ALEXANDER KORZER-ROBINSON

ALEXANDER KORZER-ROBINSON /// STATEMENT

Through my work in the tradition of collage I am pursuing the very personal obsession of creating narrative scenarios in small format. Using antiquarian books, makes the work at the same time an exploration and a deconstruction of nostalgia.


We create our own past from fragments of reality in a process that combines the willful aspects of remembering and forgetting with the coincidental and unconscious.

On a general level, I aim to illustrate this process that forms our inner landscape.

By using pre-existing media as a starting point, certain boundaries are set by the material, which I aim to transform through my process. Thus, an encyclopedia can become a window into an alternate world, much like lived reality becomes its alternate in remembered experience. These books, having been stripped of their utilitarian value by the passage of time, regain new purpose. They are no longer tools to learn about the world, but rather a means to gain insight about oneself.

I make book sculptures / cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. The images seen in the finished work, are left standing in their original place.

I am an artist from Berlin now living in Bristol. Drawing from a background in psychology, my art practice focuses on the notion of the “inner landscape”. Using generally discarded materials, I make objects as an invitation to the viewer to engage her/his own inner life in order to assign meaning to the artwork.The cut book art has been made by working through the books, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. The images seen in the finished work, are left standing in the place where they would appear in the complete book. As a final step the book is sealed around the cut, and can no longer be opened.As we remember the books from our own past, certain fragments remain with us while others fade away over time – phrases and passages, mental images we created, the way the stories made us feel and the thoughts they inspired. In our memory we create a new narrative out of those fragments, sometimes moving far away from the original content. This is, in fact, the same way we remember our life – an ever changing narrative formed out of fragments. This mostly subconscious process of value judgements and coincidence is what interests me as an artist and as a psychologist. 


☁ ALEXANDER KORZER-ROBINSON

FRIEKE JANSSENS

FRIEKE JANSSENS /// SMOKING KIDS

"A YouTube video of a chainsmoking Indonesian toddler inspired me to create this series, “Smoking Kids”. The video highlighted the cultural differences between the east and west, and questioned notions of smoking being a mainly adult activity. Adult smokers are the societal norm, so I wanted to isolate the viewer’s focus upon the issue of smoking itself. I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act. Coincidentally around the time of the “Smoking Kids” gallery opening, a law was passed, and smoking has been banned from Belgian bars. There was an outcry from the public about government intervention, feelings that freedom was being oppressed, and that adults were being treated like children. With health reasons driving many cities to ban smoking, the culture around smoking has a retro feel, like the time period of “Mad Men,” when smoking on a plane or in a restaurant was not unusual. The aesthetics of smoke and the particular way smokers gesticulate with their hands and posture cannot be denied, but among the different tribes of “Smoking Kids,” – Glamour, Jazz, and The Marginal – there is a nod to less attractive aspects, on the line between the beauty and ugliness of smoking. To assure you of the safety of the children, there were no real cigarettes on set. Instead, chalk and sticks of cheese were the prop stand ins, while candles and incense provided the wisps of smoke."


☁ FRIEKE JANSSENS
☁ FOUND HERE

MARTA PENTER

OIL AND WATERCOLOR

MARTA PENTER was born in Porto Alegre, RS, in 1957. Since an early age she has been connected to the world of arts, having attended to several art schools and arts centers. She has currently dedicated herself to watercolor and oil on canvas. She has a contemporary realistic language which explores the domains of collective unconscious through images of personal antique objects and human figure through a time-space relationship. Such Icons, which derive from the strong influence of her background as a psychologist, acquire empowerment and expression through her works. Her usually large paintings feature the highlighting of light and shadow effects, thus creating a unique intimate atmosphere. In her last series she has been shedding a new light to man and his world, rescuing the feeling of intimacy which has been lost in a globalized and immediate world.


☁ MARTA PENTER

MATT JOHNSON

MATT JOHNSON /// STAR IN A JAR


☁ MATT JOHNSON

SIMRYN GILL

SIMRYN GILL’s work questions the coherence of systems that humans create to ‘know’ the world around them. Working with a myriad of materials, including books, plant materials, photographs and other found objects, she encourages the viewer to reject a rigid classification of their surroundings in favour of arrangements which offer uncertainty, disturbance and new possibilities.

For Untitled, SIMRYN GILL used books as a raw material, choosing words such as ‘because’, ‘vessel’, ‘always’, ‘jealous’, and ‘lull’, and removing them from the books to investigate if, and how, words lose or take on meaning when taken away from their intended structures and contexts. She developed and expanded the selection of words throughout the process of reading and searching each book. A delicate lattice-work is left of the pages from which the words have been hand-torn by Gill and three assistants. By removing words from books, the artist opens up new readings, evoking the complexities of world histories through the ways that the English language has filtered into different places. The word ‘vessel’, for example, immediately calls to mind a ship in British usage whereas in India it describes domestic food containers. By giving individual words a physical and sensual presence, she draws us to their sounds, patterns and visual symmetries.

☁ SIMRYN GILL @ TATE MODERN