ART
Special Edition
H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y
A r t
R e v i e w
STEPHANIE SHERWOOD TANYA BUB THADDEUS LAUGISCH EDGAR INVOKER DEAN DABLOW SUNGJAE LEE MEHNOUSH MODONPOUR SHARMAINE THERESA PRETORIUS IRINA BULA
Irina Bula
ART
ART
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C o n t e m p o r a r y
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A r t
S R e v i e w
Stephanie Sherwood
Thaddeus Laugisch
Mehnoush Modonpour Dean Dablow
Sharmaine T. Pretorius
Sungjae Lee
USA
USA
Canada / Iran
USA
R. S. A. /Oman & Bulgaria
USA
The elevation of abject forms fascinates me—raw meat splayed out on a cutting board or stuffed into a plastic container; fleshy shapes bound within a rigid cage; haphazard fabric, plastic and paper cast aside in a shopping cart. The stark contrast of chaos within structure strikes a sort of unexpected beauty. My explorations begin with strong lines and progress with thick paint. Recently, the expression of these fleshy obsessions has manifested into sculptural forms using cardboard, wood and leather. They have even become urban art interventions on discarded furniture in Los Angeles. The Confine series is a body of work that is defined by imagery of soft, fleshy forms bound within the rigidity of a cage; they are an exploration of the inherent tension between the two entities. The In Situ body of works are paintings on the surface of discarded furniture on the streets of Los Angeles.
Born and Raised in Bellevue, NE. Thaddeus(‐t.) took to creativity at an early age. Being self‐taught, he would re‐draw images at different scales by following the contours and shapes of an existing image. Focusing on comic book characters, and later creating posters by recreating album cover art for school friends, he decided to take an art class his Junior year of high school. From there he began pulling canvas using acrylic, throwing clay, and experimenting with other materials that were available come his senior year in Art Thesis. During his senior year, Thaddeus spent three hours daily in the school’s art studio where he decided to be referred as “‐t.” when it came to his art as he didn’t want to sign his long name on each painting he did.
Born in Tehran, Iran, as a woman, I have experienced revolution, immigration, war and different cultures in varying phases of my life. Throughout these experiences my work has often gone outside the “traditional” boundaries of my culture. My work would seem to defy certain concepts that I have been taught to ‘obey’.I have come to believe that ignorance is the source of human suffering. However, my work shows a break from my cultural traditions and beliefs while also showing the consequences that comes of ignorance. With my personal life experiences and understandings of different cultures and religions, I also believe in human connection and equality despite differences in ethnicity, gender, religion and culture, and that we are ONE and apart of Nature. Not only do we have to be able to bring the balance in our mind, body and soul, but, also, in our nature and environment.
Work stimulates more work and, in turn, work leads to questions that lead to more questions. I follow these questions to a tangible visual object, the residue of thought. I am a photographer, sculptor, and painter, with painting being my present interest. Over the years, working as an artist, I have found that painters and photographers are different simply for one fact. A painter begins a new work on an empty canvas while a photographer’s "canvas" (the viewfinder) is always full. Painters are free to include anything they wish in their canvases. Photographers, by necessity of the mechanics of their tool, must eliminate or include what is before them, cropping to only the essentials of the idea. They must always contend with the real. However, as faithful to the reality a photograph may appear to be, a photograph can never be the actual object.
Sharmaine is a high – end, South African artist, living in the Sultanate of Oman, deep inside the desert in Nizwa, an ancient Arabic city. She has been described as the ‘essence of an extraordinary gifted mind’ because of her prodigally styled, intellect and intricate artistic drawings which include hidden puzzles and musical compositions. She holds more than 600 continues educational credits spanning, neurological psychology, medical and forensic science, aviation mechanics and management as well as multi - cultural mediation and negotiation and adaptability; spread over the safety and security, health and emergency service fields of which none includes art. She gained international recognition as an emerging artist in 2017, particularly for her drawing named ‘Mars Trojan – Elon – The Shroud (5517A)’ circling in low space orbit on the Asgardia-1 nanosat cube, with one other work of art. GAA Foundation invited her to exhibit at Venice Biennale, 2022. Also, a member of the ‘Yali Network’.
Although I repetitively sew threads and draw lines for days and months, it is hard to grasp 'how they are going to look like.' I tend to plan a daily routine for a short-term discipline, and to anticipate the overall direction for several years' path, but I can surely assume that it won't be as they are planned. Knowing this, I think that it will be the same or even more unpredictable for the things I create. It has been 10 years since I started my career as an artist. During this decade, a re-visited restaurant that I used to like is gone, and a lady I adored is now wrestling with a peevish baby. Once I'd imagined that I would create the most cutting-edge artworks by fully utilizing advanced technologies, but I see myself happy to do the sewing and to make small drawings by putting the proper amount of paints on the nib of a pen. While I was washing my dusty hands at home, my 2-year-old son, who recently started talking, asked what I'd drawn or painted.
In this issue
Sungjae Lee
4
Thaddeus Laugisch
32
Stephanie Sherwood
56
Dean Dablow
78
Mehnoush Modonpour
Sharmaine T. Pretorius Tanya Bub
Edgar Invoker
Irina Bula
USA
Russia
Bulgaria
Every piece of driftwood contains the unique and secret story of its origins and journey in its curves, colors and contours. The foundwood in these portraits, some of which comes from trees that lived to be hundreds of years old, made its way from various parts of the world finally coming to rest on the rugged shores of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Being aggregates of such driftwood, each portrait derives beauty and character from the varied histories of its parts; their humanity arising from the complex migrations and diverse beginnings of the elements of which they are comprised. These portraits invite the viewer to consider that where we come from and what we experience along the way contributes to our individuality. The undeniable uniqueness that stems from the difference in our roots and the paths we follow is in fact a powerful common thread that binds us together and makes us distinctively human. The transformation from a collection of tens or even hundreds of pieces of driftwood, selected by the artist for color, form, size and texture, into a distinctive portrait involves an iterative process of combining and interlocking the found-wood until a “person” emerges, as if from a puzzle.
For last several years I’ve been interested in consciousness, cognition, machine learning and AI. What fascinates me the most is how human’s consciousness adjusts itself during the perception of external world.
My artistic works invite people to understand themselves more deeply, feel empathy, find common values and notice the beauty in small things. What fascinates me about artistic medium is that I can to move the viewer from vanity into another reality and return him an atmosphere of harmony and peace.
There are some mechanisms of such adjustments that I’m curious about above others. For instance, one of them is categorizing the information perceived into groups or “catalogues” which are then utilized to recognize new objects. Another one is false memories and circumstances under which those are being developed. Last but not least – perception mistakes that occur during object recognition or when consciousness alters different states. The actual moment of object recognition I consider crucial in artistic act. Main creative question I’m trying to answer in my works is whether we able to discover something beyond known while interpreting familiar objects or is it gonna be always trapped within predetermined catalogues of memory? For that purpose I often reproduce digital images by analogue means. This way I strive to melt several visual languages into a new one – being a metaphor to discovering the unknown.
Irina Bula was born on April 14th, 1970 in Riga. In 1994 she was graduated from the Latvian Academy of Arts with a Degree in painting and sculpture.She took an active part in the exhibitions of main Galleries of Riga, such as «Center», «Daugava» and «Riga». She collaborated also with the American Art company and made the decorative sculptures for the «Vatican», «White house» and museums. In 1998, she emigrates to Luxembourg where she continues her active work both as a teacher of Arts in the Russian and English schools (sculpture and painting) and as an independent artist.
Edgar Invoker
Tanya Bub Irina Bula
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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seeges, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner.
Bulgarian mixed media sculptor
<Her Real Secret: Bosom Wafting> Multi-channel video,
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video, 2013
variable size, 20 min loop animation, 2021 422 0
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Jordi Rosado
<Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, 4 03 x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2021 Special Issue beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h)
Sungjae Lee An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Sungjae and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.sungjaelee.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: after having earned your BFA in Cartoons and Animations, and MFA in Experimental Animation, that you receive from the California Institute of the Arts, USA: how did experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background due to your South Korean roots and your current life among two countries direct your current artistic research? Sungjae Lee: Hello, ART Habens! It is a great honor for me to introduce my works. Looking back at a couple of memories that triggered me to consider making artworks, the influential experiences were subtle but they remained for a long time so that I kept envisioning how great it would be if my works were invited to prestigious exhibitions and museums. As you mentioned, my interest in cartoons and animations for my university education implies the childhood dream of mine to become a cartoonist. In my junior semester, I happened to join some classes that led students to use techniques of animation as a tool to create artistic videos like motionengaged paintings.
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study. During the 3 years at CalArts, I went through such dramatic turning points regarding not only technical aspects, but stories and contexts that my works need to deal with. Such experiments were possible because the MFA program at CalArts let me meet experts in the areas where I needed to learn new and deep sources for digital renderings. Also, I was happy to appreciate the art works in-person visiting renowned museums that I saw mostly in textbooks in S. Korea, and this experience
After my undergrad graduation, it was a pleasure for me to create those videos all by myself, and I participated in several group exhibitions with those videos little by little. I think that is how I started my career by considering my life to become a working artist. Showcasing my works, at the same time, I was preparing to study abroad, especially in the US, and I ended up going to CalArts for my MFA
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<Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h) x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2021 Special Issue
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naturally brought me to the place where I could think ‘it is no longer the world I watched on TV, I am in here.’ The deeply rooted my Korean identity helped me objectify everything around me during the first several years in the US. Especially the restricted circumstances as a visitor has brought many questions that I would've looked over. One of the most critical issues that I had to get was housing, especially after marriage. Since the rental situation for housing was very different from the one in Korea, specifically the rate, it was always terrifying to see the due. It is funny because I thought that art was a pure beauty that is far from the daily human struggles, but the series of my current projects were all born with such matters. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way it invite the viewers to explore and question the concepts of time, materiality and movement, challenging their perceptual categories and engaging them into such immersive and multilayered experience: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea of Her Real Secret? Sungjae Lee: ‘Her Real Secret’ is a project that gives so much meaning to me as a creator, and it also worked as a huge turning point in my practice. And the story of how it was created comes from my early video works. As I briefly said in the first question, my career began with videos and their installations. After my MFA study, I had several events that I had to seriously think about my works; although my videos were invited to honorable exhibitions, I had to find deeper answers why I use digital media. In addition, since the conceptual
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<Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother> Lace, thread, beads, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 9.5(h) x 8(w) x 1.5(d) ft, 2 direction of the works around that period went abstract and larger, like cognitive matters, I ended up confronting a point where I no longer was able to explain it clearly and personally.
session, my videos were not properly played due to issues of displayers, and my words about them sounded too ambiguous to know what my intrinsic intention was. Until the street became very dark, I walked around the town asking “Where are my works?” and “Why me, Sungjae Lee, want to make art and what I can truly talk about?” These questions remained in my heart
In the early 2016, I still remember it was slightly snowing, and I just came out from a critique with actual works of mine in Connecticut; in the critic
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021 and I had to find the answers. Coming back to California, I tried to make at least two changes: using tangible materials and talking about myself no matter how trivial it was. Then I found a leftover thread in my studio and I came up with the memories about my aunt who raised me. That is how ‘Her Real Secret’ was initiated. My mother was busy when I was young, so she
asked her younger sister to take care of me on behalf of her. (It took a lot of time for me to know that my aunt even had to quit her job for it.) To me she was like my mother and it was funny to see how I looked like her more than my parents. When I was about 4 years old, the aunt
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<Her Real Secret: Dress Well> Double-channel video embedded in a drawer, motor, lace, 5 min loop animation, 1 suddenly left Korea with her sister’s family (my mom has two younger sisters) for the US in the early 90’s. It was very emotional for me to let her go and I kept counting when she was coming back to Korea because she promised to be back in 7 years. Often she sent me gifts like
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Nintendo, M&M's chocolates, LEGOs, VHS version Lion King, etc. On AFKN, TV stars were continuously broadcasted; Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Macaulay Culkin and NBA, MLB, and all the great Hollywood movies show how wonderful the US was. Throughout my youth, I
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6” x 20” x 8”, 2021 imagined my aunt and how she lives there and naturally I regarded the US almost like heaven. Like others in the era, I looked up to America and its culture. I think that such admiration for the US kept smearing into my unconsciousness to go there. It took a little more than 20 years, I finally
went to the US for my master degree, and since then I lived there for 8.5 years. The time gradually changed how I felt about the place with my new circumstances; my status shifted from an international student to a part time worker to a married working artist. No matter
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video works (Oxymoronic Panorama) considering its basic concept; how we see the same thing in different ways. Like the same way, my understanding about the US was far more ambiguous when I grew up in Korea because I was exposed to mainly the bright side, and it was getting closer and more realistic through my school period and significantly living in L.A. on my 3-year artist visa after graduation. I might say that I became more cynical as I spent years confronting issues for my life like visas, medical insurances, and rents, so at some point I naturally shared those subjects with my wife, and friends.
how consistently I pursued my dream, reality was getting closer to me, and the most impending issue to me turned out to be money. That was how I seriously thought of how the system of capitalism has been founded to support spirituality like Puritan’s evacuation, political justice, and human rights. In the whole year of 2017, I kept looking for a breakthrough by finding non-digital materials, and referring to the story about my aunt, my journey to the US and the life in Los Angeles. From my old memory, Barnett Newman’s color field painting was in my textbook during my art class that implies the spiritual experience that the painter had. And I was fascinated with fabric patterns, and structures of the buildings from mega shopping malls. After that, I tested multiple times to build a semi 3-dimensional structure that adopted the middle zip composition from Newman’s ‘Onement’ out of laces and threads I bought at the malls. This is how ‘Her Real Secret’ began.
The one-bed apartment my wife and I used to live in L.A. Korea town had fewer sun beams, so it was mostly dark even in the morning. And I usually had online freelance jobs, so unless there were any in-person meetings, I stayed home all day long. At least more than 3 times per year, I had to visit Beverly Hills shopping center to purchase gifts for my family, and I still vividly remember how fresh and even sacred it was. The clean air, dazzling lights, escalators that take me higher and higher (it was so contrasty compared to my living room studio.) It was culturally a little different when the workers introduced themselves with their names and smiles, and I liked it pretty much because such welcoming gestures made me think that I was involved in the society.
You often draw inspiration from direct experience, as you did for <Her Real Secret: Onement> that deals with the story about the United States of America, a country where you lived for 8 years: how does your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Moreover, do you think that your artistic research responds to a particular cultural moment? Recently, I see the holiest comes from the most ordinary; like industrious workers who sustain our society, house chores, and childcares. Since the moment where I conceived Her Real Secret, my personal experiences from life greatly influenced my artistic practices. And this routine has affected how I get inspired to embark on new projects; I try to capture very common phenomena near me and think how this happens. To tell you some related details, please let me go back to Her Real Secret a little further.
Before and after my wife and I married, my wife sometimes liked to visit lingerie stores with me. More than she was, I loved the interior designs, patterns of fabrics, and colors that were applied to the merchandise and signboards. This experience made me visualize something that was ritual, and spiritual like Barnett Newman may have gone through while he was painting the large canvases. As the artworks that I was working on was retrieving their physicality and I was pursuing large scales as much as my studio allowed, then transportation became another assignment for me to resolve. Thankfully, the
Sungjae Lee: Although the context and the visual aspects became much more personal and physical, Her Real Secret was still in line with my
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<Absorption: Paisley and Perm> nib pen, gouache on paper, 6” x 6”, 2021
<Absorption: Paisley and Perm> nib pen, gouache on paper, 6” x 6”, 2021
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More specifically we definitely love the way your artworks almost urge the viewers to elaborate such a wide number of interpretations. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openness of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood?
materials I chose were relatively light and collapsible, so it was possible to pack them in 1/10 sizes into a small suitcase or a cardboard box. And it was always funny for me to explain what it was by saying “this is a stretchable artwork!” Moreover, since the characteristics of my installations and pen drawings are extremely fragile and meticulous, there were a couple of cases where some visitors in my opening went to talk to my wife and they applauded her effort to create them, then she pointed at me to let them meet me, not her. Not only the work itself of the series of Her Real Secret, but also I love the timeconsuming process of its creation and the events for showcasing them. With this work, I met so many people who enjoyed it (even I met my first US collector), and the process of bringing the pieces from California to other states and Korea were risky to preserve their best conditions but I always had to find the plan A-C. Also, one day in my studio I felt that my works are like daughters. In the mid-August of this year, I shipped two of my installations to China, and I sincerely prayed for them and told them “Have a safe trip and come back to me soundly!” Therefore, everything I experience with my creations becomes invaluable fuel to carry on my acts for art. Speaking of ‘my works’ response to a particular cultural moment,’ I didn’t particularly intend to highlight any cultural contexts, but just naturally my Korean background was juxtaposed to the experiences from the US. Simply, all the creations from me is about me, and I try to maintain consistency regardless of where I am.
Sungjae Lee: Before answering this question, I believe that messages could possibly and generally be neutral. This means people take partially or somewhat differently depending on their circumstances. In this manner, I feel that I have relatively fewer authority to consider the degree of openness. I would like to share a presentation I had this year that let me think about the artwork that works as a mediator.
When I was young, I thought flowers exist for beauties, but they are actually a part of the strategy for their survival in nature. I just want to live who I am and hopefully things in me can reveal themselves via how I survive in art.
In July of this year (2021), I had a chance to make a pitch for a solo show opportunity, and one of the jurors in the session asked me a question about ‘Newness,’ by commenting “I understand your passion to work on such delicate drawings and installations, but where would you like to find the newness? There have been many artists who dedicate their time to illustrate those details like yours.” My answer was like “Yes, I absolutely agree with you. To find the newness, however, I’ve done experiments with advanced technologies for more than 6 years. As I went further with technical research, at some point I felt as if I was lying to myself, because a few moments I was so embarrassed to make vague responses to questions about the relationships between me and my work. It took several years, and I’ve so far tried to use the most friendly tools (like nib pens) and relevant materials to resolve issues with physicality.
An extremely interesting aspect of your artistic research deals with the portraying the infinitesimal part of whole objects, that you expand, creating new kind of hybrid languages.
Even though a number of artists have done the similar things that I am working on, I can now say that I am proudly on my way.” Interestingly, ever since I started embracing who I was with my
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trivial stories, I saw that more people resonate their lives with my works. Some see their families in my context, and some read materiality along with how the installations occupy physical spaces. To be honest, I don’t know how much I want to open my works to be understood, but the thing I can do is to ask myself whether I am truly into the process of my works with less hesitations and regrets or not. Like other creators say, viewers already know how to project the unintended stories onto artworks on their own. Good artworks, thus I personally believe that, intermediate things like water; it is up to you what to mix to make something that you want to get like coffee, tea, or beer… Meticulously structured, your works feature such great care to the details, unveiling the bridge between the ideas that you explore and their tactile materialization. We sometimes tend to forget that a work of art is a physical artefact with tactile qualities, and we really appreciate the way, through sapient materic translation, your artistic production highlights the materiality among the viewer: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? Sungjae Lee: Add one or two paragraphs about physicality: about materiality and their possibilities for further and new artworks. As I mentioned in the second question, it was deeply shocking for me to feel the absence of my works when I mainly focused on digital-based moving images. I can say that I am an industrious artist more than a talented one, that implies how passionate I was to devote everything of mine to the videos I made from 2011 to 2016. Of course, videos have wonderful strength in terms of its infinity in both physical and online venues, RGBoriented vividness, and most fascinatingly motions. Whereas, there is an absolute condition for it: more advanced devices guarantee better quality of outputs, sadly, I
<Her Real Secret: Onement in wh Special Issue
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ite no.1> Disassembled lingerie, cotton & nylon thread, weight, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 66’ x 64” x 18”, 2019 21 4 16
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<Her Real Secret: Onement in red no.1> 23 4 17 Special Issue Disassembled lingerie, cotton & nylon thread, weight, acrylic paint, and 18k gold leaf, 90” x 85” x 15”, 2018
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that you gather and combine several conflicting symbols that nonetheless can be regarded as having the same origin. We really appreciate such stunning organic quality of your artworks, as well as the way they allude to meaning through symbolic and visual references: how do you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic practice? And how important is it for you to create artworks rich of allegorical qualities?
could not always afford such qualified equipment by myself. Accordingly, the opportunities to meet the audience went fewer and I realized even digital works should be properly supported with physical hardware to be acknowledged. It was more like a practical decision that I had to choose material-based installations experiencing the limits with my videos. In my studio, I could finally expect how it will be set up at shows near 90% that I wanted it to be. The external factors were reduced because the materials I used for my fiber installations and drawings on paper were fully controllable: no unexpected systemic errors or power offs, and the affordable cost of creation helped a lot. Furthermore, in the bright gallery space, I was happy to see the faces of visitors, and they looked as if they were having warm skinships with my works. Often it becomes suddenly harmonic if we meet and talk to each other no matter how the hatred is deeply rooted. I assume that that is because all of us remember the first encounter with mothers in their bosom on the bare skin. My youth through the early 90's was heartwarming; without phone calls, kids just came out home to meet their friends, and they drew lines on the ground then played together by jumping and running. Probably I am a person from that generation, so it is more appealing for me to use my hand and see things with my eyes. When we leave home, we know that we will come back later. The moment I moved on to the material-based projects, I sensed that I will have to come back significantly to the video in the future. Due to this feeling, I’ve been looking for ways to combine the installations like Her Real Secret with videos, specifically I would like to set up rear projected walls then hang the fiber installation on the stage.
Sungjae Lee: First of all, I would like to mention that I initiated collecting diverse impressions from a single origin while I was working on my MFA thesis project, This Uncertain Conversation. This project was the first attempt to abstract figurative images from landscapes, and before this one, I enjoyed portraying representative forests and minuscule human and animal characters. It was back in 2013, I happened to revisit my very first collector who installed a large TV monitor to display one of my videos that was an animated forest. When I met him again, he threw a critical question; “The repetition from the 3-min looping video is now too predictable to watch more.” Obviously, I didn’t have a clear answer for him, then I wanted to see what I could really illustrate observing a real mountain. My wife and I (that time we were dating before our marriage), went to the northern part of S. Korea and found a beautiful mountain in summer. I videographed it for a while and was tempted to walk into it, and it was the moment I seriously sensed how the vision changed. From a distance, within the leaves above us, and even when we crawled into a cave, the same mountain gave me so many variations of herself. Then I came back to California and started merging the impressions from the mountain by abstracting them within a 30-min long duration moving image. From this project, using digital media, and to Her Real Secret using tactile materials, almost all of my projects offer how a
It seems to take some time, but I will find the possible time and methods. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, the work process of your projects seems to be
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branch of a project, Birth of Mother, and from time to time I feel exhilarated to go over area with unused symbols in my previous projects. For example, I was conceiving a new form of an installation from my wife’s experience of giving birth in 2019, and applied red tone to most of the works in this series. For the choice of red color, I fell into complicated reasons like symbols of femininity or etc., but Miyoung cleared it out by saying “It is just blood, that is it.”
thing looks uncertainly different and changes. As you used the word ‘allegorical qualities,’ I have a process to select the best path for me to invite viewers to read my works in the way that I experienced. Yes, still I am very open to possibilities for people to go their own ways as I said in the previous answer, and I am even surprised to see that some appreciations that I was told by viewers explained much profound thoughts that I couldn’t imagine by myself. In terms of the role of symbols in my works, it is crucial for me to come up with the most personal symbols that trigger my memories, because they let me persuade myself to move on to the executions. Sometimes, I tend to fall into a pitfall where the allegorical path via materials I choose is so far from the initial notions that only blurry confusions were filled with the artworks. The worst scenario is the situation where I can’t even fully talk about them. Allegories are effective tools to infer various backgrounds, but like a double-edged sword, they possibly could mislead artworks to the points where the creations can be hurt by hatreds or discriminations. I admit that I need to study deeply and use the signs and symbols as carefully as possible with correct words on them. It is hard. It is challenging to set up the range of symbolic interpretations as a creator.
Another interesting project of yours that has particularly impressed us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled OXYMORONIC PANORAMA and we really appreciate the way it expands and even trascends the nature of human perception: are you particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception? Sungjae Lee: Thank you for the warm feedback to OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. I feel that the realm of perception and its beyond is becoming the overall concept that goes to all my works, not particularly for this series. The approach of OXYMORONIC PANORAMA can simply be categorized as a digital landscape painting. As it's been explained a couple of times in this interview, these digital moving images are based on multiple impressions from the same origin, and I was into how the gap between my understanding and the landscape itself exists. From a significant distance, it can be reduced into a geometric form but the micro complexities in the details can fully be observed inside the scenery. From this research, I feel that only the uncertainties are left by my limited human perception. Around 2014, I listened to a brief explination about Immanuel Kant’s philosophy that took me to a place where I can’t fully understand what the real world is. Then the idea partially was mixed with the concept of OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. At some moment, I
Currently, I talk to myself to see the simple and personal ways to do things not just for art, but the way to live and think about my life as well. (Maybe this is because I am lately so used to talking to my baby using easily understandable expressions.) After making several symbolic misleadings, I realized how important it is to have a good colleague to share feedback, and thankfully my best friend gives such helpful comments on my works, my wife Miyoung. Currently, my interest in maternal love is a main theme for a new
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<Floating Drawing: Spherical Sphere no. 1> Nylon, cotton thread, sinker and acrylic paint, 60-inch diameter, 2017
<Floating Drawing: Spherical Sphere no. 1> Nylon, cotton thread, sinker and acrylic paint, 60-inch diameter, 2017
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understood that the only thing I tried to capture was the flow of perceptual shifts with abstract forms that slowly transform.
ART Habens
Modern Art Museum, the Studios at MASS MoCA, I had a valuable experience of how the scale of display can offer audiences such special experiences and how touching it was. In the middle of my residency at MASS MoCA, luckily James Turrel’s light installation room was finished, so I had a chance to appreciate it.
I am now happy to see how this thought has evolved in my practice; Her Real Secret shows how the impression of the US changes in my life, and Birth of Mother came out from Her Real Secret and it was initiated from me seeing my wife becoming a mother. Yes, I am in love with the way everything becomes something else and the way that I unclearly understand them.
Then the overwhelming spatial artwork made me think of the best condition for my moving images as well. Reflecting the memory, it will be wonderful if I have a chance to set up a plan for the space itself, also the very detailed final video’s renderings as clean, large, and highdefined as possible. On the other hand, recent videos I made that are on small size monitors gave me a new path to consider which devices I need to use and how to use them regardless of the qualities of technology. Two small monitors are embedded in each drawer of little furniture, and they automatically open and shut very slowly by revealing the animations. It is exciting to imagine how people would react to the piece like leaning their body towards to see the screens before the drawers are closed. Thinking over the characteristics of scales, I try to accept more relevant tools and sizes according to the thematic foundations of projects, not just the largest or most advanced one.
You are a versatile artist: your practice encompasses videos, installations, and drawings, experimenting with installation and expanded cinema practices. It's important to mention that your 10-channel video Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions was exhibited in both Vision Hall at Hyundai Motors University, equipped with the largest media displayer in Asia. Your works often provide the viewers with an immersive experience: how do the dimensions of your pieces affect your workflow? Moreover, what does direct you to such multidisciplinary approach? Sungjae Lee: Thank you for your warm response to my practice, and I am especially happy to hear the word ‘versatile.’ It was a great honor when I was given the opportunity to produce Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions with the sponsorship from Hyundai motors, and showcased it after its production. Like you mentioned, Vision Hall at Hyundai Motors University is equipped with the grandiose media displayer that generates fantastic visual panorama, additionally 3dimentional sound environment was another type of art. (On my first visit, I was curious what 3-d audio was, but the installed numerous speakers on the columns and the ceiling showed the audio system renders 3-dimensional sound effects that flow through specific designated directions and spots.) From the VH AWARD exhibition, and a residency at Massachusetts
For the multidisciplinary approach, I might give you a similar answer. Ever since I saw the other side of digital art, finding a proper genre to convey my ideas became very important. Then the question naturally expanded to the medium itself, so that was a small beginning to utilize all the possible and diverse tools and renditions. I see that now the main practices that I go over are installations, videos, and drawings, as you commented. In my brain, I draw foggy, but experimental sketches for the next works and projects. It seems not important to guess if it is doable or not, because as long as I am truthful, they appear in my studio no matter how clumsy its first look would be.
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You are an established and awarded artist: over the years your works have been showcased at prestigious galleries, museums, and events, including the Red Cat, Cheongju Craft Biennale, Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Currents New Media Festival and Joshua Tree Highland Artist Residency: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sjlee.art — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Sungjae Lee: These are great questions and I am also thinking of appealing answers to convince myself. I said ‘appealing’ because each situation is different and some reactions go very positively and some leave multiple homework that I have to prepare more for the next events. Firstly, the majority of visitors to my exhibitions seem impressed to see the optical illusion that layered-fined threads create. Also, the qualities of pen drawings also welcome people to appreciate how delicate the lines and faded colors are. I presume that I unconsciously have a tendency to push either technique or quantities of visual depictions to the level where viewers feel astonished. Then people get interested to know the behind stories of my works. My early major came from mass cultures like cartoons and comics, so I wondered what and how to read things when I went to conceptual art exhibitions at first. Those artworks were less readable in comparison with cartoon shows on TV, and some artworks I hardly recognized because of their intentional visual omissions. Now, I absorb what I couldn't understand in the past, so I admire conceptually abundant artworks as much as gorgeously rendered visual outputs. To convince me of my childhood, however, I still regard visual attraction as one of
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4k resolution, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animati the priorities. Thankfully, this part of my process gently welcomes the audience to appreciate the literal beauty of art. Bong, Joon-ho is known as a director who is wonderfully good at addressing a point where his intention stays along with
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ART Habens
on, 2018 many people who can also comfortably come and follow it.
grammar. This is somehow the way I would like to insist on as well; common beauty invites many to get things that have impacts on their heart. Speaking of the new wave of the relationship with globalized audiences, it is thrilling for artists
I think that he is called a genius because of this, not any brilliant ideas or special cinematic
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Sungjae Lee
<Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions> 16k x 2.4k px, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animation, 2016
to show their works worldwide without fees to pay for galleries, and it even invites a wider range of fans to introduce who they are. For the audience, at the same time, people can search and study internationally acclaimed artworks
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without dressing up or spending time to drive to museums. While I was working as an art instructor for high school students, one 16-year old guy surprised me because he very specifically knew all the global art stars via
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ART Habens
on the digital platform. On top of that, the recent trend that frightens and simultaneously excites us is about the metaverse, NFT, and new digital formats that gather everyone on the globe in a virtual realm. Here I need to confess that I am a lazy Instagramer and it is always amazing to see that so many artists use it for their selfpromotions, and collaboration opportunities. Even a person like me has had a great advantage from such digital archiving as a fan of other artists because the accessibility is very user-friendly that I can watch all the global art events, and artist talks on YouTube with a fingertip. An artist talk I was lately very inspired by was uploaded by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea about artist Jung, Jung-yeob on their YouTube channel. She addresses her life as a woman who raised her kids working as a painter. Watching the video interview of her, I felt sincerely grateful for this digital era. Without it, I wouldn’t have quietly heard her voice like that twice. On the one hand, I am a person who feels relieved to go and see the on-site exhibition space before the installations start. If the only way I can get the information about the venue is via emails and photos, my imagination monsterizes the spaces so that I shiver by the moment I arrive at the galleries. I think that the in-person experience would be like this, because we are not sure if our understanding is right before we confront things with our body. I say this because I want you to come and see me work if the exhibition site is near you. (Plus, my works are very fine, so videos and photos can’t fully catch the real details.)
Instagram. Usually, when I give references about artists, students just nodded, but once I told the student some info about relatively hidden artists, then he even referred to several more. As artists get chances, art lovers also get higher taste
We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for
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Sungjae Lee
<Avyakrta: The Unanswered Questions> 16k x 2.4k px, multi-channel video, 12 min loop animation, 2016
sharing your thoughts, Sungjae. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
The referred series of Birth of Mother, I am working on it for my first solo exhibition in Korea at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, so called SOMA. Since my son was born in May 2019, I can proudly say that I take a huge part of the childcare and I am good at it. This experience has given me such a valuable sympathy for mothers in general. With more understandable texts and beautiful forms of artworks, I am creating the largest installations (about 10fts) among my works, and series of drawings and multi-channel
Sungjae Lee: Thank you for giving me such an honorable chance to talk about myself and my humble works. I was moved to read your questions that must have made you carefully go through the writings and overall work history that I've created so far. I really appreciate that.
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videos; I use the shapes of Korean married women's hair styling interestingly like Afro Perm, their dress patterns. The exhibition will begin in the mid of November 2022, and I hope to share the exact date when it is confirmed in early 2022. As long as I have time to start a new project, I would like to work on a figurative digital painting with abstract transitions in line with OXYMORONIC PANORAMA. Moreover, I am
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interested in the both bright and gloomy parts of the cities where I used to live or visited. In my mind, there are more images floating around in my head and I say "Oh! This is it!" but most of them have already been done by other artists after researching them. Do I need to take time to examine deeply to start with. An interview by and
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, curator curator
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Thaddeus Laugisch
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video, 2013
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Thaddeus Laugisch An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Thaddeus and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://glassologybyt.wordpress.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. As a basically self-taught artist, are there any experiences that did particularly influence the evolution of your artistic research? Moreover, how did you come up with the idea of Glassology? Thaddeus Laugisch: Yes, there are many influences in the form of experiences that do contribute to how I learn and what I do. There’s also an internal drive to ‘do better’ that can at times, even ruin a piece. To discribe those experiences, I’ll try to be as short as I can. I discovered the theraputic value in creating at the age of nine, where I began free handing favorite comic book characters, album art covers, and other personal interests. My classmates liked my work enough to ask for drawings here and there, but it remained a pass time until my last two years of High School. I enrolled into an introduction class as an elective my junior year. I felt it was a well rounded class, introducing you to different mediums and ways to use them. The following year I took a coarse that focused on 2d art and its history. As it was also my senior year, I had more time available to the studio that I was allowed to follow the Art Thesis syabullus instead. If I recall right, we could do what we wanted as long as we were productive.
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landscape paintings, I started with a snow capped mountain ridge, subltly lit by the moon light. Using Phthalo Blue and white acrylic only, I worked my blending to create the mountain ridges. After adding a consellation and some stars to a thin clouded sky, I felt the painting was complete. The instructor however, insisted that I add more stars to the point that the painting was ruined for me. From that point, I learned to hold my ground when expressing what I feel and put on my
After stretching canvas for a series of
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canvas. That said, I’m always open to critism and respect the history of those before us, however my painting is mine, and the instructor that day should have painted his own. After high school, I declined an acceptance to the Art Institute of Denver as the cost was too great and I was more interested in psychology as a college study. Shortly after, I met my now wife then good friend who introduced me to oils, and then I decided to quit and switch majors to Architectural Drafting and Estimating. After becoming a father and graduating, I found a position with a window glazing company. Fresh out of college, as finances were limited, I was unable to afford canvas and paints. However I recalled a summer in college, when I use to work for a hardware store by day, and a gas station attendant by night. I noticed after the customer did care for the mix of paint, that the mis-tinted paints would go on sale for a decent price. Now working as a window system detailer, I noticed a lot of flat surfaced glass being thrown away. With permission of course, I would select discarded glass from the dumpster to paint on with mistinted wall paint from a hardware store. I’d begin expermenting with the paint and how to manipulate it enough to mimic oil as much as possible. I would also play with cutting away some of the painted surface, to re-fill in and provide depth, as well as confusion to what was painted first. I experimented with double pane, frosted, whatever was available in the glass dumpster, I painted on it. A few months later, about fourteen years ago today, I was let go and found the position I currently have today. I design large capacity grain elevator and processing systems, along with the structures that support it. This
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position provided me with enough income that I was able to afford oils and canvas again With an employer that encouraged my work enough to allow me to finish a painting on company time, for an exhibition. Years had past before I painted on glass again. Visiting another good friend’s home where he had
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to time today. From there, the result called ‘Glassology’, began.
his own studio and having glass and paints in hand again, the art just took over. I only focused on that glass, adding chemicals and colour then proceeded to manipulate and contort the mixture to a point of breaking the piece of glass in a ‘happy accident’ moment that I still intentionally break glass from time
The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens are marked out with such unique visual identity that reflects the personal technique that you have developed over the years. What has at once
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the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process?
captured our attention of your your approach is the way you use visual language in a strategic way to offering an array of meanings to the viewers: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you create your works gesturally, instinctively. In particular, how do you consider
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Thaddeus Laugisch: The technique I call ‘Glassology’ to me is a therapeutic experiment of chemical and colour manipulated in ways that are now to me, predictable. Over time I began learning how the paints and chemicals react,
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Thaddeus Laugisch
ART Habens
then they are stuck staring for a moment or few. At first, the blending and patterning were more random as the colour pallet and their placement on the work itself were always intentional. Far from ‘dirty pouring’, I place colours individually. Along with chemicals additional colours, heat, air and even gravity, I began to remember what works. Going further, I later found out that the results were never as ‘random’ or ‘chaotic’ as I once thought myself. During an Art Crawl in downtown Fargo, a Mathematics professor from the local university approached me with enthusiasm, stating he could see the numbers in my work. He said that my work provides fractal ratios that can be measured with the right calculation and that my work would be perfect to help demonstrate his lectures in Fractal and Dynamical Systems. After the conversation, I donated a piece I made in the pallet of the University he lectured at. Fun fact, that piece has a fractal ratio of 1.66. We have been particularly impressed with the sense of movement that marks out your artistic production and we really appreciated the way your artworks create such enigmatic patterns, communicating an alternation between tension and release. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include moment by moment in your artworks? that I can get close to the same outcomes of previous work. The trick, however, is trying to blend and manipulate contrasting colours and then manipulate it further to create the patterns that provide an ‘organic’ result. My work has often been mistakenly for granite, aerial photography, and even resin pours…until they even look closer,
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Thaddeus Laugisch: Each work is a self-psychological study to get over a current, or long-lasting personal emotion or experience. As I manipulate and pull the paint to create the patterns, I also neglect other areas to provide contrast. Same could be said in the colours chosen as well. The chemicals allow me to
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blend colours that often end with poor result. So I am able to provide contrasts that reflect both sides of an internal struggle due to the binary factors that are similar in what we see today in society.
ART Habens
couldn’t stop staring at it as he told me his story. I gave it to him refusing his money as the connection and story he had to my work, was payment enough. A painting I did to relax and shake off the stresses of not saving a design at work, ended up connecting with this gentleman far more than I have yet to experience staring at a painting myself. Whether you create or view it, the personal connection you make to it, is also the art itself. The abstraction of work, without a known title to direct the viewer to what I saw or felt, became a reality to that gentleman through his imagination and his past.
Instead of focusing only on one side or colour, and complementing it, I rather present a balance that reflects the beauty of both to find a balance rather than the usual hue a yellow with purple can create. We really appreciate the way you create works of art that challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters, to create interzones of sensory perceptions: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? In particular, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?
By naming my work in Latin, I do give a bit of what I see but also stray from what I felt in making it. This leaves the audience open to see what they want to see. So much so, that I mount all works so they can hang in any direction, to see something different at a 90° turn, and many do.
Thaddeus Laugisch: There are two reasons for challenging the viewer. First is anonymity to what I personally felt during the process to create the work. I however do counter this as I provide some of what I see in the Latin title I give a piece from time to time.
Your artworks - in which abstraction collides with reality - allow you to provide the viewers with unique visionary experiences: what kind of sensations do you aim to communicate with such bright, joyful combination of tones?
The second, is why I initially created it, therapy not only for me, but the viewer as well as this is where abstraction and imagination can relate to reality. I can best explain through an experience I had during an Art Crawl. One of the works on display was made after I had a bad day at work and wanted to use earth tones with white contrast. As a gentleman was making his way down the table, he suddenly stopped and kept staring at the earth toned piece. After some time I asked, ‘May I ask what you see?”.
Thaddeus Laugisch: Like the experience I encountered with the Marine Veteran I mentioned before, anonymity in abstraction provides a viewer to see what they want to see. This is often affected by a situation or personal experience in their own life that my work provides a ‘Rorschach effect’ that brings a person’s reality to the abstraction. My goal with the colours and even metallics is to catch the eye and naturally take it on a ‘dance’ around the painting.
He’s a retired marine that was injured in Iraq. The piece reminded him of his unit and to the incident that injured him. It brought out some emotion that he was holding onto, and he
The reactions I have seen by viewers, makes me feel that the work is better placed in locations that require you to wait for long
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periods of time so the viewer can fully see all the patterning and details a piece provides.
French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations
We daresay that your unique technique allows you to create new kind of visual languages.
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and how open would you like your works to be understood?
ART Habens
also how the person personally feels and relates to the work itself. As many seek to control what another sees, often times the story that explains the piece becomes the art rather than the piece itself. I’m not here to
Thaddeus Laugisch: I feel that Degas was only half right. Its not only what a person sees, but
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direct, rather provide the audience with something that they can personally connect to. Art, in my opinion, is a physical representation of emotion, not only from the artist but the viewer as well. To tell someone what is, could mislead them from their own personal reflection. You create unique physical artefacts with tactile qualities: in this sense, we dare say that your artworks use the insight of the lens to rediscover the concept of materially: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? In particular, how important is intuition in your creative process? Thaddeus Laugisch: The physical work outweighs an image, hands down. One part I find amusing is the moment a viewer decides to look at the side and back of a piece, to then come back to its front with a puzzled look to start the process over again. The contrast and layering of each work will provide depth, however it is a flat, 2d painting nonetheless. In fact, if you were to do a side by side comparsion of a high resolution photo to the work itself, you would say what many have said before, “Images do not give the work justice”. 19.R14-UNK
I honestly agree and because of this, I do not offer prints or copies of the work for sale. The detailing and patterning is so macro that close up photos of works were mistaken for different works of their own. It got to a point that I felt to circle locations on an and overall photo, to point out where the close ups were taken from.
work. This is only shown if you were to physically view it. Then there’s also the lighting... I paint my work using both warm and cool lighting as they can also provide contrast to the hue of the piece while the metallics used also reflect and shimmer the light to provide another effect. So much that a piece can change with the sun as it rises and sets. This
As images do provide a tactile appearence, more depth is provided by the thickness of the glass itself as well. Similar to water, the thickness and angle you view it, can provide more depth and even magnify some of the
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can be seen as well if you were to take a photo with the flash, then without.
ART Habens
https://www.instagram.com/t.glassology @tglassology — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
You are an established artist: over the years your artworks have been exhibited in several occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram
Thaddeus Laugisch: When it comes to online exposure, I’ve always had the struggle with the work not being fully shown. When I started in 16’, the transition to online was present even then. The comments have always
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been great, and offers to gain more followers had been overbundant, but I still had a frustration of not showing the work for what it trully is.
the digital platforms as my work is currently in the personal collections of those Germany and Japan, but like any artist, I wouldn’t mind others seeing it as well. That said, there always has to be the willingess to adapt and work through the parts we fall short on. As I
That said, I have been able to reach people far beyond my local and regional reach because of
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musicians to completment the mixtures of colour as I blend and stretch them to a final result.
admittingly set my painting aside for political reasons, I have been able to move into my new space and recently began working again. Because of this change to video more so than visual desire, I am looking to record the process and hope to collaborate with willing
As this is also entertaining, it can provide more into what it take to create the result, but also provide a new audience for my work as well.
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We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for
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sharing your thoughts, Thaddeus. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
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Thaddeus Laugisch
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Lovis Inspiravit 11x14x.187
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Thaddeus Laugisch: Currently I still design commercial ag facilities and proud for the many designs that are now built in my regional area. As I am still politically active in a party caucus to focus on the rural communities of Minnesota, I’ve slowly been able to paint and create again.
see how others would take to ‘Glassology’ depending on their experience with creating art. Both levels have had promising results that future workshops seem promising. I also want to thank you, the viewers for your time in reading thus far. If you enjoyed the images provided, I’ve been told you need to see them in person for yourself, thanks again.
At the beginning of this year, I helped establish and currently design for The Riverside Workshop, where we provide not only custom and personalized gifts, but also provide local production and consultation for other local artists.
An interview by and
, curator curator
Lastly, I have done a few trial workshops to
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Ascension III, mixed media installation, dimensions vari
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Stephanie Sherwood
ART Habens
video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
4 03variable, 2021 Potential, acrylic and enamel, mixed media, dimensions Special Issue
Stephanie Sherwood An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Stephanie and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://stephaniesherwoodart.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you hold a Bachelor of Arts in Drawing and Painting, that you received from the California State University and you have had the chance to study at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, in China: how did experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background and your work as a curator direct your current artistic research? Stephanie Sherwood: Thank you for the warm welcome! Yes, I received formal training during my time at CSULB as well as the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. The year I spent in Guangzhou, China was at the end of finalizing my degree and an opportunity to work in a completely new environment and with a new cohort of fellow art students. That time away from the United States really helped me find my voice as an artist and upon return I began a series of paintings which dealt with the reverse culture shock I felt. Since then, I have explored several different series of works and been able to keep the momentum of my studio practice. I would say that both my cultural background and my work as a curator have a bit of a nomadic influence on my current research which certainly has influenced my choices as an artist. I am mixed-race and grew up moving around
Stephanie Sherwood
the country a lot and got used to change and having to adjust to new environments often. As a curator, I tend to really respond to the space I am curating to both in the architectural sense and in the historical/cultural sense. Of course with the series on the streets the work is highly nomadic. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —and that
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Stephanie Sherwood
our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for its unconventional beauty, as well as for the way it achieve to unveil a point of equilibrium between chaos and rigorous sense of geometry, providing the viewers with such immersive and multilayered visual experience: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea of Confine? In particular, do you you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Stephanie Sherwood: The Confine Series has inhabited my mind for about three years now. It began really from an earlier series of painting raw meat and body parts which then moved into a fascination with shopping carts full of detritus as a common sight on the streets of Los Angeles. Confine was born out of the realization of my own fascination with those subjects with the moment of tension that arises when the structures came into contact with the soft matter. The core of my practice is drawing from life, so in beginning the Confine series I was drawing various still life setups I would make and made several paintings of this. At this point, the imagery is already built into my system, so to speak, so that painting them is now very instinctive. You are a versatile artist and your practice encompasses the use of unconventional materials as cardboard, wood and leather. Contemporary practice has forged a new concept of art making involving such a wide and once unthinkable variety of materials and objects: would you tell us what are the properties that you are you searching for in
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Confine in Situ (Dressers), enamel on found discarded furniture and bottles, 62 x 48 inches, 2019 21 4 06
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Confine in Situ (Television), enamel on found discarded furniture, 29 x 27 x 21 inches, 2019 Special Issue
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Stephanie Sherwood
ART Habens
the materials that you include in your artworks? Stephanie Sherwood: Fantastic question! Materiality plays such an important role in my practice and the materials I choose to use are constantly shifting along with my practice. I was trained to paint in oil primarily and learned to layer and compose in that manner. As my practice developed, I fell in love with house paint for its viscosity and the palette which is heavy with white and speaks to the soft, fleshy nature of a lot of my subjects. In that way, I paint like an oil painter with this enamel paint. I also love cardboard – it was the material I leaned into when I started to explore sculpture more actively. I love the history of how the Dadaists used it and I love that it is a commonly discarded material which naturally has associations with the abject. Although I did paint on canvas until recently, my In Situ works have pushed me into this fascination with the ephemeral and so I have been painting on more delicate surfaces like paper and cardboard. Canvas just feels too permanent and not the right fit for me at this time. There's a stimulating harmonic contrast between the severe, sharp geometry of the shopping carts and the saggy still almost sensuous fleshy forms in it. In this sense, your works create new kind of hybrid languages able to challenge the viewers' perception. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Are you
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Confine in Situ (Produce Display), enamel on found discarded furniture, 72 x 120 inches, 2019
ART Habens
Stephanie Sherwood
SNAPSHOT 3, acrylic and enamel on paper, 49.875 x 41.25 inches, 2020. Photo by Justin William Galligher.
particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception?
considering as I began the Confine series. I actually did not want to have the basket or the material inside to be easily identifiable as I want viewers to be able to freely interpret them. Certainly I think this openness allows for a wider range of responses that can go beyond only visual perception.
Stephanie Sherwood: Yes! I would say that leaving the meaning more open for interpretation is part of what I was
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Stephanie Sherwood
ART Habens
SNAPSHOT 4, acrylic and enamel on paper, 49.875 x 41.25 inches, 2020. Photo by Justin William Galligher.
cal make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your artworks?
While the shapes of your works communicates contrast, the tones that you choose are particularly delicate and communicate sense of release. How do you structure your palette in order to achieve such results? And how does your own psychologi-
Stephanie Sherwood: Ah yes, color. Looking back on my development as an artist, I think color was the thing that came naturally to me – I already had a good sense of subtle color
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Confine in Situ (Refrigerator), enamel on found discarded furniture, 30 x 70 x 30 inches, 2019
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shifts and how to adjust the palette of a work. Of course I have developed more sophistication as I learned more about making art but color is still a very intuitive element of painting for me. In my recent work I have developed a more limited palette, I enjoy the resourcefulness of trying to make a finished work with only a few colors. Similar to my work as a whole and how it has developed, I like to allow the color palette to change and breathe over time. With their reminders to fleshy shapes, your works unveils the bond between materiality and perception. As viewers, we often tend to forget that a work of art is first of all a physical artefact with intrinsic tactile qualities, and we really appreciate the way, through sapient materic translation, your artistic production highlights the materiality among the viewer: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? Stephanie Sherwood: I think the physical aspect of the artwork has become even more important to me as my practice developed. Once I became more invensted in sculptural objects such as Half-Breed, I was investigating how to combine materials which were once living bodies such as leather and sinew with the painted elements which signaled flesh. Potential was one of the first pieces I made which paired a sculptural object made of cardboard with a large painting on paper. These pieces were my answer to continuing the conceptual work of the In Situ series in the studio. I knew that continuing that series of painting in the streets at the pace I was wouldn’t be sustainable, but the concepts were so arresting that I needed to bridge the gap. It
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Half-Breed, enamel on wood, leather, sinew, 20 x 15 x 16 inches, 2018 21 4 14
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Ascension II, acrylic and enamel, mixed media, dimensions variable, 2021 Special Issue
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couldn’t really just be about making a finished painting anymore. I wanted to consider the life the materials had before I painted them, and the life they would have after that. The ephemerality of paper and cardboard made sense to me, and adding objects to mirror the dimensionality of the street art pieces felt like a fun opportunity to explore that under the protection of the studio. This speaks to the tactile materiality of the work that comes across in photographs. Another body of works that has particularly fascinated us and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled In Situ. It's important to mention that each piece is created in the site where the furniture is found, documented, and left for its ultimate delivery to the landfill, so each item carries with it the history of its use. American photographer and sculptor Zoe Leonard once stated, "the objects that we leave behind hold the marks and the sign of our use: like archeological findings, they reveal so much about us": could you tell us something about your interest in found objects? Stephanie Sherwood: Yes of course, and I love that quote! In Situ has had a profound effect on my work. It is truly as if I am collaborating with the people who left the objects and leaving that conversation for others to encounter before they are taken to the landfill. The first piece in that series I made was entitled Confine In Situ (Produce Display) and it was a huge, white metal object in an alleyway. I think that it appeared to me like a canvas because of the size and color and inspired me to paint it. That being said, I tend to be an artist who acts first and then thinks it through and considers the
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meaning. I was very excited about the layers of meaning that came along with painting these objects that could no longer serve the purpose they were intended for. As I found more things and made more works – I truly loved the moments of individuality of each object I found. Some things had tape on them where the owners had tried to repair them or little moments of customization like writing or stickers. Some of the furniture was already so artfully arranged in a pile or placed in a way that it already read like a sculptural object which I was excited to highlight with painting. There is an immediacy to all of these actions which I find intruiging – I tend to paint fast and I know the urgency involved with moving to a new place which can inspire a quick offloading of personal items. Your recent sculptures have also become urban art interventions on discarded furniture in Los Angeles: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Stephanie Sherwood: In my everyday life I keep very busy. I work as an art administrator and curator for the city of Los Angeles and the international airport as well as my own independent curatorial projects around the city. All of these endeavors keep me driving around the city a lot and I can find more materials and ideas for my work in this manner. Part of the practice for developing the In Situ body of work is driving around and planning everything out. I have a kit with my paint and brushes in the car and if I see something I can make a plan to paint it; I even have a network of friends and other artists who keep a lookout for furniture for me! I now only paint early in the morning so that I can finish within an hour of the sun coming
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Potential (detail), acrylic and enamel, mixed media, dim
up. This allows me to have good diffuse light so I can document the work before I leave it. You are an established artist, and over the years your works have been showcased in
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ensions variable, 2021
many occasions, including your incoming solo Transit at the Max L. Gatov Gallery, in Los Angeles: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art
from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
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Wide Body, acrylic and enamel on paper, 61 x 35 inches, 2015
inspire a different way of engaging with the work. When the work is in a gallery or studio space for viewing, it is automatically treated and discussed as an art object – on the streets people are encountering it in a
Stephanie Sherwood: Engaging with an audience is always important and very rewarding for the most part. It is definitely changing and evolving as different contexts
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exciting! When people encounter me when I am painting their first instinct is that I am comitting a crime or something, but usually when they realize I am making art they back down and say “oh okay, this is fine”. Sharing documentation of artwork on a platform like Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/stephanie_sher wood_art) is an entirely different beast. And platforms like that are constantly evolving too! When I share a photo, typically I am engaging with other artists and curators so it is similar to a gallery setting in a sense. Now that there are other spaces on Instagram such as IGTV and Reels which I hear the algorithm is heavily promoting – in that sense the audience is more randomized like folks I might encounter on the street. I believe that art is for everyone though so I like to hear what folks outside of my community think about the work. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Stephanie. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Stephanie Sherwood: Thank you so much for a lovely conversation! Currently I am working on curating an exhibition entitled PORTALS at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro: https://www.angelsgateart.org/otw_pm_port folio/portals-2/ manner that is out of the ordinary. I think about this a lot, what it might feel like to find something so strange out in the wild. I’ve had friends and other artists tell me they’ve encountered them on the street and it is very
An interview by and
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Special Issue Golden Column 305cm x 30cm, latex on wood
Jordi Rosado
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Dean Dablow An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Dean and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.deandablowart.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. You have a solid formal training. You began your studies at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point in Painting and Sculpture, but the camera became increasingly intriguing as a tool to make art, so you later began graduate studies in photography under John Schulze at the University of Iowa where you received your MFA with a minor in Sculpture under Julius Schmidt: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does such multifaceted cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Dean Dablow: Let’s back up a bit to how I chose to become an artist. Every child is an artist but somehow most lose interest as they grow. That happened to me as well but I never lost my passion for making things. I was 16 when our family visited the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington and I remember seeing an exhibit of art from around world. This had a profound influence on me and I asked my father to buy a set of oil paints. I made a few paintings that were terrible but was encouraged by a friend of my older sister. I once again, however, put painting aside and when I graduated from high school I had made no plans for my future education, not knowing what I wanted to become. Just before graduation, the principal at our school announced that an FBI recruiter would interview anyone interested in a career in this government agency. A friend and I decided
Dean Dablow
to interview and we were later hired. I became a fingerprint technician. But after work, instead of heading directly to my apartment, I would walk around Washington to see the various museums. The National Gallery was one that I continued to visit time and again and it finally became apparent that art was the thing I had to do. I left Washington and began my art studies never having had an art class since 8th grade. I put everything I could into my classes taking every course I could. When I became interested
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in photography the school did not have any courses in this medium so I learned a few rudimentary things by myself. I was using my father’s camera but saved enough money later to buy my own 35mm. I set up my own darkroom and marveled at how the camera and chemicals magically produced actual photographs on paper. My senior show was both paintings and photographs. One of my professors suggested I show the photographs
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to John Schulze at the University of Iowa which I did and was accepted into graduate school. It was here that I became an artist. I had become used to asking my teachers at Stevens Point which works were good and then accordingly exhibit those. One day I was to submit photographs for a show in Chicago and I phoned Professor Schulze to ask if he wanted to see them for approval. He gave me a one word reply, “No.” It was up to me to decide
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what was good enough. I call this my “grow up moment” when I was forced to make my own decisions. This was also a great freeing experience that gave me license to try new ideas. I began to challenge established ideas of composition, at times putting elements in the center of the frame, a no-no in basic design classes.
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hands-on object making and I used the time to continue my interest in producing shaped canvases. That handwork skill-building has helped me understand construction techniques, surface treatments and the understanding that one must pay attention to detail. One thing about my photography experience was, like sculpture, that one had to pay attention to every part of what was in the
My sculpture classes with Schmidt were more
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viewfinder, how things that needed to be in or out of the frame made the photograph more interesting. Had it not been for my photography experience I would not be making the paintings I do today. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article has at once captured our attention for the way it urges the viewers to question the nature of the process of perception as a whole, and even to rethink relationships between observer and observed. When walking our readers through your usual process and setup, would you tell us what did you address to such stimulating research? Dean Dablow: When I retired from teaching photography at Louisiana Tech University in 2007 I wanted to challenge myself again and returned to painting. What I did not want to do is make work that had already been done before. Quite a challenge and of course its all been done. Yet I wanted something new for me. I started making paintings by cutting shapes on hardboard and putting them together to make a whole, the visual psychology of closure and extension. Later I used a different substrate using hollow-core interior doors which I use to the present day. I use no frames as I believe they separate the work from the reality of the present. Edges are painted in place of frames. Early in my painting on singular pieces I used the rectangle as the base shape, painting variations within this typical presentation. Although this tactic seemed to be a reflection of paintings past, because I was using door panels I could easily cut into the rectangle with angles, alluding to the object not being a window to another reality but an object that must be seen in its entirety. They are not windows to the world.
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The rectangle evolved into a freeform unrelated to the rectangle giving the viewer even more of a sense of object and illusion of space. This, in turn, evolved into another idea, painting with actual insertion of a physical line. Shapes were cut and installed on both sides of the linear element, sometimes vertical and sometimes horizontal. It then struck me that the horizontal works related to landscape and I began a series dealing with what I have experienced in various landscapes. I used the linear element as a horizon line with landforms above and below this line. This has been my working method. Each piece I do informs the next and follows what I believe is a natural evolution. Sapiently structures, your works feature as stimulating as unconventional tones: in particular, you included such unusual nuance of green in Grassland and Hills: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include moment by moment in your artworks? Dean Dablow: My early childhood was growing up in North Dakota and the experience of living in the open prairie and at times treeless landscape influenced my concept of color and space. Color is simply an association of memories of landscapes I have experienced. In your landscape series the concept of horizon plays a crucial importance: how do you consider the role of symbols and metaphors playing within your artistic research? In particular, are you interested in creating works of art rich of allegorical features? Dean Dablow: In all of the landscape series, the central line is meant to simulate the horizon which extends beyond both ends to suggest that the horizon goes on forever. We only know what we experience. I have seen grasslands simulate waves as the wind rakes across the
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plains, winters that sometimes make the foreground and sky seem like one, and deserts that flow into black distant mountains. These are visions expressed in my work. I have no
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interest in allegory. They are what they are and have no meaning beyond what the viewer invents for themselves.
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Your paintings invite the viewers to experience the work as an object, and they are also about that which we do not see. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openness of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Are you particularly interested in arousing emotions
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that goes beyond the realm of visual perception? Dean Dablow: Sand Dune Obscures the View of a Pyramid is a work that blatantly insists the viewer recognize something that is not physically present. The bottom is a meandering cut shape while the top is a 90 degree angle. It was not a work that was first thought through but an accidental recognition. Cutting door
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panels results in having extra parts with which to make more work. I tilted the door corner remnant 45 degrees giving it the appearance of a pyramidal shape. It was at this point that the
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sand dune idea came about. Serendipity has played a lot in my work method. An idea comes through and I run with it.
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I cannot control what any one viewer understands about my work. I want simply for the viewer to experience something new and perhaps unexpected in seeing my work. Hopefully they will experience that same joy I had in making it. I do want them to be emotionally moved by seeing my art. I believe it was Picasso who said that a painting is never finished because it will change for each person who sees it. I love surprise and this has driven my interest in painting. I do not plan what I will be doing any particular day but begin with only a vague idea of the outcome. I gradually get into what I call “the zone.” Its a fantastic experience when time does not exist and the work is all there is. I’m sure most creative people know what this is. I make decisions about color, size, shapes that interest me in the moment and then it occurs, the surprise of seeing the finished object. Alterations may be made, but the thing has come alive, a new idea and one that always evolves into more surprises. There are failures of course but I learn from them. And they might be seeds for a new idea. As you remarked once, each piece you make informs the next and you never know where they will lead: how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process? In particular, do you create gesturally, instinctively, or do you start from preparatory structures and schemes? Dean Dablow: I started painting using a computer to draw shapes and choose color. This was mostly to get the scale of the various shapes. Later the hardboard pieces evolved into one piece, I abandoned this preliminary computer process and simply worked out the design as I went. They were drawings with color. Yet, unlike drawing, if something did not work I could paint over the mistakes. They were selfevolving entities. I enjoy my instinctive nature making art. Surprise is the key. The role of
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chance is one of the things that is ever present in my work and I revel in the surprise and evolutionary aspect of chance. We definitely love the way your works feature such stunning combination between reminders to realistic elements and such unique abstract sensitiveness, to create inter-zones of sensory perceptions, that invite the viewers to recognize elements from natural environment, as rivers, volcanoes and deserts. Scottish artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic work of arts are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? In particular, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Dean Dablow: Perhaps we should call paintings asymmetrical Rorschach tests. We are programmed to see faces everywhere, perhaps as a protection device for early humankind so that they could detect animals that could kill them. We are also programmed to associate what we see as something related to what we have a experienced. If we see something shaped like a tree but is not a tree (a drawing of a tree) we recognize this and say its a tree. It can be in actuality a smudge on a painting but because of the setting in which the smudge is placed, we say it is, or reminds us of, a tree. You are an established and awarded artist: your artworks are in permanent collection and over the years you have exhibited in several locations, including your latest solo “Everything is Abstract,” at Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram and Vimeo — increases, how would
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this change, in your opinion, the relationship with a globalized audience?
Habens saw my work and responded to it gives me hope that the internet will be a great tool for unrepresented artists and I thank you for this wonderful opportunity you have given me to show my work globally. I still think that someone wanting to buy a work of art prefers seeing the real thing in a physical gallery. One can see more work on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/deandablow
Dean Dablow: There is a small gallery in Shreveport with which I am associated but I have none in larger cities. Commercial galleries need to sell work. Its a business and if the work is not what their audience wants they can’t pay the rent. Even though I consider my work gallery quality it is very different from what I have seen represented in galleries. I would however enjoy representation in a gallery. The fact that Art
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We have really appreciated the multifaceted
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nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Dean. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
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anything in reality and again are two shaped elements that seem split by the linear piece. I have used resin with these pieces with pitted surfaces in each that have liquid graphite rubbed on and buffed to give them the appearance of something ancient. They are all titled “Sectioned Object” and numbered.
Dean Dablow: I am working with the same material as with the landscape paintings but have altered the alinement of the horizon to be an angular element. The paintings do not allude to
An interview by and
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Mehnoush Modonpour is an Artist with a passion for Sculpture and Painting. She found her passion at the age of 10 while drawing in the classroom. In 1984, she moved to Paris to begin her postsecondary education in art and design. In 1987, she graduated from “Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne” in fashion design. She continued her art education in drawing and painting with Parvaneh Etemadi in Tehran, Iran, and later she continued with visual arts (Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Pottery, Photography, Mixed Media) at the “Central Technical School” in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her artwork is influenced by her spirituality and human connectivity. She has gained insight into the meaning of human existence in a mysterious universe through her personal mystical experiences. She uses inner-spiritual observations as inspiration for her artworks. The message of “Oneness” and “Connection” with the Nature is tremendously visible in her works. She moved to Paris, France in 2015 to continue with great passion and an enthusiasm her experience and growth in Visual Arts.
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Mehnoush Modonpour An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Mehnoush and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.mehnoush.me and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you graduated in fashion design from “Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne”, then you nurutred your education in Drawing and Painting with the famous and contemporary artist, Parvaneh Etemadi in Tehran, Iran, and you later studied Visual Arts at the Central Technical School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada: how did experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background due to your Persian roots and your travels direct your current artistic research? First, Thank you very much for featuring me in your magazine! I am delighted to be chosen for this interview from your team of curatorial experts. Let me explain a little about myself; I was the last child of 4 siblings with a huge gap between me and my two brothers and sister. I mean a 19, 17 and 12 year gap! I was very shy as a child. Growing up, I had a hard time to explain myself and my thoughts to my family and friends. I was, and still am not a good talker but a very good listener. So, I have learned to express myself and my thoughts through my art.
Mehnoush Modonpour
After I was in the business of fashion for 10 years, it was like something was missing in my life and I had to do something about it. Working with Parvaneh Etemadi was one of the best decisions that I made. I have learned a lot from her and I am grateful for that.
I grew up in a French school since kindergarten until the revolution. As long as I remember at a very young age I wanted to become a visual artist. My parents, especially my mom was totally against it. But they sent me to Paris anyway and into the most prestigious fashion school in the world. This was a huge privilege for me and one of the first steps that I took toward my dream, but it was not an easy one, since it was after the revolution and in the middle of the war between Iran and Iraq.
To answer your last question in short: being born and growing up in Iran, and then learning the language and French culture from kindergarten to adolescence, and as a young woman immigrating to
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Canada, learning English and the western culture was quite a challenge which shaped me and my art into what I am and what I do today. So, in each artwork there is a bit of this story; the story of my life, my thoughts and what I went through in life till now. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens has at once captured our attention for the way it unveils the connection between human nature and spirituality: we would like to start this journey in your artistic production with your Ignorance Quadriptych, a stimulating body of works that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea of such stimulating project? I will start with this phrase: “Ignorance; the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness.” Through my personal experiences which included many hard times in different periods of my life (indeed like every human on this planet, more or less) I believe that Ignorance is the root of all suffering. I’ll give you an example; something happened in my life and I suffered. After months or years, I realise the suffering that I went through was just because of my lack of knowledge at that specific moment of my life and I was miserable for nothing. So every time I am going through pain, I know that there is something I don’t know and that “NOT KNOWING” is the reason that I suffer so I look for answer(s).
in the dark. Here I showed the feeling of a head in a box! It is a suffocating being in the box, isn’t it? In the second Ignorance sculpture; The boxes are almost open and heads are about to come out. They are not in the dark anymore, but still can’t see (heads don’t have eyes) and can’t hear (they don’t have ears). But there is still hope because they are one step further from the previous one.
It all started with a diptych creation of Ignorance #1 & #2; In the Ignorance #1, I show ignorance as heads that are in a box; they are ignorant. They are completely
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Furthermore, I developed this imagination/idea with
● Ignorance #4; shows the suffering derived from
my quadriptych project picturing the entire process
blinded perception. The pain that comes from Not
from being ignorant to being enlightened:
hearing and Not seeing the truth.
● Ignorance #3; shows the suffocation of being in the dark. The pain and the suffering that comes
● Wonder Sculpture; is the state of questioning,
from ignorance.
searching and grasping some truth that makes you
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wonder and then look for more to know. Being the
If you have noticed in all 4 sculptures, there are 8
seeker.
heads and they are all connected. Number 8 is important for me because of the many
● And the final state is The Dance Sculpture;
meanings that it has, and one of them is the sign of
Enlightenment, wisdom and the feeling that comes
infinity ….
with it; freedom within. I show the dance of happiness that comes with awareness.
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As you have remarked once, you have come to
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tremendous impact in my point of view on life. But, also being in touch with other cultures at a young age and then living, learning and growing older in those cultures; Europe and North America, perhaps gave me the opportunity to be a multi-cultured artist. With that being said, in my artistic research and what I express in my creations depicts a “Human Being” in this era and in this time, and its development, despite of where one was born and lived. Many contemporary artists, such as Thomas Hirschhorn and Michael Light, use to include sociopolitical criticism and sometimes even convey explicit messages in their artworks: as an artist who strongly believe in human connection and equality despite differences in ethnicity, gender, religion and culture, do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our globalised society? Personally, my work mostly reflects my feelings and what I went through in my life. Emotions that comes from inside, and socio-political problems and issues are the roots of it. Although how the viewers see my work and translate it is also as important for me. Therefore the respond to your question: YES, I am trying to raise awareness on the topic of “Humanity” as a whole, comprising the concept of believe that ignorance is the source of human suffering, and Ignorance reflects with such kaleidoscopic visual value of aspect of your inner artistic research. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in": do you think that your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment?
socio-politico-religious. Especially in my sculptures I am more able to express myself in that matter than my painting. You were born in Iran and as you have remarked in your artist's statement you have experienced revolution, immigration, war and different cultures in varying phases of your life: how does your
Indeed, where I was born and grew up. That had a
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memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? It is not the memories but the experience of living it that gives me the ideas and the theme of my projects. Here are some examples: When you are deprived from your childhood because of the revolution and you are not responsible for this revolution. When years of your youth were taken away because of the war therefore you HAVE to become an adult too soon to survive these unkind events. When you have to learn and adapt to new cultures not by choice but in order for you and your family to survive. Although it is a fantastic process, it is a really hard process. I am not complaining now though. If it wasn’t for these events perhaps I would not be who I am toady, or where I am now in my life, and I would not be creating what I am creating. All these events shaped me but also it is in my nature to question everything. I am a free spirited person who doesn’t like barriers and limitation. My fight with obstacles is with my sword which is my “Art”. Your artistic production reflects your unique exploration of the relationship between human, its surrounding, and everything in between. Scottish artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic works of art are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?
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What seems a reality for people, is in fact the
It’s with my imagination that I can picture the
perception of events which differs from person to
reality in life:
person.
Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul.
Reality for me is what I feel and how I feel about things happening for me or around me. Imagination is playing with those feelings to bring them to the
If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain.
attention.
If you’ve no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain!
Visual art makes visible what we feel but cannot truly see; the feeling that is left behind or comes after real events. I use my imagination to show
Poem by “Saadi” Persian Poet 1210- 1291
those feelings. So I could say for me, works of art are derived from the heart or the feeling and perception of events.
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ART Habens
Mehnoush Modonpour
When exploring the bond between humans, your stunning sculpture Mother features sapient use of symbols, as the umbilical cord, that highlights our attachment to our background and past generations. We really appreciate such stunning organic quality of your artworks, as well as the way they allude to meaning through symbolic and visual
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references: how do you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic practice? And how important is for you to create artworks rich of allegorical qualities? First, thank you for your comment about my
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Mehnoush Modonpour
ART Habens
sculpture “Mother”, and seeing and questioning its
also you don’t see two breasts (many people asked
allegory.
me why one breast?) as it should be, because we have one mother, the number one person in all of
My work starts with an idea. That idea comes from a
our lives is our mother, the first person we meet in
feeling that I felt, or a message that I want to send,
this life is our mother, and there is only one womb
or words that never came and had accumulated
that cherishes us the whole nine months.
inside.
To answer your second question; I would say it’s really important for me the use of allegory because
The way it works in my head to show these feelings
it is the only way that I know, and to show its
or messages is the use of symbols. I give you only
ulterior meaning which is deeper than the outward
one example in this sculpture since if I want to list
appearance. In this case people might see a breast
them all, it will take your entire magazine to explain,
as a symbol of sex or femininity, which also can be
lol.
true an apart of its allegory.
Here you see a breast as a symbol of Mother but
Another example is in my “Unity” project.
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Mehnoush Modonpour
Some works from your earlier artistic production were influenced by ancient and symbolic designs and impressions: how do you consider the relationship between Tradition and Contemporariness playing within your work as an artist? In particular, does your artistic research establishes a bridge between traditional ways of considering a work of art and Contemporariness?
Calligraphy is one of the most revered arts
I will start by mentioning that The Persian
still living in Toronto, Canada:
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throughout the history of Iran. It is one of the subjects taught in school. I was always fascinated by the Persian Calligraphy, not to mention the Persian Colours and some traditional Persian fabrics and designs that I used in my earlier works. An example of my previous work made while I was
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Mehnoush Modonpour
ART Habens
future. A link between the traditional and the contemporary. We sometimes tend to forget that a work of art is a physical artefact with tactile qualities, and we really appreciate the way Survival reflects this aspect, through sapient materic translation of the concept of pressure: as an artist particularly interested in highlighting the materiality among the viewer, how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks? Indeed, the experience of the viewer is really important for me. As for the physical aspect, the perception of each individual can shift relating to art works in different contexts. Although perception is influenced by a person’s history, culture, mood, location, state of mind and other external factors, I believe the physical aspect of the works of art provides some essential facet of its meaning. The ability of an artist to interact through the artwork with its viewer cannot be separated from materiality altering how the work is perceived, its physical side and the senses that are experienced.
Handmade Fabrics and Archived Iranian
You are an established artist and over the years you works have been shocased in several occasions, including your recent participation to DF Art Project Exhibition in Paris, France: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
Photographies’ sometimes in my work, which could
Yes, I was very happy that my works were chosen
be considered a bridge between my past and the
to be in two exhibitions this year; DF Art Project
A medallion in bronze with a word “Me” in Persian; One side this “Me” is freed from prison and the other side “Me” is in Love. I like to trifle with Persian ‘Calligraphy, Colours,
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ART Habens
Mehnoush Modonpour
and Iranian Artists Independent exhibitions, in Paris
First, Mr. Reza Deghati, an Iranian/French, Emmy
and Chambourcy, France.
Award Winer Photojournalist, known as REZA, who’s photographs have been published and
In fact, I was very privileged to meet and greet
exhibited in major cities throughout the world.
about my artwork presented in the Exhibition with
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUxf4igM0ny/?utm_
two historically important persons:
source=ig_web_copy_link
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Mehnoush Modonpour
ART Habens
And, the former Empress of Iran; Shahbanou Farah
Not to mention that my sculpture is now apart of
Pahlavi, who had a tremendous impact on Iran’s
the Majesty's Private Collection!
Art, Cultural Growth, and its Visibility to the world. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWJLWaQtkMX/?ut https://www.instagram.com/p/CVSZejEshCc/?utm_
m_source=ig_web_copy_link and I had the
source=ig_web_copy_link
opportunity to meet the Empress Shahbanou Farah
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Mehnoush Modonpour
ART Habens
Pahlavi again in her home and have a long
currently working on, and what are some of the
conversation about my artwork and Art in general.
ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
This was an experience that I will never forget! The pleasure was mine to be able to share my So, a work of art without an audience is like a knife
thoughts with you, as well as, your audience.
without its handle; it could be very sharp but without its handle it is not usable.
To respond to your last question, I would like to go back to my Ignorance series.
This relationship comes organically in a dialogue
The root of the idea is originated from a poem:
between the receiver which is a window to the mind, and the feeling of the sender which is the
One who knows and knows that he knows
subject of the artwork.
His horse of wisdom will reach the skies What I am creating as artwork depends pretty much on my audience. Although, while creating it, it
One who knows, but doesn’t know that he knows
is for my self and for the message, but in my
He is fast asleep, so you should wake him up!
opinion an artist is creating consciously or One who doesn’t know, but knows that he doesn’t
unconsciously for an audience.
know
As a result, the nature of my relationship is the
His limping mule will eventually get him home
feedback I receive from them through communication, the comments, the looks, the
One who doesn’t know and doesn’t know that he
expressions, and its impact on them.
doesn’t know
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVllMn1MOel/?utm_
He will be eternally lost in his hopeless oblivion!
source=ig_web_copy_link Now, I believe that we are at beginning of a new
Ebn-e Yamin
era which is the digital world. We have to embrace
Persian Poet
this new beginning, make it positive and useful for
(circa 1285 – 1368): Knowledge and Oblivion
the Artist and the Art World. In my opinion social media, such as Instagram, comes with benefits of globalizing and growth of
Because I believe in my own Ignorance, I am a
the Art world for the art lovers, art makers and art
SEEKER of the LIGHT.
presenters. Hence, my new project is about Enlightenment and We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Mehnoush. What projects are you
It is called “The New Beginning”. And I would like to give you a very small peek: Thanks again for interviewing me!
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Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius
ART Habens
video, 2013
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Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Sharmaine Thérèsa and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://artshowroom.org in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as a visual artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background direct your evolution as a painter? Thank you for having me, I regard it as a privilege to be your guest today. Like most evolutionary processes, insight into the factors affecting it, usually arrives afterwards. Much like the moths, that, got darker as the Industrial Revolution developed, years ago. I have some particular things that have a set influence on my creative process, as I always need to tweak whatever I am involved in, to accommodate them actively. I have a peculiar kind of unknown dyslexia and am a Synesthete? ‘’The word “synaesthesia” comes from the Greek words: “synth” which means “together” and “ethesia” which means “perception’’. I am a born observer. I am openly jealous of the time I have available to spend in observing anything and everything. It involves human or mechanical observation of what people, animals, the world, biological life forms, nature etc. actually do or are like, and how they react towards their environment, however simple or complex or to themselves. The information I collect by observation always somehow ends up in my work as a process artist, however minute and changes my life, and subsequently my art expression daily. My observations may not even be correct or portrayed accurately as all people are biased somehow, doesn’t matter how objective we think we are. I am an eternal student. The disadvantage of this is the inability to observe such things such as attitudes, motivations, state of mind,etc. and the limitations of dealing with people’s extended personalities online. I rely heavily on spiritual intuition.
Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius
communication theorist Marshall McLuhan and the name of the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). ‘’McLuhan proposes that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He showed that artifacts as media affect any society by their characteristics, or content.’’ Objects can illicit feelings we associate with comfort or care or the absence thereof. I usually see a marked progress in my artwork, running concurrently with my spiritual development as a person. I treasure quiet time with God - my Creator. I like to share what I have
"The medium is the message" is a quote by Canadian
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ART Habens
Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius
received in my dreams upwards. Sure enough without thinking it through my abilities to document a higher thought or level of drawing or artistic process, happens. I am very aware that I am taught in my dreams how to do things and even how to save things in my mind. There is a ‘’but’’ though: if I am not tuned into the needs of those surrounding me, or become angry or despondent about the world, I am immediately out of sync with any evolutionary process be it in myself or in my art. Spending time with other artists and art collectors, leads to exponential growth as well. Culturally, my art can pose a conundrum to others. It definitely plays a part in the direction of my art, as a painter. Nassim Haramein said ‘’Consciousness is a system of how space is reciprocated, which is a dynamic which could generate self awareness.’’ “Thula Baba” is an African lullaby from the Zulu tribe, of South Africa, that is a well-known melody throughout the continent. Recently I exhibited a work at the – Group Exhibition – Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art and Design: XIII FB THEME 2021 – Eternal Feminine – Change. The work called; “Nafurat Miah Alshurb” – The Fountain of Excellent Memories in Mother’s Eyes – “Ayin – Zayin” ‘’Feeds our Thirst The Rose Revisited Help Mother Download Only Excellent Memories The Eye of The Fountain is The Breast That Feeds Us: It Flowers We Flower.” …..was the digital version of a drawing from my first solo exhibition called ‘Enclosure Fathom - Part 1 -The Rose - Zero-Knowledge Protocol (5523)’ set to the interpretation of the African song ”Thula Baba”, by world renowned, musicians, Dr. Maria-Elizabeth Bezuidenhout (RSA) and husband John Rojas (USA). The work exemplifies my sorrow about Africa, the love of the picturesque Arabic and Hebrew languages and the reality of the level of security, moral values, and comfort people need even before their conception, in order, to to find TRUE NORTH. I have been living in Oman for the past 11, plus, years now. We have a home and a small startup business in Bulgaria and we are originally from South Africa. My ancestors traveled and married expats and or indigenous men or women in different countries and they then
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traveled and had their own children. My DNA canvas got a palette of Europe, Africa and The Middle East etc. dashed in there. Mahmoud Darwish, influenced my art in an empathetic way. I once read his poem about a man watching his home. Watching the bed another person sleeps in, the walls that actually belonged to him - a very stark, disquieting, painful poem about displacement - with zero charm of the childlike tale of the Three Bears and porridge stolen. Societies are still infantile as far as the management of restitution is concerned, or the repeat of the original sin, be it on whichever continent, according to whatever principle. I was 23/ 24 years old when I visited Soshanguve, a township situated about 30 km north of Pretoria, in South Africa. The people of Soshanguve are arguably the most multilingual of South Africans. It was one of the watermark moments in my life. A deep, deep love overwhelmed me. I cried for days. To me the country is made up of a set of enclosures, bubbles, completely separated and segregated from each other and life in general. Psychologically a killing field, a world full of partitions. Later years I spent a lot of time at a mission in KwaZulu Natal. People of different countries and race, stayed together and prayed together. I must have spent some of the most peaceful moments of my life there. I can answer this in an easy or hard way. One of our friends has an amazing slogan on his mobile phone: it simply says ‘’people are people”. I believe we should comfort others with what God has comforted us with. There are countless people working selflessly to forge change, but it is a very slow process. ‘’Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community.’’ I see myself as a global citizen, not necessarily by choice. It brought me vast jewels and chances to travel and has a direct effect, on a daily basis on my art and life. I feel myself part of lots of different communities, in totally different ways. There is blood on the back of reality. Everything has a price. I love Africa and its people. I only wish the deepest possible healing to all of their communities.
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ART Habens
Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius
I belong to The Young African Leaders Initiative Network (YALI Network). It started out as a part of President Obama's signature effort to invest in the next generation of African entrepreneurs, educators, activists, and innovators. I actively connect with other
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artists in Africa and also with students. I have managed to have some great success in providing students with some information and coaching, leading to free educational avenues in other countries. I have also been
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working on an exhibition about Africa for a long time. As I grow artistically, it grows.
ART Habens
such unique visual identity that reflects the personal technique that you have developed over the years. What has at once captured our attention of your approach is the way you use visual language in a strategic way to offering an array of meanings to the
The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens are marked out with
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viewers, highlighting the elusive connection between reality and the dreamlike, almost spiritual realm: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you create your works gesturally, instinctively. In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process? I usually dream a fixed blueprint of a picture of some sorts. I try to draw as fast as possible afterwards, so as not to go into visual, sensory overload. I copy my dreams and sometimes it can take me up too, two years to download a picture from a dream - in order to remember the details when I am awake. They contain music notes, maths, physics, etc. After I have made colored drawings of them, I photograph them and put them through kaleidoscopic computer software. Over time, groups and topics do show up quite clearly. All my work is based upon the concept of the work ‘The Rose - Zero-Knowledge Protocol (5523)’ which featured in my first solo exhibition ‘Enclosure Fathom - Part 1 (2018)’. In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zeroknowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true, without conveying any information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true. The essence of zero-knowledge proofs is that it is trivial to prove that one possesses knowledge of certain information by simply revealing it; the challenge is to prove such possession without revealing the information itself or any additional information. So when I download a picture from my dreams, I am just the messenger, the conduit, and in that respect surely, yes, it can be said that I do it gesturally, instinctively. I have come to sincerely believe throughout my life’s experiences that such a thing as chance does not exist, even if it is attractive for us to believe so. I have always had the belief that the part of the process that I do have a lot of control over is the chance to improve my skill -sets. I am always learning new techniques, how to store things better etc. but am also doing lots of research, about what it is that I saw in my dreams - the broader significance of it perhaps.
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It has amazed me over and over to see many artists online, having their own interpretation of what I have seen in my dreams, drawn or sculptured. I decode that as a definite sign that some form of intelligence wishes to engage with people, and I refuse to believe that it can only be bad, of what is shown is bad or sinful. Biblical Daniel and others were also dependent on interpretations as well as kings and the rest of humanity as to what their dreams had meant. It just signals that we are out of touch with whatever heavenly language or books there are that we are supposed to read or interpret visually, but just do not have the software for. The question should rather be, who uninstalled it (pun intended). I am always trying to learn more about symbols and languages in order to improve my own understanding and interpretation of the work. I went for a visit to a museum in Oman. There the inexplicable happened. Time just stood still. I discovered some metal etched tea trays and other engraved and woven items, which registered overly familiar with me. It is a chance discovery which came right at the precise time that I was working on the concept of time; being turned back? We definitely love your unique choice of tones, and we have been particularly impressed with the sense of movement that marks out your artworks and we really appreciated the way your artworks create such enigmatic patterns, communicating an alternation between tension and release. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include moment by moment in your artworks? Usually after I have had a dream, when I wish to repeat the memory, I hear the pictures before I see them, then I smell them. I hear them in a continuous time loop. I love music. I see numbers in the air and music simultaneously and shapes. They are tense, intense moments. What I draw is just a postage stamp size almost of the blueprint of what I have seen and dreamed about. I love trying to copy the sense of movement without losing content or context. I can never relax, unless I have copied the sound into the picture. That is a personal point, of great release. I am totally unafraid of failure and never throw work away. As soon as I have copied the musical grid into the work, my intellectual quest starts; to really encode it
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correctly. I can’t wait to wake up every morning. Nothing else matters while I am drawing. I am a total adrenaline junky once I start. I multi - task and go on a complete roll while I am doing it. All other tasks become easy…until…. here is an example …In our
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house the rules are - no mobile phones at meals or in bathrooms, ever. So one day, I realized that I am getting too busy with work and would soon forget the music that I have heard going with the picture in my dream the night before. So I realized I had to brush my
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teeth and needed to check a picture on my phone for somebody and ..then my full bladder announced itself. I quickly grabbed my toothbrush and started running to the bathroom, phone in one hand and closed my eyes for a moment thinking …I am so glad nobody could see
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what I was doing and..pulled down my undies at the same time with that hand and gave my front teeth; a good swipe…sat down and was out of there in 60 seconds flat.
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I was happily choosing colors and dancing to the music in my mind…but about an hour later I could not sit down because my private parts were complaining!!!…..oh dear, so while I closed my eyes and was so thankful for nobody witnessing me having broken my own rules ….I had dropped some watery, liquid toothpaste in my undies and let’s just say spearmint is not a good fit!!! So the music downloaded is fairly static, but I add the Rumbo! (tongue in cheek)
absent minded, but can get very preoccupied when I am in the zone. Drawing from the dreamlike dimension, your artworks unveil the bridge between reality and inner worlds, that you sapiently disclose by creating inter-zones of sensory perceptions, that invite the viewers to recognize elements from reality: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? In particular, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process?
Unfortunately I have too many examples like those. They usually entail, wearing my skirt or top, upside down or inside out to class. I once put rice inside a pot and put water in, directly on the element, without putting the glass pot holder in first. I am not usually
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It is very kind of you to use the term ‘’sapiently’’. If I do manage to create interzones of sensoric perceptions for
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hunger to learn, explore and grow is a very set reality in many high - end art collectors’ lives. They have laddered the proverbial Abraham Maslow’s theory about the hierarchy of needs and are in the process of self actualization in their own lives, seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. It is a very individual journey, each according to his or her own set path. I use stories to accommodate their process, using it to connect reality and imagination. It is very enriching as a process artist to see people exploring their own consciousness and make connections between proverbial worlds and their own growth. I am fearless of stepping into my own imagination. Nido Qubein is one of my favorite people, he coins it best ‘’most of us miss our best opportunities in life because they come to us disguised as work.’’ If you can dream it you can do it. In quantum physics we learn that yesterday, today and tomorrow all grow on the same tree simultaneously. Sometimes we all need quantum entanglement to knock on our doors to shake us all out of the reverie of mere simplicity. Sensory overload of the machine age holds most people hostage to one finger signals - we need - the shake. In my everyday life I try to act mindful and pay close attention to small things. They usually signal much bigger things. To tap into the subconscious and what it knows takes time. I love the quiet in the desert and think we should all slowdown. I think the artworks I have created, may be fueled by the imagination needed to create but contains information very real. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you see yourself as an interpreter, an observer of what 'simply is', seeing your work as a puzzle, a map and a musical composition. Your unique technique allows you to create new kind of hybrid languages that expand and even transcends the nature of human perception, and more specifically we definitely love the way your artworks almost urge he viewers to elaborate such a wide number of interpretations French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see : how would you consider the degree of openness of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Are you particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception?
art viewers I am overjoyed. One well - known art collector Alain Servais from Belgium has said publicly, and some other collectors have reiterated to me, for at least two years how important it is to them to understand the work of artists and how unsatisfied they are with mainstream contemporary art expression in general. There is a definite art to bridging the gap, of what artists hope others would experience when they see their art and what is usually perceived. I have tried to listen to what I hear from collectors. One collector sent me a picture of a work by Joan Miro and we found a hidden, subliminal image in it together and it led to us exploring some of his other works in unison. The
The Arabian people have a saying; “What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s
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between your two lips.” Having found facts and figures in my own work, that I have not even known were contained within, just like most artists, I have come to the conclusion if the art crosses your path it is there, for a reason and you need to find out why it let itself be found, by you? My perception as well as understanding is that even if I wrote notes explaining 50 % of the work, there would still remain another 50 % unknown and that one day artificial intelligence will probably be able to help discover and unravel more of the narratives embedded within… There is a definite - Origen like theme more often than not and reflects more systematically on the theme of discernment. Origen viewed it as an operation of the higher part of the soul (νους), whereby the soul opens itself to its spirit. In that regard, I would definitely encourage going below merely the surface of the work. It bears repeating that; ‘The Rose - Zero-Knowledge Protocol (5523)’ which featured in my first solo exhibition ‘Enclosure Fathom - Part 1 (2018)’ a dreamlike book, I open in my dreams, is the basis of all my work. In particular also what the definition in cryptography is of, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol. The work is aimed at seekers and seers who really wish to find something to explore on a different level. It would not necessarily satisfy the investor who just wishes to invest in art as a monetary transaction. Emotions can change very easily… but I am always excited if something about my artwork creates that initial emotional, spark of interest, to viewers wanting to go deeper. It does not have to include a friendship or relationship with me as the artist. A viewer of one of my works recently burst into tears after seeing it exhibited overseas. He really felt it was created just for him and stayed, all day, looking at it. I cannot take credit for that. I am just a messenger of sorts. It's important to mention that you love photographing your artworks and then using kaleidoscopic computer software to create new digital editions of them: how do you consider the role of technology playing within the ramifications of your artistic process?
dreamed of. Even my current art, is very low class 2d in comparison to what the real topics of my dreams are like. As soon as I used the kaleidoscopic software, it dawned on me, that the pictures had multiple other identities I did not even know about.
In the beginning I did it, because I felt totally incapable of drawing the multiple dimensions etc. that I had
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I turned a picture one day and ended up absolutely
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of a well-known family in Europe. I was ecstatic. I then realized in my lifetime; not me or the next person is going to be able to just lightly decode the work. I also realized, that at least some people deeply invested in spirituality ages ago, must also have tapped into the
stoked. I ran up and down the room like a mad woman. One of my pictures showed at the exact 5th turn of the kaleidoscope a heraldic picture of the family emblem
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same realm - in order to have copied that. It wasn’t
My whole life changed shortly afterwards (2008). I went to Japan to attend a conference and also to see the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto. His water crystal experiments consisted of exposing water in glasses to various words, pictures, or music,
some simple, random design either. I then looked back deeper into my family’s roots in old Venice etc.
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At the same time I was working on a project studying the book ‘’Networked intelligence - nature goes online by Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf.’’ at a think tank/ training class at a local hospital in South Korea. The main theses of the book are: All living beings in the cosmos are connected to one another via newly discovered hyper-communication and form a network of consciousness. The genetic material, the DNA, which is actually an antenna, acts as a transmitter and receiver system. Gravitation and gravity anomalies influence our consciousness and events of world events. The book explores a Cosmic Internet of Consciousness. I realized my own art work was really so alive. Not at all, only what people may perceive as a couple of blocks drawn, attached to, dry philosophical theories mixed with pseudo spirituality. It came slow. I had a lot of opposition from family and friends about the source of my drawings, at the time. Some works, as the interesting The Pearl of Nizwa feature such unique elaborate patterns that remind medioriental style: in this sense, we dare say that 1your artistic research establishes a bridge between tradition and contemporary sensitiveness: how do you consider the relationship between Tradition and Contemporariness playing within your work as an artist? “William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, artist,novelist, printer, translator and socialist activist. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production.’’ When I was 11/12 my parents bought a house. My mom got huge catalogs with endless samples of materials and wallpapers featuring William Morris’ designs. My one grandmother had oriental pots and exquisite figurines of Japanese children and a prototype Japanese handheld vacuum cleaner machine, all given to her by overseas guests. I was taught to appreciate beauty from different cultures. Both sets of grandparents had their glass showcases with sculptures and favored items. My parents also insisted that we do some house chores. We daily set the place mats for every- day- use featuring The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831) by artist Katsushika Hokusai and some with beautiful Paris café motifs and with a jam-pot with African animals growling
then freezing it and examining the ice crystals' aesthetic properties with microscopic photography. I realized what I was drawing were my dreams and the crystal patterns of people’s thoughts, etc. That too qualifies as a definite Eureka moment.
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Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius
In my every day life I make extensive use of the internet both for coms as well as for my research. The sobering part of it is that I do not have the luxury of seeing the body language of others which makes out 75% of language when people communicate according to experts. I have been in a virtual art race with some collectors regarding my ‘Enclosure Part 2’ exhibition which would also lead to a video series later. What started out as one thing has morphed into something else altogether. I see and experience the world through their eyes here in the middle of the desert. Sometimes I have to take time out to handle a crises or ongoing problem and work. I dare say the relationships carried me through dark periods during the Covid - 19 saga.
at prey overlooked around the corner from a painting by an African artist of a bleak moonscape. My own contemporary sensitiveness starts with the simple request of people; to stop trying to own or be God/s. At the same time it is very important to value and respect the traditions of other cultures. I feel completely free in expressing what I find beautiful in different societies. In the work ‘Pearl of Nizwa’ I have tried to translate the beauty of what the city represents to me individually. The mosque part of the drawing would not transfer to glass if kept white, so I inverted the picture and added the blue color. The picture transferred to glass in Armenia is absolutely breathtaking in my own opinion. It topped any and all of my expectations. Nobody seeing it, could possibly defend thoughts that it is meant to offend.
In the art world it is not necessarily what is presented, present, or on show... which fascinates me, but rather what is implied? What was created by the artists themselves, they did not even realize, at the time of creation. Here in Oman nature forces the opposite. If you do not have shelter or water nobody needs to explain anything to you. Here living an orderly, practical life can mean the difference between bad/ death or life in the real sense of the words. I am a planner. Life here forces anyone to plan. I find people very caring and their hospitality and depth exceedingly charming. We are treated as part of their extended families with a great deal of care and grace. My belief that there are great people in the world got strengthened here a lot. I have walked through the oasis, in a movie like setting, with family members, celebrated a wedding and birthdays here, got parents to visit us and had one son here with us, during a prolonged sickbed. It is here that I had my first solo art exhibition driven via Omani sponsorship. My heart is full of riches. Wherever I am and whatever I create will always carry these influences, the subtle fragrances of frankincense and dates and Omani coffee and friendship. My first exhibition led to a picnic in the oasis here as well, where my guests could experience a small taste of my everyday life.
It carries a distinct Inca Sacsayhuaman/ Zulu pattern inflection with a definite oriental touch, exposing my inter - cultural background. A contemporary touch on age old, beautiful tradition. Your works could be considered your holographic memories copied from your vivid dreams: we would like to ask you how does your everyday life in Oman and your memories influence and fuel your creative process. Epistemology, is the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge, according to the encyclopedia Britannica. The term is derived from the Greek epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and accordingly the field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge. Along with metaphysics, logic, and ethics, it is one of the four main branches of philosophy. That, and the spiritual intentions and intuitions, exhibited in the holographic memories, dreams and behaviors of 'the individual and group' and myself, be it in dreams or reality collectively form the fabric of my proverbial art canvas.
Most of your works are of A4 size, however, you also work with large canvass that provide the viewers with such immersive visual experience: how do the dimensions of your canvass affect your workflow?
I aim to continually perpetuate self awareness as far away from the ego sceptre of the selfie stick as possible, with my art. Social media one liner tech mentality is robbing every poet and artist as we speak. People are starting to fail, to fathom, perceive or grasp implied knowledge on a very basic level. In five years from now, we may live an abbreviated existence concreted in the 'concrete'.
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I have always created on smaller paper/ canvas due to us being migrants for the immediate present. Custom services do not acknowledge my drawings or artwork as just personal creations, anymore, but as a brand and a product. I therefore am responsible for all fees and
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insurance if it needs to be moved. I have 40 collections on inventory, which does pose a distinct issue, but if they were all meters wide, it would have been a much bigger and costlier problem. I tend to exhibit in countries outside of my usual residency only in digital form as to cut costs and simplify logistics. I have balanced self control whilst working on A4 size work, but as soon as there is a bigger canvas or wall, I go nuts. It is like when you show me a packet of chocolates or chips versus a box of drawing pens - the pens will always win. Once we have settled permanently like it is our current plan to do - I would wait awhile before buying any huge canvasses, as my husband and family may not see me at all. That is what could really tempt me, not to show up anywhere for some weeks!!
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- in action. If someone has a physical work of art of mine, it definitely effects me as well. My website and Instagram is where I try to connect with people who are interested in the deeper meaning of the art and with a broader audience. My Instagram is my lifeline on DM to ‘’the audience’’ in real time. Most of ‘’the audience’’ do not collect art or care to invest in art. They just enjoy reading about the experiences of others and or take an interest in my life and environment and travels. I enjoy connecting with all of them either way. The relationships can lead to a lot of joking and creating of new art, supposed to tease the other party, back and forth. I enjoy it immensely, and love a good joke. Some specific art collectors have had an amazing influence on my life. I have learned more from them about art and the art world, and history than, if I had done a degree in art. Two main art critics have also enriched my life in many ways, especially one. I regularly go along for the ride, seeing and experiencing life in the art world through his eyes. I think he is the richest man on earth, having seen and experienced so many exhibitions in his lifetime. I enjoy fellow artists the most. I feel I have truly found my tribe. I am older than most of them, but in my heart I am always 17, so it does not matter to me in the slightest.
You are an established artist: you gained international recognition as an emerging artist in 2017 and you rank has improved over the last two years. Over the years you have the chance to exhibit your artworks internationally: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience I gladly share the artworks my limited moments of epiphany and measure of vision contain. I am thankful that I have an audience anywhere. I am in the position that I have known especially Asian art collectors for many years and they have known my work for a long time as well, long before international recognition followed. The items created were personally commissioned. They know about my existence purely by word of mouth. On paper it certainly may seem as if I have managed to jump head first into a high - end art market position, which is simply not true. There are investors who merely wish to buy my work on the primary market or the whole inventory, hold onto it for a couple of years and hope to sell it on the secondary market for a hopeful bigger payoff. There is no sin in making investments in such a way, but those buyers are not my preference. I do not sell my art except by invitation. I see it as a privilege to be able to create art and am very interested in exchanging holographic memories with collectors. I am always available to art collectors who wish to give the first step, by connecting to me on Instagram.
One collector did let me know he wishes to buy our blue car, which will soon be put on auction - as an art object for a specific purpose: he wishes to buy the car and put some selected works of one of my collections in it and send it to the moon, with an umbrella in the car, after having painted the car full of white daisies. It all reverts back to the strange story on my website about a blue car and my real blue car in Oman. Read more about it below. https://artshowroom.org/2019/12/27/upcoming-auctionin-november-2021-the-blue-car-bespoke-service-to-artcollectors-by-invitation-only/ By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram and Vimeo — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalized audience?
It is a very personal choice. If my work ends up in someone’s house, it immediately has an effect on the Cosmic Internet Chain spiritually - the reverberating fork
It has definitely made art more accessible in general.
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There are more than enough art lovers to absorb all of the artists out there’s art, but it has also upped the ante for artists who want to sell, but are not on top of their game and opened the door to some bad predators, seeking artists ‘’to pay unfair amounts to play’’. In general it is the most active I have ever seen the market.
Blue Car - Mostly Harmless - But Always Blessed’’, and its stories as well as a couple of cartoons my husband and I have created about a lady chasing Salvador Dali over a field of cauliflowers with an umbrella pointed at his backside and him chasing a rhino who wears a chastity belt. It is one of the spin- offs of the virtual art collectors race. I am working with the gifted musicians of Duo4Musicians on The Pearl Nizwa exhibition. Soprano and medical doctor Maria- Elizabeth Bezuidenhout and gifted oboe player John Rojas recorded a beautiful song about Oman in Bakersfield California recently.
It has certainly managed to give my art exposure which otherwise would have been impossible. Many art collectors lead extremely busy lives. Their lounge chair may be their only space/time to see or experience artists’ work online, so, show it, make it accessible. Please find examples of my art and stories and general exhibitions at my https://www.instagram.com/sharm.t.p Instagram handle. Just be mindful that you have to prove you are older than 25.
We are leaving Oman at short notice as laws here do not make provision for me not taking a vaccine due to Secondary Sjogren Syndrome with mixed tissue disorder I have been diagnosed with in my 20’s. There is also a problem with our visas to reach our home in Bulgaria which we are building up into an artist retreat. We cannot lose residency and still apply for our visas in Dubai at the closest embassy and they do not have a service collecting our biometric data in Oman. Life is in a particular gear. I do also need specific medical attention soon.
We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Sharmaine Thérèsa. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
Other than that I am slowly bringing my collection inventory online. Thank you for having spent this visit with me.
I have really enjoyed it, thank you ever so kindly and to your audience as well. I have recently finished a showing at a group online exhibition in Northern Ireland at Pepney Gallery called ‘’The Secret Garden’’ and I am having two exhibitions in short succession: my work the Zoetrope film titled: Oita Ikebana Sakura: The Precious Slipper – An Ode to Mizuki (008172) set to the music of Duo4Musicians’ ‘’Heimwee’’ just completed its showing at ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH 2021 – LONDON CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR (The Line ITSLIQUID) – during late November.
References: 1. https://www.healthline.com/health/synesthesia 2.https://www.managementstudyguide.com/observation _method.htm 3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_mes sage
My other work Ithaca – Frozen Race in An Iron Age – Zoetrope, New Media – Mixed Art, is on show at the 9th Edition – of CONTEMPORARY VENICE 2021. THE ROOM Contemporary Art Space and Misericordia Archives – until December 09, 2021.
4. BIOGRAPHY: MARIA-ELIZABETH BEZUIDENHOUT – Duo4Musicians 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soshanguve 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship
Find her website at: https://artshowroom.org/ Instagram: @sharm.t.p Twitter: @SHARMTP Press Interviews and Articles: https://artshowroom.org/2019/12/27/press-interviews/ Email: patsmit1@gmail.com Duo4Musicians: https://duo4music.com/
7. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9932337-what-smeant-for-you- will-reach-you-even-if-it-s 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris
The copyrights of all the images belong to the artist
I am organizing the last admin for the auction of ‘’The
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Edgar Invoker
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video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
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Edgar Invoker An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Edgar and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.saatchiart.com/edgar in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. You have a solid formal training and you hold a Master of Arts, that you received from the prestigious I. Repin St. Petersburg State Academy Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Edgar Invoker: Greetings to the Art Habens team and all the readers of this wonderful magazine. Yes, I studied at a rather prestigious educational institution and this could not but affect my creative path and skills as an artist. It should be noted that the Russian Academy of Arts has a varied history, which of course influenced this educational institution both practically and ideologically. One way or another, the Academy of Arts is a state institution and is part of the system. As befits a systemic institution, the academy is called upon to graduate systemic people.
Edgar Invoker
High-level professionals who will subsequently fulfill government orders and create a cultural narrative that reflects the policy of the state.
Historically, the Academy was imperial and reflected the corresponding mood of the empire.
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In the Soviet period, it was a marten of propaganda cadres. Based on the above, it is important to note that it was practically impossible to simply learn the techniques of painting and the basics of drawing at the Academy of Arts without the influence of ideology. In the process of learning, I felt a certain pressure from above regarding what and how to draw. This concerned both the subject matter of the work and the manner of performance. I must say that before entering the academy, I already had an idea that I would like to engage in contemporary art in the truest sense of the word. For me, studying at the university had an absolutely practical meaning - to learn how to portray what I want. It can be said that I was formed in the process of internal resistance in combination with attempts at adaptation without losing my identity. On a purely professional level, I got a pretty solid foundation that helps me plan the creation of the image with a preliminary understanding of what is required for this. How to solve the set task stylistically, and what methods will be needed for this. The training in human body imaging in the framework of the institute's programs taught me to understand the image of the system and structure in principle. It doesn't matter what I portray. the main thing is that I perceive it as a kind of organism that has certain laws of construction. Visual taste is the product of a similar approach. At the same time, it is important to note that this is not some kind of qualification in the selection of what art should be,
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although I dare to note that the Academy of Arts is trying to impose a certain taste on the choice of what kind of art you will do and prefer. The taste that I developed in the learning process allows me to feel the
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relevance or excess of elements in the structure, system, fabric, etc. different directions of art, regardless of their formal presentation.
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I studied at the Department of Painting, specialization - monumental art. The choice was not accidental, I always liked working with paints, but at the same time, from childhood I was a graphic artist and often drew with ink on
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paper, making illustrations for the books I was reading at that time. Monumental decorative art combines elements that are important to me -
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stylization, laconic palette. graphics of lines, purity of interpretation of forms.
As for the style and artistic direction of my work, of course I feel the influence of the school of figurative art. I often turn to human portrayal as the main element of my work, while using the legacy
Striving to create a sign form. All this is reflected in my creative quest.
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of photorealism as a genre, while experimenting with techniques.
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But as is often the case in creativity, everything took a different route. I spontaneously created 8 abstract figures on 8 canvases with a spatula and pieces of plastic using acrylic paint mixed with varnish.
Even my abstract works can be called anthropacentric. In them I turn to the topic of perception
The idea came quite spontaneously to make a series of works dedicated to images from personal history out of these canvases.
For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected your Memory's Gloss series, a stimulating project that has at once captured our attention for the way it uses visual language in a strategic way to offering an array of meanings to the viewers: when walking our readers through the genesis of your Memory's Gloss series, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process?
The trigger was an accident. I stood in the supermarket in line at the checkout and saw a dog that stood in front of me and looked in my direction. It was everyday, but at the same time I felt how the layer of memory that belonged to my childhood made itself felt. This approach is typical of my creative method. But this time I focused not on images from dreams or my subconscious, but on memorable events that happened to me in everyday life. This gave a similar but still different result than usual.
Edgar Invoker: Thank you for your interest in this series of works. For me, this is a rather personal project, while I tried to touch upon images that are understandable to many people.
For your Memory's Gloss series, you seem to have drawn inspiration from your personal experience, and we daresay that it reveals a channel of communication between Present and Past. How do you consider the role of memory and of everyday life's experience in your creative process?
I often use the abstraction style as a starting point for finding images. It is like looking at the clouds in search of fantastic beasts. Initially, the canvases on which the Memory’s Gloss series was created were intended for another project under the name Temporarily Unnamed. The series is dedicated to the process of pattern recognition, namely the moment when the image is in the process of recognition and perception is balancing on the verge of recognizing the object.
Edgar Invoker: Memory for me is the basis of perception. We can say that this is the compass of awareness. Everything I do in art is somehow based on working with memory. Whether it's dreams or memories of a personal story. Memory for me is like a medium through which an image is created or information is transmitted.
I was missing 8 canvases to expand the exposure and I was planning to make an additional series stylistically based on the main series.
It is the influence of memory on the perception of everyday life and the direction of attention that interests me most of all.
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I feel the deep power of the images that are in my memory. I feel their influence on my attention. Based on this, I refer to the canvases I have prepared with a specific setting. In
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abstract spots, I seek projections of my memories. A collection of images containing emotional clusters.
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The events of the past are like the pillars of
bridge. The energy of attention moves along
the bridge on the other side. Memory is the
such a bridge back and forth, even if we do
bridge itself. Our everyday attention is
not notice such a connection.
conditioned by the starting point of the
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We have been particularly impressed with the sense of movement that marks out your interesting Consciousness and Entrance to the map, and we really appreciated the way your artworks create such enigmatic patterns,
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communicating an alternation between tension and release. How does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include moment by moment in your artworks?
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Edgar Invoker: The works you mentioned refer to the period of the beginning of my acquaintance with the practice of lucid dreaming. The choice of tone and accents was due to the special state of erasing the border between sleep and reality, while diligently concretizing this transition.
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interpretations of their work is regarded by them as imperfection. I am one of the artists who are not worried about the possibility of unexpected interpretation of my works by the viewer. In my opinion, any understanding is illusory. Only experience is real. It is the experience of being aware of the work of our perception.
The whole practice of trying to be aware in a dream is a series of concentration and directed relaxation. A sense of tact and timing is very important in this case, while excessive efforts lead to the opposite of your intentions, the result.
I am not trying to convey information. Now fixing equipment does an excellent job with this. What I am doing is more like an attempt to discover the properties of the process of perception. An attempt to grasp sensations at the periphery of the gaze.
This is a very interesting experience and its influence on my work is quite strong.
I am interested in making the viewer feel himself through my works.
Your technique allows you to create new kinds of visual languages that expand and even trascends the nature of human perception, inviting the viewers to elaborate such a wide number of interpretations. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others see: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Are you particularly interested in arousing emotions that goes beyond the realm of visual perception?
As you have remarked in your artist's statement, what fascinates you the most is how human’s consciousness adjusts itself during the perception of external world. We dare say that create works of art that challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters, to create interzones of sensory perceptions: how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? Edgar Invoker: Yes, perceptual adjustment is an amazing process. We can very quickly process sensory experience by losing the boundaries of the real and the imaginary and turn our fields of imagination into real territory.
Edgar Invoker: The visual language in which I speak with the viewer is largely due to the time that shaped me. We exist in the era of mass media and information dissemination technologies. We can say that the language in which we think is in many ways the language of mediums for transmitting information. Photos, magazines, screens, monitors, etc. All this takes up most of our figurative memory. Yes, many artists are concerned with reaching the purest possible message to the viewer. The presence of
As I see it, the road to reality is difficult enough for perception. We literally have to wade through the thorns of the imaginary to real events. I am interested in the moment of the gap between the real and the imaginary. The moment when we switch from direct
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perception of phenomena to interpretation.
of environment I am trying to create in my works.
Catching this moment can only be immersed in an environment of uncertainty. This is the kind
At the same time, I have no goal to show the viewer "reality" but rather to immerse
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him in an experience in which he will discover the process of choosing interpretations.
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understand the peculiarities of our perception. Artificial intelligence, cinema, virtual and augmented reality and the entire culture of reproduction and mass media are projections
In my opinion, we live in a great time to
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of the mechanism of our consciousness. This is how our memory and perception function.
opportunity to study our surroundings to understand ourselves.
We have studied the world around us for a long time to understand it. We now have the
For last several years you've been interested in consciousness, cognition, machine learning and
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consciousness consists of images by a very large percentage.
AI and we have really appreciated the way you draw from scientific imagery, to expanded the relationship between Art and Science: how do you consider the relationship between artistic research and scientific method? In particular, how does in your opinion art could be used to explain scientific themes?
In a sense, I am complementing a phrase made by science by giving a visual form to this statement. It is also important to note that the artist is free to combine absolutely opposite concepts and attitudes. To be a kind of mediator between the scientific and antiscientific picture of the world, which often gives interesting results and can expand the boundaries of understanding the world.
Edgar Invoker: Yes, I am really interested in news from the world of science, both applied and fundamental. This interest appeared in childhood when I spent long hours looking at and reading popular science magazines. I was very interested in astronomy, I even made a telescope from improvised means to look at the moon.
An aspect of your practice that we would like to highlight is your ability to create artworks marked out with powerful metaphoric features to reflect the act of discovering the unknown: how important is for you to create artworks with allegorical aspects?
Everything that I learned certainly penetrated into the subject of my drawings. Science for me has always been one of the ways of knowing the world. Science has its own guidelines and tools. A certain profile of thinking. I have always been attracted by the interest of science in the world around us and in man. This is the spirit of exploration.
Edgar Invoker: Indeed, allegories and metaphors are of great importance to me. The language in which we communicate with the outside world is not limited to linguistic forms. Images are important. This is a very capacious cluster of information with a high transmission potential. Apparently our psyche is prone to inversions of the incoming signal. Allegorical images are already an inversion and reach our consciousness quite effectively.
I always knew that I was an artist and I have my own method of understanding the world, which is different from the scientific one. But the artist is also a researcher. The artist works directly with the impression of the surrounding world. With images and sensations. There are many variables here that are difficult to grasp.
Apparently, allegory is the language in which we can refer to our collective memory. To invoke the experience of ancestors for a clearer awareness of what we meet in the unknown. The history of development and the history of human thought is not linear. There were periods of major breakthroughs to knowledge that was subsequently lost. It is naive enough to believe that we are now living at the peak of human discovery.
Findings made by scientists can be researched and supplemented by artists, which will create an additional facet of perception. The influence of images on a person is immensely powerful. I would say that our
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especially to online platforms — as Instagram — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
We are on the way of the ups and downs of humanity as a species, and our time is only one of the turns. The study of consciousness and images that activate our hidden areas of memory is very important for understanding ourselves as a phenomenon. Art plays a big role in this case.
Edgar Invoker: Thanks for mentioning this. Indeed, exhibitions are an important part of the dialogue with the viewer.
You are an established artist: over the years your artworks have been internationally exhibited in several occasions, including your recent show "Memory's Gloss -Temporarily Unnamed", at the Arts Square Gallery, in Saint-Petersburg, Russia: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and
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Many viewers have followed my experiments since the first exhibitions and in a sense, this is an adventure for two. Me and my audience. Not everyone supports my desire to change genres and forms, but I dare to note that fundamentally I am talking about the same thing, formally changing the presentation of
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Simply put, the number of intermediaries between the audience and the artist is reduced. I have the opportunity to give the earliest feedback on the state of the audience. It changes the form of art.
the material, but remaining faithful to the theme of human consciousness and attention. Regarding the influence of social networks, I want to note that now it is a hybrid form of representation for an artist working in a physical environment.
We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Edgar. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
All that you can see on the Internet on my page on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/edgarinvoker) and other platforms is a visual story about what you can see offline at the exhibition. The transition of physical art to the web is like reverse recursion or a dream within a dream.
Edgar Invoker: I thank your team for their interest in my work. Thanks for the interesting questions.
Pictures that have long served as a frame for the real and the fantastic are now themselves part of the virtual world on the other side of the screen.
Communicating with you has expanded my experience. Now I am working with the family archive and plan to finish a series of works devoted to the topic of inheritance, but not as something material, but as an inheritance of moods and ideas that I received from my parents and relatives. This is an attempt to document the act of my perception of what is left of my ancestors. Catch my impression by fixing it in images.
This is a characteristic feature of the transition period when the code of information transmission and the cultural code in general changes. Naturally I am very interested in arriving within these phenomena. The latest wave of fascination with NFT art, in my opinion, is significant for the period I mentioned above.
I also plan to delve into the world of NFT art. I'm primarily interested in the language in which you can communicate with the audience in the field of this phenomenon. The potential is huge and there is work to be done.
Physical art is getting a real duplicate in the web world. Digital works get their physical copies.
Finally, I would like to thank the readers of this conversation for their attention!
In all this, the role of social networks for me is the most important. Information exchange and social connections become central to the process of getting the audience to know the artist.
An interview by and
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Tanya Bub
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video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
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Tanya Bub An interview by and
, curator curator
Hello Tanya and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://tanyabub.myportfolio.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you hold degrees in Philosophy of Science from McGill University and Fine Arts from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver: how did experiences influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background due to your 20-year career as a computer programmer direct your current artistic research?
Tanya Bub: There is certainly an undercurrent that unifies my approach to art, programming and science. For example both philosophy of science books which I co-authored with my dad, one on relativity and one on quantum mechanics, begin with a simple premise and extend from there by way of small logical steps, gradually building complexity to reveal surprising features of the structure of the universe. My sculptures also all begin in the most basic way, by combining one piece of wood with a second. Then another is added and another, eventually resulting in an intricate form made up of sometimes hundreds of different pieces of driftwood, that also tell a unified story. Even the most sophisticated computer program is an ordered assembly of fundamental building blocks. I am fascinated by the way complexity arises by combining elementary components.
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captured our attention for the way it highlights the uniqueness of human experience: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you develop your initial ideas?
Tanya Bub: People connect with other people and even animals by means of eye contact. In my work I strive to create a meaningful
The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens has at once
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Tanya Bub
relationship between ourselves and nature by exploiting this aspect of human psychology. I usually begin with and spend the most time working on my character's eyes and facial expressions so that ideally, viewers respond to my sculptures almost as they would to real people or animals. When that happens, a personal and even emotional bond is made not only between the viewer and the depicted character but also with the natural material from which the piece is made. The roots and bark are bone and sinew. The evident life force in the branch that had to twist and turn to grow around an obstacle gives its energy to the twisted spine it has become. Personifying nature creates a deep empathy between ourselves and natural world, making visceral the fact that we are one with the environment. Contemporary practice has forged a new concept of art making involving such a wide and once unthinkable variety of materials and objects, and as you have remarked in your artist's statement, every piece of driftwood contains the unique and secret story of its origins and journey in its curves, colors and contours. In photographer and sculptor Zoe Leonard once stated, "the objects that we leave behind hold the marks and the sign of our use: like archeological findings, they reveal so much about us": could you tell us something about your interest in found objects?
Tanya Bub: Working with found objects, be they human-made or crafted by nature, brings their narrative into the story I create with my art, thereby introducing layers of depth. The aesthetic experience, that breathtaking synthesis of knowledge, emotion, memory and sensory perception, is heightened by the often subliminal response we have to all the components that make up a work of art. Each
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of the discrete elements I incorporate into my work have a voice and contribute to the richness of the viewer's experience. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, the transformation from a collection of lots of pieces of driftwood into a distinctive portrait involves an iterative process of combining and interlocking the found-wood until a "person" emerges, as if from a puzzle: we would like to ask you if you create your works gesturally, instinctively. In particular, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your creative process?
There are effectively an infinite number of ways a collection of driftwood can be combined to create a sculpture. This type of open ended "puzzle" is far too difficult a task for the conscious mind, which I playfully refer to as "little brain". Little brain likes to plan out solutions to finite problems and will tend to hold on to a particular set of preconceived ideas regarding the appropriate shape of a piece of wood that will extend the sculpture. This is often a lost cause as such pieces of wood may or may not be in the collection I have at hand. The unconscious mind, "big brain", doesn't work in this linear way. It is the master of chance,chaos and improvisation and will often produce surprising solutions to problems working with what is at hand. In concrete terms, imagine I am making a face and consciously seeking a piece that looks like a nose. I may then limit myself to small more or less triangular pieces. The more holistic subconscious brain may instead find a large gnarly twisted branch that wraps around to form a neck, curls into an implied ear, offers the hint pf a nostril before
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ending in a wild tendril of hair. This not takes inspiration from what is available but makes for a more interesting nose and adds dynamism and physical
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strength to the sculpture. I find that keeping little brain busy while I work, usually by talking on the phone to a friend, allows big brain to take center stage to get the hard work done!
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It's important to remark that you use non-toxic adhesive and varnish: how important is for you to raise awareness to environmental issues in the viewers?
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Tanya Bub: Some eco-artists use their work to explicitly draw attention to specific environmental issue like climate change or plastics in the ocean. Instead I hope to raise
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awareness of the importance of our environment by drawing attention to the the power and beauty of ordinary natural objects by putting them before the public eye in the form
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of art. It is my hope that my work will serve as a gentle reminder of both value of nature and the fact that we are not so much stewards of the environment as a mere facet of it.
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We really appreciate such stunning organic quality of your artworks. French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas once remarked that Art is not what you see, but what you make others
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see: how would you consider the degree of openess of the messages that you convey in your creations and how open would you like your works to be understood? Are you
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particularly interested in arousing emotions that
steps further! The final work of art is not only
goes beyond the realm of visual perception?
"what you make others see", it also involves the artist seeing what others see, which then
Tanya Bub: Yes, and I would even take that a
completes the piece and informs future work. In
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art everything is important. The material, the
is the mere tip of the iceberg to the largely psychological phenomenon that is art.
social, economic, geographic, historical context, placement, location, audience response,
We sometimes tend to forget that a work of art is a physical artefact with tactile qualities, and we
everything comes into play. The physical artifacts
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really appreciate the way your artistic production reflects this aspect: how important is for you to highlight the physical aspect of your artworks?
The sculptures create an almost unsettling
Tanya Bub: Physicality is essential to my work.
is slightly disturbing to look at driftwood! They
connection between wood, bone, skin and sinew. So much so that people sometime find
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know they are looking at roots and sticks, yet
juxtaposition that makes the sculptures exciting.
the also see the fur, skeleton, joints and flexing muscles of a seemingly living creature
Your artistic production also reflects your unique exploration of our relationship with our
that is making eye contact. It is this
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surroundings. Scottish artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic works of art are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?
somewhat hidden in a tree by the sidewalk in front of my house. That piece triggers an instinctive 'cougar in tree' adrenaline reaction when people walking by first see it at a glance. The initial shock translates into humor once people realize it's a sculpture. I love that element of fun and surprise. The success of the piece comes not only from it's integration with nature -- the cougar pulls the tree and
Tanya Bub: One of my most popular sculptures is a simple driftwood cougar that I placed
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surroundings into the sculpture -- but also from the passerby who inadvertently momentarily become the cougar's prey, if only in their imagination. I see my work as essentially psychological. I use driftwood to create ideas, emotions and connections in people's minds.
occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to the online realm — as Instagram — increases: how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience?
You are an established artist and over the years you works have been showcased in several
Tanya Bub: I see my audience and their responses as an integral part of my work. I'd
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love to exhibit in far away venues to share my sculptures with people who have different perspectives. I think the element of wonder and surprise would only be heightened by the "exotic" nature of the materials i use which are somewhat familiar here. My work is constantly evolving so please follow me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/victoriadrifter)
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to see what's new and don't hesitate to get in touch to inquire about commissions, installations and exhibitions. I am always open to exciting proposals! We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic production and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Tanya. What projects are you
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currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
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says about what it means to be human. The tongue in cheek name is "Art for Dogs and the People Who Love Them". Please do come and make sure to bring your dog!
Tanya Bub: My next exhibition will be solo show in May at the Gage Gallery in Victoria which will be a playful but serious exploration of art and what our relationship to art can
An interview by and
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, curator curator
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Irina Bula was born on April 14th, 1970 in Riga. In 1994 she was graduated from the Latvian Academy of Arts with a Degree in painting and sculpture.She took an active part in the exhibitions of main Galleries of Riga, such as «Center», «Daugava» and «Riga». She collaborated also with the American Art company and made the decorative sculptures for the «Vatican», «White house» and museums. In 1998, she emigrates to Luxembourg where she continues her active work both as a teacher of Arts in the Russian and English schools (sculpture and painting) and as an independent artist. Special Issue
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video, 2013
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Jordi Rosado
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Irina Bula An interview by and
, curator curator
We are particularly proud to introduce our readers to Irina Bula's artistic production: through her eyes the viewers are walked into an immersive, emphatic and uniting experience, that unveils the bridge between all of us. Hello Irina and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, would you tell us if there are any experiences that did influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background direct your current artistic research? Irina Bula: I have been interested in Art since childhood and entered the Latvian Academy of Arts to study sculpture. Thanks to remarkable professors, I received a noble education in the various techniques of sculpture, such as embossing copper, processing stone, bronze, wood. It was a combination of professional skills and humanitarian learning: Art history, philosophy, sociology, drafting, physiology. On my initiative, I also took oil painting classes in parallel. At that time, I got classical training in visual arts and knowledge of contemporary styles and ultra modern trends. I admired the art of virtuous Italian Renaissance masters such as Michelangelo and also masters of the 20th century as Bourdelle and Maillol with their expressive and sensual rendering of massive shapes. I liked the landscapes of the French impressionists and the modernism of the Brazilian architect Niemeyer.
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and going to museums, I started learning a lot. In my tireless search I strove to find my individual style without imitating any of famous trends. It was pleasure for me to gain experience by learning from nature, absorbing its beauty and harmony, the perfection of the lines and forms. From visiting California Yosemite National Park, I painted many
A few yeas after graduation, I had to emigrate from my country Latvia to Luxembourg. And so when I started traveling around the world
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beautiful landscapes and interesting historical places with rich ancient architecture and cities with modern skyscrapers like Chicago. Afterwards, my attention turned to the inner world of man and I’ve drawn a lot of portraits of my friends and strangers, mostly in pastel technique. But still, I found myself in the sculpture. I’m constantly looking for new ways and methods of artistic axpression. I’m fascinated by work with the plasticity of the body I stylize and integrate into an abstract form. My favorite material is bronze, I make it in different techniques and colors depending on the conception. I combine the bronze and stone, concrete and mosaic. Your stunning sculptures feature sapient use of symbols and we really appreciate their almost organic qualities, as well as the way they allude to meaning through symbolic and visual references: how do you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic practice? And how important is for you to create artworks rich of allegorical qualities? Irina Bula: I use symbols, signs, allegories and mythological images that carry an inner meaning and subtext for my original art means. It seems to me that symbolic language, through its concise form and salient expression, brings what a whole literary narrative sometimes cannot. I often use the symbol of the hand, for example, sculpture called «Support» as the better ideogram of our actions. They can be both positive and negative. I adopted this style from the ancient Egyptian alphabet which was encrypted in hieroglyphs when I visited Egypt. The wisdom of words was typically hidden in iconic images. In another context, I did a sculpture called «Power». It happens that a dishonorable leader who has achieved a high level of power structure loses his humanity. In
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interpreting the violence against individual freedom I sculpted the big hand trying to crush people into a shapeless, grey mass. I made this hand in bronze and tinted it with a blue-green acid patina to show the metallic coldness and soullessness. I’ve always kept up with the time never get away from reality. The artist is an eyewitness to his time, a participant in the events that take place. I tried to achieve my art relevant and affecting for the audience. In my long experience of life, I have had to face several political systems. I have seen some unjust political systems and courts when human rights are grossly violated and laws are only for certain groups of people. I couldn’t be indifferent to how totalitarian power tried to break and destroy an individual and even whole nations. This painful theme is reflected in my sculptures called the «System» depicting the flywheel in motion as a symbol of the system of governance. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens has at once impressed us of for the way it highlights the relationship between the shapes: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how do you usually develop the initial ideas for your artworks? In particular, do you create your works intuitivelly, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? Irina Bula: Before stating artwork I’m considering the idea of preparing a lot of sketches. In progress I can break some wrong elements and stat over. Getting stimulus is easy I just observe what’s going in the world. Your artistic production reflects with such kaleidoscopic visual value of aspect of your inner artistic research. Mexican artist
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Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in": do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our globalised society? In particular, what could be in your
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opinion the role of artists in our everchanging and unstable society? Irina Bula: Our civilization has reached the highest achievements in science and technology but cannot solve the problems of our time. Military conflicts, poverty, the
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migration afflict humanity, and we cannot find a way out of troubles. My thoughts led me to create several art projects: «Tree of life», depicting a young tree sprouting through an
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exploded bomb, «The human shield», symbolizing our planet surrounded by united people, and «Brotherhood». There are a huge number of nuclear weapons in the world now,
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and even a small, local conflict can be the spark that leads to catastrophe.The threat of total war must be a thing in the past. In oder to convey a complex idea, I made the tree destroys a bomb with its crown and the strong
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roots. I wanted to highlight this symbol as it has a sacred mystical vitality. As a primary project, it’s made of painted plaster with an internal
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much more important. We can’t touch friendship, faith, love, or courage. But it’s so much more real. When I worked as an art teacher for children, I watched them feel the world.
metal frame to withstand its weight. There was also important to fill with styrofoam to lighten the weight. I think of this project as the monument for the city park. You often create large sculptures that provide the viewers with such immersive visual experience: how do the dimensions affect your workflow?
My experience with them inspired me to create a sculpture called «Meeting», that depicts a child and his friend-a dog. I imagined them as one common whole and inseparable part of nature. We can learn from children strong friendships, sincere devotion, and kindness. Art is another reality that helps one see the meaninglessness of bustle, emptiness of what fills its life. We are all hostages of the frantic speed of life, the many affairs, temptations, and the pursuit of sensations. The sculpture slows down movement, stops time, and allows us to notice the small things around you and new sense of life.
Irina Bula: Making even a small sculpture is a very time-consuming process. At first, I have to sculpt from clay then make the mold out of plaster. And then cast copy in plaster. The same principle applies to making a wax model from sculpture but using a silicone mold. Only then can the wax model be cast in bronze using the sandy mold. But it needs special equipment, a room and a furnace for melting bronze. I usually go to Dutch workshop to get help to do this.
Your sculpture «To the future» seem to draw inspiration from spirituality and we appreciated the way it conveys such deep feelings: how important is for your the spiritual dimension?
After casting, sculpture looks like a rusty ingot with many defects. I sand the surface with a grinder machine, polish and tint the last stage. Bronze is harder than stone, so it harder to process, but more durable and resistant.
Irina Bula: Art, faith can enlighten a man. In particular, I turn to stories from the scriptures in my artwork that answer all questions, reveal the cause of our suffering, and what we are truly called upon to do. Man is not only a material being associated with nature, but also a spiritual being in his mind. It is by raising the level of understanding of the world, of Life, that the human being attains his Divine Conscience and lives on the basis of that Conscience in his divine quality. How much of our Conscience will be able to connect and immerse ourselves in God’s communication not in the flow of events, but one-on-one. The Holy Scripture brings us back to God, His Word and His Law. God gives our souls the ability to acquire peace by being filled with His
With their powerful narrative drive «Kiss», «United», «Motherhood», «Warmth of the heart» communicate deep sense of connection: how do your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Irina Bula: The series of works «Kiss», «United», «Motherhood», «Warmth of the heart», are made using this technology and are dedicated to simple, everyday life. Those who are able to give up egoism and show love for another, for nature. Art, in my understanding, is meant to help one discover an organic, multifaceted world beyond what is visible. Things that cannot be touched are
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supernatural consolation and joy. The expression of these ideas was implemented in the sculpture «To the future». I’ve been thinking about and working on it for several years. That was really interesting, complex work with using new gilding technique, just for experiment. I exhibited a sculpture together with a painting similar in plot, which made one overall composition, for emphasis. Eventually, my efforts were justified when the dialogue with audience took place and my work evoked many questions and joint deliberation. Well, it’s especially unexpected when my sculpture was awarded by the jury. Since 2001, have regularly participated in various exhibitions and charity events in many cities : Paris, Hamburg, Monaco, Moscow, Barcelona. It was fruitful cooperation with the Belgian Association of Artists « le reflet de nos différence» for me. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Irina. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Irina Bula: I got invited to participate in an international exhibition in France. So, I plan to exhibit in Festival d’Art sacré de Compiègne for all religions and spiritual practices. However, it’s particularly close to me the monumental sculpture of large sizes and solid materials. I‘m gonna keep to participating in design competitions for architecture sites. I think these topics will remain a priority for me and I associate my plans with it. I hope to find interested organizations with implementing come of my projects on large scale. I would like to try miself in new quality and develop new opportunities.
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