which is a weird thing to say, I guess. OS: Well, you've made an Englishman feel comfortable by talking about the weather, so it's a good entrĂŠe! I hope I won't take up too much of your time on what I presume is your day off... LFOP: Oh! Then this will make you feel even more comfortable-- It's extremely gray and oppressive outside. And it's no problem, looking forward to it.
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The Little Friends of Printmaking are self-confessed cat-cuddlers. Milwaukee's Best Printmaking Duo tells us about their commitment to dairy, printing in pajamas, and how they were nearly known as "The National Association for the Advancement of Cray-Pas". OS: Can we start with the niceties first? Who are The Little Friends of Printmaking, and how did they come about? LFOP: We're JW & Melissa Buchanan, a husband-and-wife team of artist/designers
living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We met in art school, and started a fake club with the name The Little Friends of Printmaking, because we thought it would be funny. OS: Were there any other contenders for the name that you can remember? LFOP: The National Association for the Advancement of Cray-Pas, which is in such poor taste that we moved on immediately. OS: You're a husband-wife team; Does that change/affect your working/creative process? LFOP: Not particularly; But, I suppose, we
have nothing to compare it to. I mean, it's nice, because we love each other and stuff. I think you could tick that off as a plus. OS: How does it work with practicalities, for example? Does Melissa start something and JW finish it, or do you play a round of layer tennis? LFOP: We tend to start and finish projects together. That's been important for us. We feel like concept and research are things that are better off done together, and that oversight at the end stages is really useful. But the middle part, the work part, can go in any sort of direction, depending on the circumstances. OS: Has that developed since working together, or was that a conscious decision from the outset? LFOP: We started out thinking things needed to be 50-50 all the time, perhaps because we started working together in school, and there was a lot of (friendly and unfriendly) curiosity about our process. Teachers had a practical interest in the split of work, and students had a somewhat more cynical interest, speculating openly about which one of us was really doing the work. Which could be‌uncomfortable. Today, we work on more things individually, but this is 10 years on, when we have a fairly established aesthetic. OS: Did you collaborate at art school? LFOP: Yes, and in that context it's sometimes called "cheating". But our professors were patient and even encouraging. OS: I hope that wasn't as rare at your art school as it was at mine... LFOP: It was. We had to insist on it. We were a package deal. Ironically, some of our professors were famed for their collaborative work. OS: It's incredible how imposing a set of rules can in some circumstances enhance creative thinking and in others cripple it. LFOP: You just have to pick which rules to follow. We had to develop a renegade attitude. Which served us well because it's a struggle to get people to pay attention to art in the first place. OS: And has that attitude been tempered by time, or do you think it's still as fresh as your college days? LFOP: It's been beaten to a pulp. We've gotten soft. You can't do "us against the world" if the world kinda likes you. And to act like a rebel when you're succeeding just makes you look like a big baby. Just smile. Smile, and cut 'em. Philly-style! OS: So what happened next? I guess it was quite a natural step to set up shop together. How difficult was it in the early days, establishing the little friends as a business? LFOP: It was easier than we thought it would be, perhaps because we put so much work into pretending to be a business, that when we needed things to be real, it was just a matter of changing the context. OS: Can I ask about your working day? For want of a less clichÊd question, what's a day in the life of the LFOP like? LFOP: We wake up, we take calls and check emails. We get up quite late. We eat, we do Wii Fit, we start working. Then we work until way after dark. We print on the weekends; we rarely leave the house. There's a fair amount of cuddling with cats involved.
keep on reading!
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feature: Screenprint OS: What's on the Wii fit at the moment? LFOP: Wii Yoga, mostly. We have the game where bunny rabbits build a pile of garbage to the moon, that's good, although not much exercise. Wii games you can do from the couch seem to miss the point a little. OS: And cats... I take it they are a crucial part of the creative process? LFOP: I'd say so. Animals figure heavily in our work, and we have two prime examples of animal weirdness here in the house. Plus, they get us away from the desk. OS: It sounds like your working/printing space is at home; is it ever tricky to separate work and play, (do you even need to?) LFOP: To do the work that we do-- To stay up all night or deal with difficult clients, or just to do the volume of work we do- it's important to feel comfortable. And if inspiration strikes, well, I'm steps away from the studio. At one point, our print studio was offsite, but it didn't work for us. Screenprinting can be such hard, physical work that if you put us 3 miles from the studio, it may as well be on the moon. But I can be coaxed into printing all day if I can do it in pajamas. OS: Am I right in thinking that the majority of your work is silkscreened? Do you experiment with other printing techniques? LFOP: We were trained in all sorts of printmaking, but silkscreen is the thing you can do at home easily. And it's our favorite. We recently worked with Egress Press to do a run of lithographs, and we've done a bunch of letterpresses, with Studio on Fire, Tiny Showcase, Poketo, and others. The computer aspect of silkscreen makes it so convenient. Plus it's fairly green. I couldn't deal with solvents in the house. OS: Is the process a big consideration in the intial stages of your work? LFOP: Sure, although it gets a bit muddled, because we're often asked to do something for a non-silkscreen project that looks like our screenprinted work, and certainly the ins and outs of silkscreen are the main influence on our aesthetic in general. We do have to think about how something is going to be produced, but we can't have two completely different styles of work for two different means of output.
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OS: What else do you think has influenced you? Does where you're based or the music you listen to have a big affect on your work? LFOP: Milwaukee, and the whole rust belt aesthetic figures into our work a little. Music is a major obsession for us, but it doesn't figure into our work directly. Of course, that was our start, making concert posters. OS: Who was the first band you did a poster for as The Little Friends of Printmaking? LFOP: It was for Carrisa's Wierd and The Prom. It's not the kind of music we listened
"We basically had a nervous breakdown and had to throw out all of our original sketches and start over" to-- I don't even think we went to the show. But people liked the poster. That's the thing about concert posters: our love of music rarely figured into how they looked. We had a sort of vocabulary because we loved music, but
OS: Have you found that you can be more selective with clients as your popularity has grown? LFOP: Sure, that's true. I hate turning things down, though. I hate seeing something we were offered, done by someone else. I'm like, "Oh, that's the 'other' me? They're the B-squad Little Friends?" OS: Does it ever work the other way? Do you propose collaborations with some clients? LFOP: For the most part, they approach us. It wasn't always that way, and to be honest it probably keeps us from doing some interesting stuff, but how can you say no to the people who specifically want you? When we were starting out, if we saw something we thought was cool, we'd send off an e-mail saying so, and asking if we could be involved. And people did say yes, occasionally. OS: Would it be fair to say that humour plays a key role in the majority of your work, and if so, how easy is it to maintain that if your client doesn't agree/like what the message is? LFOP: Humor is the driving force of our work. We've done so many things just to make the other guy laugh. Humor is what attracted a following to our work in the first place. It's in the name we chose for ourselves right down through the work and everything else. I think our similar senses of humor are what attracted us to each other in the first place. Art school is full of mopes and dopes, it was a relief to finally meet someone like myself. I thought I got into the wrong line for a minute there.
it's better not to focus too much on the music itself, or things can be a little on-the-nose. OS: Does it help to have a little distance? LFOP: Yes, otherwise it can become a piece of fan art. The most difficult one for us in that regard was the Gang of Four poster, for the reunion show in London, because we love them and desperately wanted to impress them. We had to get over ourselves. The reality of making posters is you rarely get a job like that, where you love the artist, and so it isn't always such a problem.
OS: It's a great image. LFOP: Well, thanks. I mean it! We basically had a nervous breakdown and had to throw out all of our original sketches and start over. OS: Are there any other bands who you wouldn't want to work for, for that reason? LFOP: That's tough. You're asking us to turn people away? How dare you! We almost did a Jay Reatard thing and I had kind of the same horrible feeling. So he would have been one. The timetable didn't work out, it was last minute.
OS: Does making each other laugh play a key role in how your work develops? LFOP: Probably in the concept; and, if we're in a situation like you mentioned, where the client is a little stuffy, then when we're doing the detail work, we'll put in little touches of humor. We do have to do pretty much what the client says. They pay the bills. But we push it as far as we can. And in the concept process we go for humor and let them refuse it if that's not what they like.
we ain't done yet!
Title Page: "The Baddies" print series This Page: "Art Vs Craft Poster" Overleaf: "Tough Luck" All images Š The Little Friends Of Printmaking
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feature: Screenprint OS: You mentioned in a previous interview that you like watching TV shows like house makeovers and stare-at-the-freak documentaries... do you think any of the pop culture of your youth has informed the aesthetic and content of your work?
out this month. And the local airline had us do the cover of the in-flight magazine, so now Milwaukee is proud of us, I guess. We also won a local award for "Best Printmaking Duo" this year. Seriously-- I mean, were there other contenders?
LFOP: Well, when you say it like that... We do love oddball TV. And I think that sense of goofiness infects our content, for sure. We
OS: Does that feel like validation, to have your home town recognize you in those ways? LFOP: We weren't looking for validation from
"It's easy when you're starting out to feel impatient, like nothing is happening. that feeling is actually good, because it can drive you to work extremely hard on interesting work" do have a visual memory for stuff like that, things people have forgotten. Things we've forgotten. Images that stick in the mind. And that comes up when people talk to us about our work. We've grown up watching so many hours of television, but remembering so little of it. And that whole aesthetic of TV in the US during the 1970's and 1980's is so interesting and so anachronistic, it's surely an influence on our stuff. Misremembered things. Warped memories, like a bad vhs tape.
them, but it's nice to know that you're not operating in a vacuum. OS: Is Milwaukee a good place for artists and designers? LFOP: I'd say no-to-maybe. It's inexpensive, but without some of the opportunity you might find in Chicago. It's worked for us, because we weren't depending on local opportunities, but it could be a hard place to start out. If you like cheese, however, or crumbling factories... or motorcycle noise pollution 24/7, then this is the place!
like nothing is happening; and that feeling is actually good, because it can drive you to work extremely hard on interesting work. So just don't lose your cool. That time when nobody expects anything from you is a gift-you can do whatever you want. You get to say who you are and what you do, with no compromises, and that's the only time you'll get to do that. There have been times in our life that we wished we could have that time back and make a comic book, or do whatever. Big projects that don't pay but position you well and create a context around you. It's hard to justify taking 2 months off now, on a flier, because we always wanted to do "x." And do what you want, because this whole thing is less a career than it is your life. OS: I saw an interview with Paul Rand recently, where he said something to the effect "I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody else cares" LFOP: That's pretty much it. People respond to authenticity, and passion, for lack of a better word.
OS: I hear the beer is also commendable. LFOP: Yes, we're spoiled by that. We can't move to the coast, the beer won't be fresh.
OS: I believe it was also he that proposed that you spend 70% of your time working for money in order to spend the rest working at what you love. LFOP: I do think that it's possible to love the work you get paid to do, though. I feel like if you're not enjoying yourself, it's possible you're not doing it right. With all respect to Paul Rand, of course.
OS: So have all the local accolades and clients changed your thoughts on re-locating? Or is it the beer and cheese ties that bind you? LFOP: It's definitely given us pause. We're committed to dairy. If we were lactoseintolerant, we'd be long gone.
OS: It's the whole "do what you love, and people will pay you for it" thing. LFOP: Right. We've been lucky in that our personal work has driven our for-hire work. So, in a way we get to define what we want to do.
OS: What would you say to those just starting out in illustration/design/printmaking, who might see your position as an aspirational one? LFOP: I'd say to take advantage of what feels like spinning-your-wheels-time. It's easy when you're starting out to feel impatient,
OS: It sounds very much like you've won. Well, I don't want to keep you guys too long on your Sunday afternoon. Thanks for the interview! LFOP: Thanks very much. This was fun!
the little friends of printmaking can be found lurking at:
www.thelittlefriendsofprintmaking.com www.twitter.com/littlefriendsof
OS: There does seem to be an element of slightly adjusted/altered nostalgia in your work, and it's to your credit; you have a style that is both undeniably yours, yet references a culture that many can relate to, familiar almost to the point of being nostalgic. LFOP: We work hard not to quote things directly, and sometimes our wires get crossed when trying to remember what something looks like. We fill in the gaps with our own stuff, like in Jurassic Park with the frog DNA. OS: So what's next for you guys? Is there anything big/monumental in the pipeline that you can tell us about? LFOP: We've been doing a lot of work locally-Milwaukee has finally realized that we're here. Or maybe it's that we threatened to move. But we've done some branding stuff for a chain of grocery stores here that will come
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music
New New releases releases
dan le sac & scroobius pip LoGIC OF CHANCE
taken by trees east of eden
Dan Stephens and David Meads (better known as Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip) are a hip-hop duo, one part laptop electro wizard, one part slam poet. Their music is a mixture of insightful, timely, sometimes cutting lyrics and broken beats, glitchy melody, and well chosen samples.
Victoria Bergsman, former lead singer from the Stockholm band The Concretes, is the driving vocal force behind Taken by Trees. Their second album builds on the rootsy, clean sound of the first, with simplistic melody and friendly percussion being the aces in their pack. Look for the Guns N' Roses and Animal Collective covers.
www.myspace.com/horsefeathersmusic Like: Iron & Wine, The Shins, Bon Iver
www.danlesacvspip.co.uk Like: Flying Lotus, Sound of Rum, Gil Scott Heron
www.takenbytrees.co.uk Like: Feist, Émilie Simon, Bajka
flying lotus COSMOGRAMMA
belleruche Liberty ep
dodos time to die
Championed by Radio Matriarch Mary Anne Hobbs, Alice Coltrane's great-nephew Steven Ellison prefers to go by the alias Flying Lotus, or FlyLo to his afficionados. Cutting his teeth on the Adult Swim bumper music, his pioneering broken beats and trip hop sensibilities have brought him fame amongst the experimental hip hop scene. If Cosmogramma is anything like his previous offerings, we'll be playing it all summer.
In their brand new subterranean Hackney studio, christened the Cave, Belleruche are working on new noises – riffs, beats and ideas that are coming together for their heavily anticipated third album. Locked away into the night, fuelled by rum and coffee, and with no neighbours to throw a brick through the window, Kathrin deBoer, Ricky Fabulous and DJ Modest can turn up their amps and chase the sounds to where they want them to be.
It's sometimes what a band aren't that make them special. The Dodos aren't pretentious, showy, or particularly outspoken. It's their flaws and foibles that make them great, their lyrical potency and stomping melodies that make them loveable. Time to Die ticks all the boxes, and whilst doesn't have quite the same gut-wrenching qualities as "Visiter", makes for a solid listen.
www.flying-lotus.com Like: Bonobo, J Dilla, Hudson Mohawke
www.belleruche.com Like: Lack of Afro, Bajka, Freda Payne
www.dodosmusic.net Like: Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Califone
Horse feathers house with no home Justin Ringle’s delicate vocals don’t soften the blow of his weighty words; and while his fingerpicked melodies swimming neatly amongst the Broderick sibling’s string accompaniments might soothe the ear, they don’t trivialise the sentiment. Horse Feather’s latest offering doesn’t dawdle in nostalgia or revel in embellishments, this is very much a modern album, and every note is played with purpose.
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blurring the lines
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"The moment I want to have my camera in front of my eye is always a surprise, and it's always something urgent to me" Sophie Thouvenin is a movie eater. Her bones make strange sounds, and she is her own alter-ego. More importantly, though, her photography is a serene mixture of fragile balance and soft focus, reminiscent of the quieter youthful summer days you used to spend with your face in the grass, exploring a halfimagined miniature world. OS: Is photography your full time profession, or do you have an alter-ego? ST: I'm my own alter-ego. It means that photography is my full time profession, mostly my full time passion! OS: Where was your favourite place to exhibit, and why? ST: It was my first exhibition in Paris, 10 years ago, in a nice and friendly gallery. Because it was the first in Paris, maybe, and because I showed a lot of pictures (about 40), in all sizes and I enjoyed the people I met there. OS: Your photography, regardless of it's subject matter, always seems evocative; emotionally rich, but calm. Is that a conscious decision, or the way your photography has naturally progressed? ST: It's not a decision. I decide few things, regarding to photography. Because it comes from the bottom of my own roots, from my childhood. Maybe it means I had a beautiful childhood :)
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photography OS: Does music inspire you in any way, or sound? Do you listen to music while editing or taking photos? ST: There is no rule about the sounds or the music. I guess it inspires me unconsciously, while I'm in the nature, or while I edit my pictures. Of course, the mood of the music I'm listening has an impact, but I don't think about it very much. OS: Tell us a bit in your own words about your photography; What inspires you, what do you look for? ST: What inspires me is the light of the day. Or the subject I have at home or outside. It's very spontaneous. The moment I want to have my camera in front of my eye is always a surprise, and it's always something urgent to me. I look for the balance between colors, patterns and light, to find a kind of harmony. OS: Who is your ideal creative collaborator? ST: I would love to work with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who is my favorite movie maker. If I could hide myself on one of his sets, like a little mouse, I would love to make some pictures backstage. OS: Do you shoot film or digital (or both!), and do you participate in the digital/film debate? ST: I started with film (slides), a long time ago, and I started digital 6 years ago. I shoot with polaroid too and I really love it. I don't debate about "is it right or wrong ?". Everything is right if you feel comfortable with it. Sometimes, a subject needs to be seen with a polaroid, sometimes it needs digital. It really depends of the mood of the day, of the mood of the subject, what you want to feel or share. What I feel is that polaroid photography is related to nostalgic subjects. Digital is more a way to explore and to try things. I hope I will never have to choose, and I really hope that Polaroid will produce new films soon ! :) OS: What keeps Sophie Thouvenin busy? What's your favourite way of wasting time? ST: I'm a movie eater :) Cinema inspires me a lot. OS: Tell us one strange/unusual fact about you! ST: I don't know if making some noise with my bones is strange or unusual, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind!
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Overleaf: "Fireflies" Above Top : "Red Butterflies" Above Centre : "Cellular 1" Above Bottom : "Spring Jungle" Right: "Falling Gold" All images Š Sophie Thouvenin
SOPHIE THOUVENIN www.prismes.com prismes@gmail.com
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photography
Left: Damien Golbin / damien.golbin@gmail.com | Centre: Xander Ashwell / www.xanderashwell.co.uk | Right: Daniel "Seed" Arab / www.fd2d.com/profiles/daniel_arab
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Illustration
KAITLIN BECKETT www.a-curious-bestiary.com
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(Clockwise from top) "Molly on the Hill ", "Secret Knowledge of the Dragonfly", "Without Rest", "Heralding Bird", "Memory of a Leaf" , "Witness To", "Listening". All Images Š Seth Fitts
feature: fine art
Seth Fitts Seth Fitts is a southeastern U.S. artist who currently resides in Georgia. He graduated from the University of West GA in 2003 with a BFA in Painting. Seth’s body of work explores the realms of the human condition, the soul, the spirit, and imagination. Seth works in mostly traditional techniques of art making, combining them in mixed media applications. The substrate that is used varies due to Seth using reclaimed material in addition to wood, paper and canvas. In addition to being a fine artist, Seth is an aspiring illustrator and is currently working on developing a children's book with Aladdin Books.
e: sethfitts@netzero.com w: www.sesfitts.deviantart.com
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Review: exhibition
OS GEMEOS Patricia Armocida Gallery, Milan Italy can sometimes seem trapped by it’s grand artistic heritage, weighed down by it’s historic triumphs and masterpieces. It’s refreshing, then, to see contemporary art at it’s finest on display. I was fortunate to visit the Milan Triennale exhibition to revisit the work of Os Gemeos. I first came across Os Gemeos in 200, on display at the grandiose Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Building in Rio de Janeiro. This time however, the exhibition was hosted in the diminutive Patricia Armocida Gallery, situated in unremarkable basement set in the communal courtyard of a neighbouring block of flats. Patricia Armocida is a young gallery owner who promotes upcoming contemporary artists from all over the world. Identical twins, Os Gemeos (“The Twins”) are graffiti artists from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Born in 1974, they started their artistic career in the eighties, drawing inspiration from regional folklore and a very personal, oneiric interpretation of the world. Although they started out as graffitists, their work has recently taken a more traditional mixed-media route. Their work often features yellow-skinned people, elaborate textures augmented with beads and sequins, and installations in which the twins recreate personal spaces and rooms as metaphors of their imagination, combining found objects, video, memorabilia and paintings. The two brothers are now internationally recognised, commissioned on projects including giant murals on the façade of the Tate Modern in London (for their 2007 street art exhibition), collaborating with other artists on the exterior of Kelburn Castle in Scotland, and, most touchingly, a Memorial for the late graffiti artist Dash Snow in Lower Manhattan.
You can find out more about Os Gemeos at: www.lost.art.br/osgemeos.htm Words by Galatea Mancini Top right and bottom images by flick user break.things : www.flickr.com/photos/contortyourself Centre left image by flickr user t a i a : www.flickr.com/photos/tais
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Theonlyshape's
CHIEF GUMPTIONEER
An oneironautic pioneer in the most fashionable elbow-grease circles, a visual chef cookin' up the finest eyeball gumbo, serving up generous portions of the finest design pie. A mild-mannered design professional by day, a floppy-haired conjuror of magazines by night, Xander Ashwell is certainly not your average pixel-shuffler. With creative acclaims in varying forms (from such prestigious associations as the YCN and Digital Arts Magazine) tucked into his vast waistband, our swash-buckling gumptioneer dispenses his very own brand of mind-meltingly gorgeous design, photography and editorial with style, finesse, and aplomb. When not wreaking vicious vengeance against his varied and numerous nemises, Xander likes to potter around the garden, muttering about compost and questioning the cruel nature of any sort of omniscient diety that would allow someone to lose their trowel three times in one day.
Visit
www.xanderashwell.co.uk to see the gumptioneer-in-chief's work in all it's glory.
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WE WANT YOUR ART! theonlyshape magazine is always open to submissions from all creative fields. We don't charge you to submit work, and if we like it, we'll print it! Each issue is loosely themed. The theme of the next issue is:
environment The deadline for submissions is:
15th AUGUST
artWork size: at least 30cm wide/high at 300dpi music: mp3/aiff/wav format Poetry/Creative Writing: doc/rtf format
Send us your work at: www.theonlyshape.com/submit
(or send it to xander@theonlyshape.com)