Run to you, 2018 - Private Collection
Special Issue 24523 ART Habens Soumisha Dauthel Wake up, 2018, 2017
24531 Special Issue creation of art, and in particular the art presented by institutions. If art is understood as the institutional show of creation, then the reflection of its time may have some distortions depending on the political stakes of the countries concerned. We sometimes tend to ignore the fact that a painting - and a work of art in general - is a three-dimensional, physical, artefact: how do you how do you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the concepts that you explore in your artistic research and the physical aspect of your daily practice as an artist? Soumisha Dauthel ART Habens Cultural meeting, 2018 Radiate, 2018
Summer 2015 24543 My artistic approach began in the 90s, and has never ceased to be supported by a back and go between my understanding of the world and a clear identification of the plastic issues that were at stake in my work. Looking at these paintings from the 90s, we can see that the implementation of the material, the problem of cutting, and the linking of the fragments were already present (Below is a 1990 painting exhibited at the Passages art centre in Troyes - 1990). At that time I was talking about the organic relationship, the exchanges between cells, the organization of plastic communication circuits. My paintings then expressed an organization-system of paint cells. The three-dimensional artifact is the physical presentation of an incessant dialogue between plastic questions and concepts. One fleshes out the other as if to testify to the limits between the intangible power of the imagination and the constraining physical power of the world. A work of art can be considered a combination between understanding reality and hinting at the unknown: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? I think I've already answered your question. I would like to add that I like the simplicity of everyday life: talking with the supply salesman across the street, buying vegetables and flowers at the Wednesday market, taking public transport to meet friends, visiting an exhibition in a gallery, listening to music in a concert hall, <taking walks with no specific purpose in Paris. And when possible, walk by the sea. All this also feeds my creative process. Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including your upcoming solo at Valerius Art Gallery, in Luxembourg : how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience ? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? I am very happy to present a solo from April 25th on of this year at Valerius Art Gallery in Luxembourg. For the first time, the Luxembourg public and those from neighbouring countries, Germany, Belgium, France will be able to discover for the first time in a large space large format paintings and drawings that I really like. I would like visitors to look at and see my paintings as a personal experience and an unespected dialogue begins. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Soumisha. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future ? I was also asked by Camilla Moresi to open her G/ART/EN gallery in Como, Italy. This solo exhibition will start on September 21st, a lot of work awaits me. That's great. In parallel, I work on format variables for my drawings. How charcoal lines bring together, reconcile, modify the appearance of paint fragments ? I would like to share with you my joy at being selected for the Biennal Edition of ART Habens. This allows me to disseminate my artworks to a wider audience of professionals and I hope to open new collaborations. An interview by , curator and curator Special Issue ART Habens Soumisha Dauthel
My thoughts of you, 2019
Special Issue 4562 Lives and works in Wheeling, WV , USA Korzenie #1, 18 x 24 in. , monotype, silkscreen, charcoa
2 Special Issue Martyna Matusiak ART Habens video, 2013 574 l on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Shield #1 Special Issue , 15.5 in x 19 in., drypoint, chine-collé , charcoal, 2019 403
Martyna Matusiak Hello Martyna and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.martynamatusiak.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of introductory questions. You have a solid formal training and after having earned your MA in Art Education from the University of Opole, you moved to the United States to nurture your education with an MFA in Drawing, that you received from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist and help you to develop your attitude to experiment with different media? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your Polish roots direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Hello and thanks for the interview. Switching continents at the beginning of my 20s for sure influenced my artistic practice, just as it made an impact on my world viewand self-awareness. I felt so uncomfortable surrounded by foreign language and new culture. Just living day to day was hard. On top of that I was making art and had to defend it in an academic setting – honestly, I didn’t even know what a ‘critique’ was going into art school. Before coming to United States I was lucky to have supporting professors in Poland. They 459 Special Issue An interview by , curator and curator guided me and encouraged me in my practice. I got such a strong foundation art training in Opole, Poland it continues to influence me today. It’s not the only aspect that had an inpact on me. I grew up in small mining city. I was raised at communistic multifamily apartment building surrounded by hundreds of multifamily buildings identical in structure - bloki. Strong lines, lack of color, and lack of green space, in
Special Issue 24603 addition to the small mining city rhythm, influenced my point of view and sensitivity. I often wonder if that’s why my own art is often monochromatic, or has a limited color pallet and uses repetition. Anyway, I developed the attitude to experiment with different media because of limitations I experienced. Firstly, I had limited exposure to art. My dad was a miner in our small city; my mom was a social worker at the same mining company. Being an artist simply wasn’t in the common vocabulary, yet they nurtured my creative side by providing me with monthly magazines about Great Masters of Art or set of new pencils and paint. I remember when I decided to apply to an art program. It was a last minute idea, and the exam incorporated a practical assesmet - a few hours painting session. It was actually the first time ever I painted on canvas, ever. I had no idea what I was doing. I will never forget that, I didn’t even know how to set up an easel during the exam. I would just watch everybody around me. While in art school, I had all of these ideas in mind and I would just experiment with how to get them out. I needed training, so I listened. I was a good student. I didn’t rebel or fight. I wasn’t the student to break the rules. I clearly followed directions of my professors, and inhale art history lectures. I was hungry to learn, I felt fortunate to be able to attend college in the first place, and even more lucky to attend art program. In graduate school, in United States, I had to really experiment with techniques, simply because I couldn’t afford expensive papers or art materials. I would draw on ART Habens Martyna Matusiak
24611 Special Issue Martyna Matusiak ART Habens Korzenie#2,18 x 24 in. , monotype, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Special Issue 24623 Korzenie #3,18 x 24 in. , monotype, color pencils, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to woo
ART Habens 24631 Special Issue wallpaper or cardboard for that reason. I used all the lessons from my formal training in Poland, just on cheap materials. I chose drawing as my major in graduate school, because I thought printmaking was simply too expensive with it’s fancy papers and inks. I really felt printmaking was my language. I had to experiment with expressing myself in English. I surrounded myself with exceptional likeminded artists who become friends for life. I never gave in to competition in grad school- what for? I was provided with a studio space, I had the opportunity to be a graduate assistant in printmaking classes under spectacular professors and I was making a living on $36/month. Honestly, looking back at that time, I am grateful for such amazing stimuli. Now, I think it is important to challenge myself with new environments, processes and ideas. What has at once captured our attention of your unconventional style it's the way it allows you to condense in a single work of art such a coherent combination between intuition and a rigorous aesthetics: when walking our readers through your usual workflow and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all your works. In life, we experience so much fragmentation of thoughts and feelings. For me, creating art brings things back together. It helps me process events, actions and memories. It keeps me grounded. You ask about about intuition. In my own work, intuition figures heavily throughout. It the beginning, developing the basic sketches Martyna Matusiak d panel, 2018
Korzenie #3,18 x 24 in. monotype, color pencils, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24663 for the work is deeply reflective and intuition driven . Later, bringing those sketches together into a form—creating a context, working to something that feels cohesive and complete. That’s incredibly powerful for me—something that really keeps me going. I work in diverse media often combining printmaking with drawing to create larger installations. Repetition, variation and sequencing are major elements of my practice. In each of the pieces, I work with printed imagery as well as hand- drawn elements. Beyond traditional printmaking techniques (mostly intaglio and lithography) I use disposable, readily available materials such as painter’s tape, magazines scraps, and sharpie marker which emphasize the immediacy, commonality, and temporary nature of these phrases. My process of making each plate however requires many stages of etching and proofing. Certain passages on a given plate appear in multiple pieces but in different periods of completion. Not only am I adding more information to the resulting image through direct drawing, but I am also working reductively on the paper. I am cutting into the prints and peeling back layers of paper as well as physically erasin parts of the printed and directly drawn elements to serve as an antecedent to the plate-making process. These gestures solidify my assertion of the plate and print as equal parts of my process. My process of proceeding with the drawing on a print allows me to observe things revealing and showing themselves. I am interested in this phenomenon because it challenges the way we orient ourselves in ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #4,1
24671 Special Issue Martyna Matusiak ART Habens 8 x 24 in. , monotype, color pencils, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24683 ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #5,18 x 24 in. , monotype, spray paint, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on pa
24691 Special Issue regard to the world. We generally have a very egotistical view regarding our value in life. My practice is a refusal of this way of thinking. For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Korzenie, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once impressed us of the results of your artistic research is the way it unveils the point of convergence between personal history and collective memory, bringing the notion of family to a new level of significance. Would you tell us something about the genesis of Korzenie? In particular, how did you develop this project in order to achieve such brilliant results? The idea for Roots came up when my daughter Lena (age 4 now) was diagnosed with a Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). PKD is a genetic disease in which clusters of cysts develop primarily within kidneys, causing kidneys to enlarge and lose function over time. PKD is mainly a painful hereditary disease. Both my husband and I have no family history of the condition nor were we aware of it. It is hard to predict the progress of the disease and it’s complications. PKD affects our family and influences our family tree from now on. Will this effect Lena’s decision to have children? Is Lena’s diagnosis stopping us from having more kids? Lena’s diagnosis made me track back my personal family history as well as my husband’s. My family images of close kinfolk and distant relatives become icons of an identity, love, joy and strength. Martyna Matusiak ART Habens per mounted to wood panel, 2018
Korzenie #6,18 x 24 in. monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24723 I base many of my works in the series on photographs that belonged to my grandmother, aunts, and mother as well as images acquired from my husband’s side of the family—images found in shoeboxes, forgotten in the bottoms of drawers, or found among the tattered black pages of old leather-bound photo albums. The photographs have very personal meanings for me as the artist, but I have found also that there is an almost universal recognition among viewers of a sense of history and identity, evoking memories of their own family’s past. What began as a way to investigate my family’s medical history grew into a deeper meditation to gain a better sense of what family means as I spent countless hours staring at their photographs and into the eyes of my loved ones, past and present. It's important to remark that Korzenie is a Polish word that means ''roots'' and that this series draw from your family life. A work of art can be considered a combination between understanding reality and hinting at the unknown: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process Yes, you are right – thanks for noticing. I don’t look far for inspirations. I draw ideas from ordinary objects as family photographs, toys, family notes, or domestic actions like my mom’s obsession of putting everything in tight boxes and stacking and squeezing them into impossible combinations. I gather these ordinary events, words, images and ideas in my mind sometimes for several months. ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #7,18 x 24 in
24731 Special Issue Martyna Matusiak ART Habens . , monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24743 ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #9,18 x 24 in. , spray paint, stencil, monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoa
24751 Special Issue That means sometimes I would be out of the making groove for several months. I never think about creating just one piece of art. The idea comes first, and I execute it in series or body of work, sometimes in various mediums and approaches. When I figure out what my work is about, I binge work in the studio like crazy, sometimes working on several pieces at once non-stop. I used to be mad at myslef that I am out of the studio for a day or two. Motherhood changed my mindset about working habits. I accepted these blasts of making because it allows my ideas to grow, change and refocus. When I come to the studio, I am ready. And above, I think in the world of perfectionism we often hide and practice, and re-draw and re-run and re-touch until the work is flawless. I think that it’s ok to show up before the show, before it’s ready. We often have this perception that we don’t want to do something until we are good at it. It’s never perfect.I think the process of making, experiencing, and understanding art is closely tied to our personal and social knowledge. Art practice is not only a part of art history, but also of our collective human experience. Everyday I encourage myself and my students to see visual art practice as part of a larger framework. Marked out with a powerful narrative drive, Korzenie seems to invite to question the idea of perception look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, urging the spectatorship to see beyond the surface of the work of art. How important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? And in particular, how open would you like your artworks to be understood? Martyna Matusiak ART Habens l on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Korzenie #11,18 x 24 in. spray paint, stencil, monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24783 What is most important to me as an artist and is authenticity of voice. Voice is an intangible but discernible sensibility that threads through and ties together a body of work. It can be loud or quiet, but we always feel it. Although Korzenie grew from a personal issue, the aim of the work is to return the viewer to a specific moment in time—not a monumental or historic moment, just a simple, personal moment in one man’s family history. While it may be possible to peel back or peer around the layers in these works to reveal deeper intent, it may be just as possible to look at these works and think about a favorite aunt or brother’s old red BMX bike. We all have our own biases and we all approach art from such a different backgrounds. As an artist you not only make works to be admired. I think art is a key that unlocks other people. As a maker, I open doors not really knowing what is on the other side. Then my work is not mine anymore. I don’t consider my art to be my baby, I am not going to babysit it and follow it around to make sure it is understood. It’s not my job. My job is to think, contemplate, comment, sketch and then make the piece. There is no ‘after’ coming from me. Each person might read it differently. There is no wrong way of experiencing the art. It's pretty amazing. We’d love to ask you about the qualities of the materials that you include in your artworks, with a particular focus on your current artistic production: as an artist working with diverse media, how do you ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #12,18 x 24 in. , spray paint, stenc
24791 Special Issue Martyna Matusiak ART Habens il, monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charcoal on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Special Issue 24803 ART Habens Martyna Matusiak Korzenie #13,18 x 24 in. , spray paint, stencil, monotype, color pencils, collage, photolithography, silkscreen, charco
24811 Special Issue select them and what do you address to combine print based work with drawings and image transfer? I am currently working on a new body of work where I explore the ideas of impermanence and comment on our desire for longing of deep and meaningful relationships in the age of immediacy and urgency. Major sites of uncertainty and impermanence that repeatedly come into focus for me include everyday objects (ex. Amazon cardboard box), family life/ home and the human body (mostly my daughter’s). The hierarchies of these constantly fluctuate between the minuscule and the monumental, slipping in and out of stasis as they are acknowledged or ignored throughout my process of making. With the initial form of crumpled or stacked Amazon cardboard boxes, a metaphor for failure, I begin the exploration of interactions with self, others, and object to reiterate the complexity of representation. To collect in order to remember. To collect in order to control. To collect in order to contain. As we negotiate and gather (in boxes) moments within everyday life, experiences accumulate and build. More specifically, Amazon Prime box serves well not only the idea of collecting and controlling, but is a point of departure for suggesting our impatience, desire for instant gratification and urgency. Waiting can be really hard, and when people don’t get what they want, the psychological reaction is anxiety. Let’s move to another focus of mine: body. Here I continue reflect on my daughter’s Martyna Matusiak ART Habens al on paper mounted to wood panel, 2018
Summer 2015 24823 condition, similarly as in Korzenie. This time, I ponder and reflect about our desire for free will and something that is predetermined. Her condition also triggered few ideas other ideas, commenting about the body as a container, and then just simple act of waiting – waiting in hallways to doctors’ office, waiting for disease to take over, waiting for cysts to appear, waiting –but not being able to control her body in any way, waiting for her to be in pain. Series Shields (in progress) were created as an attempt to protect, and control, but ultimately as we attempt to construct ourselves into unique beings, our genetic mapping remain outside of our control, embedded inside us at from the moment of conception. Finally, (The family space). This aspect revolves around three related themes familial relationships; home as the critical place/container where those relationships develop; and liminal space as the place where a person or object can exist on both sides of a boundary. I think of home just as a space for comfort, discord, division, joy, love and sorrow. This is home—this is family. I am intrigued by these dualities and weave them into my work. Arthur Schopenhauer’s story of the porcupines caught in a snowstorm captures nicely the nature of these dualities. In order to keep warm, the porcupines huddle together, but by doing so they wound each other. To remedy this, they must find the middle ground the space that both affords sufficient warmth and does not cause too much harm. Schopenhauer tends to relate his parable of the porcupines with a pessimistic view of societal relationships, but for me it is the dichotomy of feeling warmth and being wounded that rings true. I can feel joy and sorrow at the same time because I can live in the threshold between the two. Love can be present in the midst of conflict. Through an alignment of these three points of focus – the object, the body and the place – prints are situated between body and dwelling and follow the interplay between shadow and structure. Simultaneously holding up and being supported by each other, these relational forms will dress and snug (like a good hug from my child), will fold (like a cardboard box), will collapse and grow (like cysts) on top of themselves to represent the abundance of information, lack of control, restlessness and scarcity of human attention. I present the fine line between the temporal and the eternal, as well as the uncomfortable similarities found in the primal desire for instant gratification and the need of self preservation. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your artistic production: likewise, we like the way many of your works show that vivacious tones are not indispensable in order to create tension and dynamics. How do you settle your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork in order to achieve such brilliant results? The progression of my work has been an experimentation with color - or lack of color Special Issue ART Habens Martyna Matusiak
Shield #2, 15.5 in x 19 in. drypoint, chine-collé, tape transfer, charcoal, 2019
Shield #3, 15.5 in x 19 in. photolithography, charcoal, 2019
24851 Special Issue - and the challenge of communicating within a narrow range of execution. The relationship between color and space in my work is one that shifts from agreement to opposition. At times color functions as carrier in the creation of illusionistic space, while at other times it acts in opposition. I never felt too comfortable with vibrant colors. As I mentioned earlier, I like limitations. I add color when I feel the piece absolutely needs it, I am interested of presenting my ideas through most essential marks, lines and texture. I often fail that assignment but instead of starting over- I keep reworking the piece. I often challenge myself and iaise a question: How I can reduce it to most essential marks and still keep the meaning? We sometimes tend to ignore the fact that a work of art is a three-dimensional, physical, artefact: how do you how do you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the concepts that you explore in your artistic research and the physical aspect of your daily practice as an artist? As an artist I am constantly searching for diverse formats to express myself. This search has not only enabled me to create artworks that are unique and relevant, but has also enhanced my aspiration of being innovative and resourceful. I like to learn new techniques in printmaking. I never relay on just intaglio or relief. Most recently I am experimenting with carborandum prints. I am surrendering my practice to a medium that works for the project. Layers push and pull the work into completion. My hands always follow the idea. The idea is always first for me. Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of solo and group exhibitions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? I really hope that my work impacts people in some way. Art is pretty much what shapes our personality. Here's why: no one likes art just for ‘art’. You like it because you like the author, the meaning, the form, the appearance, the message it conveys, the sound it makes, the memories they evoke, and the feelings they portray. The idea is to create a certain and somewhat indefinable emotional command- I do strive for that for my viewers to experience. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Martyna. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Thanks so much for your time and all really stimulating questions. I made me reflect more on my practice and approaches. Now…I have so much to do! I am currently working on Shields and another new piece titled Umbilical Cord that you can see a preview of at www.martynamatusiak.com. An interview by , curator and curator Martyna Matusiak ART Habens
Special Issue 4862 Secret ingredient Lives and works in San Francisco, California
2 Special Issue Nancy Calef ART Habens video, 2013 874
ART Habens Nancy Calef Special Issue 488 Uncharted
Nancy Calef Hello Nancy and welcome to ART Habens. Before elaborating about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you studied painting and sculpture at the College of New Rochelle and you are also a certified computer animator: how did those formative years influence your evolution as a multidisciplinary artist? In particular, how does your multifaceted cultural substratum due to the years you spent in Europe and Thailand, as well as your frequent travels throughout the United States and many other countries direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Thank you for the opportunity to discuss my creative process. Early formal art education began at College of New Rochelle when I was fifteen, allowing exploration of drawing, sculpture, design and art history. Painting became my great gift, having endured a challenging childhood in New York City as a model with an unbalanced stage mother. I turned to art as a coping tool. By working from the inside out, in conceiving and executing each piece, I discovered the mechanism to confront my self-destructive demons, uncover my beliefs, and transform negative energy into enduring production. My training as a computer animator came decades later, having already established my painting style creating "Peoplescapes" in oil, while often adding relief and other 3D elements. Acquiring 3D animation skills was a 489 Special Issue An interview by , curator and curator natural progression; not only have I animated original drawings, and my own paintings, but I've also refined my perspective and the movement of my characters in modeled relief. Extensive travel abroad has exposed me to foreign cultures and widened my own world
Special Issue 24903 view, revealing common threads running through people from all nationalities. I mine this subject in depth, depicting universal aspects of the human condition. My relationship to art has given me a home in the world. Plein-air landscape painting introduced me to oils; as I journeyed around the world, I could communicate with my brush by capturing people in their environment. I especially enjoy painting nightscapes. (see Uncharted, oil & acrylic on canvasses, 30" x 24"). We have appreciated the way the results of your artistic inquiry convey such a coherent combination between intuition and a rigorous aesthetic, and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.nancycalefgallery.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all your works. My work is motivated by the search for truth, including all of life's peaks and valleys, internal, external, its bright and dark facets. Does every color, line, and shape honestly reflect what I'm feeling and envisioning at the time? My organic relationship with the canvas springs forth from that central idea. For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Inevitability Line, an interesting work that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your style is the way it brings the notion of everyday life to a new level of significance: when discussing the genesis of this ART Habens Nancy Calef
24911 Special Issue Nancy Calef ART Habens Inevitability Line
ART Habens Nancy Calef Special Issue 24923 The Investigation
ART Habens 24931 Special Issue stimulating artwork, would you tell us how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Everyday experiences are essential to the development of all my work. Inevitability Line (oil, sculpture, fabric, found objects on canvas, 48" x 60") was conceived while riding the New York Railway commuter from Grand Central Station to visit my ailing father in a rehabilitation center. It was the perfect metaphorical (and real) platform to explore the undeniable fact that we're all riding the same mortality train. In this piece, the conductor takes the "Destiny transit -- one entry/one exit" ticket from a man listening to an audio book with earphones made from oxygen equipment. The surface of the car's floor contains common symbols of daily life. We like the powerful narrative drive characterizing your Peoplescapes, and as you have remarked in your artist's statement, each painting weaves together a story about contemporary life, to question a wide variety of themes, including race, global warming, toxins in our food, corruption in the financial, medical and pharmaceutical industries. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they are living under". Does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? In particular, how do you consider the role of artists in our media driven and globalized contemporary age? Given the current state of American politics, I have feverishly been creating work Nancy Calef
Special Issue 24943 expressing the dysfunction in Washington DC under the current administration, and the reverberating effect it has on the world at large. My hope lies in the natural flow allowing the push and pull of evolution to eventually foster preservation of our species. In The Investigation, (oil, sculpture, fabric, found objects 36" x 60"), Kali, the Hindu Goddess of destruction, is spewing out the world's political players who are battling good and evil. The sea is rising and facts are being tested. To identify the actors in this mise en scène please see: https://www.nancycalefgallery.com/Investigation.html Creative people have the ability to guide others out of complacency, to offer a wider perspective, potentially breaking through stagnation and/or a limited mindset in one side of the brain. Our media-driven society is conducive to brainwashing, lies, and the manipulation of one's views to satisfy greedy power plays. This compels me to use my art as activism highlighting vital cultural moments. Indeed I have advocated causes relevant to healthcare, education, civil rights, immigration and our environment for almost thirty years. Global Warming is the urgent issue of our time. The reckless and ignorant disrespect for our planet is exemplified in The Ref (oil, sculpture, fabric on canvas, 36" x 48") In the audience, Al Gore, Governor Jerry Brown, international environmentalists Chico Mendes, Wangari Maathai, Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold, along with the Koch brothers and the rest of the Animal Kingdom, watch Earth being beaten by the human. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances of your canvas, and we like ART Habens Nancy Calef
24951 Special Issue Nancy Calef ART Habens Escape
Special Issue 24963 ART Habens Nancy Calef Tai Chi
24971 Special Issue the way the vivacious tones of Tai Chi and World Music create tension and dynamics. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in particular, how do you develop a texture? Although I deal with challenging, sometimes dark issues, those "vivacious tones" passionately connect my intuition to the subject matter. Optimism drives my palette in Tai Chi, (oil, sculpture, fabric on canvas, 30" x 40"). California's golden light influenced the color scheme, illuminating the background trees, as the local Chinese women perform their daily exercise routine. After thinking that I'd fully executed the moment, the characters in the foreground began calling out for movement; so I built them up with clay and added additional 3D touches to resolve the painting. World Music, (48" x 60" oil on canvas), on the other hand, was interconnected from its inception; the concept of depicting the lyrical expression of international musicians, flowing from one country's genre to another, felt complete in oil. Rich in symbolism and humor, we daresay that your artistic practice aims to look inside what appears to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. How important is it for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? As a visual storyteller, I present everyday circumstances that evoke the viewer's Nancy Calef ART Habens
Special Issue 24983 personal identification. In No Free Lunch (oil, sculpture, found objects on canvas, 48" x 48"), the airline sells advertising space in addition to water and oxygen. Materialism and exploitation have replaced courtesy, respect and safety. ART Habens Nancy Calef No Free Lunch
24991 Special Issue Most people accept that we no longer live in a consumer-oriented society. Revolving Door (oil, sculpture, found objects on canvas, 36" x 36") is a metaphor for the concept that "change is the only constant in life." Nancy Calef ART Habens Stupor Market
Special Issue 100 243 We like the way your artworks convey such a stimulating combination between figurative elements and captivating abstract feeling, as the interesting Day At The Circus, whose background creates such an oniric atmosphere. How would you consider the ART Habens Nancy Calef Revolving Door