scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition DELTA VIRANT Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
person is born with a calling that is uniquely theirs. We all should be invested in making the world a better place from where we reside. I believe that’s a reasonable service we should initiate daily. My calling insists that I call out injustices in my world. Politics isn’t where I reside; social Adrienne La Faye scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land HAZMAT Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
justice is my neck of the woods. Your works have more than one story to tell, and as you have remarked, once the results emerge from the context, providing the spectatorship with the freedom to realize their perception: how important is it for you to trigger the viewers' imagination to address them to elaborate personal interpretations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? Adrienne La Faye: The one project that led me to the Washington Corrections Center for Women is my “PORTRAITS OF FORGOTTEN WOMEN” series. I interviewed fourteen Black women inmates using my platform to tell and paint their stories, elevating their status using my platform to highlight these beautiful souls. Black women are socially seen as the bottom of the rung on the ladder. I’m a graphic griot who narrates Black Americans' journey from being stolen in 1619 to being enslaved by the United States to the present day. My story is the same story of millions of African American women. I’m not an anomaly; I’m the standard. I’ve too been incarcerated because I was an addict, even though I was a college graduate from a two-parent household, and my father was an electrical engineer and the founder/pastor of a church. The law of the land was to imprison as many Blacks as possible using the law of three strikes; (“You Are Out.”) (President Bill Clinton legislation.) Even though this was my first crime. I would be sentenced to a year if I didn’t plead guilty to having a five-dollar piece of crack on me while arrested. Now, with the opioid epidemic, white folks are given drug rehabilitation treatment instead of prison sentences. You are an established artist; over the years, your works have been showcased on many occasions, including your solo THE ESSENTIAL WORKER at The Lakeshore, Renton, WA: how do you consider nature the of your relationship with your scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
audience? As the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces to the street and especially to online platforms—such as Instagram— increases, how would your opinion change the relationship with a globalized audience? Adrienne La Faye: The internet has enabled me to find an audience that understands and scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Adrienne La Faye Land SHIPPING CLERK Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
celebrates what I do. The more people are aware of how others live, creates the sense of belonging to a global tribe is the absolute goal of my work. The African American diaspora experience is not like any other people. I believe most have compassion for others. I hope people will see my work as a vessel of authentic storytelling and love and embrace it. https://www.instagram.com/brnartist We have appreciated the cross-disciplinary originality of your approach. Before leaving this conversation, we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your personal view on the future of women in the contemporary art scene. Women have been discouraged from producing something uncommon for over half a century. However, in the last decades, there are signs that something is changing: how would you describe your personal experience as an artist? And what's your view on the future of scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition NURSE Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022 PHARMACIST Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
Adrienne La Faye scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land COVID19 SARS Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition MALE NURSE Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
women in such an ever-changing and interdisciplinary field. Adrienne La Faye: I haven’t experienced women artists being exhibited more in the last couple of decades than before. To date, Black women artists are barely exhibited throughout the world. I know because I’m usually the only Black female artist showing in group exhibits. How often do you hear this; She was THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO…? We are still just trying to be included in everyday America. Yet more artistic opportunities exist for white women, even though their male counterparts outpace them ten to four. I believe the future of the Black female artist is that she creates spaces for herself. It is crucial that the masses, period, are seeing us. I love who and what I am and will continue to develop until I cannot. We have appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research. Before leaving this stimulating conversation, we would like to thank you for chatting with us and sharing your thoughts, Adrienne. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Adrienne La Faye Land GRAB MY HAND Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022 DAVID CARR CAFETERIA Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
DELIVERY SPECIALIST Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
Adrienne La Faye: Thank you for asking; I just finished writing, illustrating, and publishing a middle-grade book. “DREAM JUMPERS the INHERITANCE.” Below is a quick synopsis of the book. Twelve-year-old African American twins, MALIA, and MICAH, OLIVER, aren't what you would call the top dogs of the middle school social food chain. With her brute strength and no-can-do attitude, Malia has the likes of Serena Williams on her radar, and nothing will stop her from athletic greatness. Well, except for one thing: her clumsy twin, Micah. But it's Micah's analytical nature, and biological research tendencies that get him to think about the creepy noises that haunt their house at night, the weird calls that plague his dreams, and the family dog who won't quit yapping at Malia's closet… scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition DAIDRA K Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
Dorothy H. 99 yrs OLD Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
CAROLYN DOWNS Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
Adrienne La Faye scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land One night, when Malia's had enough of her dog's barking, she rips through the closet and discovers a hidden room beneath her clothes. She and Micah uncover the reason behind the strange energy that plagues their home. Inside the secret room is their long-dead grandfather…who seems very much alive. But it isn't. (Purchased at AMAZON, BARNES&NOBLE, TARGET, and many online bookstores worldwide.) With Complete Gratitude, I’m ecstatic to have been allowed to tell my story. TATIANA B. Artist & Photographer: Adrienne La Faye TWELVE ALL COPYRIGHTS RESERVED © 2022
Hello Jelena and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit http://jelenaminicmrdjen.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a M.A. in Applied Arts, that you received from the Belgrade Academy of Arts, Serbia: how do these formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum address the direction of your current artistic research? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: My first introduction to art happened as a child in my father's atelier, where art was nurtured as an integral part of life. My father was an antique collector and painter, so I grew up and matured in a space surrounded by artwork. That’s where strong Paintings are done in mix-media on canvas. It is created with the use of sand, glue, and other non-fine art material and found objects. The base is made of scrunched up paper texture with the second layer of pictorial color. The top layer consists of a well composed collage with imagery from different time periods. The art space is filled with fragments from historical expressions yet creating, in this new college, new vision and new concepts. I create a foundation on which she applies new layers of pictorial materials occasionally resembling the experiences of informel, yet complex, dynamic and frequently tumultuous processes, inspired by some inner reasons of my nature, a feeling of absolute domination of visual is born. At first sight it might seem that I give priority to a typically modernistic presentation based on the collage technique. However, if that process is present here it is understood in quite a different sense. My college is a different visual game: it is a combination (synthesis?) of practically all known disciplines of visual art. My paintings are some kind of art labyrinths, which we are conquering with the sense of great concern for our own future, for what is waiting for us in the next century – but through those same labyrinths we’re going with the sense of joy, for living in age so rich with different events and experiences that there was something for us to leave in the mud behind us! An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Jelena Minic Mrdjen
Shaman 200 x 145 cm
awareness for art happened, and all of the pieces came together for me. While searching for an understanding of art. I looked to artists and artistic directions throughout history, observing experimentations, and adopting these experiences to increase the possibilities of the material I could shape. I was mostly inspired by artists’ work that was free from the Jelena Minic Mrdjen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Angel's Love 160 x 160 cm
constraints of form and academicism. There are indeed many of them. I think it’s hard for any artist to explain what moves them, just like it’s difficult for me to explain my artistic work. You are a versatile artist and your collage practice could be considered a synthesis of such a wide varity of artistic disciplines. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way it unveils the connections between ordinary life experience and the realm of imagination, highlighting at the same time the uniqueness of the viewers' response to the work of art. When walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? More specifically, how do you consider the role of chance and improvisation playing within your artistic process? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: It’s like artistic scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Forbidden City, 480 x 160 cm triptych
gambling, a constant need to play, that motivates me to experiment. I experiment with different materials again and again. In the underpainting phase, I use non-painting materials like sand, glue, newspaper, photographs, found objects, and random things from my and other people’s lives, to build a unique field on which the final transformation will take place when paint is added. From that chaos and mass of visuals, associations are born, both purposefully and accidentally. I use non-painting materials in my art because I want to trigger a sense of tactility. With the relief, I enhance the expression of the motifs and the story itself. Paint becomes an important element in reconciling that endless series of associative forms. I am more insistent on harmony than form. The materials and the visuals are at the service of the paint, which I use to connect the chaos of signs, symbols, images, figures, words, messages, light… There’s a desire for the painting to be some sort of discovery, for there to be lots of elements of randomness, the unplanned, but still a cohesive whole. I mainly work with large formats. Jelena Minic Mrdjen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Forbidden city, detail
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition In the inner space of my paintings, there are fragments of some former ( historically confirmed ) conceptions - " quotations " - which she is transforming with her forcible intervention. Meticolously refinished in their details, your artworks — more specifically The kiss in the botanical garden and Dragon — have struck us for the way you sapiently conveyed rigorous sense of geometry with such unique refined aesthetics: how do you consider the role of details within your artistic practice? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: I don’t insist on the details so much as the harmony of the painting. In this complex, dynamic, and frequently tumultuous process, which is inspired by some internal reasoning of my nature, a feeling of absolute dominance of the visual is born. It doesn't recognize the differences between figuration and abstraction or pictorial and non-
pictorial materials, much in the same way that it ignores the logical function of a shape which is conformed by the empiric experience. Sometimes, out of that magma and controlled chaos a strange, imaginary figure appears as an archetypal symbol of the presence of rudimentary consciousness in the dark corners of one's being. The tones of your works — be they intense and bright as in Black Head and Yellow Street, be they marked out with such essential palette, as White Painting — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works? In particular, what role does intuition play in the composition of your pallette? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: I’m provoked by anything and everything. I take note of everything that touches me. From stories, movies, literature, life… And of course, the colors I use can reflect the state of my Jelena Minic Mrdjen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
About a Movie 260 x 160 cm
About a Movie detail
consciousness. Sometimes through the deliberate use of yellows and reds, I look to enhance the psychotic nature of the story itself and to get the viewer to dive deeper into themselves. Why this method of work and technique? I think that the materials I use reflect my temperament quite well… I’ve cultivated a kind of associative painting where everyone can stand in front of the paintings and tell their story. To feel them and understand them. There’s no final conclusion or explaination and personally I think having one diminishes things. If I’ve taken an industrial element and incorporated it into a painting, whether it be a can or an old clock, it loses its industrial form because it’s been processed by my own imagination. Maybe it’s become a shaman’s scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Dragon, 450 x 150 cm
heart or a bird. The associations are numerous, possible and impossible… I try not to damage the harmony of the painting by naming it. Sometimes excessive explanations impoverish the work. “If you can’t feel the player in the painting playing, the story of how he should have played means nothing” - Jean Dubuffet Contemporary practice has forged new concepts of art making, that involve such a wide and once even unthinkable variety of materials and objects, including sand, glue, and other non-fine art material and found objects. American photographer and sculptor Zoe Leonard once stated, "the objects that we leave behind hold the marks and the sign of our use: like archeological findings, they reveal so much about us": we’d love to ask you about the qualities of the scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Jelena Minic Mrdjen Land
Dragon, detail
materials that you include in your artworks. In particular, how do you select them and what does you address to include found objects in your artworks? scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Jelena Minic Mrdjen Land Memories, 200 x 200 cm
Jelena Minic Mrdjen: I’d say that the objects choose me. I make and enhance the objects I find into an art form by making them into monumental assemblages. I have a need to save them and transpose them into contemporary art. I find objects everywhere, simply by looking and observing. I see something inside and outside of the object itself. It can almost be called symbolism. Found objects require bold and abstract thinking, they challenge a viewer to replace the conventional canvas with a form. The unexpected acts as stimulus and inspiration, that everything should be left to chance. As you have remarked once, your artistic process is complex, dynamic and frequently tumultuous process, inspired by inner reasons of your nature. We dare say that your works could be considered a response to direct experience mediated by the lens of emotions and of the unconscious sphere: do you agree with this intepretation? In particular, how does your everyday life's experience and your memories fuel your creative process? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: …The desire to reach the void deep within myself is very strong. I try to convey all of my imagination and inner world into my work. The painting guides me, and I like when it surprises me. Lines and colors are art only to the extent by which they are imbued with the feelings of individual creating them. I strive for strangeness, as soon as art loses it’s strangeness it loses it’s effectiveness. We highly appreciate the way your works address your audience to dive into the dreamlike dimension, helping them to discover its connections with ordinary life. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Jelena Minic Mrdjen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Dance, 145 x 120 cm
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
most realistic paintings are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: The fantasy of dreams plays an important role in my works. I find their meanings in visions that belong to the dream world, not just in the dreams that I dream. Just as dreams intertwine with reality, so to do the forms my works take. That’s why they appear so chaotic, like a dream, blemishes become figures, signs, symbols, all these imaginary shapes intersect to become one story. It’s all visions and dreams, underground alleyways, buildings in which all that is possible and impossible in my imagination live, extracted from the subconscious, making it perhaps a satirical, grotesque theater. Dreams are a kind of creative process, are they not? My art is produced in the same factory. I have always been inspired by film. Like an infinite Peter Greenaway’s film frame… We really appreciate your ability to create such harmonic balance between images from different times and contexts, as well as the way you imbue such effective combination with effective historical reminders. Especially on the aesthetic aspect, do you aim to create a bridge between Tradition and Contemporariness? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: So to speak, it’s like a bridge. Transporting the past into contemporary art. Tradition is always present. scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Jelena Minic Mrdjen Land
Carp, 100 x 80 cm
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Speculator, 120 X 100 cm
What’s happening in contemporary art has expanded to incredible limits, to the point where some people ask whether it’s art at all. They draw their roots in tradition too. I have a need to take the inner world present in my artistic echo and use it to create a completely different world that exists to appear or disappear. scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Jelena Minic Mrdjen Land Man bird, 160 x 160 cm
Adam and Eve, 160 x145 cm
While conveying such sense of joy for living in age so rich with different events, your works also contains great concern for our own future. Artists from different art movement and eras — from pioneer Richard Morris, passing through Thomas Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more recently Kelly Richardson— use to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our everchanging society? In particular, as an how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and unstable society? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: The greatness of an artist shouldn’t be measured by what’s typical of his environment, but rather by what is atypical. That’s a strong departure from the stupidity and conventions of this time. You are an established artist and over the years your works have been exhibited in many occasions, including your recent participation to the The Biennale of Drawings in Pula, Croatia: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? 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? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: I can’t say much about my presence on social media. I don’t do solo exhibitions often either, since the process for creating my work is long. I do it when I feel the need. Art starts at the point when a man becomes a man and stops when he turns away from himself. There will always be art but will people need it? Maybe future generations will want to create their own art versus buying it from artists. For me, art is only good if it’s personal. Art that is easily recognizable and easy to read is suspect. 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, Jelena. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Jelena Minic Mrdjen: Currently, I’m preparing for a solo exhibition happening in Belgrade in November of this year. It would be great if I could present my work to audiences outside of my country too. I’d like to thank you for featuring me among all the others in consideration and for your kindness. I would tell artists to speak the language they know best through their art, to speak through their art, to say what they think… Contact: +381 64 148 91 62 [email protected] Works https://youtu.be/lSngjiXgqhk http://jelenaminicmrdjen.com/en/home scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]
Figure, 120 x 100 cm
Hello Ghaku and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://linktr.ee/ghakuokazaki in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Bremen: how I create artworks that embody hybrid forms of humans, animals, plants and mythological fantasy beings with vivid colours and organic forms. Through creating them, I visualise and affirm the diversity in which the different living beings, the diverse cultures, genders and sexuality, humans and nature live connected to one another. When we explore the society in which we currently live, we recognise that being different is unfortunately not always positively perceived. In Western Countries today, division and confrontation between people with different identities are a constant conflict. Especially in North America, we can find the great diversity through immigration and transmigration. But nevertheless, the whole liberality of the society is yet to be realised. If we could simply affirm and appreciate the differences between us and create the amicable connection to each other, the society would become more harmonious, in my opinion. Art is for me the magical technique that enables the visualisation / materialisation of this futuristic visions of the connection between us in which the diversity is not denied or oppressed, but affirmed and celebrated. In my artworks, for example different skin colours turn into rainbow colours. It is also the symbol of diverse sexuality and gender identities. The figures embody the affirmative images of our diversity, with joyful colours, organic forms and utopian botanical environment. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Ghaku Okazaki