LandEscape Art Review, vol.72

LandEscape C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w Anniversary Edition FLORIAN NÖRL OLEH LAVRII elisELIS MARIE RIOUX DONNA BASSIN MITRA TASHAKORI BRIAN MCPARTLON ADRIAN FLAHERTY TANYA MOMI ART Brian McPartlon

Land scape SUMMARY CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Jorge Rojas Naima Karim Cécile Filipe C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w Oleh Lavrii Brian McPartlon Adrian Flaherty Mitra Tashakori Florian Nörl Marie Rioux Poland USA United Kingdom USA Germany / Austria Québec I am an artist, and I hope that I am a Brian McPartlon is an Abstract I am a Londoner, having lived here all Brian McPartlon is an Abstract All my artworks are made from Whatever I wish to express, representative of contemporary art. Expressionist based in Santa Fe, NM.He my life and where I also studied Expressionist based in Santa Fe, Textile: I petrify textiles and then atmosphere is a constant in the When I put paint on a canvas, I am not has been honing his skills with acrylics, Sculpture, completing my degree at NM. He has been honing his skills process them in a similar way to conception of my works. I enjoy trying to turn it into a colored figure in watercolor, oils, pastels and mixed UAL in 2016, with work interested in order to convey the material qualities media sculpture since his first exhibition ideas related to the home. I worked with acrylics, watercolor, oils, stone. I call the result and the creating dramatic ambiences in of the subject. In the process of work, I at “Best of the Stockade” in 1965 in across a variety of media on this pastels and mixed media sculpture technique textile stone which imaginary places and the think a lot about what is happening on Schenectady, NY. In 1973, he received a course but since then I have been since his first exhibition at “Best of (Textilstein). The overall concept real world merge, giving rise to Bachelors of Fine Arts from the San the Stockade” in 1965 in the canvas. Also, the objects of Francisco Art Institute. By 1975 he concentrating on paintings. I have of my work is the transformation different possibilities. In them, I concentration of attention are both founded and directed the 63 Bluxome always been interested in the use of Schenectady, NY. In 1973, he of postmodern materials (old highlight, through their eye- the physiological processes of Street Gallery in San Chance in art over the last century or received a Bachelors of Fine Arts textiles) into contemporary art reflection at the beginning of work, Francisco.McPartlon’s technique seeks so and I use various methods of from the San Francisco Art catching aesthetic, certain urban and the inspiration that arises when to present true depth of field through painting and drawing to create Institute. By 1975 he founded and or contemporary details lost in these vast spaces. tracking one's emotions from emerging layers of shapes and colors. He uses chaotic effects on the canvases directed the 63 Bluxome Street gems.„Textilstein“ is a specially Out of them arises a mixture of images. In the process of work, an staining, pouring, spray and a diverse which I then try to reason with, developed material by Florian immobility, mystery and silence atmosphere of mental analysis of the set of brushes from a traditional 6” bringing it together with more Gallery in San Nörl, which redefines the very process of creating an image is house painting brush to palm fronds, detailed work. After completing the Francisco.McPartlon’s technique boundaries of the textile in which humanity proceeds created, which has nothing to do with cactus, and animal bone fragments to series of bridges along the River seeks to present true depth of towards its elsewhere . . . It is in his fingers. The range of colors and field through layers of shapes and medium in the visual arts. The contemplating my surroundings an arbitrary overlay of color strokes, depth of each of McPartlon’s work Thames, up to the edge of London, I „textilestone“ finds its place on but involves a thought process based evokes powerful reactions from anyone have been making paintings of cliffs colors. He uses staining, pouring, this interface with an interaction that I find inspiration. Through on an inner feeling. Of course, this is who has entered one of his studios in and beaches along the West coast of spray and a diverse set of brushes the happenstance of strolling not always the case. Sometimes I get San Francisco or his current studio in England. This is meant to symbolise from a traditional 6” house of plastic and pictorial inspired by what I see in nature or on Santa Fe.The large bold canvases can be how both myself and the `Western’ painting brush to palm fronds, exploration of the textile about, my eye catches forms, the streets of cities, and I convey these ominous, antagonizing, invigorating and world is constantly being cactus, and animal bone fragments material. Through a special lines, saturated colours and the images to the viewer using different breath taking. A single painting may unpredictability affected by the process and technology, the feel vibrations around me, recording techniques. From time to time I get out take him ten minutes or over 40 years forces around it, as can be also seen to his fingers. The range of colors to complete. Observers of his works will and depth of each of McPartlon’s is velvety and the surface them in me. When I am in front of the process of visual "meditation" struggle to not touch the textures or in the nature of the landscape work evokes powerful reactions reminds of „Stucco lustro“ from of the canvas these elements rear and communicate with the outside crawl into the portals that exist in the changing with coastal erosion, tides, a distance. Only by touch can one up again, revealing themselves world. I organize my exhibitions and layers of his paintings.McPartlon’s winds, etc. The effect of climate from anyone who has entered one everything that a contemporary artist works have been on exhibit in New change is only going to heighten the of his studios in San Francisco or truly understand the textile and in this way forming the basis has to do. York, San Francisco, and Santa Fe, NM. impact on people’s lives. his current studio in Santa Fe. material. of my own aesthetic. Special Issue

SUMMARY Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Marie Rioux 4 lives and works in Québec Oleh Lavrii 28 lives and works in Poland Mitra Tashakori 46 Joe O’Brien lives and works in Iran Adrian Flaherty 74 lives and works in the United Kingdom Florian Nörl 100 lives and works in Linz, Austria Brian McPartlon 118 elisELIS Donna Bassin Tanya Momi lives and works in the United States Ukraine USA USA elisELIS 138 Elis is a multi(inter)disciplinary Kyiv Donna Bassin is a photo-based I create a foundation on which she freelance artist-wonderer, psycho artist, filmmaker, clinical applies new layers of pictorial muse and visual philosopher. She psychologist, professor, and materials occasionally resembling the lives and works in the United Kingdom investigates the culture and mentality published author who was born experiences of informel, yet complex, of collage, the other side of mistakes in Brooklyn and now living in New dynamic and frequently tumultuous and imperfections, exploring the body Jersey. The death of her younger processes, inspired by some inner and physicality and the world around sister when she was ten years old Donna Bassin 168 her through performance, installation, reasons of my nature, a feeling of text, collage, photography and video. motivated and shaped her clinical absolute domination of visual is born. She prefers to stay on the verge of and art practice. Her work on At first sight it might seem that I give lives and works in the United States rawness and marginal beauty creating long-term projects responds to priority to a typically modernistic her own dystopian magic. Elis’s distressing aspects of presentation based on the collage artworks are very performative contemporary life, such as the technique. However, if that process is physical pieces, they are full of aftermath of September 11, Tanya Momi psychological stories and if looked present here it is understood in quite 212 closer dynamic, all processes are coming home after the war, a different sense. My college is a visible, while her performances- racism, social injustice, and, most different visual game: it is a lives and works in the United States happenings are full of collaged actions recently, the destruction of the combination (synthesis?) of practically and concepts. Elis’ art practice is as environment. Those pursuits all known disciplines of visual art. My much therapeutic and personal as it is have resulted in two awarding paintings are some kind of art social, and intended for an attentive documentaries, two solo modern (at times melancholic) viewer. labyrinths, which we are conquering Special thanks to Miya Ando, Juerg Luedi, Urte Beyer, Beth Her Soviet origins and artistic museum exhibitions, publications with the sense of great concern for Krensky, Rudiger Fischer, Lisa Birke, Haylee Lenkey, Martin philosophy (as well as metamodern in various art and culture our own future, for what is waiting for Gantman, Ariane Littman, Max Epstein, Nicolas Vionnet, Sapir views) prompt the artist to question periodicals, public installations, us in the next century – but through Kesem Leary, Greg Condon, Jasper Van Loon, Alexandre Dang, and challenge the modern book covers, inclusion in private those same labyrinths we’re going understanding of herself, culture and and museum collections, a with the sense of joy, for living in age Christian Gastaldi, Larry Cwik, Michael Nelson, Dana Taylor, identity. Elis’s art practice is about billboard in Brooklyn, and Michael Sweeney, Colette Hosmer, Melissa Moffat, Marinda truth and freedom, about so rich with different events and imperfection and the passage of time, participation with other artists in experiences that there was something Scaramanga and Artemis Herber. about life and death. curated group shows. for us to leave in the mud behind us! Special Issue

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Marie Rioux Whatever I wish to express, atmosphere is a constant in the conception of my works. I enjoy creating dramatic ambiences in which imaginary places and the real world merge, giving rise to different possibilities. In them, I highlight, through their eye-catching aesthetic, certain urban details lost in these vast spaces. Out of them arises a mixture of immobility, mystery and silence in which humanity proceeds towards its elsewhere . . . It is in contemplating my surroundings that I find inspiration. Through the happenstance of strolling about, my eye catches forms, lines, saturated colours and the vibrations around me, recording them in me. When I am in front of the canvas these elements rear up again, revealing themselves and in this way forming the basis of my own aesthetic. To this is added the influence of the current state of the world, on which the editorial thread of my work draws. Through this artistic language, I communicate my perception of the world today. I express my emotions through the composition and, as a result, initiate a dialogue with the other. In my pictorial world there is no boundary between figuration and abstraction. They penetrate one another. My visual language is primarily and profoundly instinctive, intuitive and non-conformist. The essential thing is that my paintings project duality, that they be enigmatic and open to various readings. In the studio, listening to music which creates a protective bubble around me, I choose the format and colours I wish to work with. Oil, acrylic, sometimes pastel and pencil . . . I use monochrome shades to produce a dramatic effect and to accentuate my serious purpose, even as I enjoy and have an aptitude for mixing colours. I do not follow artistic trends of the day and do not work to meet viewers' expectations. It is up to them to find their own resonance, their own meaning and pleasure. Above all, my ideas respond to an inner need, independent of fashions. The artwork, like all that is vital, must be able to evolve. @marieriouxartiste An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and we are now particularly pleased to discover and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator the development of your artistic production. [email protected] The new body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape is has Hello Marie and welcome back toLandEscape. impressed us for the way it connectsthe sense We already got the chance to introduce our of place that you capture from real readers to your artworks in a previous edition surroundings, withthe realm of imagination,

Monténégro, oil on canvas, 102cm x76 cm, 2022

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW walking the viewers to explore the point of the unusual, from which there arises an convergence between figuration and enigmatic little story. abstraction. More specifically, we would like These church steeples dot the landscape all start this interview with Pendant ce temps, an across Quebec, soaring up to the heavens and extremely stimulating work that our readers the gleaming light of the day’s end, vestiges of have already started to get to know in the an era in which the Church dominated our land introductory pages of this article. Would you and our lives. tell us something of the genesis of this These days, endless road works have overrun captivating painting? In particular, how did these same landscapes. Hence the artificial you select such intense nuance of red in order fluorescent red pigment rising to the surface, to achieve such unique sensation of contrast creating a sharp contrast with the surrounding with the background? natural monochrome tones. I enjoy this Marie Rioux: Thanks to the LandEscape team aesthetic confrontation and its symbolic for inviting me back to your magnificent meaning. journal. Your very considered questions have The tones of your recent body of works— be made me engage in true introspection . . . and they intense as in L’heure bleue, and Le début, at times I got a little lost in the process! be they marked out with such thoughtful, (smiles) almost meditative ambiance, as inL'Éboueur In response to your kind comments du ciel — create delicate tension and introducing the first question of the interview, dynamics: how does your ownpsychological I will begin here by pointing out an important make-updetermine the nuances of tones that aspect of my artistic project. you decide to include in your works? In the course of my diverse rambles I observe Marie Rioux: My sole thoughts when attentively and record within myself images of beginning a work concern the tones, hues and striking places. Back in my studio I let my colours. I approach the application of colours brushes go, following diverse avenues of my as a purely retinal aesthetic process – for the imagination. I place no initial constraint or pleasure of one’s eyes – and once this is restriction. Only at the very end do I finalise my connected to the composition it becomes a composition and certain details in order to visual experience. My contemplative gaze is polish the work on the aesthetic level and often attracted by intense, deep colours. This especially to give it meaning. is reflected in my work. The work “Pendant ce temps” (“Meanwhile”) The works selected for my first appearance in refers to the society and environment of my your journal in 2016 focused on the river land. The painting is a contemplative and environment and its fogs, as I had to take a reflective look at Quebec’s vast landscapes. It ferry every day to get to my studio. shows the countryside on a September Today I am exploring new options for afternoon. In this work I chose to bring monochrome hues, and I enjoy mixing colours together a church steeple and elements in red, which initiate different atmospheres. This is symbolising the many traffic signs cluttering what I am most fond of doing. I then project our roads. I love bringing out the unexpected, myself into wide open spaces. These new

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Le début, mixte on canvas, 76cm x 152cm, 2021 paths I explore give me the freedom to work exactly what kind of mood and continue developing nuances such as those in atmosphere I wish to establish. I am and the works you mention in your question. remain a dramaturge of the visual arts. This, however, has nothing to do with my mood . . . I know from the moment I begin a Your artworks often featurehuman figures,

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW that are usually present as tiny, blurred human figures in your artworks? More figures, that seems to be out of reach and that specifically, does the fact that they're almost provides the viewers with feeling of immersed in their surroundings, could be remoteness, as in the interesting En route vers considered an allegorical aspect of your le ciel. How do you consider the role of such artworks?

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Marie Rioux: These figures have an asexual form which I prefer to use in my work. I believe that they encompass all our ambivalences and that given the precariousness of life the main thing lies not in differences, but rather in emotion. These characters enable me to add tangible figurative elements in spaces which are often, but not always, abstract. They provide bearings. The appearance of these silhouettes accentuates the vastness of the land and, out of this, our own smallness and solitudes. They give rise to a psychological tension which invites contemplation of our wide world. Sometimes I feel that we circulate in our universe like ants in an immense wasteland. Looking from afar, my gaze frequently settles on similar small forms. “En route vers le ciel” (“En Route Towards the Sky”) is a joyous work. A dreamt journey in the clouds. It recounts our re-found freedom after the isolation of the pandemic. In this sense, yes, the character in this work is a stylistic device for expressing this vastness of the world compared to the insignificance of our person, our individuality. Here there is a clear allegory. In fact these small human figures – which are, moreover, a significant element of my artistic signature – convey this allegorical world in which my thoughts and dreams have dwelt since childhood. We have been captured with the atmosphere ofLe sang des innocents.Artists from different art movement and eras —from pioneer Richard Morris, passing through Thomas Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more recently Kelly Richardson— use to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowingaudience on topical issues that affect our everchanging society? In particular, as an how do you considerthe role of artistsin our globalised and unstable society?

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Avant 20 heure, oil on canvas, 91 cm x 102cm, 2021

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Le bloc, oil on canvas, 106cmx 137cm, 2022

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Marie Rioux: Some artworks are activist. My own work, without being in the service of a cause, sometimes is. Artists are sensitive witnesses to their times. With their creativity, they have the opportunity to grasp the social issues of today’s world from unusual, striking, unexpected and sometimes even dissonant angles. Their art enables them to bring out their personal thoughts in various ways. The social engagement of a work of art exists in its relationship with a particular context, as well as in the artist’s intent. It is thus connected to a precise moment in time. If taken out of this temporality, all that remains of an artwork would be aesthetics and memory. Through their work committed artists share their convictions and their interpretation of the meaning of people’s lives and of events. But artists can choose whether or not to take up this role in the face of our shifting and turbulent world. As our age is one of great upheavals of every kind, our contemporaries are becoming increasingly aware that humanity is headed straight towards unrelenting destinies. As a picture is worth a thousand words, the impact of works of visual art which strike the imagination and hit a nerve in the audience can significantly raise the awareness of people receptive to these issues. The painting “Le sang des innocents” (“The Blood of Innocents”) refers to the discovery of a clandestine cemetery on the grounds of a Catholic residential school for Indigenous children in western Canada. It is an editorial work on the atrocities committed in the cultural genocide of First Nations peoples ordered by the government of Canada and carried out by the Church.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW L’Éboueur, oil on canvas, 76 cmx 91cm, 2021 For my part, I try to move myself and reach the We really appreciate the way you achieve to observer while at the same time conveying my create such unique combination between perceptions of life and, at times, the issues of dramatic —almost surrealistic— the day. In this case, such a terrible tragedy. I atmospheres and references to realistic made this work the day after the discovery. I elements. As you have remarked in your was completely appalled by this tragedy. artist's statement, it is in contemplating your Everything fell quickly into place: colours, surroundings that you find inspiration: do you church steeple, the half-outlined figure and the think that such dreamlike ambiance that blood-red texture, alluding to the traces left marks out your landscapes belongs to the real behind at a crime. images that inspire you, or is it in your opinion

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Pendant ce temps, oil on canvas, 91cm x 102 cm, 2021 the result of your inner state, that is reflected city – I am taken by the great beauty of sites, by the work of art as a whole? landscapes and buildings, or by eye-catching elements and by everything that these places Marie Rioux: These atmospheres are the result can appeal to visually. This ensemble is of ceaseless observation on my rambles arranged before my eyes like a stage play. In through nature, although they are in no way short, I am often struck with wonder at a reproductions of precise places. I am an ambler, crossroads . . . and am constantly possessed by what I see. Before the blank canvas, the hues and During these sorties in nature – or even in the ambiences observed earlier come

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW 0 02 2 , m c 2 5 1 x m c 6 7 , s va n a c n o il o , t ui n la t n a v A spontaneously to mind. I do not seek to And so I give room to my imagination. In my reproduce the reality I experienced but rather brushstrokes everything merges, returns and the unconscious impressions left in me by this appears in a story full of imagery. I thus initiate reality. To this is added the influence, deep a depiction of the land with my own aesthetic down, of urban structures or newsworthy in order to make possible a new reading of and events which are omnipresent in my daily life. perspective on the landscape. To answer your

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW question, I presume that this must be, in fact, mediated by the lens of emotions and of the something of a reflection of my soul. unconscious sphere: do you agree with this intepretation? In particular, how you consider We dare say that the aesthetics that you the role of memory within creative process? develop could be considered a response to More specifically, did you ever paint en plein direct experience condensed in memories, air, in order to capture specific ephemeral

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Variation no3, oil on canvas,91cmx91cm, 2022 details of what is caught by your eyes? dreams and other images derived from the imaginary realm. All this pandemonium is Marie Rioux: I believe there is a deep undoubtedly a vector of my creativity. That my overlapping in our mind between our past and aesthetics are connected to visual experiences present actions, our memories, emotions, when I am out and about, to encounters or to

L’heure bleue, oil on canvas, 137 cm x 106 cm, 2021

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Bosnie, oil on canvas, 91cm x 76 cm, 2022

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW 1 02 2 , m c 61 x m c 61 , s va n a c n o il o i, mo et i o T other experiences, and that they are channelled the creative process this is mostly a conscious by the emotions I feel at the time or by the search for the aesthetic through hues and unconscious, is certainly the case up to a certain forms: establishing a particular atmosphere point. And yet right from the first moments of that commands my attention. Towards the end

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW L’atelier du Vieux port, oil on canvas, 122 cm x 106 cm, 2022 of the process is where the more figurative creators turn inward in order to draw on aspects of the work clearly come into play, energies and the creative impulse, and in so and as a result this is when ideas distinctly doing steep themselves, in part, in their come to me in connection with already memories. An anecdote: when I was a child, perceived memories or emotions. one day I was riding my bike late one stormy As for the role of memory in the creative day. The sky was black, purple, rent with process, in my case it is a central tool. All lightning and with deafening thunder, and in a

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW striking contrast the grass on this early music selected probably influences me, but I summer’s day was so green, almost fluorescent. don’t know to what extent. I presume, I was excited, it was mad fun. The savage however, that some of my favourite music beauty of the spectacular, menacing ambience stimulates me to use strong, powerful, deep around me had a profound effect and revealed and even sombre colours. Do other kinds of to me the extent to which I was captivated by music also have an effect on the light similar natural spectacles. Splendours such as introduced into my work? these are certainly the bedrock of my artistic personality. I think that music – or sounds – most likely can I take no pleasure in reproducing nature become an intrinsic or complementary element exactly. I tried plein air painting in the past but in certain kinds of pictorial or spatial art. did not find it satisfying. I don’t really like We really appreciate your ability to create reproducing anything at all. My work does not suchharmonic balancebetween figuration and contain the kind of specific details you allude to abstraction, that invites the viewers to in your question. elaboratetheir own meaning and pleasure. I prefer to work in my studio, giving free rein to Moreover, your paintings often features titles my yen. There I transform reality by bringing a able to offer guidance to your spectatorship: degree of the dreamlike into my work: how do you go about naming your work ? In figurative, abstract, surrealist, I like to break particular, is important for you to tell down barriers. something that might walk the viewers through their own visual experience? How do you considerthe relationship between Marie Rioux: Your questions are all so kind! visual arts and music? In particular, how does Thank you again for your kind words. the music that you listen to when creating influence your process? In fact I believe I have achieved a fine Marie Rioux: Both of these art forms create in equilibrium between figuration and the listener or the observer a sense of well abstraction, and I ascribe this to the period in being or other emotions, but by different the 1990s when I did mostly abstract painting. I means. What music and the visual arts have in am quite at ease with this kind of art and I common is to create enveloping and make use of it easily and spontaneously complementary worlds which affect our senses. without barriers. In addition, each of them enriches the other. The painting’s title emphasises what the work In the studio, having music in the background suggests to me once it is finished and comes to lets me concentrate better. It creates an me spontaneously. This must be the result of enveloping protective bubble. Without music, I channelling the ideas of my initial inspiration have too many ideas which go in every direction when I started work on it. and make me lose a lot of time. With music, it’s My works are small stories with intentional like I am working in another world... messages, and with the title I suggest a way of My choice of music creates an ambience in reading it. Nevertheless, it is up to each keeping with my tastes at the moment. The observer to give it individual meaning and to

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Déjà le soir, oil on canvas, 61cmx 122cm, 2022 make it bring another story to life if they wish. For a long time I thought that the visual work spoke about itself and that it did not need a It is not very important, but I find it pleasant to title or an explanation. I changed my way of guide observers in the direction of the way I thinking in the wake of frequent questions by myself look at my work. observers when faced with my work. So now

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW I enjoy guiding them to the meaning I give the For my part, through my work I try first of all to work. Moreover, often when responding to give rise to an emotion in me. Creating, after questions I like to develop the story by all, is an egotistical act. In this sense I am inventing all kinds of things that come to mind. seeking pleasure. Then comes the action of I amuse myself a little bit . . . communicating with the other person.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Intution plays an important role in your become singular, with assurance. My interests approach and your visual language is remain the same, but I now fully stand by primarily and profoundly instinctive: how do them! I am driven by a sense of urgency. So you considerthe role of chance and many new paths remain to explore. I always improvisationplaying within your artistic have the sense of just starting out! process? I would like to be more disciplined in my Marie Rioux: I am naturally instinctive and pictorial investigations. A short while ago I experience has taught me to have confidence decided to work in series, because this method in myself. So when I start work on a project I will enable me to explore, from the same basically reflect on the colours I wish to use. starting point, the many aesthetic possibilities Improvisation comes to the fore in my first of a work. I’m presently working on an exciting brushstrokes as I apply layers of colours to new series taken from my painting “Rivière establish the ambience of the work. Humber” (“Humber River”). The goal is to Improvisation thus has a fundamental role for carry out experimental modifications to it by me. inserting various elements using fluorescent colours in order to observe their effect. I would Nevertheless, it is by no means a product of like to explore this composition in depth chance that these hues appear on the surface. without being distracted by my other interests. They are the reflection of what I am feeling Nevertheless, because I now live in Montreal, I more or less consciously at that moment. have the idea of possibly creating a series of Then comes the work’s construction, its small works depicting the heads of unusual composition. In this second stage I sketch out individuals such as those you come across the narrative I have in my head. Despite the regularly on the bus or the subway. This is how spontaneity and freedom of my gestures, an I am: always intensely influenced by my enormous amount of work is involved, experiences in my surroundings. because I maintain a critical eye towards my work and don’t hesitate to start all over if the From November 26 to January 6 a solo show of magic is not there. my work, entitled “Voies de traverse” (“Cross Sometimes little blunders create felicitous Roads”) is being held at the Angers gallery in opportunities: is that a matter of chance? Montreal, and I still have works at the splendid Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing Abbozzo gallery in Toronto and the Jack Meier your thoughts again, Marie. How do you see gallery in Houston. I work a lot and the days in your evolution as a visual artist over time? my studio pass too quickly. Are there any things that you do In addition, I am thinking seriously about the fundamentally different from when you? impact of my medium, oil paint, on the Marie Rioux: Looking back on the work I have environment. I thus have a project of returning made since I started out I see that my ideas to video art. In fact a second version of have not changed but rather have simply “Marche en terrain inconnu” (“Walking on evolved. After several digressions these ideas Unknown Land”). The initial work, dating from have freed themselves from established 2018, was an experimental work made during a artistic fashions and currents. They have research and creation course at UQAR (the

Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Rivière Humber no 2, oil on canvas 91 cm x 91 cm, 2022 Université du Québec à Rimouski). It was well Thank you very much for your attention to received, judging from the commentary on it I my work: it’s encouraging, and I greatly received. appreciate being one of the artists in whom So there you have it. you are interested.

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Oleh Lavrii I am an artist, and I hope that I am a representative of contemporary art. When I put paint on a canvas, I am not trying to turn it into a colored figure in order to convey the material qualities of the subject. In the process of work, I think a lot about what is happening on the canvas. Also, the objects of concentration of attention are both the physiological processes of reflection at the beginning of work, and the inspiration that arises when tracking one's emotions from emerging images. In the process of work, an atmosphere of mental analysis of the very process of creating an image is created, which has nothing to do with an arbitrary overlay of color strokes, but involves a thought process based on an inner feeling. Of course, this is not always the case. Sometimes I get inspired by what I see in nature or on the streets of cities, and I convey these images to the viewer using different techniques. From time to time I get out of the process of visual "meditation" and communicate with the outside world. I organize my exhibitions and everything that a contemporary artist has to do. I would be very happy if I have new contacts with people who love art, as well as with gallery owners and curators. @olehlavrii An interview by Josh Ryder, curator with a couple of questions about your and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator background. You have a solid formal training [email protected] and you studied at Crimean Art School. N. S. Samokish: how do these formative experiences Hello Oleh and welcome toLandEscape. Before influence your evolution as an artist? starting to elaborate about your artistic Moreover, how does yourcultural substratum production and we would like to invite our address the direction of your current artistic readers to visit https://lavri.netgallery.eu in research? order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview Oleh Lavrii: Experienced teachers can shape the

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Northern lights, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Clouds over the beach, oil on canvas, 100x120 cm. 2022 worldview of students and influence the Although there were not many such teachers development of an aspiring artist for several in my life, I nevertheless received enough years and even decades to come. Especially if knowledge in the field of easel painting. The the teacher is interested in the development teachers ofCrimean Art School. N. S. of his wards and is passionate about the Samokish were able to open the way for me process of transferring experience not only in to the world of art and taught me how to terms of drawing techniques, but also in the professionally use a set of tools, for which I formation of the spiritual qualities of students. am very grateful to them.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW As an artist, you are particularly interested in the physiological processes of reflection that guides the creation of the work of art: when walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? More specifically do you create your works intuitivelly, instinctively? How important are improvisation and spontaneityin your practice, in order to capture the inspiration that arises from the emerging images? Oleh Lavrii: I think many artists are interested in the process of creating a work of art at the moment of inspiration. It is also very important for me when inspiration and perfect movements of the tool on the canvas work in tandem, when thoughts do not get ahead of the flow of smooth work, then it becomes possible to think a little about the processes taking place on the canvas and direct them in the right direction. For example, the work "Catharsis", When I started this work, I thought about the sea, about the sand on the beach, but in the process of work I thought about the sources that fill the seas and oceans, at the end the idea of \u200b\u200bCatharsis appeared. It is very exciting to follow the process of work, and experience the joy of emerging images. The works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —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 they blend reality with imagination, inviting the viewers to explore the crossroad between reality and the dreamlike dimension: how do you considerthe relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production?

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW City lights, acrylic on canvas, 40x50 cm, 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Pearl, oil on canvas, 50x70 cm. 2022

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Oleh Lavrii: I try not to give free rein to fantasy, as fantasy images scatter attention and can lead to passive imagination, this is not what an artist needs to work with. In my case, it is better to keep the main theme in mind and develop the idea in the process of work until the moment when I feel a surge of hormones of joy from the result. I think that at this moment inspiration gains its volume and helps to complete the work with the best result. The tones of your works— be they intense and bright as in the works fromPetrichorand Yellow field, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative ambiance, as in Invasionand inMelancholy — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-updetermine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works? Oleh Lavrii: I like to work with sky and sea colors, they blend well with black and gray. These colors bring a sense of stability, nobility and contemplation to my life. Very rarely, according to my mood, I write a work only in gray shades, for example, the work of Melancholia. And such works as Petrichor and Yellow field, I think this is the perception of everyday simple joys. Although we can live in interiors with white and gray walls, sometimes you want to go to a restaurant with a bright interior and get a boost of vivacity. When I paint pictures in yellow, I do not give in to reflection, but I try to quickly finish the work and return to the usual slow analysis of images. You are a versatile artist and your artworks — as City lights, Clouds over the beach and Catharsis —encompasses both abstract and figurative feelings. Still, each of them

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Catharsis, oil on canvas, 80c80 cm. 2022 conveys such stimulating visual ambivalence, viewers to project onto, so that they can able to walk the viewers to develop personal actively participate in the creation of the visual interpretations and feelings. Austrian illusion: how important is for you to trigger Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the viewers' imagination in order to address the importance of providing a space for the them to elaboratepersonal interpretations? In

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Summer evening, acrylic on canvas, 40x50 cm, 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Plaza katedr, oil on canvas, 60x80 cm. 2022

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW The trees are sleeping, oil on canvas, 70x70 cm, 2022 particular, how open would you like your understandable to the viewer. Moreover, I works to be understood? find topics that would be close to the viewer and affect their feelings. I give titles to my Oleh Lavrii: Yes, of course I want my work to be work that will help the viewer to go through

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Birds in the city, oil on canvas, 70x70 cm. 2021 the visual image without tension. And of impressions and associate with personal course viewers are entitled to their own experience when considering my work. This interpretations. It's nice for me to notice and is a very effective way of communication, hear how viewers comment on their personal with the help of abstract images you can

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Tower construction, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Yellow field, acrylic on canvas, 120x100 cm, 2022

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Lincoln island, 70x70 cm, oil on canvas, 2022 convey impressions and even specific ideas. leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us We have really appreciated the multifaceted and for sharing your thoughts, Oleh. What nature of your artistic research and before projects are you currently working on, and

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Harbor, acrylic on canvas, 50x40 cm, 2022 Water lilies, oil on canvas, 70x50 cm, 2022 what are some of the ideas that you hope to by the Creator. In one wise book it is written; explore in the future? Everything that your hand can do, do it according to your strength; for in the grave Oleh Lavrii: I am currently working on a new where you will go there is no work, no collection of works called "Eloquent People". reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom. https://lavri.netgallery.eu/?new-collection In Ecclesiastes 9:10. I, as an artist, try to fulfill these paintings, I depict ordinary people in my functions to the fullest. In the near future everyday life. It is interesting for me to I plan to create a collection of sculptures that observe people, and I try to understand what should show the image of a person in a they think about, what they value, what they strive for. People are not able to live without transforming world. desires, because they have elementary physiological needs, which are primarily related to survival and reproduction. It is in us

Oleh Lavrii Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Thaw, acryl on canvas, 100x120 cm 2022

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Mitra Tashakori I love the leaves of the trees Nature and the leaves and the trunks of the trees and the tree of this glorious word have alwayss been a symbol of life, greenery and health for me. I like to keep the leaves with the same color and shape and Immortalize them in my memories. The existence of so much variety In the color and shape of the leaves is unique and amazing and I love this wonder. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the forms of nature, the freshness, the greenness of the leaves, and this rejuvenation, yellowing, falling, and a new beginning … For me, It is an association of life and death, and the distance between the two that must be lived very well. Leaves is an experiencee from my recent collection that I have dealt with most In the Covid_19 period. This collection started many years ago and continues to this day, and Its charm never ends . @mitratashakori1 An interview by Josh Ryder, curator I do believe that we are surrounded by a and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator myriad of objects that shape our artistic [email protected] character on a daily basis. As for me, I well remember how the patterns and flowers in Hello Mitra and welcome toLandEscape. my mother’s embroidery would interest and Before starting to elaborate about your entangle me. artistic production we would start this Soon after I graduated from high school, I interview with a couple of questions about chose art and graphics as my major. So, I your background. Are there any experiences think all these would ultimately affect the that did particularly influence your formation of my works. evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does yourcultural substratum address the Graphics is a creative field which offers a direction of your current artistic research? wide space to maneuver in. It is used not only in advertisements, but also in the creative Mitra Tashakori: Greetings to the lovely works of art. This field became a good team of LandEscape platform for the creation of my art.

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW The body of works that we have selected Mitra Tashakori:If you mean the leaves for this special edition of LandEscape —and collection, the work begins with the that our readers have already started to get arrangement of the leaves on the page, and to know in the introductory pages of this it immerses me so much that the work takes article — has at once captured our shape by itself without me consciously attention for your exploration of the giving it a thought. relationship between reality and imagination, as well as the unique choice of Maybe it's better to say that I put the leaves tones that unveils mystical qualities from on a paper or cardboard surface, my real places: when walking our readers imagination draws me to nature and it is through the genesis of your works, would transferred from nature to my work, and you tell us something about your usual then other visual elements come to my setup and process? work, I put surfaces, lines and finally dots.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW I place the dots more carefully and As for my other works, I just need to start obsessively and finally the work is the work... and the next, the work itself completed. draws me and takes me with it and a new work is created. The formation process definitely goes back to my memories, the landscapes I have seen When my mind is occupied with a problem, and my mentality. more and more lines and dots come to me,

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW they engulf me and after creating that does your ownpsychological make-up work, I get a strange sense of peace. determine the nuances of tones that you The tones of your works— be they intense decide to include in your works? and bright, be they marked out with such Mitra Tashakori: To create these spaces, I thoughtful, almost meditative atmosphere have used a special material and because create delicate tension and dynamics: how the colors that can be used on paper or

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW dark cardboard surface are limited, so the this limitation to coordinate the colors and choice of colors has also created a special forms. Limitation has brought me a special limitation for me, of course, I benefit from creativity.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW We highly appreciate the way your them to question the nature of human artworks address your audience to dive perception. Scottish painter Peter Doig into the dreamlike dimension, helping once remarked thateven the most realistic

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW paintings are derived more from within the the color in one hour of the day and in a head than from what's out there in front of specific place is different from the eyes of us, how do you considerthe relationship different artists and it goes back to the inner between reality and imagination, playing world of the artist, that is, the artist’s within your artistic production? worldview, imagination, and mindset. Imagination has influenced my work a lot. I Mitra Tashakori: I completely agree with used to draw trees in outdoors and real Peter Doug. space with pencil, metal pen, and Rapid, and Yes, even in the most realistic paintings, the in retrospect, all those studies, all those innermost of the artist affects the work. lines and designs have been influential in my Perhaps we see in the works of different current work. artists that the type of lines, hatches, and You arepersonally involved in topical issues levels are different from each other. Even that affect our society, including the crisis of

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW air warming, forest burning, environmental Richard Morris, passing through Thomas pollution. Artists from different art Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more movement and eras —from pioneer recently Kelly Richardson— use to

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW communicate more or less explicit messages audience on topical issues? In particular, as in their artworks: do you think that artists an how do you considerthe role of artistsin can raise awareness to an evergrowing our globalised and unstable society?

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Mitra Tashakori: In my opinion, artists can Of course, a good communication be pioneers in showing environmental between artists and environmental crises to the world. scientists and scientists in the field of

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW science and technology can be a new step in much more effective than television news advancing environmental goals. coverage. The effect that art has on the The warning or display of these works is audience, be it performance, painting,

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW dance, theater, music, or a combination of acknowledging its beauty and appreciation all these, is much, much deeper and more of nature and the power and natural magic permanent. Showing a leaf and of leaves and trees and showing it through

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW art can be more effective than the news You are a versatile artist and your coverage on deforestation. After all, the visual artworksseem to be rich of symbols, as language has the most impact. leaves. In this sense, your artistic

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW production aims tourge the spectatorship And secondly, the leaves are born again to a participative effort, to realize their in the spring. own interpretation. Austrian Art historian In the "Leaf and Death" exhibition, I put Ernst Gombrich once remarked the an excerpt of Fereydon Moshiri's poem importance of providing a space for the entitled "Believe in Spring" (‘Bahar ra viewers to project onto, so that they can Bavar Kon’) on the wall of the exhibition: actively participate in the creation of the "... the soil has come alive illusion: how important is for you to Why have you turned to stone? trigger the viewers' imagination in order Why are you so heavyhearted? to address them to elaboratepersonal Open the windows interpretations? In particular, how open And believe in the springs." would you like your works to be understood? Of course, I would very much like to see Yes, I really love symbols. and hear the feedback of my audience Usually, the production and creation of a both in the exhibitions and in the virtual work of art or artwork may not have space. This is very effective and anything to do with the audience. I make enjoyable for me, even if their feedback art because I feel the need for it inside me. is not in accordance with my own Air pollution, wars and destructions, etc. purpose or my personal perception of make me sick and this pain forces me to the works. create a work that is a salve for this pain It is still very inspiring and informative and then I share these works with my for me. audience and my work affects the With their unique aesthetic quality on audience. And I see its feedback. the visual espect, your works seem to I have never created a work to please the belaboriously structuredto capture audience. echoes from reality, pursuing such I have been asked a lot by the audience in effective and at the same time regard to the collection of leaves—whether thoughtfulvisual impact: how important this work is long-lasting? And even is direct experience for you? In collectors have told me, "this work is not particular, how do you considerthe role enduring, what would you do to make it of memoryplaying within your artistic last longer?" And in response, I would say, process? “Are we eternal?” The name of the Mitra Tashakori: I think I have fully collection is Leaf and Death, after all. addressed the importance of nature and It is not sustainable. its tremendous artistic impact in the Of course, this collection had two general previous questions. Nature marks the goals; firstly, the leaves are not permanent. beginning and end of my work; it makes We are not permanent and we die. its way into my works in a subconscious

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW and imaginative manner.I have never used minds in a mysterious way, and then it is images, photos, or real landscapes in my represented through the idiosyncratic works. I think that nature is imprinted in our forms, methods, and techniques of each

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW artist, painter, and designer. balanced sense of geometry, your works feature recurrent smooth contours and Marked out with suchorganic feelingand shapes that we dare say essential on the

Mitra Tashakori Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW visual aspect. Would you tell us something keep away from this mundane and tedious about such refined geometric aspect? world. Mitra Tashakori: I trace this strange order, We have really appreciated the which is completely noticeable in my work multifaceted nature of your artistic and is out of my control, and which has research and before leaving this appeared in all my works—back to my stimulating conversation we would like to strong interest and desire for graphics. thank you for chatting with us and for There is a close relationship between sharing your thoughts, Mitra. What painting and graphics in my works, and of projects are you currently working on, and course I like it. On the one hand, the strange what are some of the ideas that you hope symbols and order in the work and on the to explore in the future? other hand, my feelings and connection Mitra Tashakori: I appreciate you and your with the events have affected my work and good team. I myself love artistic discussions the painterly feeling of it. and I read them in art magazines and on You are an established artist, and over the Instagram, using Google Translate. It helps years your artworks have been exhbited in me understand the artists' works and the many occasions: how do you consider the process of their creation better. I think this nature of your relationship with your helps the affinity of the artist to the audience? As the move of Art from audience and you are the means to this traditional gallery spaces, to street and perfect end. Thank you. especially to online platforms — as Instagram — increases, how would in your I have new projects for which I need a good opinion change the relationship with a team to implement. globalised audience? Mitra Tashakori: I think that the Covid, in I am thinking of implementing them and I the last few years, has greatly affected the don't know how to explain them, maybe I nature of the exhibition of the works of art will share them with your good team after and has provided us with better and more the implementation. useful ways to display works. I love you very much. Virtual exhibitions, street performances, and especially Instagram have strangely brought the artist closer and closer to his/her audience. On the daily routine of our An interview by Josh Ryder, curator mechanical world, we need to produce and and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator display works of art more than ever. We need more tenderness, art, and creativity to [email protected]

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Adrian Flaherty Lives and works in London, United Kingdom I am a Londoner, having lived here all my life and where I also studied Sculpture, completing my degree at UAL in 2016, with work interested in ideas related to the home. I worked across a variety of media on this course but since then I have been concentrating on paintings. I have always been interested in the use of Chance in art over the last century or so and I use various methods of painting and drawing to create chaotic effects on the canvases which I then try to reason with, bringing it together with more detailed work. I work in administration as well at the moment which also brings out this organising nature of mine. Having also studied Architecture I have an underlying interest in location discovering new places that are related to a wider idea of where I am from, and walking is central to the work of my recent paintings. After completing the series of bridges along the River Thames, up to the edge of London, I have been making paintings of cliffs and beaches along the West coast of England. This is meant to symbolise how both myself and the `Western’ world is constantly being unpredictability affected by the forces around it, as can be also seen in the nature of the landscape changing with coastal erosion, tides, winds, etc. The effect of climate change is only going to heighten the impact on people’s lives. @adrianfhomeworks An interview by Josh Ryder, curator Sculpture, that you received from the and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator Camberwell College, University of the Arts [email protected] London: how do these formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Hello Adrian and welcome toLandEscape. Adrian Flaherty: Although the course was called Before starting to elaborate about your Sculpture we were encouraged, on all courses artistic production and we would like to invite there, to experiment with different media. With our readers to visit https://www.adrianf-home- that in mind my flat became the sculpture, with works.com in order to get a wider idea about interventions, paintings, photography, your artistic production, and we would like to functional works and sculptures in response to start this interview with a couple of questions the various spaces and ideas of the home. Over about your background. You have a solid the course I also developed my interest in the formal training and you hold a BA of use of chance in art over the last hundred years

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW or so. In one assignment I wrote about Marcel Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages – the dropping of three 1 metre long strings in a humorously ironic reference to perspective and to draftsmanship, where he would suggest that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a curve. This has now become a motif in many of my paintings. Another artist I very much like is Jackson Pollock and his drip paintings and the declaration that “I am nature” which became important to the expressive and organic nature of my work. In my twenties I also completed over two years of an architecture degree which has made me interested in the environment and the interest in discovering new places. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at oncecaptured our attention for the way your studies of the unpredictability and structure of the nature of coastal erosion invite the viewers to revaluate each step of the mechanism of art making, highlighting at the same time the uniqueness of the viewers' response to the work of art. When walking our readers through the genesis of the Cliffs and Beaches series, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? Adrian Flaherty: This series followed directly on from my Bridge series where I walked the length of the River Thames up to the edge of London producing paintings at each connection over the river. This was where I started exploring the juxtaposition of chance and structure (or reason), where the depths of water have often dangerous currents under the surface if you were trying to swim in it, contrasted against the strength of the bridges. It also developed further ideas of the home. London is where I was born and where I

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW have lived all my life, but when I had finished that series, I wanted to explore the idea of living in the “Western World”, and its chaotic and yet usually ordered nature. I work from drawings and from photographs taken on some of my walks along the cliffs of the west coast of England. When I start a painting, I have a general aim of what I want to depict, of late usually laying down string to try and control some of the added paint to mark out the subject. I have been using 27 one meter long pieces recently a lot. I love this number because it is 3 to the power of 3 (or three cubed), which is also the number 3 less than 30. It is an ironical reference to the freedom of the “West”, where most Londoners pronounce this number `Free’. There are also obviously three primary and three secondary colours, so this process has become like my signature method. I use a combination of oil and acrylic paints, thinned down, so that when the paint is added to the horizontal canvas it flows and mixes with other colours from other areas of the painting. I usually have to control some of the flows as I go along by tilting the canvas until an equilibrium is reached or an interesting effect is achieved. This can be seen in much the same way as there being many ways that humans attempt to control some of the impacts of nature in coastal areas as well as the urban towns and cities. This process, after it has dried, is then worked into to bring out, and accentuate various aspects and to try and make the painting as much as possible like the original scene in the photo. It is this process that is often very difficult to end very much like the ongoing need to take care of the environment and the nature that I depict, and I often return to the painting with the common question of when to decide that the painting is finished. There is no time limit only the aim to make all parts harmonise together.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW The tones of your works - be they intense and Bridge — create delicate tension and bright as in Cliffs and Beaches XVII, be they dynamics: how does your ownpsychological marked out with such thoughtful, almost make-up determine the nuances of tones that meditative ambiance, as inFulham Railway you decide to include in your works? In

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW particular, what role does intuition play in the photos usually for these projects, making composition of your palette? quick sketches of these with accentuated colours drawn into my sketchbook. The Adrian Flaherty: Like I say I work from experience of walking the cliffs and feeling

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW the colours in that environment where changes in weather, the tides, and coastal features change markedly on the journey along the path, or in the bridge series as the land use and the colours of the bridges change, they also influence other aspects in my palette. At the start there are many other variables to influence the colours I choose, not just the scene. I lay out the colours I might want to contrast or combine certain ones to create an effect or choose a colour that I feel is useful to an idea, or even a colour that I haven’t used for a while. But generally, I use the primary and secondary colours, and blacks and whites added neat in contrasting oil and acrylic applications to form effects as they `mix’ together on the canvas. This is much like the impact of weather on the land, water and sky that I try to represent. Like the weather and the seasons, I change my palette, and sometimes the method of the way I work with an initial vision of how I feel about the location in the drawing or photo. My psychological state is important because I live and have a studio in London which is sometimes stressful, yet it is quite therapeutic on my walks, so I find I like to often express that contrast. Other factors in my life or the music I happen to be listening to can also affect the process at the initial stage. I often want to try out a new material or method of creating effects, as you can see in the Fulham Railway Bridge painting where I ground up oil pastels which I then mixed with some turps for the section of beach that ran along the river at low tide. Sometimes importantly the amount of paint

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW and how strong the mixture is, or even the sequence that the paint was applied can totally transform the piece. So it is the living process of trying to achieve effects in the scene in the early stages that dictates most of the range of colours in each painting. You have a background in Architecture and as you have remarked once, you havean underlying interest in location discovering new places that are related to a wider idea of where you are from. Inthis sense, we dare say that your works could be considered a response to direct experience mediated by the lens of memory: do you agree with this interpretation? In particular, how does your everyday life's experience and your memories fuel your creative process? Adrian Flaherty: The inspiration for my paintings, as I just alluded to, and the feelings do very much come from the experiences and the interests I have had, not just on the walks, but also the contrast of living my life in the city. Between this and the calm of walking along the riverbanks away from traffic and the crowds in the first series, or along the cliffs with its often-buffeting winds and crashing waves. These are important when combined with the graceful movement of clouds and of the light and shade that makes the scene in front of me, and the textures that come with that. Some paintings have ended up on the walls of my new house and I find it is great to live with them and relive some of the feelings I have tried to express, not least because some aspects might influence another painting later on down the line. The decision to return to landscape painting, and these seascapes, some 20 years later can be seen to be very much influenced by my recollection of my Geography studies at school, and my

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW frequent family trips to the coast during my discover its connections with ordinary childhood. Also, as a child I was a very keen life. Scottish painter Peter Doig once club swimmer and I think my fascination with remarked thateven the most realistic water stems from that as well. paintings are derived more from within We highly appreciate the way your works the head than from what's out there in address your audience to dive into the front of us, how do you consider the dreamlike dimension, helping them to relationship between reality and

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW what I lack in experiencing the specific location for longer, is countered by the experience of the paint and in the act of making the painting, and how it takes on a life of its own often as it slowly mixes and dries out. This is often wrestled with to bring it back to be more like the original scene but also fairly often the chance occurrences in the paint creates a new scene entirely or a weather condition in the Cliffs and Beaches series. This chance method can also be used to add something else to the work that wasn’t what I saw originally. In this way light effects, or the movements of water and clouds can also become very imagined, and ideas develop for more surreal parts, as the paint flows into different areas. Pieces can also become quite abstract working with the unexpected. So there is usually a general plan of what I want to achieve but I'm always looking for, or finding new ways to show the contrasts between chance and reason, or reality and more of an experience. You are a versatile artist and your works convey such stimulating visual ambivalence, able to walk the viewers to develop personal interpretations. Austrian Art historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the viewers to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is it for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to address them to elaborate imagination, playing within your artistic personal interpretations? In particular, how production? open would you like your works to be understood? Adrian Flaherty: Painting from photos and Adrian Flaherty: I think it’s very important that sketches is obviously different to working en my paintings trigger the imagination plein air, but the fluidity of the paint transporting the viewer into being in the important to a lot of my paintings is not landscape in these two series’. The paintings possible unfortunately outdoors. But maybe are made with the initial objective to be felt

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW like how the landscape affected me during my walks, but often the ideas of the painting happen during the process of making it. I found the group exhibition titled The Sea to be great because its location in Sheffield in the UK couldn’t be much more centred between the west and east coasts of England, so the ability for art to do that to the viewer and take them into that environment is great and important sometimes. Everybody takes their experiences and knowledge with them to view art and it is important to apply that to each work of art. There are clues to what I’m expressing in my work but it’s obviously open to interpretation sometimes, and I’m sure that there might be things that I haven’t realised that some viewers might grasp, so I think that personal interpretations are vital in any work of art. This is in much the same way as I often find it more rewarding to study another artist's work and try to work out what they were trying to express before reading the caption or the press release about the exhibition. The saying “Every picture speaks a thousand words” is very true and I am actually writing a book at the moment bringing together ideas I’ve been influenced by over my life to go along with my artwork since my degree. The chapters titled The CV and Me, The Home, Chance, Reason, Walking, The Fire and the Signature, and Books go into detail of why I am interested in certain things, work the way I do, and what has made me the person I am. It is a bit of a journey of self-discovery of books, magazine cuttings and even subjects I studied back in school that have influenced me and has been put together in quite a fun way I think to understand my work and me as an artist. Your artistic production offers a critical political point of the unstable relationship

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW between relationship between climate change and our lives. Artists from different art movement and eras used to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an ever growing audience on topical issues —as environmental ones — that affect our everchanging society? In particular, as an how do you considerthe role of artists in our globalised society? Adrian Flaherty: It is definitely important that artist do this! Art has always been a bit confrontational around the ideas of what art is and raised current issues in society in particular over the last century. Conventional art, i.e. landscapes, portraits and the human figure, have been replaced as the main genres with more conceptual art and categories such as Land Art and the modern day social initiative type projects that some artists are involved in, becoming more popular. My return to doing landscapes was done to express my need to see more of the world around me and generate work that both communicates ideas but also my desire to enjoy and show my appreciation of what nature has to offer. So, my aim is that if work can encourage that enjoyment or yes increase the awareness to the environment more in others, I would be very happy indeed. Nature should be appreciated and nurtured more because we very much rely on it for our survival. It doesn’t matter where you are, or what background you come from, most people would say that nature does things that humans find hard to beat aesthetically or indeed structurally. My studies in architecture have very much instilled in me the environmental side of

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW living but also this fascination with how nature occasions, including your recent exhibition The makes such amazing forms, such as the Sea, at the Fronteer Gallery, in Sheffield: how simplicity of the spiral of a seashell, or the do you consider the nature of your relationship complexity and the strength of the material in a with your audience? As the move of Art from spider’s web, which our scientists are traditional gallery spaces, to street and apparently currently trying to reproduce for especially to online platforms — as Instagram work in our own structures. — increases, how would in your opinion You usevarious methods of painting and change the relationship with a globalised drawing to create chaotic effects on the audience? canvases: how do you considerthe role of Adrian Flaherty: My relationship with my chance and improvisation playing within your audience is mostly done through feedback with artistic process? the gallery staff during physical exhibitions. The Adrian Flaherty: Each painting starts with galleries and the online exhibitions continue to improvisation, when the more expressive like to present my work which is very satisfying aspects of the work are generated or when because they usually have a grasp of what is textures are laid down. Whether it is by a interesting and what makes good art. I am on sweeping curve of a piece of string to define a the website Etsy with some details of my form or a thrown mix of paint onto the canvas. paintings uploaded to give a better feel of the Chance then often takes over to create new textures of the paint, but I have been told that forms, textures and effects which I later try to my paintings are much better viewed in person. develop, accentuate or edit away. This final I have exhibited outside the UK when I was stage can take very much longer to bring all the part of a group show in Venice and I have had effects and colours together. Sometimes offers from other galleries in major cities though, as I mentioned, I return to paintings including New York, so I am happy that my with fresh eyes after they had been in storage work is getting to be seen and enjoyed for a long time and worked on some more, worldwide. It obviously takes a while to hone finding solutions to parts that don’t quite work skills and ideas and develop a portfolio that with other areas, or I have been known to leads to more solo shows, and this opportunity totally redo paintings with other layers built up to explain some of my art is another good step on top. The original subject matter sometimes on the road to be able to consider myself a becomes less important, and I concentrate professional artist. I think the Covid virus came more on the mark making process. So, I find just as my work was gaining more recognition the expressive aspects and the use of chance in and I am very happy that things worldwide are my work is often the most important factor finally getting back to normal for most of us on because everything thereafter, that makes the that front. I tried Instagram painting, is indebted to it. This is again very https://www.instagram.com/adrianfhomeworks similar to us humans and our reliance on nature as a method to share my work to a wider and the environment that we are in. audience for atime and received some good You are an established artist and over the comments, but I think that it definitely suits years your works have been exhibited in many some people’s work and personalities more

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW than others. However, as a force of showing art We have really appreciated the multifaceted and of connecting people and ideas I think the nature of your artistic research and before internet is so very powerful and can only help leaving this stimulating conversation we the culture of the individual and influence a would like to thank you for chatting with us wider community. and for sharing your thoughts, Adrian. What

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Adrian Flaherty Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Adrian Flaherty: The Cliffs and Beaches series is one that I’ll be working on for a very long time I think because my aim is eventually to walk the West Coast of England, having only walked on the southwest coastline so far. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of the landscapes and seascapes that can be found there. Currently, however, after going to a life drawing class to do something different, I am working from watercolour studies I made there transferring them into my current style mostly using my string and fluid paint technique. I predominantly use the three primary colours in these paintings with the imparted belief that red is positivity, blue negative and expression itself signified by yellow. So, I have tried to express in this way some of the human struggle in these psychological states according to the poses of the models. I also mix things up sometimes with an abstract piece or a sculpture for my home, and so I just hope to keep my ideas and work fresh and developing. In much the same way as the paint flows around my canvases I will see what it leads to … It was great being able to allow a better understanding of my work here, so many sincerest thanks go to the LandEscape team for this opportunity to express myself! An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Florian Nörl All my artworks are made from Textile: I petrify textiles and then process them in a similar way to stone. I call the result and the technique textile stone (Textilstein). The overall concept of my work is the transformation of postmodern materials (old textiles) into contemporary art or contemporary gems. „Textilstein“ is a specially developed material by Florian Nörl, which redefines the boundaries of the textile medium in the visual arts. The „textilestone“ finds its place on this interface with an interaction of plastic and pictorial exploration of the textile material. Through a special process and technology, the feel is velvety and the surface reminds of „Stucco lustro“ from a distance. Only by touch can one truly understand the textile material. @floriannoerl An interview by Josh Ryder, curator new, innovative and unique is definitely one of the and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator main reasons for my enthusiasm for experimentation. [email protected] The body of works that we have selected for this Hello Florian and welcome to LandEscape. Before special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers starting to elaborate about your artistic production have already started to get to know in the and we would like to invite our readers to visit introductory pages of this article — has at once https://floriannoerl.art in order to get a wide idea captured our attention for the way it highlights the about your artistic production, and we would start connection between textile art and contemporary this interview with a couple of questions about your sensitiveness, unveiling the point of convergence background. You have a solid formal training and you between tactile and pictorial aspects of the medium. hold a Master from Linz Kunstuniversität: how do When walking our readers through the genesis of these formative years influence your evolution as an your works, would you tell us something about your artist? Moreover, are there any experiences that did usual setup and process? In particular, how did you particularly help you to develop your attitude to develop the idea of „Textilstein“? experiment? Florian Nörl: A focus of my studies was textile art, Florian Nörl: Hello LandEscape. I was very fortunate to and I was particularly interested in screen printing be able to study at an extremely free university even before I started studying. Leftovers and without being under any time or administrative misprints were always omnipresent and I was looking pressure. What could be better than using an entire for a way to work with them artistically. In most university as a studio. I was also allowed to spend cases, textiles are something soft, worn on the body, semesters during my training period in universities with are curtains or other home textiles. I wanted to break cities like Pilsen CZ and Bilbao ES. Creating something with this quality and started experimenting. It was

Photo made byMarco Prenninger ((hhttttp:p:////mamarrccooprprenennniinnggerer..ccoom/m/ggaallllereryy//3355//22..hhttmlml))

"mountain spring" 140x100 cm, 2019

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "Textile-Edel-Stein" (Textilestone-Gems) "Textilstone-Ikone" 13x8x5 cm, 2022 45x15 cm, 2022 also important to me to avoid toxic things like The tones of your works — more specifically the epoxy, which also allows textiles to be enclosed in interesting mountain spring — create delicate plastic. A clear textile character is important to me, tension and dynamics: how does your own which is why the surface is processed through psychological make-up determine the nuances of manipulation in such a way that it is velvety and tones that you decide to include in your works? In soft. Inside the textile stone, but hard as stone. particular, what role does play intuition in the composition of your pallette? The first textile stone works were more brick-like and even less picturesque. It took a while until I Florian Nörl: As my painting teacher Christian found the best technique to combine and fix the Hunzinger said: Art cannot be separated from individual textile stone elements in a visually intuition. I have different approaches. Sometimes I appealing way. The first textile stone work of art plan a work from start to finish, I know exactly was the textile stone lamp. which colors and shapes I want to show and I have

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "finden, was verzaubert" (find, was echanted)20x280 cm, 2021 a concrete concept for the corresponding image Disposition, intuition, taste, material and years of content. But even here, I often break with my plan experience with art play together here and create and let something unexpected arise. I work partly nuances. serially, so that I can also realize my different ideas. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, Mixing the colors is one of the most important the overall concept of your work is the steps. For this I have a large textile collection, transformation of postmodern materials(old consisting of donations. From this I create the textiles) into contemporary art or contemporary corresponding textile stone element by combining gems. We have been fascinated with the way your different materials. artworks unveil the point of convergence between

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "TextilsteinLampe" 2016 references to traditional materials and such unique theme "Sedimental" -layers of memories-. For this I contemporary sensitiveness, highlighting that have made sure to only use old bed linen. The exploring a past experience can enhance the structure of the image is based on layers of understanding of the contemporary: how do you sediment. consider the relationship between Tradition and The title is a game between sediment and Contemporariness playing within your artistic sentimental. This sensitivity, or power, is process? transmitted through the used linens and comes into direct and immediate contact with the viewer Florian Nörl: A good example of this is the series or than would purchased new fabric.

"Sedimental"140x100 cm, 2020

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "but...fly?" 64x50 cm, 2022/2023

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "time interval" (detail) 280x200 cm, 2021 "time interval" (detail) 280x200 cm, 2021 The textile stone can also be compared well with We really appreciate the way you laboriously the limestone. This was formed by depositing shells structure your process in order to pursue such of fossil microorganisms and under pressure then visual impact. A visual and tactile quality that also marble from it. Textile stone also consists of marks out your artworks is their velvety feeling, shells of living beings, but these are human textiles. and it's important to remark that only by touch We’d love to ask you about the qualities of the can one truly understand the textile material: how materials that you include — or that you plan to do you consider the importance of the physical act include — in your artworks: in particular, do you of creating your artworks? create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do Florian Nörl: The physical act is very important for you methodically transpose geometric schemes? me and makes the work of art what it is. Countless Florian Nörl: It all applies and much more. I want to hours of sweaty manual work go into every work create a dialogue between the materials, the visual of art. This is also what makes it so unique. Also, it design and the viewer. My art should reflect, is quite impossible to replicate a textile stone fascinate, touch and above all be something painting exactly, as the materials used with the timeless and beautiful. special colors are only available in limited

"but...fly?" 103x90 cm, 2019/2020

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "time interval" 280x200 cm, 2021 "#draussen"(print), 2022 quantities, e.g. an old t-shirt in a washed-out created while I was still studying. I used a long black/grey, there is only one of them. corridor to add the four individual paintings, each measuring 140x190 cm. The transport and also the Your works — more specifically „finden was hanging of this very heavy work is always a verzaubert“ and „infinity wave“ — are often challenge. marked out with large dimensions, able to provide your specatorship with such immersive visual Your work entitled „but...fly?“ reminded us of experience: how do the dimensions of your pieces Magritte's artistic production, for the way it invites affect your workflow? the viewers to question the boundaries of reality Florian Nörl: When I'm working on such large and representation: how do you consider the role works, there's no room for anything else in the of symbols playing within your artistic production? studio. "find, was enchanted" (2021) and also "time And how do you select the images to be interval" (2021) has exactly the format of my represented in your works? workplace, 200x280 cm and is in four parts, so that Florian Nörl: Symbols are very rarely unique. They transport is also possible. "infinity wave" (2017) was can be interpreted differently by everyone.

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "O.T." (Original Textilstein), 64x50 cm, 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "infinity wave"4 x 140x190 cm, 2017 Everyone looks at things from a different excluded. After completing the first “but…fly? background. "but..fly?" was initially created by my (swallowtail butterfly), the concept was further enthusiasm for natural history museums and the expanded through conversations with friends and realization that butterflies, which were their personal fate. -Refugees who have reached omnipresent in my youth, have become rare. I Europe and have already settled in are not allowed decided symbolically for the representation of only to travel to their old homeland, e.g. to visit family one wing (one cannot fly with one wing) so that a members. wrong interpretation of flying and freedom is The butterfly wing represents the apparently

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW promised land, from which a home leave is not consider the nature of your relationship with your permitted. audience? As the move of Art from traditional You are an established artist and over the years gallery spaces, to street and especially to online your artworks have been showcased in many platforms — as Instagram — increases, how occasions, including your recent exhibitions at would in your opinion change the relationship Lebzelterhaus Vöcklabruck and at with a globalised audience? Volkskundemuseum, Burglengenfeld: how do you Florian Nörl: I wish for a globalized audience.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW I think art is a global language and it's important to reach a wide audience. I don't think online platforms will replace traditional gallery spaces, you can only truly experience it. I have also done work on the subject of Instagram, flood of images and what remains at the end of the day, such as the work "#draussen" which shows 100 screenshots from Instagram, each with 1% opacity, one on top of the other. I personally use Instagram mainly as a kind of portfoliohttps://www.instagram.com/floriannoerl 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, Florian. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Florian Nörl: In addition to the textile stone, I developed another material last year, which I call „Textilsteinoton“. This is also a textile-based material, which allows me to mold objects and go even more in the direction of sculpture. It also serves as a part of my Textilestone-Gems series as well as the Textilestone-Icons series currently being presented at theART3F salo international d'art Paris. I'm also working on a new series of "but...fly?" As an allusion to real chess, the series should consist of 32 works. Numbers one and two are already done. I continue to research the combination of textile stone with other materials, minerals and gemstones as well as a combination with artificially developed Swarovski crystals. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]

Florian Nörl Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW "Sedimental"140x100 cm, 2020

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Brian McPartlon Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Since his first exhibition, as a teen, at the Oak Room Gallery in 1965 in Schenectady, New York, Brian McPartlon has honed his skills with acrylics, watercolor, oils, pastels and mixed media sculpture. In 1973, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1975, he founded and directed the 63 Bluxome Street Gallery in San Francisco, California. McPartlon's technique seeks to present true depth of field through layers of shapes and colors. His process includes staining, pouring and spraying, and a diverse set of brushes from a traditional 6” house painting brush to palm fronds, cacti, animal bone fragments and his fingers. A single painting may take him ten minutes or over 40 years to complete. The large bold canvases can be ominous, antagonizing, invigorating and breathtaking. The range of colors and depth of each of McPartlon’s works evoke powerful reactions from viewers. Observers of his works struggle to not touch the textures or crawl into the portals that exist in the layers of his paintings. @brianmcpartlonstudio An interview by Josh Ryder, curator Sculpture and Painting, and you studied at the and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator School of Visual Arts in New York and the San [email protected] Francisco Art Institute: how do these formative experiences influence your evolution as an Hello Brian and welcome toLandEscape. artist? Moreover, how does yourcultural Before starting to elaborate about your artistic substratum address the direction of your production, we would like to invite our current artistic research? readers to visit https://www.brianmcpartlonstudio.comin Brian McPartlon: Two teachers formed the order to get a wide idea about your artistic foundation of my approach to my creative production. We would start this interview with endeavors. At the School of Visual Arts in New a couple of questions about your background. York, my drawing teacher was noted Pop and You have a solid formal training in Drawing, Abstract Expressionist artist Marjorie Strider

Bolinas, acrylic on paper, 18x23, 2021

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW (see "When New York Ruled the World," Peter that has its roots in the unconscious and Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, August 5, 2022). comes with years of practice. She taught me that shape and form were the essentials of all composition. Her teaching The works that we have selected for this through the use of live drawing from models special edition of LandEscape — and that our and the strict discipline she associated with readers have already started to get to know the practice of art-making are still carried with in the introductory pages of this article — me today in my studio practice. At the San have at once captured our attention for the Francisco Art Institute, seminal California way they blend reality with imagination. counterculture artist Wally Hedrick taught me Inviting the viewers to explore the that being an artist is a state of mind that can crossroads between reality— whose only be achieved by the practice of the reminders are recurrent in almost all your principles of abstract thought. works —and abstract sensitiveness: how do you considerthe relationship between reality A single painting of yours may take you ten and imaginationplaying within your artistic minutes or over 40 years to complete: when production? More specifically, how walking our readers through the genesis of important isdirect experience for you in your works, would you tell us something order to conceive your artworks? about your usual setup and process? More specifically, do you create your works Brian McPartlon: As an artist, I see things as I intuitively, instinctively? How important are am. In my paintings, the viewer sees things improvisation and spontaneityin your as they are. This is the basic relationship practice, in order to capture the inspiration between reality and imagination - I sense and that arises from the emerging images? comprehend things one way and the viewer another. To me, this is part of what makes Brian McPartlon: The works start on the floor abstract thought the achievement of my as the initial layers are composed using paintings. Getting the viewer to think of their excessive amounts of water and acrylic paint experience, and provoking that mixed with a paint extender called Rhoplex. interpretation, is the success of all art. When the work is dry, it is pinned to the wall. Then my brushwork highlights the colors to How important is the direct experience for form the shapes. me in order to conceive my artwork? Over my lifetime, I have been fortunate to have Regarding the question of intuition vs. acquired knowledge, experience, good instinct, I think that artworks are a judgment and principles that I use in my combination of both, with a mix of magic. work. Magic is what happens when experience [instinct] combines with conscious reasoning I use the word work in the previous sentence in a free format – what I refer to as creation. because it is work. The direct interaction Letting your mind go free of all thoughts between myself and the canvas is the most creates a meditative state where you are important part of being an artist. We can guided by spiritual movements. What I am talk, write and ponder - this is when you trying to say is that I am powered by a force conceive - but in the end, someone has to do

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW the work. Action has to happen. In my paintings, the importance of conceiving is secondary to the act of creating. The tones of your works— be they bright and joyful as in Sun and Sky, be they marked out with such thoughtfully dark, intense atmosphere, as inFormation — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your ownpsychological makeupdetermine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works? Brian McPartlon: My friend Agnes Martin, the renowned abstract painter, once told me every day was the same for her. You can see how evident that was in her work. My paintings are affected by my experiences – and every day is not the same for me. My psychological makeup naturally dictates the tones in my the work - living with ups and downs, human tragedy, the use of stimulants, the overuse of stimulants. When my brother died I took refuge in my studio. It is hard to remember how it happened, but the next morning when I saw the painting I had finished that night at the time of his death he appeared like an apparition. Was that intentional? My mind imposed the colors of a deep depression in that painting, in that sad hour. The painting is titled KEV. You are a versatile artist and you often use unconventional media, unconventional staining, pouring, spraying, as well as palm fronds, cacti, animal bone fragments and your own fingers. We have particularly appreciated the way your works —more specifically Woodsie — communicate such stimulatingmateriality, almost tactile feeling: how do you develop such visual quality and

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Cove, acrylic on paper, 18x23, 2021

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Ocean, acrylic-rhoplex, 75x98, 2020

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sangre, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2021 how important is for you to highlight the important aspect of my daily routine for many physical aspect of your artworks? years. I am a very active person. I believe that energetic aspect of my personality is Brian McPartlon: Running was a very conveyed in my artwork.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Crawford, acrylic on canvas, 66x68, 2020 The use of different materials and tools is a resulting in surprising results that encourage tactile process for me, which then is exploration. The use of different ways of paint communicated to the viewer. As a method, it application is a why not question rather than is a convenience in as much of a necessity, why.

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Beginning, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2021 We definitely appreciate the visual how important is it for you to trigger the ambivalence that marks out your works, viewers' imagination in order to encourage providingviewers the ability to develop them to elaboratepersonal interpretations? In personal visual interpretations and feelings: particular, how open would you like your

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sky, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2021 works to be understood? experience. Central to the encounter is the viewer's own interpretation of what they see Brian McPartlon: In order for an artwork to be and feel. If I can communicate any understood it must come from the viewer's understanding of my work this is a plus. An

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Formation, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2022 artist's statement may help in the effort to In my work, I am most attentive to and better comprehend what is trying to be concerned with beauty. In order to expressed. understand the beauty one must feel it through a transcendental experience that the

Border, acrylic on canvas, 51x80, 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Crowd, acrylic-rhoplex, 86x76, 2020 painting evokes. Emotional reaction, as well as workflow and how important is itfor you to reason, are my goals in the importance of "enfold" the viewers, providing them with understanding my work. such unique immersive experiences? Your works are often oflarge dimensions, Brian McPartlon: The choice to work largely is a able to provide your viewers with such moral one. Large works help with the immersive visual experiences: how do the disconnect with the modern world. The action dimensions of your artworks affect your required in a large painting sets the stage for

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Spirit, acrylic-rhoplex, 64x61, 2019 the outcome, to display the human spirit I have been working large since high school. against the force of nature. This is the reason Obviously, large paintings come with physical for, as opposed to the challenge of, the desire challenges that I've become accustomed to. to work large. To better understand the answer to why

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sea, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2021 paintings of sizable dimensions, I look to be outcome. The desired result is imparted to the pushed by the challenge resulting in an viewer through its power of size.

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sun, acrylic on canvas, 78x72, 2021 The size is integral the viewing experience. mistaken for small watercolors. This affects When my work is shown in photos it is often the power and impact of the images.

Woodsie, acrylic on paper, 18x23, 2021

Brian McPartlon Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Your artworks have often short titles that seem So what happens when there is nothing left to to offer guidance to the viewers: how do you be considered? All people will have access to go about naming your work? In particular, is it all images and the ability to create all things. important for you to tell something that might So where do the dinosaurs like me fit into this? walk the viewers through their visual experience? I look to history for my place. Brian McPartlon: When I title the work it is We have really appreciated the multifaceted important to use only one word. All abstract nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we work should convey a personal thought. My would like to thank you for chatting with us desire is to only start the viewer down the and for sharing your thoughts, Brian. What process of reasoning. The short titles allow the projects are you currently working on, and viewer a beginning only, from there it is their what are some of the ideas that you hope to interpretation that matters more than mine. explore in the future? You are an established artist, and over the years Brian McPartlon: Thank you for the thought- provoking questions. It is rewarding to be your artworks have been showcased in many asked such well-considered questions by an exhibitions, including your recent solo show in educated interviewer that has taken the time Santa Fe, New Mexico: how do you consider the to look at my work. nature of your relationship with your audience? I am currently working on large scale paintings As the move of Art from traditional gallery relating to fire. New Mexico was besieged spaces, to street and especially to online with forest fires earlier this year. Thousands of platforms — asInstagram firefighters battled the blazes for 3 months https://www.instagram.com/brianmcpartlonstudio from March until June. Our monsoon rains — increases, how does this, in your opinion, came early in June and extinguished the change the relationship with a globalised blazes. I spent much time observing this and audience? have come away with images that relate to Brian McPartlon: I think what Warhol was trying that experience. to say when he said that "everyone will have 15 The fires have become a metaphor for my view minutes of fame" was that the human of society. What has man done to evoke this experience will be so available to all people that situation, to what end? Along with the visual the only uniqueness left to experience will be interpretations of the fire images, I am the difference in our DNA, and that will transforming the personal experiences of fire, eventually become the last art. its meaning for life, its place in our being, its place in medieval philosophy, the passion and There can never be two people with the same emotion of fire into my paintings. DNA makeup. This will be the only thing left that An interview by Josh Ryder, curator separates us from one another. Globalization of and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator images is the path on which we are on. [email protected]

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets elisELIS Elis is a multi(inter)disciplinary Kyiv freelance artist-wonderer, psycho muse and visual philosopher. She investigates the culture and mentality of collage, the other side of mistakes and imperfections, exploring the body and physicality and the world around her through performance, installation, text, collage, photography and video. She prefers to stay on the verge of rawness and marginal beauty creating her own dystopian magic. Elis’s artworks are very performative physical pieces, they are full of psychological stories and if looked closer dynamic, all processes are visible, while her performances-happenings are full of collaged actions and concepts. Elis’ art practice is as much therapeutic and personal as it is social, and intended for an attentive modern (at times melancholic) viewer. Her Soviet origins and artistic philosophy (as well as metamodern views) prompt the artist to question and challenge the modern understanding of herself, culture and identity. Elis’s art practice is about truth and freedom, about imperfection and the passage of time, about life and death. Her art practice (and life) are based on noticing details, looking thoroughly, peeking and observing and playing a game of a detective (or a spy or a pervert), and satisfying her voyeuristic personality. She likes things that look like mistakes and stays away from banalities. She sees and looks at the world through a prism of collage. Each project is not like the previous one because Elis is (as an artist) different, because the environment is unalike - it's just like the philosophical statement by Aristotle "you cannot step into the same river twice". And she is kind of following this truth (subconsciously) in her artistic practice. Elis is in constant motion in her body and mind. The collage of life is projected into her multidisciplinary search and acquaintance with every new experience. Elis is a founder and organizer of Kyiv Collage Practice group and метаCOLLAж (visual anthropological artbook‑zine about multidisciplinary collage mentality and culture in the world). @elis_prostotak An interview by Josh Ryder, curator artistic production we would like to invite and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator our readers to visit https://bio.site/eliselis in [email protected] order to get a wide idea about your artistic Hello Elis and welcome toLandEscape. production, and we would start this Before starting to elaborate about your interview with a couple of questions about

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Witchcrafting, still

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Witchcrafting, still Witchcrafting, still your background. You have a solid formal decision that i want to use photography training and you hold a BA in Contemporary artistic skills in my life. I was visiting an old Photographic Practice, that you received from underground photographers’ club in kyiv, i University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, was the only teenager there among older UK: how do these formative years influence generations. there were two rooms: in one your evolution as an artist? Moreover, are they exhibited printed photos on the white there any experiences that did particularly walls, in another they drank tea from a big help you to develop yourattitude to samovar and ate biscuits while discussing experiment with such wide range of media? cameras and films they used. I got very It was 2005-2006, still in school, when i made a inspired by photography in that place, but

Witchcrafting, still

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Witchcrafting, still Witchcrafting, still understood that their views are very statement. It was my personal thing, i havent outdated for me and already then i was told anyone or asked for help. When i received beginning to think in a collaged way - a letter acceptance from university for the inspired by david hockney. So when i creative arts in rochester, i was over the moon finished school in 2006, at 18 years of age, i and i didnt really know what to do, because it applied to a couple of english art was so unexpected. I showed this letter to my universities, somehow i managed to put parents and told them that i’m going to together a folder with miscellaneous art england but i need money (which we didnt works and photos that i produced, and a really have ahahah). My father didnt take it so written (at times copy pasted) artist well, he had other plans for me. And so a

Witchcrafting, still

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW loooong struggle of persuasion followed together with a lot of stresses and breakdowns, until somehow we all agreed that we will sell our big apartment in Kyiv to cover the university fees, and so, i was gone. In university, i realised that photography is not enough for me, and so i began to explore other media, like video, performance, audio. It opened my eyes to possibilities and creativity that i was so hungry for. I wasnt planning to settle down, all i wanted was to try more things with myself and technologies and materials and to experiment. This is when i started to use my body as a tool, to use self portraits to tell stories, to be raw and honest with myself and the viewer. I’ve learned to become an artistic voyeurist and exhibitionist. I was mesmerized by francesca woodman’s self portraits and duane michael’s way of telling melancholic stories, oh and tracey emin’s raw confessional artworks. I remember my final project from the first year at uni (foundation year), was shown on two tv screens: on one was my face shouting into the camera different verbs (run, cry, fall, hit the wall, jump, smile, punch, etc), on another - i was in a room trying to follow all these actions from the first screen. It was a dynamic and chaotic piece, that i still think was so clever and well done, that i might actually reproduce it in a new v(er)ision. In england, I was so happy to be out of

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW feel my goosebumps, performance-happening cover photo 2023

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW trance party installation, 2021 found objects, wood, metal wires, spray paint

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW ukraine and be in a new environment that suited me so well, away from old life and parents, and i celebrated that by partying, with drugs, overconsumption of alcohol and dancing. I’m surprised how my body managed to take so much pressure mentally and physically, but i succeeded in graduating my uni with ba hons in contemporary photographic practice. At 21 i was still lost not knowing what i want to do in life and where to earn money and how to pursue my art exploration, which is ok. I’m not really a future-planner so much eheheh i live in the moment, here and now. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selectedWitchcrafting a stimulating video that our readers can view at https://youtu.be/_N_i5BoITAIand that has at once captured our attention for the way it explores both the tension and the connection between human corporeality and our surrounding space, deplying at the same time elements of unconventional, almost raw aesthetics. When walking our readers through the genesis of Witchcrafting, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? I don't have a “usual” process or setup. If i get an idea, i just go and do it, using any kind of technology or assistance i have available. With “witchcrafting”, it happened on a small island in kyiv during last days of art residency “ostrov” in autumn of 2021. Some of the nature footage was actually shot while i was tripping on mushrooms on that same island. I dont set any expectations for an end result, so therefore i’m totally free to do what i want, collage my ideas during the process, and the end result can be

black performance during exhibition “Institualization”2022

Poster, ukrwarbody2022

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW anything and nothing. My main focus during a performance or collaborate with another the process is trusting my taste and intuitions, person, and so on. I’m a very curious and my main question during the process - “what not-afraid-to-try-new-things artist. In the if?” past few years I’ve worked with collages, photography, videos, installations, found You are a versatile artist and your artistic objects, performances-happenings, poetry practice encompasses performance, and texts, bodies, psychology, philosophy, installation, text, collage, photography and pain, death, identity, sexuality, femininity video, to develop suchvery performative and genderness. There are no boundaries for physical pieces. More specifically, we have me, at least i think so now. I’m very appreciated the wayWitchcraftingconveys unpredictable in my art practices and in life. bothsense of freedom and particular Every project is different and I’m also not attention to epiphanic details: how do you the same as I was even yesterday, therefore consider the relationship between the everything I create is so diverse. necessity of scheduling the details of your performative gestures andthe need of By questioning the dichotomy between life spontaneity? How important isimprovisation and death, as well as the themes of truth in your creative process? and freedom, your artistic production draws from your Soviet origins and artistic I don't divide life and art, for me it all is one philosophy. To quote Mexican artist Gabriel thing and i’m in it, and i’m it. So whatever i do Orozco "artists's role differs depending on in life can become art in the future or already is which part of the world they’re in", does art. Spontaneous decisions and ideas play big your artistic research respond to a part in my creative endeavors. I like when particular cultural moment? In particular, some mistakes happen (not too devastating) how does yourcultural substratum direct but enough to make it interesting and your artistic research? unexpected for me to leave it, enjoy it, learn from it and play along with it. Because Of course my visions were influenced by my mistakes are those markers in time that only post-soviet surroundings. Although growing could happen there and then with me being up i wasnt happy with it (i was depressed) involved and fixating those moments. But at and tried to escape, during my later year, in the same time i call myself a chameleon - i can my late twenties, i began to incorporate it adapt to environments and challenges and into my art, creating video collages and GIFs projects. But when i’m free to do how i like it, with what i thought is another version of then this is when the magic happens hehehe beauty. And through this practice i’ve just watch me go and observe the whitchcraft learned to appreciate my environment and appear. It might start with a poem, then people in it, oh and myself as well. But at the develop into a collage or drawing or same time i never really fit in in ukraine and installation, then some videos might happen its mentality; i had to find ways to explore and photographs, then it all can interrelate the world and its cultures. So even though with one another, then i might want to create my passport says that i’m ukrainian, i dont

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW really consider myself that, i prefer to use would you considerthe role of symbols the term - multicultural, not belonging to playing within your artistic process? And how any specific region and i hate borders. I’m an important is for you to crete works rich of open minded artist and researcher with allegorical qualitites? quite metamodern philosophical views, and most of the time my values werent Sometimes things are not how they seem. supported in ukrainian environment, so i sometimes they are exactly what you are struggled a bit. I was one foot in the looking at. no hidden meanings, but underground artistic scene, one foot in the sometimes they are metaphors. one day these polished artworld. Both had an impact on things are nothing special, then the next days me, but i felt that it was time to move it’s something you cant live without. out/on, so i planned to continue my artistic sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it. practice somewhere else with more once upon a time you enjoyed it, then you developed and versatile opportunities. The stopped enjoying it. it brought you happiness war that russia started, sped up my decision but then it became a burden. nothing’s and i left ukraine on the third day of war and forever. forever doesnt exist. I am a city on march 1, 2022 i arrived in germany, berlin. person, but if i stay for too long in the city it It was a dream come true, although during consumes me and overwhelms my mental hard and dark times. Then another dream health, so nature comes in help. And i realized came true - i got offered an art residency to that i get inspired by nature as much as i do by produce anything i want in theater in city life. So in my latest projects i explore this hamburg. I feel very calm and positive about relationship bodies/skin have to earth, waters, where i am now and who i am today. living creatures. In my latest production Although germany’s fetish with documents performance-happening “feel my and papers and bureaucracy is a bit over the goosebumps”, i make the invisible world top, other than that i feel like this visually accessible. I bring together myths, environment did me good. I’ve learned to facts, poetry, sexuality, music, dance, listen to my to my body more - and this helps earthworms, humans, rituals, science, thoughts, to explain in my own way how i see me navigate through life. It is exciting and the cyclicity of the world, of life and death, of frightening at the same time to not know human nature. what will happen next. I wan to to remind people that earth is important and our bodies need it very much. In Through such evocative and symbolically general, I am a visual person (i have a bit of an charged images, that often — as infeel my adhd brain) and for me it is so pleasant to goosebumpand innewest eve — reflect the strategically put some symbols connecting fusion between human and Nature, your chaos together in a way. These symbols act works urge the viewers to investigate and like keys that attract attention and help to see even decrypt such juxtapositions.How a bigger picture, while also playing a good part

newest eve2021

performance-happening during,Naked Forms, festival Prague 2022

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW alex in the city, digital collage 2022 being an individual element. melancholic) viewer. How important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to As you have remarked in your artist's address them to elaboratepersonal statement, you art practice is as much interpretations? In particular, how open would therapeutic and personal as it is social, and you like your works to be understood? intended for an attentive modern (at times I know that every person has their own view

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW body in the city, 2021, digital photo collage, from series on life and opinions on things, and art isn't an often than not i have no idea what i’m trying exception. Audiences should have their own to say that is why i show it, i’m in the process interpretations and i actually prefer to listen to of creation and i have other thoughts in my their versions more, than to answer questions head. Because of my continuous mood like, what i tried to say with this piece?, i’m not changes i’ve even adapted some of my so fond of questions like that, because more artworks to this - for example, i created

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW collages that can be viewed from different sides, so when i get bored, i turn collage upside down and voila - new image, new visions, new mood. I know that my art isnt for a regular viewer, i’m not making commercial art pieces, it’s more intellectual and honest, like a diary. I prefer to stay on the verge of rawness and marginal beauty creating my own dystopian magic. I like when viewers participate in my art by noticing those symbols, deciphering my personal “codes”, putting together mental puzzles and finding themselves in my creations, also producing dialogues and even inspiring them for their own projects and lives. This is why i am a psycho muse ;) although rejections and criticism are much harder to swallow, but not impossible. Imbued with deep personal and psychological narrative drive, your works seem to be inspired by direct experience: how important was for you to createa personal work, about a something that directly touch yourself and that you know a lot about? It just comes naturally, i dont even have to think about it. I follow my instinct, similar to the survival instinct or self-preservation. I understood this after taking a break from art for several years. It was a moment when i though that if i’m not gonna do photography then i wont do art at all (after uni depression kicked in). Especially when i worked for a couple of years in a newspaper as a photo reporter, that totally killed my creative enthusiasm. I wasn't enjoying earning money through photography that wasn’t artistic. So i quit, and went into the restaurant/bar business, i tried waitressing, bartending, managing club, and barista. But after a while it brought

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW black and white identity performative artist talk, 2021

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW life is not eternal performance 2021

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW confusion, another depression and illness into my life. I was also struggling with eating disorders and body dysmorphia. And then in 2018 spontaneously collage happened where i started deconstructing images and bodies, and it slowly changed my mentality towards myself. I guess using my own body and my personal life moments in art is kind of therapeutic adventure for me, even if at the moment of creation i dont realize it. But by learning to trust my intuition and processes, i’ve developed a strong desire to share with the world a piece of my vulnerability and intimacy and visual diaries. Before i used art to show emotional instability, low self esteem and things that bother me which i didnt know how to describe with words and didnt have therapist to talk to, so art was the only escape, or death. I overcame many addictions and depressions in the past, and that made me realize how amazing our bodies and minds are. I began to learn psychology, philosophy, anatomy, sciences, to understand the world and myself. I can finally say with confidence that i’m very cool person. These days i continue to use myself in art projects and performances, but i dont play a victim anymore, on a contrary i set an example how a person can be and survive and live and ask questions instead of blindly following the crowd and so called leaders. These days i talk a lot about death and pain, because i think these are quite important themes in every person’s life. And instead of experiencing fear or discomfort towards these ideas, i want to convey harmony and balance through acceptance, and it doesnt mean that i’m not going through troubles myself. I’m learning together with the audience.

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW It's important to mention that you are a ukrainian artists, because my group and founder and organizer of Kyiv Collage activity attracted some very interesting art Practice group and . Interdisciplinary practitioners who wanted to produce new collaborationsas the one that you have artforms and try new ways of thinking established at Kyiv Collage Practice group (collage thinking). Although i consider myself and atметаCOLLAж are without any doubt a loner and i prefer to be left on my own, i ever growing forces in Contemporary Art: understand the importance of collaborative could you tell us something aboutthe work, because i believe it is exactly when collaborative nature of your practice? Can growth and evolution happens. And thanks you explain how do some artworks to these collaborations, i managed to get out demonstrate communication between of war and find a good place in germany artists from different disciplines? where i can pursue my dreams and new collaborations. (FYI i’m no longer managing Yes i set up a first collage group in kyiv or or organizing “kyiv collage practice” group, maybe even ukraine, i don't know. Collage as well as метаCOLLAж; i chose to wasn't so popular even few years back. It concentrate on my own practices these wasn’t even considered an art form. I days). thought i was the only one working with collage because nobody seemed to show it. As the move of Art from traditional gallery So i began popularizing it, even though some spaces, to street and especially to online artists laughed at me and viewed my art platforms — as Instagram — increases, how practice as childish (because collage, they would in your opinion change the thought, was what kids played with). “kyiv relationship with a globalised audience? collage practice” group was open to anyone who is interested to try or to learn the art of In the beginning of my art journey i used collaging and to express their ideas in a new instagram to show my artworks (collages), way (no payment, just donation). There were and it pushed me to continue doing it educational and theoretical and even because i was getting a lot of likes and philosophical and visual inspirational parts, encouraging comments. But the more i followed by practical and then discussions. realised what art means to me and what kind Then метаCOLLAж happened. It was my way of art thinker i am, and what philosophy i am of creating one platform in a form of following, the more i understood that multidisciplinary art-zine dedicated to all instagram and any other online platform kinds of collages (analogue, digital, video, where people dont appreciate intellectual sound, performative, etc) from around the art, and spend 3 seconds on each image, world. These types of activities built aren’t for my kind of art creations. I deleted confidence in me and taught me all collage artworks from my instagram. communication with different kinds of Today i use it for visual philosophy and a bit people and artists. And this led to of pr. My relationship with instagram isn’t collaborations with other international and perfect, i’ve been banned for nudity so many

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW life is not eternal performance 2021

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Tverde Tilo, collaboration with brand Pokode02

ELIS Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW times, and i think i’ve been in shadow ban of 2022. It slowly evolutioned into this epic for almost two years now. It’s annoying interdisciplinary experimental artistic because i believe that male and female collaboration (with composer Dong Zhou nudity should be equal on platforms like and choreographer Huen Tin Yeung) instagram. And i keep pushing my luck with, focusing mostly on emotional reactions, sometimes feminist but fair, photographs where our approaches are against form and and artworks of bodies. But for anyone who structure. The artists share intimate obeys the rules of instagram and follows its moments with the audience. “feel my laws and likes the commercial side of art - goosebumps” is a durational 2+ hours long instagram can be a perfect place to gather performance-happening that revolves the global audience and earn money or share around the idea of cyclicity, seasons, life and their creative and other insights. death, connection between earth and bodies. It’s an exploration and But i’m not one of those people, i’m actually deconstruction of rituals, like funerals, and getting tired of this online world that cares myths about underworlds with references to so much about likes and comments. I dont past and present, science and poetry and consider the online world fake, it’s just one music and movements, and more. side of the story, it’s part of the real world as Ps. with real soil and earthworms ;) well, just a fragment, fraction. So for now i only care about making my instagram an https://www.lichthof- interesting place to practice my visual theater.de/programm/feel-my-goosebumps/ philosophy, and i fucking love how it’s turning out to be. But simultaneously i’m usually participating Here: in some smaller art projects and https://www.instagram.com/elis_prostotak collaborations, researches and things that We have really appreciated the multifaceted attract my attention. nature of your artistic research and before Thank you for reading and giving me a leaving this stimulating conversation we chance to tell my story a little bit . would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Elis. What https://bio.site/eliselis projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? At the moment i’m in the middle of rehearsal period and final preparations for the premiere of “feel my goosebumps”. This art An interview by Josh Ryder, curator project is a reaction to a poem i wrote when and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator I arrived in Germany (from Ukraine) in spring [email protected]

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Donna Bassin Lives and works in New Jersey, USA Donna Bassin is a photo-based artist, filmmaker, clinical psychologist, professor, and published author who was born in Brooklyn and now living in New Jersey. The death of her younger sister when she was ten years old motivated and shaped her clinical and art practice. Her work on long-term projects responds to distressing aspects of contemporary life, such as the aftermath of September 11, coming home after the war, racism, social injustice, and, most recently, the destruction of the environment. Those pursuits have resulted in two awarding documentaries, two solo museum exhibitions, publications in various art and culture periodicals, public installations, book covers, inclusion in private and museum collections, a billboard in Brooklyn, and participation with other artists in curated group shows. The Afterlife of Dolls, a solo exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, was featured on PBS' State of the Arts. Tricycle, Fotonostrum, Grazia, and Lens Magazine have published her work. Her photo-based installations have appeared at the Jamestown Arts Center, Smack Mellon, Mills Reservation, Jersey City, and the Montclair Art Museum. She received the 2021 New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship in Photography, was honored as a Showcase artist for Art Fair14C in Jersey City, and was recently chosen as one of the top 50 photographers for Critical Mass 2022. Her series, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair, explores the human desire for reconciliation in the wake of social fractures. It is currently on exhibition at the Passaic Country Arts Center, New Jersey. @p1nhole.donnabassin An interview by Josh Ryder, curator production, and we would start this interview and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator with a couple of questions about your [email protected] background. It's important to mention that beyond your work as photo-based artist and Hello Donna and welcome to LandEscape. filmmaker, you are a clinical psychologist: how Before starting to elaborate about your artistic do such multifaceted cultural substratum production and we would like to invite our influence your evolution as an artist over the readers to visit https://www.donnabassin.com years and direct the trajectory of your current in order to get a wide idea about your artistic artistic research?

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Donna Bassin: The death of my younger sister when I was ten years old, my parents’ grief, my experience as mental health support to first responders and victims' families following 9/11, and my community work with war-torn veterans shaped my clinical and art practice. The many losses and disruptions in my life have given me access to the vulnerability and pain of others, strengthening muscles of compassion and pressing me to create work that contributes even slightly to the repair of our world. I am unearthing the power of grief as an energizer for change. The knowledge that traumatic grief and suffering can be transformed into personal and social change is a thread that runs deep in both my practices as motive and substance. Both my “practices” impact and inform the other. This has resulted in a series of long-term projects responding to the injurious aspects of contemporary life, such as psychic wounds after the war, racial inequality, the crisis of democracy, and, most recently, the destruction of our environment. I have written and published in various psychoanalytic, art, and culture periodicals, directed and produced two feature-length documentaries, created solo exhibits and public installations and participated with other similarly minded artists in curated group shows. Art making - as a form of emotionally rich slow thinking and research has kept me relatively resilient and provided a safe container for my own emotions of grief and despair. For this special edition of LandEscape we have selectedEnvironmental Melancholia, a stimulating series — that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — that has at once captured our attention for the way it invites the viewers to go beyond aesthetics and explore the interconnectedness of place,

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW highlighting at the same time the uniqueness of the viewers' response to the work of art. When walking our readers through the genesis ofEnvironmental Melancholia, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? Donna Bassin: Environmental Melancholia's origins began during the pandemic's early phases after I closed my studio, interrupting a portrait project, My Own Witness, which started after the 2016 presidential election. I had initiated portrait collaborations with individuals who felt silenced, invisible, and un- entitled to their place in this disordered American. I had just begun to find that sweet spot of creative flow with this project, and I was despondent and artistically lost having to end this project prematurely. Being of a certain age, I was warned by friends and family to isolate myself from others. I am a traveler. Traveling allows me to get pleasantly lost as I let everyday ordinariness and the already known disappear, waiting for something new and unexpected to appear. And since travel wasn’t possible, I turned to my archives, trying to find ways to cope with isolation, my disconnection from the outdoors, and the increased disorder of our culture. I spent hours looking through prior work, much of it photographs of nature from places I have been to that resonated with me and offered solace and emotional comfort. (Bhutan, Iceland, Japan, Cape Cod, Namibia, and California, to name a few). Over time I began to see the repetitiveness of compositional elements in my landscapes and began to play with connecting aspects of a component from one location to another. I

from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW realized there might be some visual comment I could make regarding the similar ground of nature across the artificial and political boundaries of different nations. I played with these links and created imaginary landscapes that disregarded the borders of nations that broke the boundaries between photographed landscapes. I realized that perhaps I had something visual to contribute to the ongoing conversations of many artists and photographers about the environmental crisis. I began from a position of disbelief. How is it that despite the urgency of our environmental crisis, the life-threatening losses, and the ongoing deterioration of our natural world, many of us are apathetic or feel helpless? My creative process and workflow vary with each specific project, but all follow a methodology used by the artist William Kentridge. He views art-making as a slow form of thinking. He draws and erases until he recognizes what emerges as an artistic truth. I have an implicit sense of the subject matter I need to photograph, but rarely are those initial images retained. I review my photographs repeatedly until I find what I am looking for. Often, I only know what I am looking for once I see it in a particular image, and then I instantly recognize it. At that moment, and with an appreciation of its visual truth, I can move forward and photograph in a more precise direction. I work intentionally, allowing the art products to tell me as much as I tell them where I need to go next. I write extensively when working on a project collecting ideas or quotes from my reading to make sense of the meaning of the project. I occasionally look at older and more current notes throughout a project to discover their roots in notes from a prior one. I turn to these notes when I struggle with the 'artist

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW statement.' I only recognize the threads in my work once I look back. But in retrospect, each of my series retains elements from a previous project, either an unresolved aesthetic problem or a return to an aesthetic device that worked. Inspired by the seductive beauty of the Hudson River School painters, the images from the Environmental Melancholia series seem to aim is not to recreating the scene but rather to reflect and learn from its aesthetic. As a visual artist whose work is focussed on real enviromental images, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination playing within your process? Moreover, how do you consider the role of memory playing wthin your artistic process? Donna Bassin: You inquire about my work's play of memory, reality, and imagination. Discussing these ideas about the experience and how they play out in my work is only possible by considering their relationship or interaction. My understanding about memory is that it isn’t a fixed thought, although I suppose some memories appear as thought objects that appear and disappear. Instead, memory is dynamic, constantly changing, and is newly constructed over time as we remember and re-member”. I think we remember in fragments and only put these fragments into a story or narrative when we speak them to another and impart an emotional truth. I don’t see reality and imagination as discrete – the awareness has impacted even the world of science that so-called truth is affected by an observer who changes the experience in the act of subjective perception.

from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW And although I have begun Environmental Melancholia from components of nature captured by my camera, I have used imagination to frame nature into landscapes. One could say that I have been playing with the boundaries of landscape using past, present, and future, the so-call real or what my camera captured, and the so-called unreal, using imagination and composition to transform aspects of nature creating landscapes that carry comments about our environmental crisis. As you have remarked once, you want viewers to look beyond the beauty and stop and say, “wait, what is happening here?” We have really appreciated the way it stimulates the viewers' parameters and allows an open reading: how important is for you to trigger the spectatorship's imagination in order to elaborate personal meanings? What do you hope your spectatorship will take away from Environmental Melancholia? Donna Bassin: The subject of this project is the impact of the environmental crisis on our psyche. I am simultaneously addressing nature's precariousness and our psychological strategies for managing these heavy losses. I am hoping that viewers will be drawn to look closely at my work -initially seduced by the beauty associated with landscape and the ease of connecting with a familiar photography subject. Then I want them to understand these landscapes, in part, as memorials to wounded and dying environments. Memorials in my mind are spaces where one feels a loss usefully. The photo corners, with their associations with souvenirs of the past, suggest a warning that our unspoiled natural environments might become imaginary and nostalgic without

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW collaborative care. I want the viewer to understand that we hurt ourselves when we damage the earth. As the world falls apart, so will we. The earth is falling apart as we lose fertile land, animals, birds, rivers, trees, and glaciers. I try to keep things from getting lost. I rip natural resources from one location and tape them to another- to repair the damage, restore the losses, and put the land back together. Another interesting project of yours that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled Precious Scars, a stimulating series that — introducing the viewers to the Japanese art of kintsugi — questions the processes of rupture and repair that occur in every life: how important is for you to create artworks rich of allegorical qualities? Donna Bassin: My work doesn't have allegorical qualities in the sense of the usual definition of allegory when symbolic characters and their activity carry ideas about humanness. However, I agree that I materially act or interact with the photograph to express interior states or illuminate human behavior symbolically. I rely on actions upon the photograph, such as ripping and suturing, which I hope will be viscerally experienced as wounds and scars, not just intellectually understood. I borrowed Kintsugi's Japanese philosophy and craft for I extended its original use to repair broken pottery to describe or metaphorically make visible the injuries we inflict on each other, the fragility and vulnerability of being human, and the persistence of these wounds underneath the surface. But back to your observation, perhaps in the Environmental Melancholiaproject, where I have created fictionalized versions of landscapes to find essential truths my work

from theEnvironmental Melancholia series

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series could be seen as allegorical. In fact, all political point of view about a wide range of landscape, which is essentially a framing of topical themes, and responds to distressing nature, is allegorical. aspects of contemporary life, including also racism and social injustice. Artists from Your artistic production offers a critical different art movement and eras — from

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series pioneer Richard Morris, passing through interested in environmental issues, do you Thomas Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more think that artists can raise awareness to an recently Kelly Richardson — use to evergrowing audience on topical themes that communicate more or less explicit messages in affect our everchanging society? In particular, their artworks: as an artist particularly as an artist how do you consider the role of

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series artists in our globalised and unstable society? purpose for all artists but, for me the main motivation. Changes in our socio-political and Donna Bassin: I stand behind Toni Morrison’s natural world require that the implicit counsel that the artist needs to get to work becomes explicit. Artist can make visible the when the world is disordered. It is not the implicit narratives that shape our

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series consciousness and provide alternatives to We are a product of our cultural landscape the status quo. Imagination is a process of which shapes our experience. Artists not only resistance to the status quo It requires comment on the culture, but they also imagination to see alternatives to the status contribute to it. With that awareness, I regret quo and the already known, not having a richer knowledge of art history

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series and predecessors' contributions. designate Yellowstone a national park. I recently learned, for example, that the painter Thomas Morton and the photographer You are an established and awarded artist: William Henry Jackson were largely you were honored as a Showcase artist responsible for getting congress to for Art Fair14C in Jersey City and you

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series recently received the 2021 New Jersey Council occasions, including your current work on the Arts Fellowship in Photography, and you exhibited at the Hunterdon Art Museum also received a recognition from Critical Mass curated by Mary Birmingham: how do you as one of the top 50 photographers of 2022. consider the nature of your relationship with Your art has been showcased on many your audience? More specifically, as the move

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to Donna Bassin: I strongly advocate for increased street and especially to online platforms — as opportunities for more democratic exposure to Instagram and Vimeo — increases, how would artists' contributions and the art experience. I in your opinion change the relationship with a have created art installations in my hometown's globalised audience? frequently used parking lot and a nature

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series reserve. The installation in the community Both these installations brought the nature reserve was made without permission, possibility of an art experience into the and no signage stating who built it or what it everyday. was about. It stayed up until the park authorities discovered it. Online platforms increase art availability to

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series those less likely to follow the activities of or the virtual space- simulating movement frequent galleries. through a room of art and enabling one to walk around a 3-dimensional sculpture as if I have been in online shows that have used one was physically present. software to allow the viewer free access to And I am delighted as I see more regional

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series museums curate exhibitions that speak to draw directly to the senses. I am just beginning to in and involve the neighboring community. play with platforms that allow one to collaborate with artificial intelligence and On the other hand, digital versions of my art create digital art. obscure the materiality that speaks more This is just the beginning of a revolution and

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series consciousness change of making and leaving this stimulating conversation we experiencing art. would like to thank you for chatting with us We have really appreciated the multifaceted and for sharing your thoughts, Donna. nature of your artistic research and before What projects are you currently working on,

Donna Bassin Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW from thePrecious Scars series from thePrecious Scars series and what are some of the ideas that you hope working on a very personal project: an to explore in the future? engagement with my deceased parents around their global travels. I inherited a collection of Donna Bassin: I will continue working on the my father’s Kodachrome slides and am now Environmental Melancholia series and expand “collaborating” with his photographic work. the project to create a limited-edition artist book. I don’t yet know where it will go but that is one More visual ideas will emerge as I continue to of the pleasures of making art. develop this series and immerse myself in the practices and challenges of environmental activism. I have more environments I want to photograph, including landscapes with ancient ruins, to draw an equivalence between the fall of civilizations and the collapse of nature. I am currently collecting miniature plastic replicas of nature’s components, trees, An interview by Josh Ryder, curator mountains, flora and fauna, and animals, and I and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator envision constructing mini-landscapes to photograph made entirely of plastic. I am also [email protected]

Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Beki Borman For me the landscape is the most accessible subject of the natural world. It has shaped our understanding of visual order. When I look at a landscape my mind instantly begins to evaluate its design. I lay out the big shapes, patterns of color, and areas of contrast. My interest is not in recreating the scene, but rather in learning from its aesthetic. I use a painting knife as my primary tool to create a textured surface that describes the vast color experience of a landscape from afar but up close supports the objective nature of paint. Through layering I seek out a nuanced variety in mark making which speaks to the subtle experiences of space and light Beki Borman was born and raised in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin. She attended the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design where she received her BFA in painting in 2004. Since graduating, Beki has exhibited her work both locally and nationally. For Beki's studio work she paints colorful and textural abstract landscapes in oil and acrylics using a combination of painting knife and brush techniques. Some of her influences include Vincent Van Gogh, Wolf Kahn, and Wayne Thiebaud. Beki works out of her studio in Waukesha. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator artistic production, and we would start and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator this interview with a couple of questions [email protected] about your background. You have a solid Hello Beki and welcome toLandEscape. formal training and you hold a BFA in Before starting to elaborate about your Painting from The Milwaukee Institute of artistic production and we would like to Art & Design: how do these formative invite our readers to visit years influence your evolution as an artist? http://dev.bekiborman.comin order to get Moreover, how does yourcultural a wide idea about your multifaceted substratum address the direction of your

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Golden Dawn, acrylic on panel, 20” x 20”, $800 current artistic research? my practice. Aside from foundational drawing and painting development, the Beki Borman: The experience of a 4 year exposure to other artists, ideas, and media art school brought a number of things to fostered a framework within which to

Beki Borman Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Headed South, acrylic on canvas, 20’’ x 20’’ decide what type of artist I wanted to be. The body of works that we have selected Required humanities courses in science and for this special edition of LandEscape and philosophy attached their ideas to my work that our readers have already started to and continue to influence it today. get to know in the introductory pages of

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW this article, has at once captured our attention for the way it de-constructs the idea of landscape, to unveil the connection between the act of painting and the aesthetics of natural world: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how did you develop the idea of Chromascapes? Beki Borman: As is often the case, my work became more abstract with time. I have always been influenced by nature and have spent years creating paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolor, and pastel of landscapes. Before long I realized I care much more about composition and color play than representation. Hence, rather then being landscapes they seemed to me to be “color scapes” or “chromascapes” as I have come to call them. We have appreciated the intense and at the same timethoughtfulnuances that marks outGolden Dawn.With their apparent essentiality, your artworks are meticolously structured and marked out with unique combination betweenrigorous sense of geometryandprecise choice of tones, able to provide your works with recognizable visual identity. How does your ownpsychological make-updetermine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your artworks and how do you develop your textures in order to achieve such unique results? Beki Borman: I have always worked quickly and intuitively. I use a painting knife almost

Beki Borman Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Rooftop Magic,acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”, $1200

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Afterglow, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”, $1200

Beki Borman Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW exclusively to build up and scrape down layers. I t is an investigative process spent looking for the image through creation and destruction. As you have remarked once, you are passionate aboutart being accessible, and that your goal is to guide the viewers in discovering their own vision. How important is for you to address your audience to elaboratepersonal interpretations? In particular, is important for you to tell something that might walk the viewers through their visual experience? Beki Borman: I think my primary goal is an aesthetic one. I want to take viewers to an orchestrated world of color, shape, and texture. The landscape aspect adds a ground or vantage point for the viewer to enter from. Artists invent their own languages to describe their ivisual interpretation of the world. I hope that viewers will come to understand mine. With their unique sense of geometry, Waterways andPlains seem to unveilthe bridge between the real and the imagined, inviting the viewers to appreciate all the beauty that surrounds us. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked thateven the most realistic paintings 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?

Waterways, Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”, $1300

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Beki Borman: I would very much agree with Doig on that point. Whether realistic or abstract, all art is made through the filters of our minds. I think that all art is inherently and abstraction, it’s just a matter of degree and intention. Some of your works — as the interesting New Mexico — are marked out with large dimension that provide your spectatorship with suchimmersive visual experience: how do the dimensions of your pieces affect your workflow? Beki Borman: Scale has been a constant question for me. I love the power of a large, immersive canvas to transport us to a world that humbles us. Horizon lines and the distance between us and them are very important to how my work describes the viewer’s sense of place. That being said, I also make many small works. I love the contrast the small works provide with intimacy, subtlety, and simplicity. They are like peeking through a small window rather than standing on a cliff. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your interest is not in recreating the scene but rather in learning from its aesthetic. How do your memories and youreveryday life's experiencefuel your creative process? Plains, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 35.5” Beki Borman: I grew up and still reside in America’s Midwest. My experience is Great Lakes. The lakes and plains provide endless plains, changing seasons, and the many vast distant views of the horizon.

Beki Borman Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW The seasons provide me changing colors You are an established artist and since and shapes. graduating you have exhibited both

Climbing, acrylic on canvas, 11’’ x 14’’

Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW locally and nationally: how do you with your audience? By the way, as the consider the nature of your relationship move of Art from traditional gallery

Beki Borman Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW https://www.instagram.com/bekipaintland— increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Beki Borman: I have done traditional galleries, fairs, and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bekipaintland. One thing I love about fairs and IG is that they make art more accessible. As many know, galleries can be intimidating. Online platforms give everyone a chance to be seen and approached. The main downside of course is that painting is usually better experienced in real lifer. Textures and brushstrokes are easily lost. (This is why I do not do prints.). But any chance to reach people and foster art experience is a good one. 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, Beki. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Beki Borman: I am currently (as this is early summer) working on a number of small works for outdoor fairs and festivals. However, I have a few larger canvases waiting for me and expect to be tackling them soon. zI currently am continuing to build up my freelance teaching practice. I travel to several locations for workshops, run classes out of my studio, spaces, to street and especially to online take on private students, and even offer platforms — asInstagram online options.