Special Edition H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w CASSIE SHAO ALARIC HOBBS CLAUDIA UNGERSBÄCK AIMEE MELAUGH CHRISTIAN HIADZI CATRIONA FAULKNER BIANCA CASTON ANNA MASIUL-GOZDECKA ARIT EMMANUELA ETUKUDO ART a work by
H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t R e v i e w Aimee Melaugh Alaric Hobbs Anna Masiul-Gozdecka Claudia Ungersbäck Arit E. Etukudo Cassie Shao United Kingdom Germany Poland Austria USA USA Melaugh’s paintings present a burst of memory, depicting a moment in time and have the potential to be viewed as a door to re-examine past events, inviting the viewer to be transported into a different time and space. Alaric Hobbs invites you to reenter the more playful, perhaps innocent mindset of a child aged 5-11 years with this project titled; ‘Primary’. Realistic painting does not have to reflect reality, it searches for other layers, other meanings, questions, and looks.In my abstract works, I consider each painting as a separate world, a separate reality that I discover and explore. I like to use forms and shapes associated with nature. Forms similar to leaves, boats, stones, scales. Contours of known reality in an unknown world. I observe their interactions among forms and colors. They float in them and define this world, organize, or allow this world to define it. I am working inbetween the fields oft ext, image, movement, painting and music exploringboundaries to sculpture, performance to widen fine art apatial and digital in a perseptual, sensual anexperimental way. As an experimental storyteller, I recreate the relationship between my body’s physical movements in the world and its incorporeal movements as a result of that. In my work, my body is not limited by form, space or time; but instead manifests itself beyond what is immediately perceptible. I produce work that discusses my body and the realities that it creates. I appear repeatedly in my work; each body a different version of myself, each body a different world, each body a trace of what existence leaves on me. To choose animation as a medium for my own artistic expression was a natural decision, as it is the only medium that allows me to visualize and directly conjure forth imagined imagery without limitations or boundaries. My primary inspiration is my dreams. I dream almost every night of the strangest scenarios, and I create animations from them. It is fascinating to let my subconscious brain do the work, as it swallows and digests what I watch, read, and think in my daily life into something I didn’t consciously create, but somehow manifested in the form of a dream. Does that mindset, lacking our current over-education in contemporary art, enable us to view these images with a more honest appreciation of the References to her shapes, lines, form, grandfather’s experience of being and colour and allow in the army during them to move away World War Two are from the didactic and evident throughout into the artistic? Melaugh’s large How does adding scale paintings in understanding and the form of education of the numbers, dates and content increase that appreciation? descriptions. Abstract concept, thought, linguistic sign and the physical act of art, a touch oftheme, worlds, maker and viewer and trust in images, meaning, referring, existance negotiationfigural, figurative and pure aspects as well as the gap of automatism and conciousness, copy andoriginal are the main areas of conflict I´m interested in.
Anna Masiul-Gozdecka Aimee Melaugh Claudia Ungersbäck Arit E. Etukudo Catriona Faulkner Christian Hiadzi Catriona Faulkner Bianca Caston Christian Hiadzi United Kingdom USA United Kingdom My work is a glimpse into a world of reinvention where my practice examines and reinvents the beauty within objects that have been discarded, lost or are defunct and are refound. With the use of fine hand stitch and beading I create assemblages, exquisite artefacts, shrines of complex and intricate detail, configured from twisted shrapnel and broken jewels to animal bones and beautifully oxidised rusty nails.My practice reflects an ethos of using what is around us to create, the precious treasures I find enables a sense of the familiar but is reimagined, refashioned and presented in a new context and configuration. I enjoy creating layers in my work so the viewer can look beyond the surface. I believe that in the moment of focus , peace is present. I have a minimalistic approach to my work. My goal is that while someone is viewing my work and focusing on the details, diving deeper into the piece.. they get a sense of peace. At the core of my practice is the passion and drive to create an idea that in itself, becomes a catalyst to challenge and enhance the viewer’s imagination. I consider myself the conveyor, the vehicle through which the imagination of the viewer is pushed beyond the obvious.My aim is to demonstrate against the status quo of society, my rejection of mundanity and rebellion against archetypes within a contemporary world; where I invite the spectator to establish a dialogue with my works in order to inspire them.In my work, I attempt to show my aversion towards following the status quo of contemporary society by encouraging the viewer to draw out and observe the beauty of the unfamiliar caught within the ordinary. It’s important for me to know that my viewers are able to see the foundation upon which the layers rest on because all of the foundations are solid. Without a solid foundation peace is impossible. Bianca Caston Alaric Hobbs Cassie Shao 4 22 40 66 90 112 132 150 166 Special thanks to: Charlotte Seeges, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner. On the cover: a work by
Trellick Tower, Pen on Paper, 28x36cm, 2017 Special Issue 0 2 41
ART Habens video, 2013 2 4 02 Special Issue
and , curator curator Hello Alaric and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to invite our readers to visit https://www.alarichobbs.com and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences along with your cultural substratum that did particularly influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how did you develop your attitude to experiment with different techniques? Alaric Hobbs: Hello there, it’s a pleasure, and thank you for your time. Whilst studying Contemporary Crafts I realised that geometry was always the main foundation throughout my work, so in my final year I just got really into the simplicity and forms of the shapes. My experience after I’d graduated was a horrible, depressing time and I wasn’t creative for a year. A year passed until I was creative again, but I was poor and reminded myself of what made me enjoy art in the first place; which was drawing. Pencil and paper is practically free so I combined my knowledge of geometry and turned it into illustrations. Alaric Hobbs The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of ART Habens —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 you explored the tension between pattern and form to inquire into the relationship between the didactic and into the artistic: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, Your artistic production combines personal aesthetics with such a unique conceptual approach, and the visual language that marks out your artworks seems to be used in a strategic way to counter-balance subjectivity and offers an array of meanings. 44 0 Special Issue
Alaric Hobbs would you tell us how do you develop your initial ideas? Alaric Hobbs: I’ve gone about the process in several ways. I used to really concentrate on a certain shape and try using an idea with that but then found it constricting after a while. Mostly, the ideas come from something I have read or researched. Sometimes I can picture the final drawing in my head straight away and that will be the final result. More often, I play around with certain aspects of what I have in mind for the illustration, this can be a few sketches to many variations until I feel I have the final outcome of the drawing. The final shapes used depend on the concept and story of each one. We have really appreciated the way your artworks embody an interface between the figurative and the abstract form. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the 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 work? And how does everyday life's experience fuel your artistic research? Alaric Hobbs: I feel that the finished drawing is the reality of my imagination when it comes to that piece, although I will find the drafts again in the future and still like some of the ideas that weren’t developed further. A lot of the time I’m not specifically looking for ideas for a new piece, it could be Special Issue 23 45 0
ART Habens Let's Talk About Mental Health, Spray Paint And Pen on Paper, 70x100cm, 2019 21 46 0 Special Issue
Fleepit Digital © 2021