Irina Ivanova Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW this is exactly the environment that surrounds me and my surroundings. The ideas I accumulate sometimes mature for years and when I feel ready I realize them. I like to think about my ideas and not rush. Just when I feel it's time to create this work I do it. Otherwise all the time I gain impressions of everything On Graf Ignatiev Boulevard
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition around me, but unfortunately the time is still not enough to depict everything together, so I act them slowly one by one. Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of occasions, including you recent participation to the International Biennial of Small Forms, in View of the terrace
Irina Ivanova Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW The lady in retro tram
View in front of the house
Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Special Edition Pleven: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? Your works can be admired also at Behance.net/irinaartlife and at https://www.instagram.com/irina.art.life. By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces — to street and especially to online platforms as Instagram — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Irina Ivanova: I think it has always been more impressive for the audience when watching live works presented in a gallery is a suitable exhibited species. This for me so far can not be replaced. It is much more fascinating when you see the texture of the picture live and much more The paintings look live live under the lights of the galleries. Whenever I watch a work in digital version, it is not so fascinating at least because it is viewed from our small screens. While when the art is seen live in a wellpresented form in a gallery, you can even get a shiver of pleasant emotion. It is important to note, of course, that while the art on display on the street or on the Internet, such as Instagram, there is no selection, anyone can upload art. While the gallery has a quality selection of works and this gives the viewer additional confidence that what he sees quality work.But despite everything we live in a modern world and such an option as browsing online galleries, art in digital format must be
Irina Ivanova Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Coffee on the beach
In the studio
Land scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Coffee Espresso
Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Irina Ivanova presented from different platforms. Otherwise it is extremely difficult to reach any art. And with the Internet and the media it is much easier and to quickly learn about art and reach it. We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Irina. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Irina Ivanova: Apart from the landscape and the still life as an object in my work, I like to depict people and living beings in general. The emotion there is different and much deeper. There is a state and feelings. My next projects will be just such showing compositions from our everyday life. I am a realist and I like to portray moments from people's everyday life. Moments that a person in a hurry in his daily life passes easily without paying attention to their beauty. And when the viewer sees my painting and says "oh yes, that's great! I'm not it seen nowhere. " so I managed to achieve it. Thank you for the conversation and for being so kind and patient. I found great artists in your publications and I was amazed by the art that is being created around the world!
Hello Ceinwen and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://ello.co/ceinwengobert in order to get a wide idea about your multifaceted artistic production. We would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You are a versatile artist and your creative production incorporates poetry and improvisational skills: what directs you to such an interdisciplinary approach? In particular, are there any I’m interested in real time creation using structured improvisational skills – How does the current environment of the drawing and the present individual mindset alter the construction? What arises when a planned idea evolves in real time? What emerges visually and how does the final image reflect the initial ideas? My practice is about the tension and shifts between memory, dreams, and the reality of the inner landscape, and how our perceptions change due to movement between these three. I’m inspired by childhood nostalgia and a fascination with spells, words, and the longing for magic. To begin, I usually start with a simple idea, such as a word or phrase, and then allow the drawing to shift and change focus as new information and images emerge. This is part of the real time process I am interested in and familiar with through my dance training, and I chose to use pen, pastel, and digital altering for most of these pieces. All of the work shown here was created during lockdown, when the world’s relation to space was drastically changing. Our landscapes were forever altered, and I felt compelled to transpose my dancing, the choreographic process, and these shifting realities on to paper. I was drawn to the idea of holding on and letting go, which I found incredibly relevant in today’s world, as well as a desire to move beyond the confines of my space and my body. While my physical world shrank I delved into fragments of memories, dreams, and the turbulent emotional landscape that will forever mark this period of time. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Ceinwen Gobert
You Should Smile More
Ceinwen Gobert Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW experiences that helped you to develop your experimental techniques? I was directed to this interdisciplinary approach through my professional dance practice. I have created structured improvisational dance for many years, often with a focus and particular interest in poetry and generating movement by transposing language through my body. When the pandemic caused a massive disruption to public performance and the ability to create dance in group settings and public spaces, I was driven to continue creating with materials I had on hand – continuing with similar ideas, but transposed to paper instead of my body. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape has at once impressed us of for the way your insightful exploration of the tension between figurative subjects and such compelling dreamlike atmospheres, as you did in the interesting InterStellar and Worlds Within, that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how you usually develop the initial ideas for your artworks? Initial ideas stem from a few places. It Worlds Within Mermaid Rocket
InterStellar
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition might be a passage of poetry that resonates with me, images from a dream, memories that I want to either purge or that I nostalgically want to reimagine, or even ways that the world is fractured into shapes and how I can save these shapes (as memories of things I’ve seen) and reconfigure them in new ways. Meticulously refinished in their details and intricate patterns, your artworks has struck us for the way you sapiently convey and effective combination between spontaneity with such unique rigorous aesthetics: do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? I do enjoy certain geometric shapes. I find the repetition soothing and often shapes re-emerge in various pieces. The work starts spontaneously, as in I don’t sketch out a complete idea or world, but as it progresses I focus on elements that draw my attention. Sometimes I can’t complete a piece for quite some time since I need to sleep on it and acquire new “material” from either my dreams or other external stimulus from my day to day life – sometimes just a shape, a feeling, or a colour. I’ll know when it’s done, just not when that might be. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that mark out your paintings, and we like the way you sapiently create tension and dynamics in InterStellar and You Should Smile More: how did you come about settling on your color palette? And how does your own psychological makeup determine the nuances of tones that you
Ceinwen Gobert Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Smoke Dream
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Hooked
Ceinwen Gobert scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land decide to include in your artworks? These two pieces reflect two of the three colour palettes that I’m particularly drawn to. In InterStellar I’m working on inverting my images digitally to see what hidden nuances I could be missing. I love how it creates an unearthly quality and a feeling of night and space. I tried to create this feeling using white ink on black paper in a number of drawings, but digitally altering this piece gave it that complete feeling I mentioned earlier. You Should Smile More is a favourite of mine and an extension of the original drawings I made using materials I had lying around – ink and highlighter. I love the brightness of this piece, and you’ll also see a lot of neon colours and contrasting inkwork in many of my other pieces. This work is an abstracted face giving the finger, and a feminist refusal of the male gaze and the need to appease. The bright tones create a harsh contrast with the black ink, that I find suitable for this theme, but also a vibrancy that conveys an uplifting and sassy retaliation. This piece is aesthetically different from other pieces of mine that are usually dreamlike, whimsical, and sometimes dark. However it still explores an aspect of my personal internal landscape – the experiences and memories of being a woman of colour. The world isn’t all about magic, as much as I’d like it to be. With its powerful narrative drive, your style is both figurative and rich of surrealistic atmosphere, that marks out Fools and
Neruda
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Hooked, providing it with recognizable identity: how do you consider the relationship between the real and the imagined playing within your artistic practice? I see the relationship between the real and the imagined as a very fine line, and one that fluctuates based on the environment. I often try to imagine an image and reproduce it in separate parts. It could be a more recognizable image, but skewed based on how my memories and my feelings adjust it. It’s what I love about abstract and impressionist work – this ability to draw feelings with subtle placement of shapes and colours. Both Fools and Hooked are based on the idea of the stories we tell ourselves within romantic relationships. What is real for one is not always real for the other. Your works often challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters, inviting your audience to discern and interpret. In this sense, we daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception: how important is for you to trigger the viewers' imagination in order to Underwater Foetus
Daisylady
Rand
Fools
Ceinwen Gobert Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? I love when people look at a work and can tell you what feelings it evokes for them. It’s why I’m drawn to abstract art and creating it in the way I do, where ideas are shaped in the process and I’m waiting for images to emerge that I can focus on. I see it as a reflection of one’s internal landscape. It’s also the way people interact with their dreams, possibly drawing attention to what they are currently thinking about and working through in their own lives. I like to add small “spells” to the drawings, and when someone is drawn to these parts I feel a real sense of connection with them. I sometimes joke that it’s like those magic eye posters that were so popular when I was growing up. What can you see? What’s hidden? Can you see it today, or will you see it tomorrow? I love that! The hybrid visual quality that marks out Pulled Apart allows you to capture fleeting moments providing the viewers with such an emotional impact: how do you consider the role of memory playing within your artistic practice? In particular, how does your travels Pulled Apart Surrender
Portal
scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land and your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? I am fascinated with memories and how they are influenced and altered by everyday life experiences. Memories feel unreliable, even the ones that are crisp and clear and detailed. Other memories feel like shadows that you can only glimpse from the corner of your eye, like dreams that you feel but can’t quite remember. Memories shared with another person become more solid, but I’m more interested in those memories that you carry alone. What happens to them? In my mind it feels like they are pulled apart like taffy, with some parts stretched and weakened while others are condensed and sharpened. Living and travelling by myself has made me want to capture this dreamlike quality of memories held alone. How do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram https://www.instagram.com/feral.dreams — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? I’ve spent much of my dance career creating and performing dance pieces in relation to gallery art, within these traditional gallery spaces. I’ve also danced on rooftops, streets, and other outdoor public spaces. All of these environments have different atmospheres and I’d love to have the experience of placing my artwork in these different environments. Right now with the online platforms, such as Instagram, there is the ability to share globally, but I think you lose texture and the visceral response that you experience when face to face with artwork that resonates with you. I’m excited for the world to open and to have those opportunities. 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, Ceinwen. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Thank you! It’s been a pleasure. In the future I’m going to be exploring more digital, watercolour, and acrylic techniques. I’m still fascinated with the idea of transposing movement, literature, and various landscapes on to paper, so I haven’t finished with that, but I am interested in increasing the scale of the work. I’ve also recently started another dance process based on some incredibly moving poems. After these projects wrap up I have some ideas I need to explore dealing with reflections and light. So hopefully what I see in my mind I can get down onto paper. It will be an exciting challenge! An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]
Ceinwen Gobert Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Olwen
Hello Datis and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.instagram.com/datis.golmakani_ in order to get a wide idea about your mulifaceted artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a Diploma in Painting, that you received from Mashhad University, in Iran: how did this experience influence your evolution as a painter and a cartoonist? Moreover, how do your cultural substratum due to your Persian roots and your current life in Germany address the direction of your artistic reserch? Datis Golmakani: In the beginning I should say that I only got familiar with different styles and techniques throughout my training courses. To see and to experiment with different things such as materials and the approaches toward them can be considered as characteristics of a good training course, but something more took place within me: the potential talent that has its root in my childhood. Everything begins with education—the beginning of putting every experience in use in order to obtain increasingly novel experiences. In the beginning I was affected by realism but by passing through different stages my works got more conceptual and abstract. About caricature one can say that it plays a key role in developing ideas and finding the hidden layers of art, the sides I eagerly attended to for a while to augment my creativity and idea development. Today, all over the world, human beings have found a separate and unique behavior that can sometimes be to the benefit of the whole of nature and sometimes to its detriment. The artist believes that today's man or contemporary man completely separates himself from nature and tries to ambitiously enclose and limit the world. But this end is nothing but failure and destruction. And fortunately, nature dominates everything. In his paintings, the painter tries to mix human beings with nature and natural elements, and sometimes separately and together. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Datis Golmakani
Datis Golmakani Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW There is but little doubt that artists have always attempted to explore the undiscovered realms of art, some artists from the east follow the western styles and techniques, and artists from the west seek to get insight from the oriental art. The art and artist have always articulated the spirit of their time, influenced by the behavior and mindset of the society. Perhaps I have also been affected by the experiences passed down by my birth culture in one way or another, whose traces may be tracked in my artworks; yet, my intention is to create works of art through which to discover the essence of art in regard to human, unaffected by place and time. Today the modern world has become a common language for all the artists throughout the world; this undoubtedly develops and strengthens the ties between the artists and artistic language. Thus, an avant-garde artist can create her/his work while having the future prospects in mind. The process of evolution within artists is different, my works in Iran took negative and critical perspectives, and at times they were affected by the artistic community of Iran and the understanding of both general and specific audience. The only way to see the western art was through the internet. But when I settled in Germany and got in direct contact with the spectators I could better communicate with
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition the audience or the society. This was a huge step for me. It brought about a different understanding of abstract art, its creation, and idea development. It can be said that I both migrated within place and time. are a versalite artist and your creative production encompasses also incorporate poetry and improvisational skills: what does direct you to such interdisciplinary approach? In particular, are there any experiences that did particularly help you to develop your attitude to experiment with different techniques? The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape has at once impressed us of for the way your insightful exploration of the tension between figurative subjects and such compelling dreamlike atmosphere: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, would you tell us how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Datis Golmakani: What we objectively appoint for art can lead to various fields and styles through consideration of different materials, tools, and techniques. But what art states for its own sake can go beyond that and enjoy a limitless freedom. To excavate deeper layers of art, I have also studied other fields. One dare say that painting reveals the least
Datis Golmakani Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition reliance on tools and materials; so, it is of great help in understanding what is called the introverted art. Through improvisation I can get in touch with my unconscious and get a fuller view of my genuine self. I did not limit myself to one particular style. I see the world around me and observe the human life from an outer perspective; this fact at times leads to my seeing human and the entire life through a distinct angle in comparison to my genuine self. Your artworks has struck us for the way you sapiently conveyed effective combination between spontaneity and with such subtle still effective rigorous aesthetics: do you create your works gesturally, instinctively? Or do you methodically transpose geometric schemes? Datis Golmakani: If an artwork is improvised on the spot, it can certainly become both intrinsic and creative. I mostly benefit from the inner logic, relying on the principle of commitment to forms in order for the work not to be scattered and to follow a coherent line.
Datis Golmakani scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Datis Golmakani Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW We have really appreciated the vibrancy of thoughtful nuances that mark out your paintings, and we like the way you sapiently create tension and dynamics: how did you come about settling on your color palette? And how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your artworks? Datis Golmakani: Adopting a scrutinizing perspective, I have always surveyed and modified what is considered as a rule and questioned the common principles. I have opted for the middle ground in regard to my works, that is, as there exists a complementary color scheme, there also exists a complementary counterpart for the characters, proving the spectators with a narrative story. Your artworks feature such effecive combination between human figures and natural elements, that in your interesting Nature in human nature series seems to establish a dialogue: how do you structure your paintings in order to achieve such equilibrate balance? Datis Golmakani: Yes, as it is evident, human and nature stand beside each other; indeed human is part of this nature. So, it is fair to say that my works are naturalistic and human is not depicted in isolation from nature. Probing into the physical structure of humans and the physical structure of some man-made
scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land productions, I noticed that human structure is purely naturalistic and it is man-made creations that sever their ties with nature. Therefore, by eliminating the human associations and using merely the human figure, I managed to return the human to his maternal abode, i.e. nature. So, here, once again, it is the form that helps me reunite this unbreakable chain. Your works often challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters, inviting your audience