Category — Art

 © John Tierney

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Meet the professor:

At the end of the day,

Art wins 

by Mike Foldes

John Tierney is a British painter whose subjects are most likely to be scenes from places where his three sons live, Los Angeles, New York and Helsinki, than his home in Durham, nearer Edinburgh than London. It’s the light and the way it plays off his subjects, as much as anything, that determines what he paints, with subjects ranging from natural rock formations in the desert, to flamingo-pink buildings under clear blue skies of Los Angeles on a perfect day, to the sun-soaked streets of Brooklyn, if you can imagine that, with neighborhood backdrops of theaters, bridges and streets, in ways that capture both the eye and the imagination. Tierney’s working background includes a long career as a university-level criminology professor whose “retirement” has allowed him to nourish a lifelong interest in art. Not only is he engaged as a painter, he’s an accomplished musician who can jam with the best, and – when in L.A. –  does. When his L.A.-based son Ben asked if we might be interested in featuring his father’s work in Ragazine, it hit a sweet spot – largely because we wanted to know more about this cat who does indeed appear to have nine lives. You can make what you like of the art, as many have with comparisons to David Hockney and Edward Hopper; but in other terms, what he sees and what he paints are as much derivative of his existential approach to “nature vs nurture”.   Read what the professor has to say.

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Ragazine: I’m as interested in your career path as where you are today as a painter, so if some of the questions seem to come out of left field, I’ll leave it to you to answer as you like. As an aside, our politics editor Jim Palombo has studied and taught criminology internationally for many years, and has written a couple of books including From Heroin to Heresy and From Criminal to Critic. I just completed a book, Sleeping Dogs – A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. See the connection… So, how did you happen to take the criminology career path, as opposed to studying art and teaching art at the university level?

Tierney: I was born into a working class family in the industrial north west of England. There was no history of further or higher education in my immediate or, indeed, extended family. Everyone had left school at the minimum legal age. When I was a boy this was 15 years. I did, though, show some aptitude for school work and stayed on at school for an extra year, gaining some basic qualifications. The education system reflected the class system: the vast majority of working class kids were ‘selected’ at 11 for the type of secondary school that I attended. These were called secondary moderns and, in fact, around 70% of the population attended these. In general, they prepared pupils for manual jobs. I was quite good at, and enjoyed, art at school and would have liked to have pursued a career in, for instance, commercial art. However, at 16 I received little encouragement for this and believed that I wasn’t talented enough for a career in art. So, when I left school I began an engineering apprenticeship, which involved attending a local college for one day a week. I continued to paint and read about art and artists, but I also developed a keen interest in social and political issues. Sociology seemed to offer an opportunity to explore these things in depth. Thus at 23, and by now a qualified draftsman, I decided to apply to university to study for a degree. Although I didn’t have conventional entrance qualifications, my engineering qualifications (and perhaps enthusiasm) convinced a couple of admissions tutors that I was worth taking on. The rest, as they say, is history. I got my degree, followed by post-graduate qualifications, and entered into, firstly, further, then later on, higher education as a lecturer. By the late 1970s I had developed a particular interest in the sociology of crime and deviance, and this became my specialist field. To me it was inherently interesting and as a field of study appeared to incorporate all of the major sociological debates and issues. I retired from Durham University in 2010 and this provided an opportunity to engage with my painting in a more serious way than previously. Throughout my life as an academic I had continued, on and off, to paint. 

Q) Did you ever paint or draw in another style than the one you’re working in today? Was there ever a time abstract expressionism had an appeal?

A) Over the years I explored a variety of ‘styles’ and techniques (including abstract expressionism!). However, what I am doing now is, I suppose, my ‘default’ mode. 

©John Tierney

Red Car in the Valley of Fire, NV | 12″ x 9″ | Oil on canvas

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Q) If you paint from photographs, do you ever manipulate the images, or do you remain pretty much true to the “visual events” you work from?

A) While some painters are reluctant to admit that they use photographs, for me they are the basis of the work I do. It it not my intention, though, to simply reproduce a photographic image. I work on these images. Sometimes this means manipulating them in the simple sense of moving things around, but more importantly, ‘manipulation’ occurs through the use of technique and colour. Looking at my paintings, the viewer is obviously aware that they are seeing a painting and not, say, a textured photograph. Most of my work is based on the urban landscape of Los Angeles and the desert landscape of Joshua Tree National Park (I’ve visited each on many occasions – one of my sons and his wife live in L.A.). I’m attracted by the light and shade, the architecture of L.A. and the sharp delineation of sky and buildings/mountains. Some of my paintings, though, are of New York and Helsinki – where my two other sons live. Two major influences are Edward Hopper and the earlier, L.A.-based paintings of David Hockney. Edward Hopper said that he was fascinated by the chance events found in nature. I am fascinated by the chance events captured by the camera – in the broadest sense a sort of serendipity. This involves, for example, light, reflections, and the deportment of people. To illustrate, one of my paintings is of the Cobble Hill cinema in Brooklyn, N.Y. I took a photograph of parents and their kids following, I presume, a morning show. Only when I began to draw out the scene on canvas did I notice a girl in a flamboyant red dress, and with one of her arms in an odd position. She became the focal point of the painting. 

Q) Do you spend a lot of time searching for images or scenes to paint, or is choosing your subjects a more casual undertaking, where you engage in customary activities like going to the grocery store and suddenly are taken by what you see?

A) I usually take my camera with me when I’m in the US and out walking, and I’m always on the look out for interesting images. My three sons have also been important sources – they know the kind of stuff that appeals to me. 

Q) I don’t see any paintings of London on your website. Don’t you like painting in shades of  gray, or are these stored somewhere?

A) At the moment none of my paintings are of locations in the U.K. I suppose that one dimension to this is that I visit L.A., New York or Helsinki as an ‘outside’ observer who is fascinated by the differences between these places and, say, London.

Q) Do you have more than one studio, meaning, in L.A., or in London or New York? Where is most of your work (painting) produced?

A) I have one studio and it’s in the UK.

Q) Have you spent considerable time in the museums in London or elsewhere in Europe? Which is your favorite, if one can have a favorite?

A) A ‘considerable’ time would be an exaggeration. However, when in a European (or U.S.,  for that matter) city I do like to include a visit to the major galleries, or a minor one if something has caught my eye. I live some distance from London, so I’m not able to routinely visit the many galleries on offer there. I don’t have a favorite, but when in London I like to visit the usual suspects: The National Gallery, The Tate Modern, Tate Britain and (for its Summer Exhibition) The Royal Academy. One gem I’ve discovered outside of the U.K. is the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland.

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Q) You’ve written at least two books about criminology. Do you still have a desire to write, and if so, is the subject the same? Do you see yourself analyzing art and artists in the same way you drilled down into criminology? Is it environment or DNA that makes men artists? Criminals?

A) To a large extent writing has been put to one side since I retired from the university. I do enjoy writing and have various ideas, though none are in the area of academic criminology. One project, roughly sketched out, is a novel dealing with a crime theme – I quite like the idea of writing in a genre that frees me from any concerns with evidence and footnotes! While I’m happy to respond to questions such as these, it would be presumptuous of me to embark on a project aimed at a serious engagement with art and artists. The last question you’ve included in this section is (to put it mildly) a big and complex one! However, it is an interesting one, so I’ll respond, albeit in broad terms (and I do discuss it in much more detail in my book Criminology: Theory and Context). Basically, you are referring to the long-standing debate about nature vs nurture. Stated simply: does someone become a criminal (or artist, which I’ll return to) because of a genetic predisposition, or as a result of social experiences? It thus lies within a context of debates about the so called causes of crime. To begin with, any reference to the ‘causes’ of crime based upon a simple A causes B model should set the alarm bells ringing. Over the years a steady stream of politicians, journalists, criminal justice personnel and academics have apparently tracked down the causes of crime. As a result we have a bewildering galaxy of causal explanations, taking in bad genes, chromosome deficiencies, deformed personalities, trendy parents, lone parents, trendy lone parents, simple greed, deprivation, blocked opportunities, peer group pressure, status frustration, too little money, too much money and artificial coloring in fish fingers. The corollary of these has been an equally bewildering galaxy of treatment/punishment packages: offenders have been incarcerated in hulks on the River Thames, transported from Britain to Australia, hanged, pelted with eggs in village stocks, tortured in dungeons, given short sharp shocks in detention centers, sterilized, injected with mind-altering drugs, made to face their victims, sent on wagon trains across America and (nowadays especially popular in the U.S. and U.K.) locked up in prison. To illustrate the complexities raised by this debate, you refer to ‘men’ in the question – though I assume you include women. Most crime, especially violent crime, in the U.S. and U.K. (and many other societies) is in the main committed by men. Thus gender – masculinity and femininity –defined as socially constructed understandings of maleness and femaleness, is one of myriad factors that need to be taken into consideration. I’m skeptical of the idea that criminals are predisposed towards criminal behavior because of their genetic makeup. No ‘criminal gene’ has ever been tracked down. As a social scientist I have always been more interested in the social, though I am critical of social (as well as genetic) explanations based upon deterministic causal relationships. Thus the notion of ‘bad’ genes or ‘bad’ environments propelling some individuals into crime seems to me to be far too simplistic. Clearly, the relationship between genetic make-up and social experiences is extremely complex. Furthermore, the concept of social experiences is shorthand for what has to encompass a vast range of social structural factors, social interactions, cultural, political and economic considerations, subjective understandings and creative responses on the part of individuals. People are both shaped by, and help shape the social world. Where and how one is brought up, one’s opportunities in life, how one is treated by others, how one sees oneself and one’s place in society and how one subjectively understands and gives meaning to the social world, etc., etc., all have to go into the mix when attempting to explain criminal, or any other, behavior. And, when focusing on specifically criminal behavior, it is important to note that ‘crime’ covers a huge range of activities. There is a danger of conceptualizing crime simply in terms of so called ‘conventional’ crime, such as burglary and street robbery, and ignoring the significant amount of white-collar and corporate crime that exists. In some ways it is more productive to approach these debates about criminality from the opposite direction, that is, by recognizing that ‘crime’ is a relative, not an absolute concept. No activity is inherently criminal. What is defined as criminal depends upon the criminal law, which varies from one society to another, and in one particular society changes over the years. The fact that nothing is inherently criminal makes any attempt to construct a universal explanation of criminal behavior highly problematic. Similar issues (based on the notion of relativism, rather than absolutism) are raised if we turn to ‘artists’, as referred to in your questions. I’m not at all sure what an artist is. Anyone can call themselves an artist. One thing they do, though, is produce what they consider to be ‘art’. Therefore, I think it is art, not artist, that is most relevant to the debate you have raised: is genetic endowment the key factor explaining an individual’s ability to produce what is defined as ‘good’ art? The problem here is that just as no behavior is inherently criminal, so no piece of artwork is inherently good. Whether or not it gets recognized as such is contingent upon many evolving factors: for instance, taste and expectations vis a vis ‘good’/’legitimate’ art during a particular historical period, social, political and cultural contexts and the nature of a specific audience who have the power to define a piece of work as good. What is defined as good, marketable art varies enormously in terms of type of expertise, technique, materials and intention – think of cubism, abstract art, abstract expression, videos and all sorts of installations, for example. Obviously, an ability to produce accurate representations of things, as conventionally understood, is not a prerequisite for the creation of ‘good’ art – nor should it be. Therefore, if we cannot pin down a specific ability necessary to create good art, then searching for the source of good art in an individual’s genetic make-up is a chimera. If I may, I’d like to make a final point regarding genetics and criminality. During the 1920s and 1930s the eugenics movement achieved a significant following in continental Europe and the United States. Essentially, it was concerned with ‘improving’ the genetic stock, which meant devising ways of preventing those defined as ‘degenerate’, of low intelligence, or otherwise judged as deviant/criminal from having children (through sterilizing them, for example). This mission to ‘purify’ the genetic pool, however, was somewhat sullied by those who during World War 2 took the arguments to their logical conclusion in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Q) Have your interests, including art and music, rubbed off on all of your sons?

A) It’s difficult to say with certainty what has ‘rubbed off’, but my middle son is a social science professor at an American college. All three have dabbled with painting and drawing over the years, though none, so far, has engaged with these seriously. They all, though, have a good eye for photographs. My eldest son, in fact, is a very accomplished photographer and has produced work commercially (he provided the image for one of my books, for instance). 

Q) You’ve gotten a lot of play for the painting you did of the Paul Smith Store in Los Angeles, and his hallmark scarf. How did this experience come about?                                                                                       

A) I gave Paul Smith one of my paintings of his store as a present and he thought that it would provide an interesting image for use on a limited edition silk scarf. My forthcoming exhibition at the store in May is a knock-on effect.

Q) If you had to do over, would you have been an artist first and a criminologist second?

A) I have no regrets about entering into the field of criminology. However, if I could go back and do it over, I’d probably choose art, simply because I would have already experienced the world of criminology and would like to try something different.  

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 Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted via e-mail in February and March of 2012.  For more information about John Tierney, including links to his music, visit http://www.john-tierney.com.

Priscila De Carvalho

“Off-duty Militias” | 2008 | 24″ x 34″ x 2 1/2″

Acrylic, ink, foamcore, photo collage, sharpie on canvas

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Gersony Silva

 Simultaneous Outbreaks |  2010 | 0.64×0.75m – 1 of 4 pieces

   Printed mirror vitrine 

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Duda Penteado

Glocallica Series XXIII | 2010 | 100 X 100 CM (39″ X 39″)

Acrylic on canvas

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Three “Hot” Brazilian Artists

Priscila De Carvalho, Duda Penteado, and Gersony Silva:

Caught Up in the “WE ARE YOU PROJECT INTERNATIONAL’s”

Emerging Global Initiative(s)!

By   Dr. José Rodeiro

 Anyone with a full “art historical” understanding of emergent contemporary Brazilian visual art in both the United States of America and Brazil would instantly affirm that the dominant “stars” (in terms of popularity in the USA) are Vik Muniz, Romero Britto, Priscila De Carvalho, Duda Penteado and Gersony Silva.  Recently, in the USA, these five prominent Brazilian 21st Century transvanguard visual artists are ubiquitously affecting American culture within the context of US Latinization.   What is fascinating (about these five Brazilian artists) is that their art often reflects current urban themes such as over-population, class-segregation, alienation, globalization, the body, self-gratification and individualism. Yet, these urban themes are pursued by each of these Brazilian artists with distinctive character and personality.   For example, all five have a history of large public-works and community projects, while Britto (with his Leger-esque signature-style of thick black lines surrounding pure-hues, connoting tropical delectation) appears less drawn to or affected by Brazil’s recent “national” propensity for cooperative communal artistic endeavors (i.e., articulations and/or interventionist art – both concepts are defined and described in the next paragraph).  Nevertheless, Britto has become a cottage-industry, whose fashionable designs appear everywhere.  On the other-hand (like Vik Muniz), Duda Penteado also generates cooperative public-projects, actions (“Neo-Happenings”), and other civic or group-endeavors; although, he also creates fascinating, lyrical, highly-imaginative imagery, which ingeniously examines Apocalyptic “&/or” prophetic Bosch-like realms in a vibrant Picasso-esque style reminiscent of Belgian CoBrA-master Pierre Alechinsky, as well as Puerto-Rican Neo-Surrealist Epson Espada.

In the early 21st Century, Brazil’s various artistic communities were encouraged to create large-scale Post-Fluxus (“Neo-NeoDada”) Articulations and Interventionist Art works, involving thousands of participants in the formation of the “work.”   Of course, the focus on “art-as-work,” “process,” or “making” over “finished product” is a throwback to the Neo-Marxist “socialist” aesthetic ideas of Harold Rosenberg, Joseph Beuys, and other social action-oriented concerns and methods, which also manifested in Brazil, as a variant of action-art, in the late-1960s and early 1970s as evidenced by urban group-performances orchestrated by Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape and other major Brazilian contemporary masters.  Ideally, these group projects involve large cohorts of people; neighborhoods, districts, “art-communes,” “teams” or “art collectives.”   Ultimately, the Articulations and/or Interventionist Art dream (or “wish”) was to get the entire nation of Brazil (or, ideally an even bigger, or greater democratic “geo-estetica” ambition, aesthetically involving a la Kant “everyone on earth”) engaged in creating one work (or one activity).   For example, Penteado in collaboration with Mario Tapia (Chilean-American) and Dr. Carlos Hernandez (Puerto-Rican American) creating a coast-to-coast national US-art endeavor known as the “WE ARE YOU PROJECT INTERNATIONAL” exhibit, an enormous art movement-esque work of art that simultaneously combined film, visual art, poetry, music, performance-art, socio-political-activism, etc., which had implications throughout both the USA and all of the Americas, drawing in (directly or indirectly) three prominent Brazilian artists: Priscila De Carvalho, Duda Penteado, and Gersony Silva.

In a way, Vik Muniz’s enormous Waste Land garbage-portraits (with images derived from art history), reflect similar Brazilian collectivist artistic-strivings (communally creating a vast Intervention and/or massive public Articulation); although, in the end, the entire work (“series of images”)  is/are (nevertheless) indicative of an individual vision, which is clearly identified as a “work-of-art” created both directly and indirectly by Vik Muniz, by means of his remarkable vision, and a talented crew of assistants, including randomly selected on-site “garbage-pickers.”   Ideally, perhaps, in time, the whole nation of Brazil will do a universal Interventionist piece, presumably during the Brazilian Olympics; or during the Brazilian World Cup, or maybe during some future unforeseen enormous “Carnival.”

Today, the “hottest” Brazilian Artists in the USA that are manifesting profound awareness of the “WE ARE YOU PROJECT INTERNATIONAL’s” emerging global initiative(s) are Priscila De Carvalho, Duda Penteado, and Gersony Silva.  These three highly-gifted masters will be examined “alphabetically” (below)against the background of the We Are You Project International, aptly described throughout this URL: http://www.weareyouproject.org/6201.html.

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Priscila De Carvalho

“Settlements” | August, 2010 | Medium:  39″ x 58″ 

Enamel, acrylic, ink, permanent maker, photograph collage on canvas

Priscila De Carvalho

Fresh from her 2011 Museum of Modern Art’s PS-1”Studio Visit” selection, Priscila De Carvalho displayed her art at the Museo del Barrio’s 2011-2012 “Bienal.” Born in Brazil in 1975, De Carvalho attended The City College of San Francisco, as well as UC Berkeley. Additionally, she attended New York City’s Art Students League.

Priscila De Carvalho

As one of the leading lights of Brazilian visual art in the USA, she was awarded the fêted Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, as well as attaining support from Artist in the Market Place at Bronx Museum, Queens Council on The Arts Fund, along with an Aljira Emerge 10 Fellowship. She has held artist-residencies at Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning, and at Utica, New York’s Sculpture Space.  In recent years, major exhibits of her art abound, including a solo-show at the Jersey City Museum, and other shows at The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Pulse Art Fair in New York, Pinta Art Fair in London (UK), Deutsche Bank and various other respected galleries and museums. Her involvement in the WE ARE YOU PROJECT INTERNATIONAL exhibition (2012-2018) is reflected in her remarkable image titled: Off-Duty Militias (2008, acrylic, pencil, ink, foam, photograph collage on canvas, 24″ x 34″ x 1/2″ (Collection of the artist)).

Via her 2008 image “Off-Duty Militias,” De Carvalho creates a work that combines various media including acrylic, vinyl, permanent marker, pencil, and photo collage. In her imagery, De Carvalho creates fantastic worlds in which colors, forms, and elements of fantasy all meld together.  The work combines the influence of Pop Art, Spanish Informalism, the monumentality of mural painting, and a reverence for architectural forms.  With these varied sources, the artist overlays a complex variety of objects and shapes together, creating a frenetic, turbulent, escalating and heavily laden urban landscape.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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She is perhaps most inspired by the ever-expanding and sprawling urban growth in the cities of her native Brazil, particularly the labyrinthine favelas rapidly encircling Rio de Janeiro.  Revealing the sense of a huge population constantly on the move, her works are marked by intense colors and the upward-thrusting  lines of ever-present winding streets and stairways.  When confronting her improvised shanty vedutes, some Anglo-American viewers occasionally invoke Led Zeppelin’s haunting lyrics to Stairway To Heaven.   Importantly, in her piece Off Duty Militias, she was inspired by gang-driven drug-trafficking in the slums of Brazil, as well as the  innate (or inherent) theme(s) of superfluous make-shift fence-building projects, connoting human-separation amid chaotic barriers and watchtowers, which directly relate to the current surge of “rightwing” ethno-racist US-border issues along the Rio Grande and Sonoran Desert.

Beyond the acclaimed exhibits and awards already described above, De Carvalho has also shown in UC Praxis International Art Gallery in New York, Gallery 64 Bis in Paris, France, and in Deutsche Bank, the AIM Program at the Bronx Museum Biennial and at the (S) Files’ “Bienal” of El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY.   Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times (August 2009), Art Aldia International (March 09), Art Nexus (August 2009) and many others publications. Further information on Priscila De Carvalho is available at http://momaps1.org/studio-visit/artist/priscila-de-carvalho  and: http://www.priscilasoffice.com/ .

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Duda Penteado

Glocallica Series XXX | 2010 | 110 X 130 CM (43″X 53″)

 Acrylic on canvas

Duda Penteado

Duda Penteado’s innovative and revolutionary Glocallica Series affords viewers rich undulating waves of dark Lorca-esque duende, encompassing (in 2012) some of the Brazilian master’s most intriguing imagery to date.  In the Series, his use of hands and feet allude to Oscar Niemeyer’s giant 1985 Memorial to the Americas’s hand sculpture (Sao Paulo, Brazil).

Duda Penteado, The Bird of Revelation Installation. Photo credit: Eric Lehrer

Art historically, Penteado’s emerging Glocallica imagery implicitly alludes to a mere handful of exceptional duende-filled abstract works that were created since 1945  by approximately eight modern masters: Pablo Picasso’s heroic post-War Charnel House Series examining the Jewish Holocaust; Pierre Alechinsky’s Cobra imagery; Franz Kline’s action-paintings; the renowned Ecuadorian painter and sculptor Oswaldo Guayasamín, as well as the New York School Abstract Expressionist artists: Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and William Baziotes.   From these eight modern masters, it is clear that Penteado’s Glocallica Series references Federíco García-Lorca’s theory of the duende (a term best defined in this URL:  http://duende-art.com/page1.html), which also lurks behind Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic, as well as probing Rothko’s two astounding aesthetic ideas: 1). The Sublime in visual art, and 2). The tragio-dramatic in visual art, which pertain to recent Penteado Glocallica works.
Consequently, as an intrepid manifestation of the “here-&-now,” (and, in devotion to Lorca’s duende-present: the “now”) each Glocallica image simultaneously represents what Salvador Dalí characterized as timeless binaries or dichotomous conflict(s) between the legi intimus and the legi promiscuitus; with both boldly battling (in the present) to join the local and the global (the street and the universe), the intimate and the distant.   Hence, Penteado’s Glocallica Series constantly unites in the eternal-present both the “far-flung” and the “very close,” connecting them together with what Martin Luther King called, “The fierce urgency of now.”    Hence,  against the empty-void of today’s dismal and fruitless Neo-Philistine ‘Malthusian-world,’ which appears perpetually caught between constant war(s); pending  global Depression(s); imminent man-made disasters, and unavoidable pandemics, Penteado erects a symbolic large “tree-like” HAND(s) branching, grasping, reaching and struggling.  By means of these heroic hand-images, The Glocallica Series valiantly confronts myriad Neo-Philistine-adversaries, for whom he symbolically raises an emblematic hand to stand like a tree against them.  This emblematic hand has root-like feet and branches resembling fingers.  This anthropomorphized “hand-tree” has humanoid features: feet-roots, branch-arms, branch fingers, and other human characteristics, which brilliantly derive from Oscar Niemeyer’s giant 1985 Memorial to the Americas’s hand sculpture (Sao Paulo, Brazil).  And, through the depiction of that emblematic black/white hand(s), Penteado reveals humanity’s urgent need for greater feeling, emotion, imagination, spirituality, love and redemption.  Throughout The Bible, hands and feet often play significant roles that relate to each of these above-stated aspirations. For example, in The Apocalypse, St. John the Evangelist describes his heartfelt reaction during his first glimpse of the risen Christ, saying:

“I fell at his feet as though I was dead, but he placed his right hand on me and said, ‘Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last, and the one who lives! I was dead, but look, now I am alive – forever and ever – and I hold the keys of death and the dead” (Rev.1-17).

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Furthermore, due to its firm-grounding in Lorca-esque Duende, The Glocallica Series stands as a viable antidote against contemporary visual-art’s and contemporary life’s mundane daily grind (or present-struggle), Glocallica’s symbolic hand is the tragic-sublime Mark Rothko-esque and Motherwell-esque “heroic-shape” confronting a host of iniquitous villains (i.e., the zealous post-industrialists, the hyper-conceptualists, the fanatic-anarchists, the anti-visceralists/anti-emotive non-humans, anti-art anti-artists, the enemies of human-civilization, the terrorists, the pro-mechanistic techno-militants, the outcomes-obsessed educators and the foes of “true Hegelian-faith,” who attempt to replace ART and SPIRITUALITY with their glib fixation on hyper-media, hyper-technology, gluttonous-capitalism, fanatic false-religiosity and bogus non-faith; or even worse, unwarranted faith in mere science, sybaritic machines, or totalitarianism (especially the current glut of malevolent religio-despots addicted to fatality and their mindless congregations (“the herd”)); as well as all other illicit 21st Century vulgarities and criminal excesses (i.e., a banquet of fiscal greed; transgenic art (bio-art); regurgitated Neo-Dada conceptualizations, and other spurious attacks on primordial and eternal human values).  To all these lugubrious stupidities and evils, The Glocallica Series says, “NO!”  Furtively, all this Glocallican-negativity is actually a positive affirmation of human life, faith, love and art.  Also, most importantly for Penteado, Brazil (itself) is a manifestation (or a constant reminder) of God’s outstretched hands symbolic of what really matters to all people living on the planet Earth: human life, human faith, human love and human art.

Penteado was born in São Paulo in 1968, and studied at FIAM – SP.  Throughout the 1990, he  exhibited in Brazil, then he moved to New York City, where he obtained a position at Muriel Studio in Soho, NYC (NY) as an assistant to Sheila Marbain, the inventor of a new “silk monotype” technique, which was employed by many leading contemporary artists.  Active in both Brazil and the USA as well as in Europe throughout the late-1990s and the early 21st Century, he showed in The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ; Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy, 2009; Monique Goldstrom Gallery, NYC; The Museum of Art and Origins, Harlem, NYC (NY); BACI-The Brazilian American Cultural Institute, Washington, DC; Museo de Las Americas, Denver, CO; CITYarts 272nd Mural, “Nature is Love on Earth”, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, The St. John’s Recreation Center, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NYC, 2008, 2009; Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, Kean University, Union, NJ; Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ; Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ; Drew University, Madison, NJ; Middlebury College, Vermont; UFES- Universidade Estadual do Espírito Santo, Vitoria, ES; UNESP-Universidade Estadual Paulista, SP, and SESC – SP.

He was President of the Artist Certification Board, Jersey City, NJ, until 2010. Received awards and recognition from various institutions in the United States, including: Urban Artist Fellowship Award, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; Goldman Sachs Student Art Project Grant, Jersey City, NJ (2006, 2007, 2008); Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, Claremont, CA; Special Guest for Artistic Achievement & Commitment to YMCA Greater, NY-Youth, NYC; American Graphic Design Award, Interactive Multimedia Installation, NYC; Humanitarian Award from the Hudson County Chapter of the American Conference on Diversity, Jersey City, NJ, and received a Kappa Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity Award, Eta Rho Chapter, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ.  Along with Mario Tapia and Dr. Carlos Hernandez, he has been at the helm of the We Are You Project since 2005.   For more about Penteado art and career explore this URL: http://www.dudapenteado.com/ .

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Gersony Silva

Your wave: The other side | 2008 |  1.80 x 1.50 m

 Object-art / scene – wood, laminated print  blanket styrofoam, mirror, lights 

Gersony Silva

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1973, Gersony Silva lives and works in her native city.  She studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sao Paulo, Brazil.   Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she also attended the Pontifical Catholic University (SP), The University of Sao Paulo, and The Art School of The Museum of Art of Sao Paulo.

She has exhibited extensively in Brazil, Spain, the USA, and other locations that are listed in her Website: http://www.gersony.com.br/v4/  As a child, she bravely faced a debilitating illness, precipitating the onset of possible early paralysis.

Gersony Silva with Dr. José Rodeiro

Intrepidly, as a way to confront her illness, she studied classical dance – as a therapeutic means to strengthen her body.   This shamanic awareness of the therapeutic power of art resides in her spectacular creations as a means of promoting (enhancing) her well-being, and by so doing, also enhancing (like a true shaman) the vigor and vitality of everyone around her.  In the fall of 2011, she participated in various We Are You Project events in Brazil, achieving a friendship with Duda Penteado and other members of the US-based We Are You Project sojourning in Brazil

Ultimately, the highly insightful and provocative imagery of contemporary Brazilian master Gersony Silva represents a stunning, intriguing, and poetic art, which is often self-referential, highly evocative, and frequently focuses on various parts of her body (e.g., knees, feet, elbows, joints, toes, folds, bends, curves and other corporeal components).  She pursues this uncompromising analysis of her body via various “cinematic” sequences of images that rely on unique perspectives, distortions, perceptions, symmetrical mirroring(s), repetitions, manipulation(s) and adaptations.   Her straightforward and monumental abstract designs hint at motion, choreographed movement, and dance.  Yet, as all great artists, she has a well-spring of allusions to art history, which are ingeniously evident throughout her work, proving Pablo Picasso’s maxim that, “Mediocre artists borrow; but, great artists steal!”

Among the contemporary artists that are significant to her, we find Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Rebecca Horn and Anish Kapoor.  This brief critique will examine each of these art historical allusions, as well as Silva’s unique relationship to Ana Mendieta.   For example, the exquisite and inviting overlays of bending and folding flower-petals in O’Keeffe’s various “Flower” images reemerge in the sensual bends and folds inhabiting Silva’s signature monumental monochromatic dark blue installation-pieces, as well as manifesting in the Brazilian’s assorted conceptual body-oriented photographic series’ figural-elements, which from time to time suggest Alfred Stieglitz’s famous 1930s photographic-analysis (series) of every part of his wife’s (O’Keeffe’s) body.

Also, of equal significance (to Silva) are Bourgeois’s courageous erotically-charged sculptures representing abstracted (organic-surreal) humanoid or mutated genitalia-forms or genitalia-beings, which allude to the Brazilian’s conceptual-photographic manipulations of her own body-parts (e.g., knees, feet, elbows, joints, toes, folds, bends, curves and other components).  The use of light and shadow in Silva’s installations have a direct relationship to the dramatic lighting effects spotlighting captivating performances and installations by Rebecca Horn.  Like Silva, the German-born artist Horn is a master of properly lit astounding performances and installations.  Permeating Silva’s work is a profound concern for color (chromatic hue); shimmering and high-key surface-effects, utilizing design precision (meticulousness); these above-mentioned elite or “classic” qualities are equally pervasive in the works of Anish Kapoor, the Anglo-Indian contemporary sculptor and installation-artist.

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Unlike the hyper-expressionistic oeuvre of Mendieta, Silva’s gorgeous, classical, elegant and “muse-filled” imagery is far less raw, gory, or as agonizing as the extremely chthonic feminist performance pieces that Mendieta’s duende conjured-up.    Despite this one significant difference, both Mendieta and Silva manifest four essential art historical similarities, which are:  1). a general reliance on their own body as the subject of their art, as well as 2). creating works that exude a sublime self-awareness and self actualization, revealing 3).  a shamanic need to create animistic rituals that invoke greater health and well-being for themselves and the world.   Lastly, both artists bravely 4). challenge monotonous and entrenched “merely” Minimalist aesthetic trends in the late-1960s and 1970s, which included such mind-numbing “minimal” artists as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, etc., etcetera.

Lastly, throughout the USA, in the 21st Century, enclaves of Brazilian artists are working alongside US-Latinos in their collaborative struggle for US civil rights and equality.  For example, in the above critique, three Brazilian artists (Priscila De Carvalho, Duda Penteado and Gersony Silva) are involved directly or indirectly with the We Are You Project International (“WAY Project”).   The best way to define this 21st Century WAY Project initiative in terms of Brazil and all of Latin America would be to recall that twice in 1936 and again in 1943, Joaquin Torres-García (in Montevideo, Uruguay) portrayed America’s Southern Hemisphere utilizing an Antarctic-perspective, as though an anticipated polar-inversion [(anticipated around every 640,000 years)] had transpired.  In fact, he wrote “Polo S” across the top of both drawings, entreating viewers to adopt this “new” South Pole point-of-view.   The We Are You Project endeavors the same drastic reorientation of Latino cultural and artistic values, asking Latino artists throughout the world to rediscover their own culture and to confront (in their art) all the socio-political and economic issues that affect all Latinos.   Hence, “WAY” is a courageous Sisyphean effort to address (via art) the myriad 21st Century opportunities, restrictions, and risks, which all Latinos (i.e. Brazilians) face.

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About the author:

Dr. José Rodeiro is Coordinator of Art History, Art Department, New Jersey City University. A deconstruction of his recent painting, “Hips don’t lie,” appeared in Ragazine, Volume 8, Number 2.

Éducation | acrylic on canvas  | 40” x 30”  | 2012

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Garbage Pail Kids

come of age in Montreal 

 By Michael Foldes

Ragazine: Xavier, thank you for contacting Ragazine about featuring your work, and for agreeing to this interview. We trust our readers will be as intrigued by what you are doing as are we.

Landry in his studio in Montreal.

You’ve done a wonderful job of updating Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. Your paintings are poignant commentaries on, and painful reminders of, what contemporary culture is doing to us. Would you say this is an accurate appraisal?

Landry: Definitely. It’s about the creepy nature of men forged by our cultural experience. It is contemporary by the references I use but at large, men have always the same problems and wills.

Q) Your Christophe Colomb image is very disturbing in a direct way (he looks to me like someone who came out of a leaking nuclear power plant); Exode,  La patrouille s’amuse and Manipulation are more frightening in the sense they combine readily identifiable and common imagery with nightmarish qualities. Where do these “dreams” come from?

A) I dream a lot. As many of us, I wish. Some themes are more than others forced to fit with an aesthetic that I want to show, but usually the images just come by themselves. The brain is a bank filled of all kind of souvenirs that make our personal culture. I mix those feelings and personal fantasy with real events or popular behavior. Then in my case, the image left depends on the way the ideas were interpreted. It could be soft but I don’t feel things that way.

Q) Your commentaries on fast food in Hotdog and La passion de Wendy, and ‘fast shopping at big box stores” in La Patrouille s’amuse, get right to the point. Are you a vegetarian? Do you shop at the local grocer’s?

A) I don’t go to McDo or that kind of fast food restos, but I like the way they look. They popped out from an acid trip. That’s a hook that works. Even their food looks like toys. I’m not a vegetarian. I eat vegeterians.

Fuckoshima! |  acrylic on canvas | 2011

Q) I am totally amused by the title of your painting, Fuckoshima!, but obviously it’s nothing to laugh at when an event scares the crap out of you. You appear able to turn anything, including censorship, into biting satire. How long have you been painting in this mode?

A) I prefer to show things different as they are. I imagine the marriage of Kate and William as a total mess with a negative issue. As far as I can remember I do it that way since college.

Q) Did you draw much as a child? I noticed the pack of crayons being thrown from the helicopter in Liberation figurative. Why crayons and not sticks of dynamite?

A) When I was a child there were color crayons everywhere. Some uses bombs, some don’t. I use crayons and brushes and I bet I could blow up myself with it. It’s a painting about the destruction of abstract by figurative art. Figurative has the advantage of weapons; intention, meaning, story telling, etc… That makes culture.

Q) What prompted Le Roi? Does this reflect your personal belief, or lack of it, or what the church often seems to have become?

A) It’s more about the shaken baby syndrome than a religious critique, but what about those child molestor priests?

Q) Xavier, where are you living now? Do you have a live/work studio space?

A) I live and work in a semi-industrial neighborhood in Montreal. It’s a nice and quiet place. It is also pretty funny because it’s situated between a metal shop and a high class commercial street. There are skunks and racoons everywhere that share our barbecues, and finally, there is the absurdity to have one of the biggest art gallery for next door neighbor and get f***king cold in winter nights. It’s really cool. Plenty of artists around here. But they will pull down the entire neighboorhood to build luxurious condos.

Q)  Did your work receive positive support while you were studying at University of Quebec, Montreal?

A) When I was at Université du Québec à Montréal, I was on an exploration path. I knew art was the only solution but I had to try some techniques. At first I did paintings because I already did some since I was a child. But teachers told me that I was doing illustration. Figurative is not welcome in Montreal. Then I did some almost life size sculptures of whitetrash characters and finished my BFA that way, which was much more appreciated.

Q) Who would you say had the most influence on you becoming an artist, or in expressing yourself as you do?

A) My father who is a graphic designer, my uncle who was a painter and maybe Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.

Q) I can see you merging Goya, Bosch, Bacon and Freud. Any favorite artists, living or dead?

A) I took back the brushes a few years ago after seeing the work of those in the famous American lowbrow magazines. By now I can’t say I have favorite. It depends on many factors but I like it figurative for sure.

Q) Is your favored medium acrylic? oil?

A)Acrylic. I have no patience for oil. Especially for cleaning brushes. Some think “I work with oil because the result is slick,” but I don’t.

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Q) How much of your indelicate worldview was shaped by your being a French Canadian growing up in a disputed ‘territory’?

A) Hum… I didn’t see the time when the anglophones and the francophones was fighting and living in distinct neighboorhoods. Nowadays there are relics of it. The rich buildings and English university are on the Mount-Royal and the working class public French factories surrounded it. But now English-speaking students are poor, too, so we all mix in the slums. I’m influenced by what is surrounding me so since I evolve in the “bad” sides of town, my inputs are prostitutes, drugs, drunken guy that crap in public at 10 am etc… I could paint the portrait of an old rich English lady suffering of many neurosis and it won’t be better.

Q) I am familiar with the catacombs in Paris, but not the catacombs in Montreal. What is the provenance of the show you are in that began in March?

A) The Katacombes is an alternative cooperative bar downtown. We were a dozen local painters to interpret the novels of Patrick Sénécal, a horror writer. He is a kind of Stepen King in Quebec. It last only one day. We had fun!

Q) I am still intrigued about what kind of childhood you had that you are meticulous enough to paint visions that are so disarming. What were – or are – your parents’ professions? They seem to have imparted to you a strong social conscience that one might say makes you an activist painter for your social commentary.

A) My mom is in the death industry and my dad is retired. He was a graphic designer. I played a lot with his markers when I was a kid. That’s where the visions come from. I’m not calling myself an activist. I’m just a cynical guy.

Q) What kinds of things do you enjoy doing when you’re not painting? Do you work in other visual media?

A) I really love cooking! Really! I try to make everything myself. I almost get sick by eating my own bacon and cheese. There’s some things I’m better at. I don’t do other visual art seriously. I did a few stupid drawings and some crazy teddybears for children.

Q) What do you think of the Occupy Movement that has spread from the States to many other parts of the world?

A) Some occupied with intelligence and some not. Some homeless people that were already occupying the park were kicked out by well-equipped activists that have bank accounts. Just nonsense.

Q) What do you think of the Occupy Canada Movement that is starting in the States, much the same way that the Occupy Iraq and Occupy Afghanistan movements started? I think they call it the Keystone Pipeline, because it’s the keystone to the U.S. controlling all of North America.

A) I don’t know. Here the movement is dead. I think it’s a fashion. Utopia or civil war, I don’t know.

Q) I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and work with us. Good luck to you for a most promising career!

A) It was a pleasure.

Editor’s note:

The interview above was conducted via e-mail from January 2012 through April 2012. 

Visit: xavierlandry.com/

©2012 Hanne

Silence  |  2012

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The H7L Effect

Interview with Mike Foldes

Hanne H7L, was born in Denmark and came to the United States in early adulthood. She attended and received a double-major Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and History of Art from University of California, Berkeley, and also earned a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from University of California, San Diego. She has exhibited widely in galleries in the US and Europe, and she is represented in numerous private collections, including The Henry Buhl Collection in New York City, as well as the collections of the Museum of Modern Art.

Her artist’s books include: “The Onion Universe,” “Palm Reading,” “Some People Fit In Everywhere And Some Do Not,” “Criminal Conversation between Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen and Henry Matisse,” and “I Am Half Wolf And Half Labrador.”

Q) So, Hanne, how long have you been in New York?

A) For quite a while, long enough to feel home here.

Q) And where are you from?

A) Denmark.

Q) Were you a war child, like our friend Helene (Gaillet)?

A) In Denmark everything is always pleasant, people will probably say “What war?”

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Q) How did you happen to choose Roger Vitrac’s quotation for the introduction to your website?

A) The quote I wrote in my website by Roger Vitrac appealed to me.The mad man could perhaps be an artist, the werewolf, my wolfman. If you came to my studio you will see wolfmen 3D and 2D all over. My wolfman idea came from my first dog. He was half wolf and half Labrador. For two years I nearly only used him in my art and I still use him. I created an installation “Who Is The Monster?” where that question was raised as the audience entered the gallery.  I have answers in French, Danish and English, as the installation started in Paris and went to Copenhagen and New York, where people mostly answered, “I know I am a monster, but there are good and bad monsters.”

I like also that Roger Vitrac was a surrealist; he also wrote a play The Werewolf (Le Loup-Garou, 1939, situated in a mental hospital).

Q) So, could one say that your artistry is rooted in surrealism?

A) First of all I think my art reflects my Scandinavian upbringing, which was full of mythology and fairytales. In Denmark and Norway I was involved with pharmacy. My first real introduction to art was when I decided to study History of Art at University of California in Berkeley and it was early medieval art and Matisse there, that evoked my interest as an artist. My first solo exhibition, which consisted of paintings and prints, was “The perfection of Imperfection” where I was told there was a feeling of “Joie de Vivre” in the gallery. Later on I was influenced by Eleanor Antin, Yoko Ono and Allan Kaprow (by their work and by knowing them) in my installations, performances and audience participatory performances where I  used many different media. Other influences have been Dubuffet, Dufy, perhaps a little surrealism (see www.H7L.com).

I am also very much influenced by the environment where I live. In California I got into making art of handmade paper and onion skins and trees; in the Hamptons I started painting on potato sacks which became coffee sacks moving to Manhattan. Being into ecology and being a partner in a publishing company (www.antonmiles.com) producing wallet-size maps of plastic, I started making collages of the expired maps. My best friend in Manhattan was inventing computer systems and was very much into photography 2D, 3D and video, he managed slowly to get me somewhat up to date in some of the modern technology.

Q)  Your work these days appears to be principally focused on digital photography. What photographers or painters have you most been influenced by? And, was that influence by reputation, seeing their work in galleries, or by knowing them? 

A) It was the collector Henry Buhl who got me started into Photography. I had made a plaster cast of my Hand and the fingers were by then broken in pieces. I told Henry that I was using hands in my art and he said, but is it photography. It quick became photography and I created  Hanne’s Broken Hand, “Series I to IV”, which is now among others in the Buhl’s Collection and in the collection of a hand surgeon in Italy.

It was with my Star Series that I started using digital photography. I have always been interested in trying new materials and media in my art and there are so much interesting new inventions I feel like trying.

In my latest work I take mostly three digital photographs in layers, a Series I call Illusion. I started of using Photoshop^(tm) for the Illusion Series, but now it has become iPad art.

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From the Star Series I

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Q) What do you mean, “iPad art”? Because you’re making on an iPad?

A) I started off creating my Illusion series, where I place three or more photos in layers on the top of each other in Photoshop. Lately I have been using my IPad instead of photoshop to create the certain transparency there (that) is necessary to be able to see what I want to see. Transparency is very apropo, as nearly everything is transparent in our lives in 2012.

Q) What are some of the more memorable experiences you’ve had since living in New York?

A) When I first came to the East Coast I rented a small house in Amagansett by the Ocean. That in itself was a memorable experience, but the arrival of  a stray wolf-dog there who suddenly decided he belonged to me changed my life and he became an important protagonist in my art. I created an installation “Who is the Monster?” which was shown in Paris, Copenhagen and New York City. He became 2D, 3D, 2D in the Wolfman, which I still use to sign or mark my work. Later, living in NYC, another stray dog came into my Life; again, she decided she belonged to me. She was silkie, had been mistreated, and I was asked if I could take her in for a short time to calm her down, as she was biting. Now I have a 5 pound Yorkie, the most beautiful, calm, healthy, intelligent, considerate dog one can imagine, and she is always by my side. These three dogs means more to me than anything else in my life. It is a fantastic experience when a dog suddenly decides it belongs to you and will do anything to please you.

Q) How have things changed since you moved here, and would say for better or for worse?

A) When I arrived here I was very excited about my change of Life from Pharmacy to Art. I thought I should just create art for the rest of my life. I realize to be an artist (there) are many tough jobs: you have to create the art, promote it, and sell it. I have had quite a few exhibitions, worked especially with two galleries (both deceased, now), but the big breakthrough as an artist is tough to achieve. I think if you don’t have the right connections you have to have a lot of luck.

Q) Who working in the art world today do you admire most? Or, should I say, who would you most like to collaborate with?

A)  I admire Yoko Ono a lot and find we have a lot in common in our art.

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Q) And what about photographers? Anyone past or present whom you especially would like to have known or worked with?

A) My main thing is installations,  I work nearly in all media and one of them is photography.  It would have been interesting to have known Man Ray and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Q) How has your attitude towards art and photography changed over the years? Has it become more personal? Are you finding it more or less a means of communication and expression?

A) I used to mostly use photography as documentation but now I mostly use it as a mean of communication and expression in my art. 

Q) Given freedom of choice, where would want your next show to be, and what kind of work would you exhibit?

A) I would love to have a retrospective at Louisiana Museum In Humlebaek in Denmark.

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This interview was conducted via e-mail between January and March 2012.

The illustration at the top of the post is from H7L’s New Illusion Series Inspired by “The Artist,” which won five Academy Awards including best picture, best actor, best director, music score and costume design. The Series features Jean DuJardin, Berenice bejo and Uggie the dog.

See more of H7L’s work at: http://www.h7l.com

http://sharpville.ning.com/profile/hanneLauridsen

Rose Esterito

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Painting Pirates Club

brightens village’s future

 By Rose Robin

Photos by Rose Esterito

“You have brought art and culture, the children have confidence in you, you have made the children proud of the paintings they do.”

A quote from Betty, the president of the neighborhood association of the Arroyo Concreto, or concrete river, in the area called el Esterito in the city of La Paz, Mexico. She was describing why she appreciates the work the Painting Pirates club is doing for the local people of her community.

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This article is about the very same people and area of La Paz written about in the book The Pearl,  by John Steinbeck, and the artistic project called ‘The Painting Pirates club’ that is making a difference to a lost generation of children by teaching them to express themselves.

The people living in the Arroyo originate from main land Mexico, Sonora; they are of the Yaquis tribe. They are native Americans who came here to fish and dive for pearls. They were adept at holding their breath and were a great asset to La Paz. I started ‘The Painting Pirates Club’ in October 2011 to provide the neighborhood children and adults a means to express themselves freely through different forms of the visual arts. I felt the area needed to give active children healthy things to think about, and hope for their future success in life. Our overall goal is to teach them they can make an income through art. That expression through art is good for them psychologically, physically, and economically.

I believe in giving people the right tools to make their dreams and ambitions possible.

My name is Rose Robin. I was born in Britain but I have lived most of my life in France. I left school when I was 12 to become an apprentice to two US artists. My main occupation is a muralist. I am also a documentary film maker, my last documentary ‘The fairytale experiment’ won two international film awards. In 2003 I founded the nonprofit “The Quintessence Project.Org”.  The QPO brings artists together internationally to perform, exhibit, and teach. We have worked on group murals with schools, organizations for the handicapped and people suffering from addiction for the past seven years in the USA and France.

I believe that ‘Art’ is a gray area of discussion, a place that allows us to think. I have been introducing street art to the children and adults here for the past 5 months. I am also showing latin American films and artistic documentaries in Spanish and teaching them to film and make their own documentaries so they can tell their personal stories. The Painting Pirates Club now has 10 people teaching on its team from many origins, Europe, the US, and Mexico, and 30 students. In the next few months we will be developing more art projects in other areas of La Paz, including the hospitals, schools, battered woman’s shelter, and prisons. Our current students will become the teachers and pass on the art lessons we have given them.

I asked a fisherman who has lived in the Arroyo for most of his life, Jose Maria Arse Ortega, what he thought about the Painting Pirates Club?  “It’s very good for the children, since so many fathers lost their jobs the children have no one to teach them about the old ways, fishing and diving are not an opportunity for them. When they paint they learn much more then spending their day doing nothing. The kids are proud and they show their painting to their families, they don’t want anyone to graffiti over their paintings as it belongs to them.”

La Paz Baja California south, seems to me, to be the safest place in Mexico. It’s truly beautiful, a real paradise. La Paz has not been ruined by tourism, unlike it’s more famous neighbor Cabo San Lucas, and the locals are nice and welcome you openly and sincerely.

When I arrived in La Paz I had a 37 meter long aquatic mural commission to do for some US house owners in the Esterito area of La Paz. Once I had finished the mural, I had a few gallons of paint left over and I decided to start painting the walls of a 2.5km long concrete river down the road from my apartment.

I started painting early in the morning and within two hours the children started to come out and watch from about 50 meters away. Whenever I would turn around to see, they would duck behind a tree or a rock and giggle. I had two bags of M&M’s, one of which I laid on a wall closest to them. I then had their full attention; they all came running out of their hiding places to join me, and we painted M&M’s on the wall together.

A camera crew from the local TV station ‘Channel 10′ came to interview me the first day of the project. The next day people with the heartfelt and innate need to express themselves, locals and tourists alike, came to paint or just admire the mural, and more importantly to interact with the people from el Arroyo. The Painting Pirates Club was born.

I noticed tagging and some graffiti art in the Arroyo, and I realized with a rush of excitement, that other Mexican artists had been there before me. I later met some of those artists; they explained they had started to teach mural painting for the same reasons as I had. Every time they were stopped by the police, some at gun point. I was allowed to continue, possibly because I’m a European woman, with long blond hair, or because I babbled in my terrible Spanish trying to be charming. Every time the police hassled me, the conversation ended with the officer saying, “Okay,  just don’t tell anyone that I let you continue.” After being visited by all the La Paz police and the machine-gun armed police chief, they now just wave and honk their horn.

Having media coverage was a great help. We have been on the local news three times, and newspapers more times than I know. This all helped to allow the teaching of free expression to continue for the past five months.

Dangers of living on the Arroyo and the economic problems of the people living there.

“The people living on the Arroyo are squatters, they are not legally allowed to live there,” said Carlos Estrada Talamantes, director of Decope, the land developers who built the new housing complex you can see above the Arroyo in the photographs. “They are taking a real risk living there, we have offered to move them to a safer area, but they say NO, NO, NO. They are squatting the land next to a dry river bed which becomes a running river when it rains. It only rains a few times a year here, but when it does the ground is so dry that the water flash floods. The rain water is directed into El Arroyo Concreto. On October 1, 1976, Hurricane Liza’s heavy rains caused a flash flood that burst a dyke near La Paz . The resulting torrent of water did heavy damage and killed at least 435, and probably more than 630 people.  The people will be allowed to stay there until they can no longer afford to. As La Paz changes economically, these people are left behind because of their high rate of illiteracy.”

Betty, who lives at the end of the Arroyo where the water is evacuated into the sea, had this to say about Hurricane Liza: “When the dyke burst and the estuary flooded the town didn’t have time to tell the people living in the Arroyo, and many were washed out to sea.”  I asked Betty how she thought the people in El Esterito were holding up against the booming tourist industry?  “The People from El Arroyo live day to day, they haven’t had time to learn how to get a job in tourism. They have no confidence in themselves.”

An 88-year-old fishermen, Senior Winkler Leon, said this when I asked him about hurricanes. “When a hurricane is going to hit we make a soup with biscuits and cheese and wait for it to pass. I remember two big hurricanes: October 5, 1957, when a hurricane made a landfall on the peninsula, afterwards all the panga boats were broken. Hurricane Liza in 1976 killed almost a thousand people; the fishermen were pulling the dead out of the sea for days, and dead people were piled up outside the hospital and everywhere in the street. We dug a trench for all the unnamed dead and buried them all together. Another tomb was dedicated to the missing in the graveyard. I found my panga boat all full of sand and cleaned her, I still have her today, she is my lucky panga.”

I asked Senior Winkler Leon if he thought there was more work for the fishermen or less since the tourist boom? “We thought there would be more but there isn’t. I think it is because the fishermen don’t know how to sport fish for Marlin, etc. That is why the tourist industry hires people from other places.”  I asked what had changed since the tourism had started?

“Before the beaches were clean and you could sleep on the beach, now it’s dirty and the sand is not white. Before when you didn’t have air conditioning you could sleep outside in the street, now you are not allowed to sleep outside; and besides it’s no longer safe, you have to lock your door and watch out for thieves.”

The development along the coast of Baja has changed the locals’ lives beyond words in the past 50 years. The speed at which the land has changed has left the locals spinning on the spot. The locals were not employed to do the building work for the booming tourist trade. Instead the developers had hundreds of people who immigrated from the main land because they would work for less. Unfortunately as a result of the recent economic problems, the tourist industry is flagging. Large encampments of unemployed Mexican immigrants have started to populate the outskirts of La Paz, where they have no running water or real living quarters.

The hotels that populate the coast have illegally closed off the beaches to the local people, not wanting them to bother the tourists by selling them goods or playing music for money. This is in effect illegal. Coastal beaches, including 20 meters above the high water mark, territorial seas and related resources are under federal jurisdiction in Mexico. These lands and waters are considered common goods which can be traversed freely by the public.

But you can’t blame the ‘Gringos’ or immigrants from the USA, Canada or Europe, who have bought the land and built their dream houses. They had no idea the land was stolen from the locals. Even if the Gringos spoke Spanish, which most don’t, they would not find out, as the locals have been silenced in one way or another.

Education for the children

I asked Betty what she thought of the schooling system in La Paz? “The Children go to school from 8am to 1pm, they do not learn much at school. It is up to the parents to make sure their children learn. Most fathers are tired after fishing and the mothers are mostly illiterate. After the age of 12 most of the children don’t go to school any more, so, the children turn to easy money. This results in sexual diseases and addiction. It costs 5000 pesos to go to rehab, which most people cannot afford.”

Since I have been working in the Arroyo, I have been welcomed into the community, and I am often invited to eat with them. This is what I have noticed:  Most are illiterate. Most families live in a one-room house, all the children sleep in one bed. Most don’t have a water heater. Most have never used a computer or cell phone. The kids do go to school for a few hours a day, but past the age of 12 they don’t go to school and spend their time in the arroyo. Most of the fathers are out of the job, or working several jobs for hardly any money.

It is easy for these children to assume that no matter how hard they work, because of where they come from, they will never achieve their dream. When you give them something else to do for eight hours, it makes a huge difference.

The Fishing Permits

I asked fisherman Jose Maria Arse Ortega about his livelihood? “I have worked for a privet corporation for 30 years.” When I asked Jose what the name of the corporation he worked for is, he had no idea, “I can’t read or write” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

I asked Senor Winkler about the fishermen in El Esterito? “The fishermen used to fish with nothing more than a paddle and a net, they would light torches to fish at night. They use to fish for sharks and turtles. When a fishermen caught a 9-meter long shark, his boat would sink about 10 inches into the water. They fished the sharks for the liver, which was turned into oil, they would throw the rest of the shark back into the sea.”

I asked him about the fishing Cooperations?

“My son is the head of a cooperation which was started two years ago called ‘Pescadores del Esterito’. He is also working on starting a small family fishing cooperation. We had some problems when we started the cooperation as our boats and motors were stolen. Now there are 33 fishermen, 15 permits & 15 boats in the cooperation. The fishermen can’t fish every day, the fishing is only good on full moons and new moons. On a good days fishing a fishermen can make 2000 pesos. The cooperative takes two pesos per kilo of fish to pay for administration. They also have three boats which work in tourism.”

Up until 30 years ago the fishermen could fish freely and sell their catch on the beach or in the street, now they can only get a fishing permit if they work for a fishing corporation. There are two possibilities: Private corporation or a cooperative run by the fisherman where the money is divided, almost equally between the fisherman. There are four cooperations in La Paz and more being founded as the fishermen who can read and write are opening their own. The fishing permits, which they need to buy to be allowed to fish, are 3000 pesos for two years fishing. A fishermen working for the private corporation makes under 100 pesos per day, unlike the fishermen working for a cooperation who on a good day makes 2000 pesos.

The private corporation hands out the boats, and the motors. The fishing permit is bought by the fishermen. If anything breaks the fisherman has to buy a new one. Many of the men in El esterito refuse working for the corporation. Those fisherman who fish without a permit are called ‘Pascdores Libres’ in El Esterito, but are known as the illegal fishermen by most social circles.

Jose Maria Arse Ortega

Jose never asked his father where his family came from before La Paz. He considers himself native to Baja Sur. I asked Jose if there was anything he would like to add in this article? “To love the sea, care and appreciate for the sea. I hope the children can go fishing for free like before.”

Betty

Betty’s family has lived in El Estrerito for generations. Both her farther and husband were fishermen. She is a single mother of four daughters and one son. As a child Betty would go door to door selling her farther’s daily catch. She now owns her own restaurant, which she runs with one of her daughters. You could conceder Betty and her children a success story coming from El Arroyo. She and her children can read and write and have jobs in La Paz.  Betty is also the president of the Colony in El Arroyo Concreto, she often organizes free celebrations for the people in her restaurant.

I asked Betty if she wanted to add any thing to the article? “Yes!! Come to eat at Betty’s! The freshest fish in all of Baja!” She said with a cunning grin and then she added, “Love your colony, it is important that the colony gets organized, to understand the paperwork and the politics.”

Senor Winkler Leon

Senor Winkler Leon has lived his entire life in La Paz, 88 years. He started working when he was 14 years old for the boats importing and exporting. When he started working 74 years ago, he was paid 60 cents of a peso a day transporting food for the ranches. He has lived in El Esterito for the past 40 years, before that he lived in the other oldest part of La Paz El Manglito. When he was a child the beach was full of shell fish. At low tide he would go and collect buckets of scallops and sell them door to door for five cents of a peso the bucket, or he would trade them for food.

I asked him if he would like to add anything to the article? “Yes! Education is very important. When you can read and write you can run your own business. The kids have lost interest in fishing because many of their fathers can not get fishing permits. My son’s children love to fish and want to learn, because their father is not being taken advantage of.”

Conclusion – La Paz means Peace

Since I have been living in Baja, I have been living in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I have met people from all walks of life and swam with wild dolphins, whale sharks and seen gray whale babies with their mothers up close. The town of La Paz is full of galleries, and amazing art work. I love it here and I recommend to visit this amazing place at least once in your life time. There is no violence in the street, just music everywhere, and lovely chatty Mexicans who just want to please. At the end of the day you will enjoy a breathtaking sunset reflecting in the Cortez sea. You will know what it is to feel totally at peace.

The problems of the people I am working with are recent. Normally when I work in a disadvantaged area the problems have been there for generations and it’s near impossible to make a change. That is not true of La Paz; if we act now and help educate and give confidence back to this lost generation we will change their lives for the better.

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For more information and videos of the Painting Pirates’ Club:

Visit http://www.paintingpirates.com.

TSUNAMI God all covered | 63.8×51.3in | Acrylic Linen 

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Breaking with tradition:

The Art of Tuten

In a correspondence with Japanese artist Tuten, the one thing that resonated most was his adherence to a traditional Japanese introspective expressionism. Simple, direct, and with an effort to understand Self. Importantly, his work appears to be anything but traditional, with dazzling colors pushed around to reflect the internal recollection of his subject matter. Of the painting above, “Tsunami God,” he added this comment: “In this picture, to build a discovery (Earthquake/Tsunami), a new soul when facing the crisis.”

With several international shows to his credit, Tuten says travel is not on his present agenda. Satisfied with painting, and the creative pursuit, he is satisfied to work daily in his studio in Chiba City Japan.

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Ragazine: How long have you been painting and was there a time you worked in another style?

Tuten: 58 years, a ray picture. 

Q) What is a “ray picture”?

A) My input is just a mistake, I’m sorry.

Q) What influences did you have as a child that pushed you toward art? Were your parents or siblings artists?

A) I was a child of nature.
My parents, my brother are not artists.

Q)  Did you have formal training in art, or are you self taught? Where did you study, and what teacher’s assistance did you find most helpful? Why?

A) I do not have formal training in art. The painter Kanjirou-Ikeshima saw my work and said, “You are a genius.” 

Q)  Kanjirou-Ikeshima died in 1980. You were about 33. How long did you know him?

A) The relationship lasted 11 years. Before I was acquainted with the painter Ikeshima, I was acquainted with the master painter Kajino Satoru. He is the first person to discover my talent, and is virtually the matchmaker of my marriage. The painter Ikeshima is guardian of my marriage.

Q) What is a “guardian of marriage?” And, do you and your wife have children?

A) Guardian of marriage in the Japanese system is referred to as “to ensure humanity” of a person. His house is in Kansai business community where shochu and mirin are manufactured. (Note: Schochu  is a rice vodka; mirin is a rice wine similar to sake, but with sugar added. It has a lower alcohol content than sake.)   …  I have one son.

Q) What do you think of Anime? This Japanese style has a great influence around the world?

A) Anime is not art that stirs the soul.

Q) What part of the Japan do you live in today? Where is your studio, and have you always lived in this area?

A) I have always lived in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, and worked in the same studio.

Q) I would imagine that, as an artist, you were not always able to support yourself. What other things have you done to make a living while you pursued your art?

A)  I sold paintings from the beginning.

Q)  In the beginning, where did you show and sell your work? When did you find a gallery? How did you find your market?

A)  At my solo show at Gallery Inoue in Osaka 1981, I sold my works. I found my market in my friends.

Q) Your poetry has a meditative quality that feels different from your paintings, which have an energy that wants to make order out of chaos. How do you see the two relating?

A) The picture is brilliant but, the spirit of poetry has been inherent in it. In fact, I was said by several people in the U.S. and Japan, “Soul emerged from this picture. Terrible”.

Q)  Traditional sumi-e is evident throughout your work. What is the greatest modern or contemporary influence you’ve experienced?

A)  Sumi-e is the first time I wrote.

There is no effect from the beginning,  only through heaven, that comes from self …

Q) Who are among your favorite artists, Eastern & Western, and why?

A) No one.

Q) So, then, you paint entirely from inside yourself, no outside influence? What about your mentor, Kanjirou-Ikeshima ?

A) Depicts the soul leave my heart to cut off the outside.
To broaden the scope of discovery and that of the soul.
Until now, there is no world that drew everyone
Leading to heaven while still alive and
Means, TUTEN is.
JUST ONLY TUTEN

Q)  Do you prefer painting in acrylic or oil, and why?

A)  I prefer acrylic, because acrylic dries fast. And, depth of color.

Q)  You have had several shows in New York, the most recent, I believe in 2010. When will have another?

A)  2009 was the most recent. No, I don’t plan another.

Q) So, for what reason would you not show again in New York, or is it a matter of timing?

A)　It takes money to do one-man show, about 3 million yen. I was told the market for my painting is alive, and the prices are high. $12,000.00 (24×28 inches) to＄75,000.00 (72×90 inches).

Q) Chiba City is a modern port city not far from Tokyo.  Have you spent much time in Tokyo, and have you traveled widely through Japan?

A)  I will not go to Tokyo, but yes, I have traveled a lot.

Q) Why not Tokyo? Nothing there for you? Where do you travel? To the other islands? China?

A) So few people understand me. No, there is not anything (there for me). The trip destinations, Silk Road, Iran, Iraq, Switzerland, Vienna, from Paris to Morocco, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Turkey – that was 35 years ago, 30 years ago, and Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, New York. And I took my family to Thailand, Burma, Nepal, Germany, Chicago, New York, Mexico, Thailand.  Two months ago the family went to Myanmar.

Q) Subjects in most of the work I’ve seen online are women; do you work from life drawing or memory? Imagination?

A) They are drawn in the imagination in the mountains, because there are no models.

Q) If someone would like to get in touch with you for a show or to purchase a piece, where would they best be advised to go?

A) I do not have an exclusive contract with the art dealer, so please take contact information from my home page, or E-mail directly. We are registered with the (HIROMI SAKURAI) SAAGHI ON LINE GALLERY in the UK. Please contact from there.

Q) Is there anything else you would like to tell us?

A)  Please let me tell you about my constitution.

I have a special wave of biorhythm. For about two years, I sleep sometimes 20 hours, then I suddenly wake up and paint a picture depicting one day, in the sprint. Sleep time is two to three hours. Taste of food has changed, and I have lost close to 10 kg body weight. For 44 years, this has continued its repetition.

Modern medicine can not explain it. It is either a depression, nor a mania.   

More about the artist: 

Tuten was born in 1947 on Kikai Island, Japan. He studied painting under Satoru Kajino and Kanjirou Ikeshima. He’s had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Ginza, and New York. View his work online: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tsuten/11.html
and: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tsuten/

(l to r) Mel Ramos, Woody Johnson, Eric Murphy, and Gabriel Navar, in Ramos' studio. Ramos is signing a print that will be on exhibit in the Ramos-Navar exhibition "Pay It Forward", curated by Johnson & Murphy.

When a student learns

Gabriel Navar Interviews mentor, Mel Ramos

Navar: When did you decide that you wanted to make art your life choice? What artists did you admire as a young artist that inspired you and contributed to your early style(s)? Who (specifically) inspired you most in your early years to become a painter? How did you first determine your initial, personal artistic direction?  

Ramos: I decided I wanted to be a painter when I was in high school after I heard  Wayne Thiebaud give a talk to high school seniors in my class about careers in art. My first big influence was Salvador Dalí, who I discovered when I was 14 after seeing his incredible technical virtuosity with the paintbrush. At first I was a proponent of Abstract Expressionism which was being taught in the art schools at the time. Eventually I realized this was a dead end for me so I decided to paint portraits of my favorite comic book heroes and heroines. The rest is Art History.

Gabe & Mel 1992

Navar: Why did you choose to become a teacher? Was there a specific individual (or individuals) that sparked your interest in teaching?

Ramos: When I decided to make art as a profession I realized I would need a day job to support my activity and knew that teaching art would be the best way to do this.

Navar: As a professor, what was the main thing (advice, message, set of values, etc.) that you wished to instill in your students?

Ramos: The importance of hard work, dedication and clear thinking.

Navar: As an artist working for the most part in California; does West coast painting signify a unique entity? In terms of the contemporary art world, what role does The California School of Painting play? Are “its” unique traditions and values still significant within the contemporary art world? And, why?   

Ramos: California does have a distinct identity but I don’t know why. 

Navar: Mel, I clearly recall being in your painting class, sitting in a class critique, and you stating something very positive about my work along the lines of, “Gabe, paint 10 more like these and you will have a great opportunity in the art world.” I took it to heart and have made it one of my main life challenges. I am still pursuing opportunities and am enjoying the journey and the challenges. A question here, Mel, if I may, what was it about my work habits, painting style, etc., as a student of yours over 20 years ago that caused you to see promise in my work and/or career?

Ramos: I was impressed by your PASSION to succeed.

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Editor’s Note:

Reese's-Rosie, by Mel Ramos

PAY IT FORWARD: 

Mel Ramos and Gabriel Navar

By    Dr. José Rodeiro,

The “Pay It Forward” art exhibition is an inspiring look at a remarkable mentor/mentee relationship initiated in 1991, when Gabriel Navar enrolled in Mel Ramos’s “Painting 1” course at California State University, East Bay.  Additionally, the show provides insight into the California School’s stylistic legacy: a continuum from one generation to the next, charting an art historical trajectory marked by the four great sequoias of Bay-Area painting: Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, Mel Ramos and Gabriel Navar.  Thereby acknowledging “a” generous artistic inheritance genially passed down from Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) to Wayne Thiebaud, and then from Thiebaud to Ramos, and manifesting in the 21^st Century in Navar’s oeuvre.

Express Nonsense 2, Gabriel Navar, 2012

Since the 1960s, Ramos (more than any other US-artist) vividly envisioned imaginative Pop Art fantasies (which in truth) pioneered an early groundbreaking form of radical-Postmodernism.  This merger of Pop Art with radical-Postmodernism is evident in his images that ingeniously reference the old masters (i.e., Botticelli, Velazquez, Boucher, David, Ingres, Manet, Bonnard and Modigliani). In fact, not since Modigliani and Matisse has a painter so appropriately apprehended the sublime sensuality of feminine beauty as Ramos has.   Ramos’s signature Pop Art style consistently depicts sensual female subjects posing (in pin-up poses) alongside icons of “The America Dream” (i.e., commercial products, groceries, animals, and other mass-media props).  A sublime Neo-Classicist unconsciously inspired by muses (especially Erato, the muse of sexuality and music), his art is simultaneously lyrical and monumental; these marvelous contradictory aesthetic tendencies are also apparent in all the great California Rock ‘n’ Roll songs generated by The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Grateful Dead and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.   Ramos is unquestionably the only contemporary visual artist that has boldly endeavored to metaphorically portray the Jeffersonian “The Pursuit of Happiness,” while symbolically approximating or pursuing (via his art) an authentic and unfeigned California-version of “The American Dream.”

Richard Diebenkorn's "Cityscape", 1963

Unlike Ramos, muses do not inspire the disturbing and bizarre images of Gabriel Navar, whose motivation, according to Federico Garcia Lorca’s essay The Play and Theory of the Duende (1933), probably derives from a confluence of angels/devils.   Yet, despite Navar’s obvious fascination with the apparent (although poorly veiled) underlying Gothic horror of American life, which is described throughout US literature, i.e., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, Edith Wharton and John Updike; Navar’s  viewers must be warned that (like a cobra) he captivates his audience with shocking images that intrigue, and then, unexpectedly forces unsuspecting viewers to confront their deepest fear(s).  Via Youtube™ references and “platforms,” he generates innovative and new “push/pull” effect(s) that satirically afford an iconological critique leveled against high-tech media-culture with its glut of visual information, intending to brainwash, control, side-track, seduce and/or sell something to intended audiences.  Navar’s Web-based imagery examines 21^st century technophilia, which utterly permeates contemporary social-consciousness, manifesting as web-surfing; participating in numerous social networking sites, enjoying chronic Youtube™ viral-phenomena, or roaming through the vast world of “apps.”

Pay It Forward

If Ramos is lyrically (musically) and harmoniously painting the “American Dream,” then Navar is poetically depicting the “American Nightmare.”  By analyzing 21^st Century digital communication, smart applications, and other Habermasian ideal-communication EtherNet intrusions, Navar offers a techno-world where sadomasochistic self-victimization and hyper-alienation accentuate isolation and paranoia, similar to the prophetic Mexican Surrealist poems of Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, or the Italian Metaphysical School paintings of Georgio DeChirico, as well as is evident in Diebenkorn’s lonely and abandoned stark California coastline vistas.   Thus, the California School is split between the bright hopeful optimism of Ramos and Thiebaud; and the empty tragic despair that haunts the paintings of Diebenkorn (conveying distant vast sociological alienation) or Navar’s panache for dramatic confrontation (devising and divulging intimate domestic psychological alienation).

app_4_beingdistrac2, Gabriel Navar, 2011

Notwithstanding their clear distinctions, Ramos and Navar have numerous things in common, e.g., they both challenge innate US-Puritanical-conservativism; both create prolifically with an energetic inborn work-ethic;  both utilize “high-key” clashing, pulsating, and intense “punchy” chroma; both predominantly employ human figures in their work (unlike  Diebenkorn with his vistas and Thiebaud with his bodegones), Ramos and Navar exploit advertising, billboards, logos, products (subliminal merchandise sales-strategies) and their art is constantly alluding to pop-culture.  Their formal compositions rely generally on “centralized” monumental heroic figural images, replete with subtle or abrupt emblematic iconology (for Ramos, sexuality, sensuality, seduction and erotic-fantasies are key elements); while Navar transmits, in a “tongue-in-cheek” manner, prospective horror-film-scenes, which capture both sinister and, at times, comical human dramas.  These Navarian dramas are disturbing scenes from a “new” hyper-technological Neo-Theater of the Absurd, signifying irrational, nihilistic, and anxiety-ridden Post-Information Age vignettes that fosters alienation, and “Neo-neosurrealism.”

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Images from Injalak

Since 2005 indigenous artists from Injalak Arts and Crafts Association have focused strongly on the ancient rock art site of Injalak Hill, in a series of printmaking projects in collaboration with Melbourne based artist and printmaker Andrew Sinclair. This exhibition brings together three print projects that have taken place since 2008. Located to the east of Gunbalanya(Oenpelli) in Arnhem Land, Injalak Hill contains rock art estimated to be over 40,000 years old, and its imagery is of immense cultural and spiritual significance to the Aboriginal people of the area. It is also a protected site and today the majority of artists choose to transfer their djang (dreaming stories) to surfaces other than rock – such as bark, or in the case of this series of images – steel etching plates. Many of these images have been created in situ within the spectacular rock art galleries of Injalak Hill, artists working with sugarlift etching materials directly onto the steel plates. The rusting and corrosion of plates adds textural richness and depth when printed, mimicking the variegated surface of the rock walls and evoking the natural ochres and pigments used. The resulting works resonate with the power and dynamism of these timeless images – re-interpreted through contemporary eyes.

-Marguerite Brown
Exhibition Curator

Showing at the James Makin Gallery

March 1 – 24th, 2012

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The exhibition features etchings by Kalarriya ‘Jimmy’ Namarnyilk the result of a specific project with the Artist and Printmaker Andrew Sinclair. Belonw, Andrew Sinclair goes into detail about
the story behind these powerful works.

Kgernalk (Black Ibis)

Three Etchings made by Kalarriya ‘Jimmy’ Namarnyilk

The etching plates where made in July 2011, at Kalarriya’s house in Oenpelli, West Arnhemland in the Northern Territory.

He was overlooking Arrkuluk, A sacred Hill next to the Community of Oenpelli that is a ceremony site for initiation of young men. As Jimmy painted he spoke of this ceremony and his importance of being a leading and senior figure in his community.

Jimmy painted three etching plates. He started with white paint directly onto the steel surface with a brush. Gavin Namarnyilk (family Member) explained that the steel was like rock (kunwardde). The steel rusts and weathers just like the local sand stone rock that the ancestor’s (nayuhyungkih) of Jimmy and Gavin’s have painted on for thousands of years.

The white paint on the steel captures the first brush marks that form a stencil, a white area that he then paints the important Rarrk. Rarrk is the line work that is typical of the western stone country rock art. It is the red parallel lines that hold spiritual connection for the Kunwinjku people.

For the etching Jimmy paints the red lines over the top of the white stencil. For the printmaking process this is done on another piece of steel, the same size so when printed over the top mimics the process of the rock art painting, white paint then red paint.

The red plate is then etched with acid. Only where Jimmy has painted is where the acid eats away at the surface as the other area of the steel is protected. The image is etched millimeters into the steel surface. The etched surface is similar to the red paint on the rock, as the traditional red paint is a hematite, a red iron rich rock. It is soaked into the sand stone staining the image into the surface of the rock shelters.

Kalarriya has a very distinct style and used black in areas of his image. He used a finger and brush to make the dotted marks. The 3rd steel plate holding these black marks is printed last over the image.

The process of printing is done by hand, the etched plates are inked up by scraping ink along the surface. It is then cleaned off with Tarlatan and paper so the top surface is cleaned and holds no ink. The etched lines that are indented from the surface hold the ink.

The inked up piece of steel is then put through a press, which is two rollers that squeeze the paper into the indented lines that hold the ink. Transferring the ink from the steel to the paper, this is done for each color.

Mimi, etching, edition: 20, 55 x 33 cm

According to the Kunwinjku people of western Arnhem Land, mimi spirits were the original spirit beings, who taught Aboriginal people many of the skills they needed to survive in the

bush. They also taught aspects of ceremony. Mimi spirits are believed to inhabit the rocky escarpments around Gunbalanya but because they are extremely timid, they are rarely seen by humans. They are frequently depicted in the rock art of Arnhem Land as small, dynamic figures, often shown with a range of hunting tools such as spears, spear throwers, dilly bag and fire stick.

The mimi painted by Kalarriya is painted with Rawk, red parallel lines. This is unique to the Kunwinjku people. It defines cultural importance and definition of family groups. It indicates the spiritual connection to land titles and the natural and supernatural connection to the environment.

The term x-ray art was originally coined because many of the Oenpelli paintings of figures, animals, birds and fish, reveal the internal organs heart, lungs, intestinal canal and spinal column were often clearly shown.

Incredible ancient examples exist in the unique escarpment country of Oenpelli. The paintings are an informing guide to the people of today in art and cultural practices. The x-ray style shows great observational drawing and anatomical understanding. The magpie goose has Rarrk through out its body an indicator of its flesh and connection to country.

Nygalod (rainbow serpent), etching, edition: 20, 55 x 33 cm

 The serpent is a fundamental Djang (dreaming) to the Kunwinjku people. Ngalyod has both powers of creation and destruction and is most strongly associated with the monsoon season, bodies of water and waterfalls, and rainbows. Kalarriya normally paints Ngalyod with a trapped female figure, as it inhabits deep permanent sacred water holes awaking to swallow bininj (aborigines) to punish them for wrong doing.

It gets its name of rainbow serpent from the shimmering water that refracts the suns rays producing a rainbow effect.

In this print Ngalyod has been depicted very traditionally a style that is reminiscent of early bark paintings.

 -Andrew Sinclair

José Rodeiro, Hips Don't Lie ...

What, me an alien?

By Tara Dervla

José Rodeiro’s HIPS DON’T LIE (“Sonoran Dawn”) is a duende-filled image inspired by Goya’s Black Paintings and Goitia’s provocative mystic-images; wherein a unique iconology prevails that is simultaneously dramatic, tragic, hilarious, cynical and ironic, i.e., using “aliens” as symbols for Hispanic-alienation.

Against a blazing Sonoran dawn beaming rays of sunlight over a blue mountain range (somewhat reminiscent of Arizona’s state-flag); two extraterrestrials stand vexed (preparing for combat) sizing-up an approaching throng of Latinos led by Shakira.  Additionally, the image depicts four flying saucers darting about the sky with searchlights probing for armadillos, ancient Amerindian petroglyphs, or terra firma (a sensible spot to land and colonize).  In the sky, the Hopi’s Hotomqam constellation (aka “Orion”) reaffirms the underlying outerspace theme, which is also echoed by the ancient Hopi ancestral petrogylphs of hybrid ant-men, or the divine Masau’u (the ancient caretaker of the earth and the Hopi’s god of death).

As in past centuries; since the 9/11 attacks, thousands of US-Latinos bravely defend the USA in perilous theatres-of-war.   Rodeiro’s HIPS DON’T LIE (“Sonoran Dawn”) considers the infinite (“Maya 2012 related”) possibilities that, e.g., haunt Jonathan Liebesman’s 2011 thought-provoking film BATTLE: LA.   Would we have sufficient numbers of US-Latinos available to fight, when “predictably” a full-scale invasion of powerful and technologically-advanced extraterrestrials invade our beloved nation?   Would we (as Americans) be able to quickly, patriotically, fully and properly defend the USA, with “100%” honor and effort; after the shameful treachery that was recently leveled against America’s deepest values by Governor Jan Brewer on April 28, 2011, when she imprudently signed another [(in a string of anti-American/anti-Latino laws generated by Arizona’s perfidious legislature)] vile law SB 1406, authorizing the building of a “bigger” inhospitable and ignominious fence along Arizona’s border with Mexico, doing inestimable harm to both nature, the US-economy, all life and humanity.  In his painting, Rodeiro depicts a dead armadillo, symbolizing the threat to nature posed by an enormous fence along the US-border with Mexico.

Sadly, in the Southwest already a thousand miles of fencing exists, separating the USA from Mexico and indirectly from all of Latin America.  However, Rodeiro’s HIPS DON’T LIE (“Sonoran Dawn”) asks, “What if (during Southwestern “waking-hours”), the “real” aliens are already there on the “border” cavorting, scouting logistics for their interplanetary invasion?” For example, in 1947, an alien spacecraft allegedly crashed nearby at Roswell, New Mexico.  Ultimately, the question is: “Will we be able (as a nation) to quickly arm enough loyal and battle-hardened Latinos [(who, since 1776, have valiantly fought for America)] to save the USA, when so many awkward, ugly, and ill-conceived obstacles (“fences”) stand in their way?   Or, (in truth) stand in the way of FREEDOM!”

Exactly a year earlier in April 29, 2010, the Colombian pop-star Shakira and the Hon. Phil Gordon (the mayor of Phoenix) sparked enormous Pro-Latino protests against an earlier ethno-racist Arizona law: SB 1070 Law.  During that protests 200,000 Latinos listened to Shakira advocate for human rights, civil rights, and freedom.  Referencing Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830), Rodeiro places Shakira and Phil Gordon at the forefront of the Latino struggle, which is symbolized by yearning Hispanic masses, (which follow Shakira’s “Star Spangled Banner” (“Old Glory”), derived from David Alfaro Siqueiros’s murals in the Castillo de Chapultepec (Mexico City) entitled From Porfirio’s Diaz’s Dictatorship to the Revolution (1958).   Interestingly, a United States map (with subtle, shifting, and dynamic chiaroscuro borders) emerges from the shadow of this multitude, e.g., the Florida peninsula’s shadow is caste by a tall nude man (in the center of the composition).

For more about Rodeiro visit: http://www.rodeiro-art.com/ .

Gaylard, in his studio working on Space Creator project

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Letting Out the Inner Dialogue

By Miklós Horváth

In February 2012; I had the good fortune to conduct an interview with Murray Gaylard, a contemporary artist and a performer. Gaylard has received his education from the University of Cape Town, in South Africa where he studied social sciences, and from the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main where he studied art. His studies gave him a precocious genius towards political and social matters. Last year, he was engaged in exhibitions, both in the Netherlands and in Germany. Gaylard’s artworks introduce questions of societal development, social changes, and the roles human beings play in them. The discussion between Gaylard and I will address some of these issues, such as the purpose of artworks, the influences that they can have on communities and Gaylard’s personal contributions to the understanding of human emotions and desires within his performances.

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M: Thank you so much for accepting my invitation to this interview. First of all, I would like to ask you about your recent exhibition at Witte de With in Rotterdam where you have implemented an audio-visual installation. This installation consists of a street lamp and a loud-speaker. In the evening, pedestrians passing by this installation can experience a-one-minute-of-fame. When they approach the street lamp, very bright LED lights begin to flicker and shine down on them, and they can hear your voice providing an ironic message: “Even in this most unflattering light, you are beautiful”. In which sense do you think that this installation can provoke the passer-by and is there a need to provoke the public at all?   

Gaylard: I don’t feel that the work provokes the public at all. For me, the word “provoke” implies something negative or shocking. Of course “provoke” could also be understood as engaging the public in a dialogue.  I mean it definitely confronts and even initiates a response in the observer, albeit very subtle, and this is something that I think is very important, particularly with regards to art in public space.

M: I see. But what did you want to create then? What do you think that the public can experience by visiting your artwork?

Gaylard: What I wanted to create, was an experience that would interject into the every-day lives of the people passing by and that would stimulate the public into a space of self-reflection – a quality that underlies most of my work, especially my work in public space. I specifically chose a location along the river that was away from the hustle and bustle of the pedestrian traffic, as it was important for me that the person experienced the installation in a somewhat cocooned and intimate way. I had these wonderful visions of people going home from work in a bad mood and being spoken to by my street lamp, or of someone who was going through a difficult time, or feeling somehow unworthy, specifically choosing to visit the piece because it would make them smile.

M: So, you would like to ease people of their burdens by making them smile…

Gaylard: I don’t know about easing people of their burdens, but I just think there’s so much about the human condition to celebrate and often art ignores that.  Art in public space should never take life too seriously. Public space is our playground and it should be enjoyed. I mean the street lamp piece is a total feel-good piece, and this was my intention right from the start – to make a piece that would gently reach out to someone passing by and make them smile. I know how naïve this must sound, and initially I struggled with the fact that everything I make, although often very socially-critical and tragic, is somehow always coupled with a hint of humor. But I mean really, the power to make someone feel better – what greater goal could an art piece have than that?

M: When I think of the most overwhelming performances of the 20^th century, I often recall the works of artists like Tibor Hajas or Marina Ambrović, who tried to explore their own mental and physical limits by making life-threatening actions. In the ’70s, Ambrović, for example, took some pills which were undoubtedly destructive to her nervous system. Do you think that the most powerful performances require personal physical risks from or to the artist? Can these performances be more effective?

Gaylard: Effective in what way? I mean I think it depends on the point the artist is trying to make.  Obviously if you are interested in the performing body, then it would seem appropriate to use your own body as a kind of test instrument in your work. I suppose it’s the same in all fields of life. The public will view those performances that they cannot imagine doing themselves as “more effective”, or may I rather say more impressive. I did a performance where I hitchhiked in a home-made Mickey Mouse costume from Frankfurt am Main to Disneyland Paris in an attempt to go home, and so many people remember this piece. I didn’t have to inflict any kind of physical pain. I just had to do something that the general audience probably wouldn’t.

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M: By effective, I meant that where the health of an artist’s body is threatened or of concern during his or her performances, this can truly incite the discovery and reflection of the audience’s own boundaries. Regarding boundaries, I would be happy if you could offer your thoughts of where a person’s private sphere starts and ends. In your artworks, for example: Space creator (2006, 2010) and Being alone has its advantages (2011), you give your own definition of private and public.

Gaylard: The drawing you speak of, “Being alone has its advantages,” is more about loneliness and having a social network or not. Most of my drawings deal with social behaviour to a certain extent, but I generally prefer to not speak about them.  They embody something very different to the rest of my work and I don’t think that they like to be laden with theory and explanation. That would just make them heavy.  The whole point of working on paper is that there is a lightness and freshness to the end product.  It’s just so liberating to work on paper because it’s so cheap. This allows you to approach the paper far more playfully than any other material because you aren’t so scared of fucking it up.

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Above photos from series,
“There’s no place like home,” 2009

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M: Finally, I would like to ask you to give me your take on the future of art in Western Europe, and the impact of artworks and performances on our society.

Gaylard: The future of art in Western Europe? All I can say is that I hope it’s a future with less of that have-to-read-an-instruction-manual-before-you-can-understand-it art than we were forced to live with in recent years. You know what I mean? I mean the misled belief that concept art means making something and then layering it with so much philosophical material that only someone with a master’s degree can understand it. There was so much of that. 

I don’t want to mock it, though. There is truly a place for all forms of artistic expression, and just because I don’t get it, doesn’t mean it’s trash.  I do, however, think that art will become more “human”, and more accessible to the general public and will probably be more prepared to meet the public in the public, whether real or virtual. Our relationship to public space is changing dramatically. I think that we have moved into a “post fear of terror” era where those war against terror images that kept us indoors for so long are slowly starting to fade from our memories, or maybe we are just tired of living in a state of waiting for something bad to happen. Whatever the reason, the public is far more empowered and fearless now than before. The relationship we have to our streets has changed drastically, but you shouldn’t get me started.  I could really go on about that for hours. 

M: How do you think artworks could be more accessible to the public?

Gaylard: I guess a lot more will be taking place outside. Outside is where we want to be because it is the arena of surprise and assists in the unfolding of identities. Just look at the occupancy movement. I hope that art will stop taking itself so seriously in the future and that it will speak a more understandable language, and that it will be found increasingly more in “untypical” spaces. I mean the timing is perfect for it. We have YouTube, facebook, and an array of social media to help in the circulation of it. Maybe the future of art is an iPhone application that you can buy over iTunes.

For more information about Murray Gaylard, his work and performance art, please visit http://www.murraygaylard.com.

About the interviewer:

Miklós Horváth is a contributing editor to Ragazine. You can read more about him in “About Us“.

PULPO:

Hieronymus Bosch

Meets Theodor Geisel

Interview with Fernando Hereñú

by Mike Foldes

I don’t exactly recall how I came to know Fernando Hereñú’s work, most likely on a jaunt through Chelsea last summer, but I do know that soon as I saw it I had stepped into a world of fantasy that combines childhood dreams and adult nightmares. It was no surprise to find out that Hereñú, who goes by the nom de plume of Pulpo (incidentally the Spanish word for octopus), is engaged in comic book illustration. Citing historically diverse influences as Hieronymus Bosch, and Argentine illustrator Jose Luis Salinas, Pulpo invites us to venture with him into psychedelic realms where we can linger longer than with a fleeting thought. Hereñú was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977, completed his Graphic Design studies at the Universty of Buenos Aires in 2002, and for the next four years  he worked as a designer for Cartoon Network. He lives in Buenos Aires and is creative director for an online games company.

Q: How did you come to art? Were your parents artists?

A: I have no family artists. But all my relatives are related to sociology, anthropology and humanities, science… So when I was a kid we always had many art books in my house. We had a large library where they were almost all European artists of the 20th century. I looked at those pictures and was very confused, I remember much of it, could say that I liked but could not stop looking at art. Imagine a child looking to Hieronymus Bosch. That might be a good image on my childhood.

I started to draw early in my life. Was the only way I was quiet in my house.
I could spend hours and hours just drawing.  My parents realized of it and then they send to me to study comic book to one of the best teachers in my country.

Q: Who was the teacher your parents sent you to, and what was his/her process of teaching, and working with you?

A: My teacher was Jose Luis Salinas, one of the drafters of the Marvel comics. One of the most important studies was the anatomy of the human body and another, perspective drawings. They made ​​us work very hard. Where the human form and the handling of the pen was the most important.  We students drew for hours drawing hands, bodies, etc.

I was among the younger students throughout the academy. I spent about two years and then went to work more on the comic mode. In this way, then, I got my job at Cartoon Network.

Q: What kind of work did you do in your first job at the Cartoon Network?

A: I really do not remember. The important thing to know at that stage was different illustration styles and meeting friends. Another good thing at that time was to know a little about the production of animated entertainment.

I think the best we had at that time was the quality of animation and illustration.

Q: What project/program did you work on?  Can you see them on the web?

A: Now I am working for an exhibition in Salvador Bahia. I’m working hard for this. Since it is a project to purify the aesthetic lines.  You can see it all on my page, http://pulpocorporate.tumblr.com/

My project is to continue the series. I’m working to further deepen the concept.

Q:  What is the Bahia, Salvia project? Is it a commission?

A: Salvador Bahi its an important city in Brasil. I will be there this month because I have an exhibition there. I am going to present some abstract drawing. There are something strange that happened to me now, I don’t want to draw figurative things. I prefer to be more complex than the reality. The abstraction, it’s like a dark hole.

Q: How difficult is it to make a living for a commercial artist such as yourself? What would you tell others who are interested in pursuing careers in illustration, as artists or as cartoonists?

A: For me it would be much more difficult to live a profession other than as an artist. I think I could develop another activity. To me, life is 24 hours related to art.

Some artists are rich and others poor. But art has nothing to do with money.

But the most important thing I can say is that illustrators do this activity with the heart. Finally they will find a worthy a place to work. Art has nothing to do with the grasp of money. To make money there are other better careers. The career of an artist is to find within ourselves something to show others. It puts everything into images we think and feel.

Q: Where do you get your ideas? What’s the most “fertile territory” for your images. They seem too strong to be taken from café scenes.

A: I use a technique called Synchronism for composition. This technique has to do with surrealism. I do not plan a lot about what I do. I try not to think about them if possible.

Q: What is your preferred medium these days? Do you sculpt?

A: My preferred medium is paper and India ink. It is actually the preferred way that I always use in my career. I love drawing more than anything else. But the painting half seems tedious. I just love painting with the comic style, which is easy to give good volume. Like you, I am not really a person with great patience.

Q: How do you know I’m a person without great patience? (BTW, I am laughing out loud with that last answer!)

A: I wanted to say that I’m a guy a little (too) anxious to sculpt. I want to see something now. I want to create a painting now, I feel I have no time.

Q: What’s next on the agenda for you?

A:  But I prefer to be more concentrated in the creation this year, because I have a lot of ideas that I feel have to take priority. Maybe I’m thinking to move to the U.S., France or Tokyo soon. That will be my next project.

Note:

Fernando Hereñú aka Pulpo’s first solo exhibition in New York, “Hidden Drawings,” took place at Tache Art Gallery in New York last summer, where his work is available.  This interview was conducted via e-mail between September and December 2011.

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187291607992623
www.tachegallery.com
http://pulpocorporate.tumblr.com/

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Anthony Haden-Guest

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Mr. Hyde | Spray-paint and oil on canvas | 110 x 115cm

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Dale Grimshaw

Painting the bad dream 

Q: The theme of your new show, ‘Semi-Detached’, you have described as depicting ‘what goes on behind closed doors’. How much of the show will relate to personal experience?

A: My experiences as a child in a very difficult and potentially violent environment, has had a strong impact on all parts of my life. My father was a violent and cruel man, whose presence in the family home caused physical and emotional pain for us all. My mum was the focus of his violent behaviour and she really suffered at his hands. We were left homeless after fleeing the family home. We lived in so many places after that, including a caravan in a farmer’s field and also a gutted farm house that was home to chickens – the chickens still came in to visit after that! My oldest sister witnessed a lot more than me and sadly I believe it really brought the worst out in her in later years.

Being a child in that type of situation is a nightmare. All the things that should be there to support you and help you develop as an adult are undermined by the fear and unpredictability of the situation. My mother did her best to protect us, but she was lonely and vulnerable herself. Despite all that happened in the early days, my Mum’s love has shone through for me and I have held onto that as an adult, despite losing her tragically early when I was only nineteen. Without this love, I can’t imagine how I could have carried on and achieved anything as an adult.

I’m always intrigued yet horrified when I read in the paper about murderers or people that have sex slaves in their basements. Neighbours are quoted as saying things like “ooh he was such a quiet and polite man… who would have thought”.

Sociopaths can be the most worrying, as we like to think we can summarise and judge people quickly and accurately – but we can’t always. Who knows what some people are up to behind closed doors…

My work really started taking off when I realized that it was ok to express some of the darker emotions in my art. For a long time I kept a lid on all these feelings. My piece called ‘Exorcism’ is the first piece in which I found my creative voice and it’s still one of the most powerful images I have ever painted.

Exorcism

Q: Where do you call home, these days, and where is your studio?

A: I live in north London with my partner and two cats. I’ve lived in the Haringay area of London for twenty years now. I couldn’t really imagine living anywhere else other than London. London is such an amazing place with so much to do. A lot of people that inhabit the city take it all for granted I think. It can be a lonely place though; I found it hard when I first arrived here with £4.90 in my pocket.

It’s nice to feel safe and be finally settled now, although I still have a wooden club next to my bed though, just in case…

Our house has a nice garden and the house is big enough for me to have my own studio at home. This works for me at the moment, but in time I may need to expand into a bigger space. I love the idea of working much bigger than I currently do.

Q: When and how did you get involved with art?

A: I’ve been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. I was naturally talented I would say, but there wasn’t anyone in my family that was arty in the obvious sense, that encouraged me.

I always loved the military look of the feudal and medieval period, so I would draw Saxons or Knights. I was never really a confident drawer in front of people but when I started painting and using pastels at about 12, I really came into my own. I did still lifes and landscapes from my imagination. I also did drawings of Johnny Rotten, Adam Ant and other bands. Later I had a period of painting LP covers on people’s leather jackets. I was always obsessed with graffiti and I would write ‘Dale G’ from the age of about ten, then later I became ‘Grimmy’ and I would daub that at every given opportunity! My mum encouraged my art and bought me materials when she could, I also stole materials from shops when the occasion arose.

When I was at Assessment Centre in Blackburn as a teenager, I was helped to pursue creative routes – they must have been desperate to stop me glue sniffing and I was allowed to paint on the walls in the building, which was great.

The Fool | Oil and spray paint on canvas | 2009

Q: Who or what would you say has been your principal motivator to take art?

A: No one in particular motivated me to produce art – I naturally gravitated towards it myself. There’s no defining moment either.

I wanted to be really famous so I thought I should either be a famous archaeologist, a serial killer or an artist. Archaeology started to appear really boring as time went on. With being a serial killer I realized I would have to kill people horribly, so that was out of the question. Being a famous artist seemed really plausible. I was a strange child.

We had several prints by famous artists in our council house on Clarence Road whilst growing up, including Monet and Constable. Constable’s ‘The Cornfield’ was really painterly and had a farm boy drinking from a stream. His sheep dog and herd were near by and in the background was a cornfield. I loved the narrative of it.

Later on I was fascinated by the designs of punk record covers. The drawing on the front of Adam and the Ants ‘Young Parisians’ single springs to mind. If you look at the photography on Adam’s ‘Zerox’ cover, you can really see similarities with what I do now. Later I liked Jamie Reid’s approach to art – cut it out, throw some glue on it and stick it down ‘Blue Peter’ style.

Q: Do you have a formal education in art, design or photography that you bring to a session, or are you self-taught?

A: I guess you would say I had formal training, but tutors don’t really teach you, in the strict sense of the word, especially at degree level. At foundation level you are taught basic colour theory and life drawing (working from nude model), etc. I went to Blackburn College of Art and Middlesex University, based in north London.

In my very early teens I got those ‘how to paint’ books from the adult section of the library; I would study and copy from those. In time the snotty-faced librarians tried to stop me for a while, fuck knows why…

Q: What kind of medium do you favor, and why? Oil, acrylic, pastel, all?

A: I was mainly an oil painter in the early college days, I started seriously again with oils after my mum died. However, as time has gone on I have found that this medium doesn’t suit all my needs in the studio. It’s a shame because I really love the feel and finish of oils, but I work with a lot of splashes, smears and gestural brush marks. I found acrylic paint really suits this approach better, due to its accelerated drying time. I also use spray paint, especially when I’m painting on outside walls. Spray paint is good for blocking in big areas quickly and it also dries really fast so you can work over it with other types of paint.

2009, Woodcut print, Shoreditch London

I also produce big woodcut prints that I paste up out on the streets across the world. With his technique you first draw your image onto the flat piece of wood, then you cut out the areas that you don’t want to print – it’s like inverted drawing. Then you apply ink with a roller over your design, place the paper on top, apply pressure and then the inked image is left on the paper. Voila!

Q: Where do your images come from? imaginary or based on real events that you transform?

A: The ideas for paintings are often based on memories or experience, but usually the paintings are more of a loose interpretation rather than being a really literal depiction. I sometimes get photos off the internet to start an idea going, then I nearly always take my own photos, mainly of the body, to back this initial reference material up. I do a lot of digital sketches before I start painting. If I’m working on a full colour painting, as opposed to monochrome, then I like to have lots of detail of the skin areas. I love to capture the real visceral fleshiness of the human form – the veins and muscle underneath the skin, if I can.

Q: What artists working today do you admire, and who would you most like to work with (living or dead)?

A: I was a huge fan of Scottish painter Peter Howson when I was younger, along with Ken Currie. I loved the Herculean type physicality of Howson’s work. I also really admired Lucian Freud with his fleshy un-apologetic take on the human body in its many grisly forms and colours. I never really went through what seemed to be the obligatory Francis Bacon obsession that most art students go though — although I’ve come to really appreciate his stuff of late.

I really like Jenny Saville’s work too.

I’d probably work well with someone like Rubens – he could do his amazing translucent fleshy bodies and then I’d add to it and fuck it up with all my trademark smears and splashes. That would be great as I could nick some flesh-painting tips at the same time.

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Q: Anything we haven’t touched that you’d like to comment on?

A: My solo show ‘Semi –Detached’ starts at Signal Gallery London on the 7^th October. The private view is Thurs 6^th October. (The show runs through October 29th.)

www.signalgallery.com

About the interviewer: 

Patrick Palmer has the unusual combination of having both an artistic and a business background — over 20 years’ experience in media, marketing and publishing. He is  a figurative artist, and his work can be seen at: www.patrickpalmer.co.uk

Snowman II, Walter

The Drawing Room Revisited

Walter Gurbo − painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist, set designer, set-painter and most recently filmmaker, known to reshape and transform any medium he can get his hands on. Gurbo is probably best known for his 12 years of weekly surrealistic drawings known as the “Drawing Room” on the back cover of NYC’s TheVillage Voice. Along with this, Gurbo continued to exhibit in NY Galleries and had shows at area colleges.

His most recent series it has been said “reinvents the still life.” All of Gurbo’s work typically has a thought-provoking humor which is evident even in his most abstract work. A just released book titled, “All The Art That’s Fit To Print (& Some That Wasn’t)” by Jerele Kraus (Columbia University Press) includes a drawing series from Walter’s New York Times days where he contributed more than 300 drawings. He also shows extensively in many upstate N.Y. venues. Following the exhibition at Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts in July, Gurbo exhibited his recent still-life series at the West Kortright Centre in August 2011.

©2011 Joseph Bowman

Castle in Forest, collage, pen-and-ink. 11″x17″

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Joseph Bowman Has 9 Lives

Bowman on Bowman:

I begin my work with a large — and growing — pool of black-and-white, freehand illustrations. I photocopy the images needed for any given piece onto art paper, and cut them out in as much detail as possible and in such a way as to minimize visible seams. I then collage these cutouts together to create large-format, richly detailed city- and landscapes ranging in size from 4″ x 6″ to 3′ x 5′, of which I have completed about thirty so far.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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I have limited experience showing my work, having participated in a group show at the now-defunct Echo Curio, and with several warehouse art cooperatives in Los Angeles. However, the response I have gotten thus far has been overwhelmingly positive and I am interested to see how it plays with a wider audience. I like to use the following bio (bear in mind that there are a lot of historical Joseph Bowmans):

Joseph Bowman (1752-1779) was an officer in the American Revolutionary War who served in the Illinois campaign. Maj. Bowman participated in the 1778 capture of Fort de Chartres, and remained there for some time as the commander of the newly renamed Fort Bowman. While attending a victory celebration, Maj. Bowman was injured by an accidental gunpowder explosion and later succumbed to his injuries, becoming the only American officer to die in the Illinois campaign. He lives in Los Angeles.

You can see more of Bowman’s work at:

http://www.flikr.com/photos/jpowersbowman

Buy the book!

Interview with Ultra Violet (oka, Isabelle Dufresne)

by Mike Foldes

A couple of years ago Hélène Gaillet suggested a Ragazine interview with her friend, Ultra Violet, one of the Superstars of Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory troupe. It took a long time to finally make the connection, and when we did, Ultra didn’t want to talk about the old days. “Read my book,” she ordered. “It says everything.” Instead, she moved the conversation to what’s happening now, and said what she’d said, in so many words, when we spoke on the phone: “I want to talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow is important.”

Ultra’s Chelsea studio is in one of the larger converted factory buildings on West 26^th Street in New York City. When we visit the crowded space late afternoon on April 30, she is contemplating a move to a larger studio that had come available in the same building. The 26^th Street space appears to be more of a place to show her work, than to make it.  Many of her pieces are one-off or short runs made at her direction by artisans in shops both in and beyond New York. There’s no way she could produce some of the pieces on display here in such a space without means of production. When asked the extent of her participation, she asks pointedly, “I don’t have a shop to bend metal. Do you?”

Most of the recent pieces in the room reflect Ultra’s commitment to understanding and explaining the cause and effect of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and on America as a nation.  “American naivete,” she says with a French accent, for she is, in fact a French-born heiress who ran away to see the world — and did. “American naivete, it died that day.”

Ultra, born Isabelle Dufresne in 1935, comes across as self-confident and energetic. In the studio, she’s in her element. Her friends, acquaintances and lovers comprise a pantheon of some of the 20^th century’s most famous and accomplished artists, writers, politicians and business people, as well as many more unseen stars who will never be seen, heard of or heard from ever again.  I mention to a friend we’ll be doing an interview with Ultra Violet. “Who?” he asks. “One of the Warhol Superstars,” I say. His wife remembers her this way: “She was famous for being famous.”

That was then. This is now. Ultra Violet is who she was, and more. Today she’s serious about leaving a mark, focused on seeing that her art becomes a constant message to audiences of tomorrow of what 9-11, and its lessons, mean for all of us.

Ragazine: Are you done with the 9-11 series?

Foldes, Ultra & IX-XI sculpture. Maya Photo

Ultra Violet: No no no, the other day I did a performance, a 9-11 performance. No, I’m not done…. No, I’d love to do a chess game; I’d like to do an hour glass, a huge hour glass. No, I’m not done, I don’t know when I’ll be done with it.

R: Do you take breaks and do other things in the meantime?

UV: Well, I do. I just came back from the Dallas Art Fair premiering a movie… I do other things, but 9-11 is a very important subject …

R: Where did you live when that happened?

UV: I was in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side.

R: We were wondering when we came over here whether you lived in your studio.

UV: No, no, you can’t live here ….

R: Once we saw the building it was pretty obvious….

UV: No, no, you don’t live here.

R: How many pieces do you have in the 9-11 series so far?

UV: The other day I had a show, a wonderful show. They counted 25 pieces; actually I have more, but some of them they didn’t want to show…. Like the nuclear terrorism after 9-11, they didn’t want to show this one, because they thought maybe it is irreverent. (Ultra points to a painting of an angel Mickey Mouse). It’s a very touchy subject, they thought maybe it would be irreverent…. Or something.

R: This is the gallery in Brooklyn?

UV: Yes, it was a great show. You know some people might take offense to this, though I can explain this. I’m not trying to be funny or irreverent.

Mickey Mouse represents the American naivete, or good humor, you know, and that day I think that he got nailed. Actually I wrote a story that he died on that day, that’s the meaning of this. But some people, some 200 people or whatever, might take umbrage to that.

R: I don’t understand why people would take umbrage to that.

UV: They would, because the idea to mix Mickey Mouse, which is “Ha ha ha ha,”  with a tragic event, you know,  to some people…. You know, they are in touch with some commission people they want to bring to the studio and I am going to hide this.

R: You mentioned on the phone you didn’t want to look back, that you like to look forward, to what’s happening.

UV: I do, I still do. Usually the press asks you about the past, and I’m not interested in the past, I much prefer tomorrow. What I might do tomorrow. A lot of what’s in the past has already been recorded.

I mean, you might say 9-11 is in the past, but it’s the very near past. It’s just about 10 years, and I think it was such a blow to the American nation that I don’t think people have yet digested it, if you know what I mean, absorbed it, and oh, and plus, a marking of time….

This is a marking of time. It’s really the official date of the Terrorist Era. Terrorism has existed before, I am aware of it. The word terror was created in the French revolution and in Roman times the Zealots, but you know, as we know it now, terrorism… this is the official date. And it will never go away. Terrorism. Unfortunately. So, that’s why I think that marking of time, which is what I am doing with my “Woman of Miracles” (Ultra gestures absently toward another sculpture in the space), matters a lot for people, and I think I was able to do it in a very elegant way.

R: It is, it’s really clean. When I was looking at pieces on the web, they were very clean and seeing them here they’re very clean lines, and to see how smooth they are. Do you do this, or do you have people working with you?

UV: Do I have a factory that bends metal? I don’t …

R: So this is steel?

UV: Aluminum.

R: When did you do the mirrors in the glass frames?

UV: Oh, the glass.  Those are fairly old,  maybe three years or so, and it’s a baroque frame cast  in acrylic.  I think the frame is absolutely phenomenal, and it took me at least a year to decide what should go inside. I tried things, you know, paintings, portraits, blue, green, yellow, and it finally dawned on me to do a mirror, and to do a self-portrait, which I think is pretty nice. (Laughs.)

When you look into it, it must be a self-portrait, but you must think of it. This is a very expensive work. If I could do this very, very cheap… I looked for (a way to do) it, but I couldn’t find it. You know, they used to make mirrors in metal, and they also used to make frames all in plastic, plastic molded, and I was looking for a very cheap $10 mirror that would look good in this. We used to find things on Canal Street, and now Canal Street is all Americanized.

R: Chinese-ized. When you’re working on 9-11 projects, do you conceive of other things, films, or things based on what you’ve done it the past?

UV: Oh, I do. Yesterday I did an interview with a television show with, I don’t know, and the interview was about tarot reading. Why? Because someone created a tarot card (deck), and each card is designed by an artist and I designed one.  The deck is going to premier at the Andy Warhol Museum, and they asked me to do a tarot reading there. I said I would if it only lasted 15 minutes each, and they said “OK”. So, they did that interview for television, and so I spoke about tarot and I did a reading, totally improvised.  I mean I’ve never read the tarot.

So, you know, I do other things. Not all in the studio.

We have a short chat about Helene Gaillet, about Ultra updating her website, and whether Ragazine will ever be in print. “Not likely,” is the answer, but you never know. Ultra continues:

I met a lady at the Invisible Dog (the gallery where her recent show took place) who was doing a thesis on 9-11 … and what she did, she Googled “artist” and “9-11”, and she had a whole list, and she asked “How come you’re not listed?”

(She turns to Martin, an assistant who is doing a time lapse photograph of one of her pieces, and who is also working on the update of her web site.)

Martin you’re supposed to work on this, remember?

M: I’ll do some SEO.

UV: Did you do this? Am I listed?

M: Probably not.

UV: Well I would like to be.… And she found me by chance, because someone told her I am doing work on 9-11. Ah, I guess it’s the new way of the world. You have to deal with it.

R: It used to be video, and before that it was Polaroids. Things change.

UV: Two days ago I was on a panel of Andy Warhol –  since you mentioned Polaroids. The subject was the influence of his artwork today and the influence of the Factory today, and on the panel was Bob Colacello. Do you know him? And then a famous photographer, Berger…. I think he works for Vanity Fair, and then a vice president of the World Foundation who resigned now …. I forget his name…

(Jumping to another subject ….)

Can you take that piece of paper there … the building once a year does an open house, and it’s this weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I have to sell things. Martin, you still need the white cloud?

M: I do until nine o’clock…

UV: What are you doing exactly?

M: I’m doing a time lapse with the cloud in the background.

UV: Then I can’t walk over there …

R: When did you do your clouds?

UV: About two years ago. Much of my work is luminous. This is luminous (points to a neon piece on the wall), and the rainbows are luminous. I was saving…. I can turn them on, but you know all these things have a lifespan. They have a lifespan. The neon, I don’t know if it lasts forever…. And ever.

R: I have a bar down the street, and it has neon in it that’s been there for years.

UV: Well How do you know they didn’t repair it? (Laughs…)

This is neon (points to a neon sculpture on the wall), at the Invisible Dog.   I have this one and another one in black light, ultraviolet light,  and the owner of the place bought it, and he just sent me an e-mail, he said your neon, 9-11, one of the letters is not lit. It never happened to me before.

R: Who does your neon?

UV: There’s a place in Brooklyn called Technolux. I will have to bring it back to them.

I have more in boxes here. We did not unpack everything. I have a series of Windows in the World, it’s a series of 20 little windows on the world, with sky, sky, and after that the sky is crying, and after that the sky is no longer a sky, and I turn it on when I have to but I don’t leave it on all the time. And it flickers. I don’t know how long they last.

R: What’s that piece? (I point to a piece high on the wall, written in Arabic.)

UV: Can you read it?”

R: I can’t.

UV: It’s 9-11 in calligraphy, Arab calligraphy…

R: 9 being the top number?

UV: Well apparently there are many ways to say it, whether you say it nine one one, or n-i-n-e-e-l-e-v-e-n or phonetically, or whatever. So I inquire at Islamic school and they always send me different interpretations, because this one is not exactly the same as this one, and this one I worded to say this way, and left a mirror below.

You know they’re doing a 9-11 memorial in London and the purpose of it is mostly centered for better understanding between the Muslim world and the European world. I don’t want to say it’s invaded, but it’s really not the same civilization…

R: What interests me is that in France, fundamentalist Muslims don’t seem to be very well accepted, these days. (Referring to French law against women wearing the chador).

UV: Yes, and a lot of French people regret it, regret that the laws are so strict….

R: Where do you live in France?

UV: In nice, in the south, you know….

R: Do you have pieces in the show, the 9-11 exhibition that’s coming up?

UV: No, not yet, but I might …

R: How much time do you spend in France.

UV: I don’t spend any time… I just happened to be there a little while ago because I have a show in Paris, and I give a talk in Paris at New York University, and I was signing a very big art project, so I went to Nice for one week….

R: Do you go in the summer?

UV: No, I will spend the summer here, because I have lot of projects planned. One of them is very nice, it is visual and sound and in the project is Bob Dylan and Becky Smith and John Giorno, and it is coming out in August at the Jackson Pollock Kassmer House in the Hamptons. It’s produced by Sony, so it should be lots of fun.

R: So it’s a film?

UV: No, no, it’s a box, and inside the box, you have a visual. My visual happens to be 9-11, and some recordings, probably a DVD. In my case, I excavated a chant, very classical, which I recorded in 1973 for Capital Records, so I’m happy that’s coming out.

R: You mentioned one of the Warhol projects you’re working on, has to do with the influence of Warhol’s ….

UV: Oh, that was a talk two nights ago…

R: So that doesn’t have anything to do with any upcoming projects….

UV: No, no, that was a panel that was organized in Soho by a company that makes furniture, and Bob Colacello was there, and after the talk he signed his book. He has a new book out called OUT, and he was just signing OUT. It was a photography book, mostly of ‘60s photos, and it was organized by these furniture designers, the New Traditionalists, it was at Broadway and Spring.

I’m going to be at the Houston Art Fair in September.

R: Do you take pieces ….

UV: I don’t show it. The gallery takes a space at Art Fair. In this case, the gallery in Houston does that.

I was well positioned, sandwiched between Indiana and Warhol, and there will be a premier of a film which they’ve never seen, that I introduce ….

It’s interesting. The photographer Bill Kennedy, who photographed people before they were famous, in the ‘60s, during the love years… I just happened to be there, and a few others. The photographs have been buried for about 50 years, and now they are just coming to surface, and they interview Indiana and me and a few others…..

R: Indiana, he is still alive?

UV: Yes, he’s alive, he‘s in Miami, Florida. He’s about 70.

R: What’s your routine like when you’re working?

UV: Routine?

R: When you work, do you have a routine?

UV: Well it varies, with some freelance, it depends a lot on appointments. When I have an appointment here and when I stay the day, depending, and I work a lot from home. I have a nice Mac and a lot of my information is there. I work between home and here… No set time… Saturday or Sunday , noon to six… Actually, I met a guy who works with architects, and he knows about my 9-11 and likes it, and I want to put my 9-11 in a situation… For example, I might put it down around Ground Zero. I met the architect that designed Ground Zero, Michael Arad, and I might send that to him, so … It takes time… time.  Time is the issue, time is limited. I am limited, too.

R: Who’s working today whose work you like?

UV: Oh, a lot of people. I like Cristo and Jean Claude. I like James Turel. I like, there are some good people…. There’s a lot of trash, but there are good people, too.

R: Has it always been that way?

UV: No, more so now, because of the art market. Everybody wants to be an artist and cash in, they read the   prices which are phenomenal and they want to cash in. There are a lot of artists now, which makes it very hard to make it, and to break into it (the art market)….

There’s a knock at the door. It’s the agent who will be showing her the other space where she will be able to hang her large paintings of Ground Zero. The interview is over. It will take several weeks before it’s transcribed, edited and placed on the page. In the end, it doesn’t look the way it sounds.

See more of Ultra Violet’s work at http://www.ultravioletweb.com.

Michael Elmgreen/Ingar Dragset:

The One & The Many, Rotterdam

Art Review by Miklós Horváth

After enchanting audiences and critics with the sumptuous exhibition Infernopolis last year, the curators of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen have decided to host another spectacular installation, The One & The Many in the Rotterdam’s Submarine Wharf. The exhibition is now open to the public and can be visited until 25^th September 2011.

Submarine Wharf can be reached by a 15-minute boat trip from busy Willemskade to a desolate harbour without shops or crowds. You are alone with those you came with on the boat from Willemskade. The experience a visitor may discover is similar to how Mr. Lockwood felt upon his arrival at Thrushcross Grange, described by Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights. Far from the stir of society, Lockwood felt the desolation and considered his new living area a misanthrope’s heaven.  Though he intended to spend some splendid days in the grange and wanted to enjoy its treasures, most of the time Lockwood was disturbed by those around him.

Visiting the exhibition alone can give visitors an experienc similar to Lockwood’s. Being removed from society for a short time, visitors are encouraged to reconsider their desires – their needs and their desires. This exhibition is a psychological experience, definitely for those who like taking risks. For those who choose to participate in this enticing journey, it will broaden the understanding of how the mind works.

Visitors who come alone to the exhibition often will come across completely unexpected  situations. They might be provoked by wandering performers, such as a screaming young mother, young men selling themselves on the street, or an auto mechanic busy working on a luxury limousine. Due to these interruptions, single visitors may find it difficult to completely enjoy the treasures of the wharf. But, as they are advised beforehand, a visitor to this exhibit never simply observes, but becomes an object in it, as well.

For those who visit with a relative or a friend, the art project no longer offers a fearful experience on dark streets. These visitors will not be followed by performers, they do not have to consider what to do and how to act in an unexpected situation, and can enjoy their walk in a secure place of meditation.

The Exhibition Hall is reached through a tunnel, which Elmgreen suggests is a kind of vacuum cleaner hose. Although this-suctioning-you-in feeling is pronounced, you always have a choice to turn back. A reassuring poster on the tunnel wall states, “There is a light at the end of the tunnel, a reference to the Promised Land offered by God to his chosen people after their tribulations. Elmgreen and Dragset deconstruct and discredit the message of God as it becomes a soap-opera-like sentence, an advertising of a new reality show instead of a real message. Therefore, the collaborative duo claims, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. They intend to show that many people could not experience the light in their life and could not turn back when they felt a certain danger.

During the Nazi regime some people did not have a choice to avoid an unwanted situation. The vacuum cleaner (tunnel) and the fake promise therefore can be read as the symbols of the oppressive powers which guide people to their final destination. These symbols recall a circumstance when certain people did not have a choice to turn back and their private lives were under threat.

The struggle between one’s private and public lives is one of the main issues of this exhibition. Visitors  can peep through the windows of a housing block, get access to the toilet, and look into a limousine. Single visitors soon realize they are part of the exhibition, as they are monitored by the performers, as mentioned above. Private life can become a public affair as young men solicit on the street with discourses of sexual intimacy.

In her review of the exhibition, Nicolette Gast says The One & The Many is the third in a trilogy, a bridge between the two first parts: The Welfare Show, and The Collectors, which were shown at various venues in London and Venice. The Rotterdam exhibition is set in the social milieu of the middle class, and addresses how we are searching for new  identities in a world of constant transition.

For further information about the exhibition, visit the Boijmans official website.

(http://www.boijmans.nl/en/7/calendar-exhibitions/calendaritem/770/elmgreen-dragset-in-the-submarine-wharf)

About the author:

Miklós Horváth  is an undergraduate student at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, and Leiden University,  The Netherlands, where he received an Erasmus Scholarship to study.

Ia Orana Maria Aka Hail Mary, Paul Gauguin

Gauguin

and The Postmodern Narrative

The Reception of The Myth Maker

in Belgium and in London

By Miklós Horváth

While in 1889, Paul Gauguin received a negative reception from the Belgian audience, this year he was celebrated as a legend builder and a myth navigator at Tate Modern, London. The distinctive reception of his works raises the following questions: Why was Gauguin so disregarded in the 19^th century, and why now is the exhibition of his painting being reported by The Times and The Guardian as “the show of the season” and as a “brilliant event”?

Tate Modern

The Tate exhibition, which opened in September 2010 and closed in January 2011, presented Gauguin’s work by focusing on myth and the construction of narrative in his life and art. The work on display gave a glimpse into the artist’s methods, and into a lifestyle as dreadful, dark and bizarre as it was full of a revolutionary visual language. Revolutionary in that no other 19^th century artist so uniquely intertwined Symbolism, Primitivism, Fauvism and Expressionism. Gauguin became a stylistic innovator, a fabulous story teller, and “a weaver of intimate psychological dramas that got under the skin and delved into the minds of his subjects”, as Richard Dorment wrote in The Telegraph.

The 20^th century’s postmodern and postcolonial literatures were very much engaged with story-telling and myth-making. Novelists were interested in what made a narrative, what one’s private story stood for, and how it contributed to the history of a community or a nation. The stories of the protagonists of such novels are often handcuffed to their national history. The protagonists tell not only their own stories, but also narratives that almost always relate to the national ‘grand narrative’.

With this idea – that the protagonist of a novel with his or her own story is a representation of the history of a community or a nation – postmodern narrators and exhibition curators often derive their themes under such a banner, as the Tate Modern exhibition pronounced Gauguin a mediator and a myth-navigator who introduced the Western World to the beauties of unknown cultures and mythical traditions. As it is widely known today, our knowledge of Tahiti and its inhabitants is heavily influenced by Gauguin’s narrative and his paintings.

As mentioned above, myth-making is a narrative strategy. It is used in prominent contemporary literature, such as Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, and Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie. These novels are engaged with cultural representations and story-telling; and they will be used while discussing Gauguin as a myth maker. It is in the similarity between postmodern narrative techniques and Gauguin’s hybrid 19^th century narration that they changed the way 21^st century viewers receive Gauguin’s paintings.

Without an understanding of the postmodern narrative, which stands for otherness and promotes diversity, it would be difficult to discuss Gauguin as a Myth creator. It is also very important to note that in the late 19^th century this postmodern narrative technique was unknown. Thus, Gauguin received a negative reception at Les Vingt in Belgium. The audiences, often with a peasant’s mentality for things outside their immediate environs, were unable to understand Gauguin’s worldly aesthetic. Their parochialism limited them to understand and accept only their own views, and they were unable to consider, let alone comprehend, other ‘ideologies’. In Silas Marner, George Eliot gives an enthralling description of such people. She says that the world outside the peasants’ own direct experiences was a region of vagueness and mystery: “… to their untraveled thoughts, a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows….”

The authors of postcolonial and postmodern books usually develop one or two distinctive interpretations of cultures and nations by one or two protagonists in their narratives. Wide Sargasso Sea, for example, provides two interpretations on the Caribbean culture. One is given by the protagonist Antoinette, a Creole girl who tells of her childhood in the Caribbean. The other is given through the lens of an Englishman, Rochester. In Midnight’s Children, the protagonist Saleem Sinai tells of the history of India after the British rule in 1947. He was born on the stroke of midnight when India became independent; therefore, his circumstances fulfilled a special position: he embodies the identity of his nation. He becomes the voice of his nation.

Gauguin is also known as a legend builder. He honed his reputation as a rebel and libertine, telling his own tale of a specific culture to his contemporary audience. He brings together the Tahitian religious belief and his own personal experiences. He conjures up the remote and exotic world of Tahiti for western ears.

Although Antoinette, Saleem Sinai and Gauguin all become mediators of specific cultures or nations, they all are also aware there are countless interpretations of cultures and nations. Antoinette knows she can only evoke fragmentations of the past, and that she cannot recall them in their plenitude. Saleem Sinai was born on the stroke of midnight when India became independent; therefore, in his own words, he is “mysteriously handcuffed to history, [his] destinies indissolubly chained to those of [his] country”. Later in the text, readers are informed that one thousand and one children were born within the frontiers of the state at the same time, which means that there are many personal histories contributing to the national narrative.

By the time he’d reached his mid-30s, Gauguin had set sail and circumnavigated the globe several times, leaving behind a lucrative financial career, and leaving his Danish wife and five children with her parents in Copenhagen. This man had experienced life in the Americas, Europe and Oceania, and had gathered data which was selectively used. He did not want to build a grand narrative, but to add a collection of fragmentations of varied histories and cultures, instead.

Gauguin knew that his narrative was only one possible fable among many. He felt he was a kind of alien mediator who incorporated unfamiliar words and expressions from the Tahitian language into his paintings, which preserved a definite distance between European views and the tropical scene.

In the late 19^th century these narrative structures were not widely known or understood. For that very reason Gauguin received a negative reception at Les Vingt in Belgium in 1889. A fine arts critic, Elise Eckermann, wrote about Gauguin’s critical reception in Belgium in 1889 and 1891, saying that a cartoon published in Le Patriote illustré was mocking one of Gauguin’s paintings: Among the mangoes at Martinique.

Amongst the Mangoes Martinique, Paul Gauguin, 1887

More than a century later, Gauguin’s reception dramatically changed. In 2010, The Guardian termed the exhibition a “brilliant” event; The Times called it “the show of the season”. Thanks to our understanding of the postmodern narrative, which challenged attitudes towards “otherness”, including cultural and racial diversity, we can appreciate the Gauguin who gave us new perspectives on the value of understanding foreign cultures. Thanks to Gauguin, the eyes and imaginations of the Western World were opened to the power and beauty of other cultures, and to the so-called primitive arts.

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About the author:

Miklós Horváth is an undergraduate student at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, and Leiden University, in The Netherlands, where he received an Erasmus Scholarship to study. His trip to England to see and research the Gauguin exhibit was underwritten by grants from: Pro Renovanda Cultura Hungariae: Students for Science, National Union of Students in Hungary, and the ELTE Student’s Union.

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