Henry Grahn Hermunen

Experts from a short interview with Henry Grahn Hermunen from Finland-Sweden

 

Henry Grahn Hermunen is a contemporary artist living in Finland and Sweden. After his university studies in art, he received a scholarship. When attending the official celebrations of it, one of the fine professors H. Wuorila-Stenberg asked Henry to follow his path and start to educate at the academy. It was of course a great offer and a big honour. But Henry had taught language for several years so art work in a free way was very enticing in that stage. His friends and Henry joined an expedition to Siberia where we visited archeological sites, met scientists, learned more about Etnopsychology and the culture, people and landscapes. Naturally, they also guested a few Buddhist monasteries such as one in Kizil. When sitting on the stairs together with the youngsters, they asked the artist and his friend to stay there and give lessons to them. The artist believes that art is about communication and learning goes in all directions. Henry quotes a poem:

 

Maybe you also heard it?

If not me, who?

If not now, when?

Everything matters.

In his studies and research Henry understood that artists un-realisingly pollute water when they use bright but toxic cadmium colours and similar materials. So he tries to be more ecological in every aspect of his artwork such as its consumption, smaller sizes and transportation. The art pieces exhibited are conceptual and minimalistic, but they could also be parts of bigger installations as in diptychs, triptychs etc. Even if they look sealed, maybe the message is inside, in our minds.

"Water" by Henry Grahn Hermunen

Henry understood that he had to improve in many subjects, so these pieces also remind him of one particular drawing he made in grade school about circular sense and knowledge, in time. The drawings were important in finding the way. After that he also made an “ideal” landscape on a other white page. 

Decades later he bought the ultimate place for living and studio near to the edge of a large national park. When a storm blew down some threes the same scenery revealed itself more to the artist.

 

About Henry’s landscapes, 2012 the German critique Josef Singldinger specialized on the painter Gerhard Richter, visited Palais für Aktuelle Kunst. The critique enjoyed and explained Henry’s art. They had a long dialogue where he clarified his analyze that Henry had developed and further expanded Gerhard Richter`s art work. Josef Singldinger has for many years been the editor in chief at the magazine Kunst & Kultur, and head of the culture department of the newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost and Hamburger Rundschau in Germany.

"Wings of Time" by Henry Grahn Hermunen

 

In this triptych "Wings of Time" , The first art photo shows the artist's shadow, and an ancient rune stone from the Viking age. It is located in a field in Upp-Norrby 25 km south of Stockholm. The runes on the rock says: "Torfast had this stone raised after Halvdan his son". Henry’s father and he passed this place with car many times when the artist was constructing my new studio nearby. Henry supposes the stone will stand there for thousands of years more so people can read and remember.

 

Photo 2 is from “Skogskyrkogården” - The Woodland Cemetery, The burial hill (also Henry’s father’s resting place) and the whole area is a part of The UNESCO World Heritage and burial place located in the south part of the capitol Stockholm. The person walking in the image is the artist’s brother.

 

A few youtube links about the artist and his works:

https://youtu.be/quaAg8RJ5xc

https://youtu.be/kFzKJbO9H3A

International Mail Art Exhibition at White Sanctum Art Gallery

Hi all,

Mail Art is a beautiful way of propagating art using the postal services and was an equalizer as anyone with any level of art skills could participate in this form of art. Artists from any part of the world can participate in this. Any creative individual can partake in such practice using any art object, which is send by post such as drawings, paintings, postcards, photocopies, collages and prints. 

Contents of the article by this writer in the Pan Asian Tri-monthly Magazine Pax Lumina

These are the Call for Mail Art for the International Mail Art Exhibition at White Sanctum Art Gallery and Conservation Centre :

A few Examples of art works that were exhibited in White Sanctum Art Gallery's International Mail Art Exhibition:

Artwork from Flowers Series of Dr Shalini Singh, done on an Indian Post Card

Prashant Hirlekar's art

"Seed" by Miroslav Batan Blagojevic

All an artist who is interested in participating in the exhibition needs to do is just paint on any postal media such as a post card and post it. Yes, it takes weeks or more to reach its destination; so try to send it in before the mid of the previous month. Themes/topics will be disclosed atleast a month in advance. Themes of next few months are already posted in various mediums. Details and photo of the works, your photo, and a brief resume may be emailed to whitesanctum@yahoo.com as well as posted by mail to the gallery's postal address.

Call for art for the upcoming Mail Art Exhibitions in White Sanctum Art Gallery

Antonius Kho

Java like India is a land of rich cultural heritage. It is famous for it’s art such as its beautiful stone sculptures and Dalem dance masks, the beautiful Javanese performance art of Wajang/ Wayang and the Batik.  Wayang is a Javanese traditional form of puppet theatre play, like the Tholpavakkuthu or tholpavas in India. The principal vehicle of Javanese ideas and narratives, the puppets of Wayang puppet play are codified so as to enable an immediate symbolic content of these traditions, but by their form. Similarly Batik is another technique of wax resistant dyeing that originated from Java.

 

Antonius Kho was born in Klaten, a small town of central Java. Central Java is a boiling pot of art and culture, in the area. Antonius’s sources of inspiration are multiple. Batik designs and the figures of the “Wayang” puppet show theater have probably provided his visual memory with the notion of pattern. Antonius became interested in Batik making in Yogyakarta and learnt it. He obtained art education in Germany, at FH-Cologne Art Academy by majoring in glass paintings and textile art-tapestry.  He does artworks such as sculptures and paintings. His works is a synthesis of mosaic and textile art. His techniques are a combination of that of painting, batik making, in collages arrangement producing field intersection. Antonius borrows the ethnographic images to recreate a meaning for his own use instead of the symbols. The subjects in Antonius’s works are mostly about the mosaic of his life, the people around his life, he work with various phases. It is almost like a circulation of his life. He is inspired from the life of nature and it plays the main role concerning color in his art works.  Antonius Kho combines the Europeans influence of colors with that of batik. The beautiful nature of Indonesia and Java can be seen in his paintings as the animals like elephants and other pets.  His approach of formal restructuring of his patterns into modern compositions is as a result of the exposure to international art and learning from Germany. He uses various technique in his works. He tries to manipulate different elements such as materials, techniques, nature of materials used and media development. Materials gain importance in his works. Along with colors such as acrylic colors he uses different kinds of materials such as rags, jute, rope or string, modeling paste and transparent paper not only attached together to give artistic flavor but also to create a sense of power and objective. It looks like 3-dimensional, because he likes cubism. Decoration is skillfully and intensively done indicating a strong desire to produce artistic possibility. In the end, his very characteristic lies on fields’ compilation, maintaining line effects and colors. Antonius’s works are mosaic consisting of vignettes of tropical and earth tones scattered across the canvas in an obsession patterning of human figures and masks. When looking at it, though, it is impossible to focus on these individual patterns or sub-patterns, one’s attention is drawn away, made to run from one color surface to the other like a dance across the canvas from one tone to the other. Eyes lurk everywhere in his art works, almost like the large eyes of Wayang puppets or the all seeing eyes. His paintings are figurative while having the formal qualities of abstraction. They can thus be interpreted at both levels, without the one interfering on the other. One may let oneself be either haunted by the weird presence of the "eyes" and masks or entranced by the hypnotic quality of the color patterns.  Antonius realizes that his life is divided into two cultural domains, i.e. in one year he has been exposed to European and Indonesian culture which has made him unite the two in his framework of mind. He tries to reconcile the contrasting West and East.Antonius Kho now shares his time between Cologne and Ubud, Bali, and exhibits regularly both in Europe and in Indonesia.

Resul Jusufi

An attempt to read or find meanings in an abstract art can be as tricky as trying to understand the song of a bird. Many abstract artists just go with the flow of their mind and mood. Some artists try to bring out meanings in their abstract art. The experience varies between viewers based on what the viewer is seeing or feeling.

Artist Resul Jusufi is a social person. He loves travelling and living in different places for few years and then moving on to new place. His dream is to settle in United States of America. His abstract art has a lot to do with social themes which he portrays in his different forms of creative works. These may be about people living in cities, or maybe the need for people to reach out to each other, or the attachment of people to their positions or occupation etc. He depicts his sociological thoughts and emotions towards such subjects through the colors, abstract forms, words or numbers. The chaos of the city and the positivity amidst that can be seen in the abstract cityscapes of artist Resul Jusufi. The portal to each home is the door, but the windows provide the sneak peak to the world inside the sanctuary called home. Though it is the tangible living beings that make a building a home, the intangible element of their thoughts, dreams, desires, intellect etc form a different level of psychic world. Today most of the living and nonliving beings have a numerical or digital identity associated with numbers or codes, such as the social security numbers or individual identity numbers for individuals, codes for objects etc. It is also a world where numbers in various forms like phone numbers, street numbers, codes etc gets importance. With these numbers emotions too are attached at times. For eg. The happiness associated with seeing the telephone number of one’s beloved or to the date when one’s salary gets credited, the stress on thinking about the amount of loan etc. A world of color, numbers, logic all leave their prints like foot prints of our existence. The search for love, freedom inspite of the bondages of the emotions of a chaotic world finds its way through the portals amidst the colors like the sneak peek into lives inside homes in high rises seen through the windows and doors. These words or phrases like “Good Things are coming” give a feeling of goodness amidst the chaos in his cityscapes; like an oasis in a dessert. The colours reflect his feelings about the nature, certain psychological or spiritual state. Winters flow in to his cityscapes in whites and greys; while springs through greens.

 

It is not just cityscapes he paints. Resul says that he paint feelings, not just objects and nature. He paints feelings about nature, one object, or one situation that has happened in his life. Resul is an artist who is extrovert and loves being with people. He says human beings cannot live without each other’s company and in seclusion. The social commitments, behaviour etc. makes human a social being. In our childhood we have friends in school, neighbourhood etc. but as we grow up in some cases our friend circle reduces. Reasons can be many, but knowingly unknowingly we start becoming more lonely or selfish. Sometimes people even become lonely due to reasons such as losing their dear ones, bitter experiences in life, due to sickness and old age. It is hard to be alone. We think lesser about others or bother to understand or help others. As the phrase “to put in another’s shoes” suggest we should try to think about things/events by trying to being in the other person’s position. This empathetic attitude helps a lot to change one’s attitude. This can many times reduce tensions and the causes of quarrels etc. When somebody is suffering or going down in life, one should give the person a hand or a chance. Such an action can make the world a better place to live.  Resul has also collaborated his art works with his short films and theatrical workshops. One such collaboration is in lines with his short film “The Alone Shoes”. This 3 minutes long short film focuses on the shoes of people walking with single footwear while holding the other, in a small place. There is a single shoe left in the centre of the place. By the pace of the walkers it does not look like anyone bothers about the single shoe.  After some busy paces they circle around the single shoe and one of them picks the shoe. Then they start exchanging the shoes amongst themselves. In the end all wear odd pair of shoes. Love and understanding spreads amongst them.

To express about loneliness the artist created an artistic installation using different types of shoes of different colors and types. The shoes were arranged also according to gender and put in different artistic forms on the walls of the gallery. Shoes were installed inside three wooden frames of different sizes. Outside the tableau is the lonely shoe. Some of the shoes put without frames also some of them will be put on some boxes and the others up at ceiling using a rope net. Another of Resul’s art works is in the form of an installation clubbed with his abstract painting background. In this artwork there is a large cloth canvas with lot of black footprints depicting the movement of a crowd, while a single shoe lies outside the canvas. This installation conveys the same meaning as that of the short film. There are other art installations in the same theme of “The Alone Shoes”.

Through his abstract works Resul conveys to the onlooker to focus on good things in life such as love, trust, hope etc., to understand, support one another so as to make the world a better place.

Resul Jusufi was born in 1968 in Kosovo.  He has studied at the Technical Faculty of the University of Pristina (Kosovo), at the Academy of Arts in Tirana (Albania) and at the Academy of Film and Television in Warsaw (Poland). His surrealist book was published in 1995 in Tirana. He founded several theatre groups, realized several theatre plays. Other forms of artistic presentation include installations, performances and theatrical workshops. Twenty years ago, he found his way to abstract painting and since then has participated in many individual and collective exhibitions. His art presentations are popular in Kosovo, Albania, Poland, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Austria. He presently lives in Graz (Austria) since 2017. 

Tiarma Sirait

 Tiarma Sirait is a Bandung-based painter & fashion artist who aims to support diversity in Indonesian painting & fashion art through active participation in the local & international art scenes. She began to study painting from the Indonesian senior artist: Barli Sasmitawinata when she was in Junior High School. Later  she continued her academical studies in the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in Textile Design, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Fashion Design & a STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research & Higher Education) scholarship Program, Master in Fashion & Textile Design at University of Borås, Sweden. Her painting & fashion performance has been acknowledged by many international arts institutions. She has intensively participated more than 300 exhibitions in many domestics & overseas exhibitions. Tiarma has received many astonishing awards in Creativity Designs & Art Awards from many countries.

 Tiarma has worked quite consistently with pink since the beginning of her career as a painter & fashion artist in 1998. Her artwork uses pink as the main color. She uses this color to give an eccentric sensation for her creation. She used pink also because the color is very girly, kitsch, synthetic. Tiarma has brought up pink plastics & synthetic fur to highlight the fickleness, volatility & falsehood that permeate our dearly held beliefs, influences & lifestyles. It has been her signature to use this brilliant color in her artwork.

Through her bold conceptual approaches to art, fashion design & pop culture, Tiarma has explored themes such as love & lust, foreign influences on Indonesian culture & mass consumerism to name but a few. Her art is intended to show the hyper reality in the contemporary context.

Tiarma creates conceptual costumes which are designed to give special experience on the stage and to function both as a fashion object and as a sculptural installation object. Art and Design production exists in a dialectical relationship between a society and the culture, and also, between an artist and the viewers. We live in a complex transnational and global meeting, mixings and clashing of different cultural perceptions at an increasing rate and pace as never seen before. Tiarma’s awareness has been sharpened to her origin culture especially in the aesthetic and function of the traditional clothing. Her long-term experiences have always been tended to the extravagant appearances and objects through the choice of colors and materials, which referred to certain subject. Tiarma’s intention is focused on the variety Indonesian Batik combine with the European Style. The basis of Tiarma’s Fashion Art Performance / Installation "Transporter & Transformer " is the process of cultural interaction, where she transports her culture and transform it in relation to other cultures that the artist meet in different country and in different form. She use clothing as her medium to express ideas. Tiarma’s fashion art costumes are based on combination between the influence of Indonesian Batik (East), European Victorian Style (West) and her personal style of design (Individual Axis). Her  personal intention is to create a contemporary batik style, which can be used as part of the cultural ‘Transporter’ concept. Batik is used as it is much more advanced compared to other Indonesian contemporary designs, which employ traditional sources. Since 2015 she is painting with Batik theme. She used fashion in her painting as a medium to express the journey of her performances. She shows her exploration of her free spirit in her painting. Tiarma is passionate about developing the creativity of young Indonesian designers through workshops & internship programs & events.

Pic: Article on Tiarma Sirait in the malayalam monthly magazine Prasadakan by Bindu P V. 

Bindu P V

 

Name in full (in Block letters)        :  BINDU P. V. 

Nationality                                        :  Indian 

Address                                             :  White Sanctum Art Gallery,

                                                              #9, 'Shreeragam', 4th Cross, 5th Main, 

                                                             WASA Layout, Doddanekkundi, 

                                                               Bengaluru, 560037, India.

 E-mail id.                                          :   pvbindu.conservator@gmail.com

 Mobile No.                                        :  +919740287208        

Professions                                  : Curator (Art and Museums), Conservator (Cultural Heritage Objects and Natural History Objects), Artist, Writer, Translator

Academic Qualifications           :  

Postgraduations

 1)(MA)  Master in Musology with Gold Medal for Conservation and Preservation from the prestigious Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India 

2) (MFA) Master in Fine Arts - Painting from KSOU, Mysore, India. (Art History Subsidiary)

 

Advanced studies

1) Internship and Training in Conservation from national research laboratory, etc. 

2) GNIIT- Internship and Training in System Administration from NIIT, etc. 

 Graduation in Science  BSc Botany (Zoology and Chemistry Subsidiaries)

Artist Statement:

Bindu P V does art in different styles and medium. She predominantly does art in contemporary and abstract styles.

Her abstract works: The unbridled energy is poured as various physical movements in forms of permutations and combinations of shift punches/ stamps/ falls/bangs etc. along with strokes, usage of various tools. The creations are done in closed room where her body becomes one of the tools in her art works. In some rare cases multiple media are also used, such as the usage of metal foils like gold, aluminium etc. and biological objects like dried twigs. Sometimes she does these works in the flow of the music. It is the music that guides her selection on the multiple media to be used on the work, on an impulse. Hence she says each of her non figurative abstract work is a once in her life time art work, as she has no idea about the end result. Many time the results surprises her. 

Her Digital and other contemporary art work: Her contemporary works are mostly related to social issues such as gender equality, using scientific concepts such genetics. She ventured into digital art also for the purpose of  the ease of conducting travelling exhibitions for social causes under the pseudonym “Vchitraa” [meaning the strange one].

"Golden cage - 1"

"Daughter" and "Golden Bird of Resistance"

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/2016/jan/25/Techie-Gives-Up-Career-to-Voice-for-Gender-Equality-873083.html

Pic: "Birth/ Whom will you choose", Digital Art on  gender discrimination 

Her traditional paintings: She is a trained visual artist in many traditional art forms from the contemporary masters in those art works. Works are not just done on instructions based on books like Dhyanashloka but also done with contemporary themes from abroad. Being trained in gold relief traditional art forms, she mixes the styles in some cases to form her own style of work based on traditional methodologies, for contemporary clients.

Bindu P V believes in learning, practicing, synthesising and conserving the old while propagating the synthesised new based on the likes of the contemporary and the value of the old. As a learner for life, she thinks one should gregariously absorb skills and knowledge as much as one can, understand it; because there is too much to learn from the world that hundred life times would be insufficient to understand or learn. Hence she does not believe by succumbing to the concepts of sticking to one style of art work etc. Versatility is rare, and transition is a process for a lifetime, especially for an artist.

Life is a flow where one changes with time. Born in 1975, in a small town in Kerala and raised up in different parts of India, Bindu was exposed to the changes in culture from her childhood. Except for the trips to nearby museum and art gallery on every weekend while staying a hostel, there was hardly any exposure to art for this artist till her late teen age. She learnt Oil painting as hobby from the senior sculpture and atist Shyamol Roy from Calcutta School of Fine Arts, at Kolkata, India. She worked in the Information Technology till recession brought a tough phase in her life personally and professionally. Bindu switched over to her hobby of art at this stage. She learnt various visual art forms such as Tanjore painting, Mysore painting, Kerala Mural etc. With each studies her wish to learn more in art grew. At the age of 39, she finished her post graduation in fine arts painting, at 40 she constructed an art gallery "White Sanctum" (in Bengaluru, India) and by the age of 43 she was a gold medallist in conservation and a postgraduate in museology too. Today she promotes art and deserving artists, involves in international art and cultural exchange, transmits knowledge on various  art forms, safeguards intangible and tangible culture and art, conserves cultural objects and natural history objects writes as well as researches on art and culture. Her art gallery is curated by self and all artists are welcome there.

 A few of the press articles about her:

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/2016/jan/25/Techie-Gives-Up-Career-to-Voice-for-Gender-Equality-873083.html

https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/art/artist-bindu-pv-believes-ancient-hindu-philosophies-contain-answers-to-the-dilemmas-of-the-modern-world/article6533073.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/art/her-passion-for-art-led-bindu-pv-to-quit-the-it-industry-and-start-an-art-gallery-on-her-terrace/article6830923.ece

https://www.bangalorefirst.in/?p=16539

Jackie Lima- A Migratory Artist

 American artist Jackie Lima have been to India a few times, meeting and working with Indian artists, residencies and exhibitions. Her grandparents were world travelers. They traveled on Cargo ships that stopped in many ports. Jackie had the (colonial) names of Indian coastal cities imbedded in her brain with slide shows to accompany each one.  Following the art opportunities, Jackie have been to each of those cities and experienced them in her own way…through Art. She felt a different India when she visited india again 50 years later.

About her works

Her work is informed by the experience of Space. That experience is Omnipresent. Looking at and thinking about it in different ways has led me to finding forms for painting that can address the flattening of space on a 2-Dimensional surface, and the wrapping of it onto a 3-Dimensional surface, as well as works that imply the 4th Dimension. Since Jackie is visually discussing the space she is looking at and standing in, her SELF in the space is included or implied by the process.

About her current art works.

She said that her ancestral family arrived in the New World from England through Leiden, Holland, in the 17th CE. She is working on an Interactive piece about this right now. This piece depicts her family homestead in New York State and discusses America’s Welcome of people from all parts of the world to come here and participate in the Great American Experiment. Others will share their family stories as well, completing the piece.

She feel as though Democracy, Freedom and Rule of Law -the right of equal access to justice for all – were born in her own Heart.

Jackie paint wherever she is, so Indian iconography, visual syntax, and even a personal longing to be there, has seeped into her work. Some say her color has heightened. She enjoys the visual chaos in India. Everything is complicated and it is a complex society overall. She finds it stimulating – and feels the Earth under her feet..

Pic: Coconuts

Article on Jackie Lima by Bindu P V published in Prasadakan Monthly Magazine