All in Contemporary Art
I was born in 1974, Riga. When I was a child, I was deeply inspired by the cities old architecture and its different moods in different seasons. At that time everything seemed to live its own life and had its special spirit. Dark Art Nouveau style houses in Autumn evenings became alive in feeble lamplight, which was swinging in the wind above the street. Those mythical silhouettes and symbols at that time had much greater influence on me than the bypassing Soviet Era.
Growing up in Lesser Town, Prague, surrounded by medieval and modern art, can you share how this environment influenced your early desire to create and your artistic style?
I do not know If the art of the Lesser Town shaped my artistic style but drew out my creative abilities and desire to create art. Growing up in an atmosphere of admiration for artistic values made me want to create as well, using the most accessible tools I had as a child, pencil and paper, which was the base of my style, always starting with pencil and paper.
Being featured in various art books and magazines is a significant accomplishment. How do you feel this recognition has impacted your career and artistic journey? Has it influenced the way you approach your art?
Being featured in books and magazines is a great opportunity and chance to get my art brought to a wider audience, however it has not influenced my process of creation. But I admit that it is interesting to observe how curators, art lovers, friends and family prefer artworks of mine which I would never choose to be my favorites. So, art is always a very private, very personal, very intimate relationship with the viewer this I have learned so far through publishing my artworks.
What are your short-term and long-term goals as a contemporary artist? Are there specific milestones you aspire to achieve in your career?
I am currently planning to continue painting abstract landscapes, with a series based on the sea and the sky in mind, after extensively painting regional inland landscapes. This will result in a collection suitable for a solo exhibition.
Where do you see the intersection of psychoanalysis and art therapy heading in the future? Are there emerging trends or areas of research that you find particularly exciting or important?
As part of the Steering Committee of the NeuroPsych study group at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, I have been actively involved in disseminating these concepts within the broader psychoanalytic community. Both the psychoanalytic community and field of art therapy, have benefitted by having new insight into the use of expressive art and nonverbal communication in therapeutic settings. We have been given renewed validation from the scientific community and now have terminology to describe what we have been intuitively using, without a clear voice.
What have been some of the biggest challenges you have faced in your artistic career and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge has been to dare to follow one's intentions to the end during the painting process. Instead of settling for a half-decent result, one can perhaps develop the painting if one dares to go further, with the risk of destroying the painting. It requires courage and faith in one's ability, something I have learned to handle over the years.
In what ways do your practices as a painter and a writer complement and influence each other, and how do you balance these two distinct yet potentially interconnected forms of expression?
My work as a painter and artist feeds each other since one is the continuity of the other, in painting the literal language is very present in a poetic and fabled way, represented with dreamlike colors and in my creation as a writer I also give free rein to freedom when writing free prose or a specific topic, generally painting and writing in my case go together.
Natha Out of the Blue represents part of her name (Nathakorn) and her spontaneity. Chiangmai, north of Thailand is her origin working studio base. She is a self-taught artist that has been creating her subject matter that blends with her inspiration and design on her canvas with several techniques she inspired.
Painting on canvas, she will be preparing her gouache color from the pigment mixing them with the binders. She uses gouache to have some earth tone that she likes. Acrylic colors still take part and are playful on her canvas. The way “OUT OF THE BLUE” action has inspired her most of the time. It is when she feels drawn to establish the creation with a plentiful amount of energy.
James Jean was born in 1979 in Taipei, Taiwan. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
AI-WEN WU KRATZ is originally from Hong Kong.
She is currently living and working in the Washington D.C. Metro Area.
Frank Moth is the nom de plume of an anonymous Athens-based art duo. Together the pair creates atmospheric collages that combine elements from vast expanses such as oceans, deserts, and the universe at large.
Jiawei Fu (b.1998) was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. She has received a BFA in Interior Design from Pratt Institute, NY. Jiawei’s practice depicts mundanity and emptiness through surrealized reality. Utilize the understated diary to wake up subconsciousness and create new conversation between people. Her dedicated palette exposes the sugar-coated modern ignorance and relentlessness in all beings. Yet collision with egg yolk to bring back subtle similarities of just being alive. Her work is representing a perspective from the invisible introspection, creating a space for the viewer to reflect on their own, and addressing the mutual language that will be shared together for cherishing the unique sameness.
Born in 1978 in Miami, Florida, Hernan Bas creates works born of literary intrigue and tinged with nihilistic romanticism and old world imagery. Influenced by the Aesthetic and Decadent writers of the 19th century, in particular Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysman, Bas’s works weave together stories of adolescent adventures and the paranormal with classical poetry, religious stories, mythology and literature.
Photographer and filmmaker Richard Mosse focuses on war-torn regions, capturing the effects of conflict on landscapes and people in lush, cinematic images.
Sadhana is a Sanskrit word that means a spiritual practice. My artworks are my painted prayers and painting is certainly a spiritual practice for me.
Hence, since 2008, when i founded Circles of Love, a non profit charity outreach program, using my art in the service of humanity, all monies from any sales of my paintings are donated entirely to charity.
He was born in Lands of Don Quixote (Castilla-La Mancha / Spain). His family environment and the multidisciplinary influence of his professional activity; in sports, music, engineering, inventions and art, in Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid, she was decisive for the artistic creation of a very personal and different style, called Rivismo, based on the application of the Experiential Brushstroke. During the last eighteen years, his research has managed to reinforce the Concepts and Philosophy that predominate in Rivismo and that have given prominence to the material elements to which he has assigned aspects, functions and values of people.
Albert Oehlen was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1954. He attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, where he studied art under Sigmar Polke until 1981. During the early stages of his career, Oehlen’s artistic interests and associations were diverse, and included music and painting.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
I think I realized I was going to be an artist when I was 10 years old. My elementary school teacher asked me to draw a huge mural that stretched across the back of the classroom on a roll of white paper a meter wide on what we were studying in history about WWII. It took me several weeks to draw, and I was totally involved in it and inspired by the sense of accomplishment it gave me when done.
Robert van de Graaf (1983, born in The Hague, the Netherlands) is a Dutch visual artist living and working in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Van de Graaf received a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Architecture (Technical University Delft) in 2009. In 2005 and 2006, he worked as an intern in architecture in New York City. At Steven Learner Studio he worked on several art-related projects.
Rory Bills - Everett is a contemporary abstract painter who lives and works between Lisbon, Portugal and the West of Ireland.
She is an intuitive artist and whilst her work is informed by the coastal regions in which she resides, ultimately her paintings are a manifestation of her internal dialogue.
In allowing her emotions to be represented on the canvas, Rory provides a platform from which to converse with the viewer. In doing so, she offers a space for the audience to embody the experience.
She uses expressive brushstrokes and a vibrant, energetic colour palette to create her works of art.
Rory will be featured in the upcoming edition of the Visionary Art Collective Magazine and her work has been shown in exhibitions in London and New York. Including “What Is Art?” and “Art For Real” at Boomer Gallery London, 2022. She has had a painting acquired for the permanent collection at the Children's Museum of Arts, NYC and she was spotlighted in the new visionary art collective magazine in October 2022.
