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. 

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

Nature in Claudio Giulianelli's Imagination

 Claudio Giulianelli

Claudio Giulianelli in his studio 

Claudio Giulianelli is a Roman artist who have done many major exhibitions in different parts of world and been in biennales. Most of his pictures, represent feminine subjects. They are mixture of reality and imagination, dream and mystic, memories and symbolism. These paintings have elements of Impressionism, Symbolism and Surrealism. His strong passion for art (in particular for the ancient one) led him to deepen the technique and study of painting through a careful observation of the works of the Masters together with the reading of texts of pictorial technique. Claudio despises the part of world where hypocrisy, chaos and confusion seems to predominate over good. Therefore he finds home in his own universe, a place where he experiences mystery and fascination. These paintings seem to express about the contemporary human behaviour and conditions. It looks like they suggest a sweet and quiet period of hybernation, opposing reality in order to discover peace and serenity.

Paintings of Claudio

The message that this artist seems to convey is one of regaining the true dimension of the existence through history and ourselves. The inspiration to the antique represents for this artist the opportunity to free his mind and create images that cast themselves to a new time of revolution in graphics.

Claudio Giulianelli was born in Rome on September 23rd, 1956 He lives and works in a very small town of Etruscan origin named Corchiano, located near Rome. Since childhood he used to draw masks, jesters and clowns. He was obsessed with clowns. The dames in his paintings represents nature. They are drawn as  beautiful and imposing. Shelooks upon the observer as if a queen. Whereas he draws the man as small figure like a puppet in the hands of nature. The man or puppet tries hard to define nature to understand her. But it is a hopeless task, a heroic task.

[Translation of this post into malayalam was published in Bindu P V's Column on Art and Times in the Prasadakan Monthly Magazine in Malayalam.]

Photos of the article published in 'Prasadakan' Monthly Magazine, in Malayalam language.

Gopi Mangalath

There are many people who don multiple feathers in their hat. Versatile creative persons would be such people. They are not bound by their field of studies or their job, in whatever they do. They understand well that sheer creativity do not bring in bread always. One needs food always, bills needs to be paid. The concept of certain blue blooded critics and artists that the profession or studies of a person influencing/affecting their work and resulting in substandard works dosent bother these realistic and self respecting breed of creative people, who are willing to try out whatever that sets them free. Gopi Mangalath is one such person. He is a creative director, movie director, visual artist, writer, poet and columnist. He is a publisher too with Golden Jokes Books and Monthly. He dedicated his life for the new and unique ideas in arts and literature. He is a graduate of Botany, as well as Applied Arts ( BFA Applied Arts, from the Government College of Fine Arts in Thiruvananthapuram). Experimentation with texture, style, size, shape and colours are Gopi’s forte. He has conducted 8 exhibitions on paintings and sculptures and also participated in Kerala state Lalithakala Academy’s annual exhibition and painters camp etc. He received award for the Logo of Kochi Smart City. He has three Limca Book of World Records for First One Line Stories, First Film Role Book Design and First Abstract Film. He wrote the concise history of Cinema in miniature size in the form of a film role. The Abstract film by him is a murder mystery created without any title, dialogues or any animal, birds, human beings or not even an ant; but with a clear story line and characters. He also has 2 Best of India records. His poetry "Sterile Feelings' was translated and published into 'Poet', an the Intercontinental magazine . He wrote a column on visual art in a Malayalam newspaper's Sunday supplement for a year and his programmes have featured in TV and radio.

 

First film role book design that won him one of his three Limca Book of World Records.

One of his interviews

Logo designed by Gopi Mangalath for White Sanctum Art Gallery

Face of White Sanctum series of facebook based online exhibitions post designs designed by Gopi Mangalath

 

Gopi's creativity flows into various areas of art and literature. Bringing out novel methods in everything he deals with. He experiments with different styles of art... He doesn't look far for inspirations. His references are from things nearby. The cattle that graze in the nearby plots graze on to his colors and forms. His cow series of works have found much appreciation from galleries and connoisseurs. 

He also makes images inspired from local religious or ethnographic contexts and depicts them in his way giving respect to the image. 

His works flow even to the topics such as sensuality where the nature's procreating strength sways and intermingles to form sensuous images that "breathes life" in a lifeless canvas. 

[Images courtesy: Gopi Mangalath]

The artist, though from applied arts background and with work as a publisher etc to be sustainable, gives his best when he turns to art, whenever he can. He have been closely observing the art of many artists in Kerala consistently since past decades and that is why he is a natural critic of art works. His articles on art come in many monthlies and other media.

These four pictures are of his article in Yeyuthu Magazine published in September 2020. It gives a vivid a description of his native place along with an interesting communication with Guru Nithyachaithanya Yati on aesthetics and art. Gopi shared anecdotes about this beautiful series of doubts and their answers given by the Guru, without ever realising that they would feature as articles later. These can be referred by young artists stepping into a world where half knowledge is being decorated and displayed as the ultimate rules. The beauty of Gopi's writings are their no nonsense simplicity and experience, along with the serene descriptive flow almost like water. 

[Image courtesy: Gopi Mangalath and Yeyuthu Magazine]

An Artist who Infuses Color to Culture, Literature and Arts

Rick Hunt is an artist who learnt art from Franconia and Massachusetts College of Art for illustration and fine art. He also did a BS in psychology from Lesley University in Cambridge Massachusetts. He was mentored internationally by the artist Kenneth Westhaver. Later his mentor adviced him that one should go to art school, learn everything can and hone your skills...get out...and forget it all. He developed his style of painting which a mix of psychedelic/ pop/sci-fi/confessional. Rick’s work has been influenced mostly by musicians rather than other visual artists. He admire Jackson Pollock, De Kooning...Many inspirations just come from his life experience...Rick has ALWAYS created art ever since he could pick up a pencil. He feels that he became a serious artist at the age of twelve... Rick says that the music of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and most recently Anoushka Shankar is influencing his work... Rick created a series of paintings on Abenaki, the indigenous native American tribe along with the native American artists. This series of paintings focuses on creating Maine-based conversations like those taking place nationally about contemporary issues, as expressed through Native art. It is about Native identity in this society at this time, and the challenges one experiences living ‘Indian’ in our various ‘worlds’. In 2011, Rick met the famed actress, singer, author, poet, businesswoman, cultural icon and American scholar Angela Bowie in the social cyberworld of facebook. When Angela made “The Angie Bowie Show” page on Facebook, Rick did a two feet high by three feet long drawing for the title page and sent it to Angela in the mail. The beautiful painting became the title page and the beginning of their collaboration, which started with the book “Cat-Astrophe” which was published last year followed by “Fancy Footwork”. Rick illustrated poems of Angie for both her books. They also collaborated on two books of Rick’s artwork, “Gaucho Visions” and “Gaucho Visions II”, with Rick providing the images. They even had in exclusive show in radio, with “The Angie Bowie Barnett Show”. They started it as a forum for inviting their creative, talented friends to talk about themselves and their art, with all enjoying a spirit of fellowship, laughter and mutual appreciation. Rick is also illustrating a lot of David Bowie-esque type imagery because of all the projects he works with Angela Bowie. Rick also is part of a band The Dream Foundry where along with his friends Kevin Wallbank and Sally Sharp- Paulsen wrote and recorded songs from being in different places. They are an example of how changes in music technology, and shared objective can result in a band creating music in two different countries. The Dream Foundry had been graced with many brilliant portraits by Rick over the years; as with Angie and her poetry, no other artist could have expressed them and their sound perfectly through visual interpretation. Rick has been doing illustrations of songs as well as his brilliant illustrations of the band and Collective Rick’s lines and colors sway with the music of the band of Dream Foundry, with the poems of Angela and even with the social identity of the native tribe of America. Rick’s illustrations breathes life into the beautiful verses of Angela’s poetry and stories. It comes with thorough understanding that Rick has about the people, their culture, literature, art and music, that he is involved with. 

 

The malayalam version of this post was published in the malayalam monthly magazine 'Prasadakan' in its October 2020 edition.

 

Art and Artist's Thoughts During the Corona Pandemic

Pandemics like Covid-19 creates much difficulties in all respects, especially in health, financial and social aspects .  It is also a time when the morale of the people is at risk. It brought us face to face with the adverse situations and momentariness of life. Things we took for granted, become needs to luxuries.  This was also a wake up call to all of us. Adversities are stepping stones for newer heights through resilience.   

 This period was  also  about human pain such as reverse migration, loss of employment, economical difficulties, being helpless and stranded at foreign places, social distancing etc. Even in such dire circumstances the artists kept their love for art alive. The lack of availability of art materials made them look for alternate mediums. Art were created even at the isolated condition. This trend of resilience was expressed in different forms and ways through many artists in India and abroad. A few artists expressed their view regarding the current situations.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is that the artist lived this experience in his own country so we had different levels of danger.  Obviously I can talk about Italy.  Here with us most of the artists have experienced this moment of isolation as a challenge with themselves. I am stronger than Coronavirus and my art will never be stopped.  I have purchased 10 canvases and I painted every day for many hours and I have produced very special paintings .... 

Italian Artist Claudio Giulianelli 

 

 Claudio Giulianelli

A painting on Corona by Claudio Giulianelli

American artist Rick Hunt says: For me,creating art pretty much is a solitary event. I am feeling OK with the isolation because it doesn't feel like isolating myself,it is more the glory of SOLITUDE...My art and my creative process is meditation...the act of creating is a "ritual" that creates order out of chaos (whether it be located inner or outer...)...My favorite subject matter is "people". When drawing I am never alone...So, Isolating during this pandemic does not bother me so much. I usually am up at 4:00 in the morning to draw anyway!..I have not been focused on selling my work Bindu, for many years. I am content to present it so people can have a dialogue with it...I DO enjoy having my work published as books though and it is satisfying to me to see images gathered in a compact portfolio that people can hold and take their time with...I draw every day and during any free moment...My art has not been affected by the pandemic...

 

Rick Hunt

A painting on Corona by Rick “ Do not cough in my face” 

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The art market in Udaipur is affected by the slowdown due to corona. Udaipur is a tourists city and all handicraft ant art shop's are closed.  Most of art gallery are permanently closed. In corona time as Iam a teacher I was on duty at the District Corona control room duty in 3 shifts. One online sculpture camp was  done. Hope soon I will get one project. So for me it  is OK. " Hemant is a stone sculptor from Udaipur and works generally in large pieces of stones like granite, marble etc.

 

Some of the beautiful sculptures done by Sculptor Hemant Joshi during the Corona time

Hemant Joshi turning the stones to beauties

Fulgor Silvi does installations with the works of other artists who provide him their paintings, to be stuck to his beard. His intention is to display art anywhere, by shattering the concepts of galleries and specific spaces to display art. The installations are made with the works of Alfonso Caccavale. Fulgor is the owner of the PERFORMAMCE BEARD GALLERY. He is the Artist who becomes Gallery ... with his own beard (Hanging Gallery).

Fulgor Silvi, Performance artist and Gallery owner, PERFORMAMCE BEARD GALLERY, Italy.

Through all this stage what stood out was the resilience of artist’s or cultural heritage practitioners. Most of them continued with their art work from the comfort of their homes. This in some cases meant lack of space and seclusion. Some artists who used to do their paintings in large canvases shifted to small works. While some artists  were constantly working on their incomplete works. others created new works. Some artists who had difficulty to obtain paint or other materials required for making their art works, shifted to other easily available materials as well as unusual medium. Art came up in medium ranging from cooked chapati’s to masks. Just like the ‘Chekkuty’ dolls made from the damaged yarns of Chendamangalam after the flood in Kerala in 2018, painted masks became a rage with people. Folk art such as Madhubani were the quick to reach out to people in revamped and economical utility items as per the need of the time.  Adaptability of such art forms to the changing times can be seen as the reason for their popularity and reason for their survival.

This pandemic, the lockdowns etc. have atleast for now shattered  the traditional business model of  galleries and outreach of the artists. The unnecessary formal canonicality place for or of Art just vanished in the upsurge in the online outreach events. Curators/ Galleries have come up with ideas such as webinars, online workshops and online exhibitions. Artists grabbed this opportunity.  The spirit of resilience of artists is seen to its utmost expression in this year, amidst the tough times. 

 

Edited version of this article featured in the malayalam monthly magazine Eyuthu in its September 2020 edition. The following are the pictures of it:

 

- Bindu P V