musetouch

Visual Arts Magazine

February 2011

Kyla Shackelford
An Exclusive Interview

Mystery

Steve Richard Pamela Dzaet Hill Julie de Waroquier Briggit Huttemann Holz Svetlana Bobrova Jean Marc Janiaczyk Carola Oncamo

Imagination is the Key Haunted Mirrors

An Exclusive Interview

George Underwood

Allison Diaz

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Dear readers, Tomorrow is February 14 th, Saint Valentines day, a celebration of love. Believers will be ecstatic and delighted, atheists ironic, some will say that it is a commercial holiday...but, in spite of all that, I respect it because it is reminding us of the powerful force in the Universe, pure and unconditional, the ultimate sense of life, beyond our reason and control. I am taking a bow to love, but without underestimating the less noble...as some would say, and I would not agree, but equally powerful strength...passion. Passion is my leader, my motive and unlimited impulse. Without it, art would be impossible, life also, Musetouch would not exist... I would like to thank people who are always with me, my dear friends Ljiljana Bursac, Jelena Grujic, Nini Baseema, Ian Furniss and two great artists, beautiful human beings always there to share the passion for art with me, Gines Serran and Mark Sadan. I proudly present to you the seventh edition of Musetouch Visual Arts Magazine. Read it with passion :)

Maia Sylba

THE ROAD TO PEACE

By Gines Serran
Miami, Los Angeles, London, Rome, Hong Kong, Moscow, Tokyo, New Delhi, Ro de Janeiro, Sydney, El Cairo, Jerusalem

www.serran-paganart.com

KIYO MURAKAMI
photography

www.kiyomurakami.com

Layer Studios is offering beautiful web sites, online galleries and presentations, blogs and FB fan page designs, at affordable prices, uniquely designed by Maia Sylba

contact: maiasylba@gmail.com skype: maiasylba

www.layerstudios.com

MUSETOUCH MAGAZINE February 2011 Editor Maia Sylba Graphic designer Dejan Silbaski Contributors Nini Baseema Ian Furniss Cover Kiyo Murakami

MUSETOUCH is a magazine about visual arts. It has been created by Maia Sylba out of a love and passion for art with the hope that people will be able to use the publication and website as a platform to showcase their skills and gain recognition.

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facebook.com/musetouchvisualartsmagazine Twitter twitter.com/musetouchmag linkedin.com/in/maiasylba maiasylba@gmail.com

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Submission Guideline If you want to contribute to the next edition, you can send us an email with your data and a PDF file that shows your works, also a link of your website if you have any. We would love to see your art so dont hesitate to contact us and welcome. All artwork in this magazine is copyright protected under the MUSETOUCH Magazine brand or remains property of the individual artists who have kindly granted us permission to use their work.

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Steve Richard
Obsession

Allison Diaz

Haunted Mirrors

Kyla Shackelford
Mystery

008 032 042

Julie de Waroquier
Out of this World

102 116 136 158 182

George Underwood
Imagination is the Key

Briggit Huttemann Holz

Silent Memories

Carola Onkamo
Outside the Box

Jean Marc Janiaczyk

Wander and Dream

Svetlana Bobrova
Absolute Freedom

060 076

Pamela Dzaet Hill

My Place in the Universe

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Steve Richard has been plying his trade in the mysterious photographic arts for well over a

Steve Richard

quarter of a century. Steve is both a stills photographer and a cinematographer, thus bringing an unerring sense of style and composition to all of his work. Steves visuals capture the imagination, challenge preconceptions, and merge a classical ethos with urban grit and 21st Century techno-savvy. Born and raised in a small town in Eastern Canada, Steven took his first photograph at the age of 12, over 37 years ago. Much of the early years were spent developing his craft while working in the various commercial facets of the photography trade. During this time he developed a significant love hate relationship with photography, and actually gave up shooting a number of times. During these down times he has worked as full time musician touring across Canada, a recording studio engineer, a fiber optic network designer, a teacher at Dalhousie University, a cinematographer , and has developed the necessary skills to produce a fine bowl of Tom Ka Guy soup. His passion for photography developed into a full obsession about two decades ago when he decided to only shoot the subjects that would interpret his view of the world. For the most part this meant a combination of humor and beauty mixed with the dark side of life. He now spends most of his fine art focus on dance and bodies in motion. Steve has just released his book Cloud Busting ( which is available on his site and through the normal online bookstores such as www.amazon.com/Cloud-Busting-Steve-Richard/ dp/1934491276) and he is currently working on a new dance series called the Dark Ballet, targeting a book release early 2012.

steverichard.com
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Obsession

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Kyla Shackelfo

Kyla Shackelford was raised in Austin, TX where she took an early interest in art and began her studies. After high school, she immediately moved to Italy and spent 3 years learning classical drawing and painting at the Florence Academy of Art. From there, Kyla moved to New York City to complete her studies at the renowned Art Students League. She paints dramatic and evocative figurative works, with an emphasis on mystery and playfulness. Her works have been widely collected, and she is currently represented by Jack Meier Gallery in Houston, TX. She belongs to the California Art Club and Oil Painters of America. Kyla currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. When did you discover an artist inside of you? From the time I was very little, I loved creating art and always knew I would become an artist. What could be more fun? However, as a child I was not quite ready to share my art with others. I remember making a finger painting in first grade for a school fundraiser. I made my

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ord

Mystery

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parents promise to be there in order to buy my precious painting back for me. It was a bitter disappointment when we arrived and found that it had been the first painting sold. Did Italy has an influence on you as an artist? Italy was an incredibly inspiring place for me to begin my art education. Upon setting foot in Florence, I was immediately immersed in art. Awe-inspiring statues, frescos, and architecture abound. It did not shock me to learn of something called Stendhal Syndrome, a hysteric spell brought on by the overwhelming amount of particularly beautiful art in a single place! Would you describe your education at the Florence Academy of Art as very academic? The FAA is strictly academic in its approach to drawing and painting. Using the sight-size method, students painstakingly render out drawings from casts and models in charcoal for over a year before being allowed to touch a paintbrush. Its a love it or leave it school, and I left after 2 years. Have you had a difficult time developing your own style? Style has never been a concern of mine. Much more important has been my attempts to describe the world as it appears in my mind. How did your early work differ from what youre doing now? Coming out of the FAA, my work was itself academic. The subject matter was very correctly rendered out. As I grew away from those methods, I began using paint and brushstrokes more liberally for a more painterly and direct quality. This allows me to paint more conceptually, focusing on ideas to paint, rather than things to paint.

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I would like to know about mystery in your art...is it mystery your main inspiration? What attracts you to it? For me, painting MUST have an element of mystery to it. Otherwise, nothing is left to the imagination (of the viewer AND artist!). While mostly this is handled in the carrying out of the painting itself, I use subject matter to intensify the mystery! In most of your paintings we can see scenes from past times...do you belong to the 21 Century or you see yourself in some other time...maybe even a place? I like to paint the world unseen. These scenes could describe today, a bygone era, or a time yet to come. The viewer answers that question for him/herself. How many works do you currently average in a year? Including the commission portrait work I do, I average about 20. What do you wish for yourself in the future? The fulfillment of pursuing my life and art to its fullest! MS

kylashackelford.com
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George Underwood was born in 1947. George joined Beckenham Art School in 1963.

George Under

At art school George Underwood became more and more interested in music. As a result he pursued a career in the music world. Along with life long friend David Bowie he made one record (The King Bees ) and also a solo record under the name Calvin James. After deciding that the music business was not for him, George returned to art studies and then worked in design studios as an illustrator. Initially he specialised in fantasy, horror and science fiction book covers. Many of George Underwoods colleagues in the music business asked him to do various art works for them. This led to George becoming a freelance artist. Art work for the first T Rex album and later David Bowies Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust album covers established him as a leading and creative art illustrator. Over this period George produced literally hundreds of book covers, LP and CD covers, advertisements, portraits and drawings. At the start of the 1970s George Underwood started painting in oils. His paintings were influenced at first by the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism artists which included Ernst Fuchs, Rudolph Hausner and Eric Brauer. George regarded them as contemporary visionaries like Bruegel and Bosch. He was fascinated by their imaginative visions. Imagination is the key word in Georges paintings. He rarely uses live models nowadays, prefering to invent people who inhabit their own personal world. George Underwood paintings are held in many private art collections George has, over the years, refined his work to the point where I would put him among the top figurative painters coming out of the UK right now. Theres a sublime isolation surrounding his subjects that really touches the viewer, the figures being both heroic and vulnerable simultaneously. Theres a timeless element in the choice of subject matter that overlaps with the mythical world of Odd Nerdrum, say. Now that a huge shift to painting is taking place, I would expect to see Georges name pushed further and further to the front David Bowie

georgeunderwood.com
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rwood

Imagination is the Key

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My interest for pictures started by looking at photos on the web, and in the autumn of 2002 when I bought my first camera and found an enormous interest in photography. I love to experiment with light, shapes, and color. My PhotoArt photos are created working with different liquids and colors. It is great fun! I try to think outside the box and use my creativity to discover new ways to create and catch abstract shapes, forms, and patterns. Im always looking for interesting details both when Im outside in nature, as well as indoors, that can be explored and used in my photography.

Carola Onkam
Carola Onkamo

carola.1x.com
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mo

Outside the Box

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Svetlana Bobrova lives and works in Moscow. She graduated from St. Petersburg University. PhD, art critic. Svetlana is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists of the International

Svetlana Bobro
Svetlana Bobrova

Arts Foundation. She is a winner of the 1919 Trierenberg Super Circuit 2010 Digital Images Experimental Gold Medal. Digital art allows me to rapidly create the most incredible and fantastic images. It is an art of absolute freedom due to the nature of its language - photo manipulation. This special language helps to express emotions, and subtle shades of mood. Of particular interest to me is the ability to create new characters. They form abstract images - a kind of formula of my psychological state, a passing mood. Therefore, like a self-portrait, my own image is at the heart of all my images.

bsw-art.com/paintings-and-graphics-svetlana-bobrova
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ova

Absolute Freedom

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Allison Diaz
pictures from inspiring other artists (if so which ones do you usually like)?

Hau

I totally love youre collages and I am desperate to hear a bit more about how you created

them - in particular the Haunted MIrror series. How did you come up with the idea and how was it done? Are the photos used in the series photos you shot yourself or did you take

A couple of months ago, I heard a story on National Public Radio about Prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Its a psychological disorder that, for the man in the story, made it impossible for him to recognize even his girlfriend. The story ended with them breaking up, and while the girlfriend would sometimes walk by the cafe he worked at and see him, he never realized it was her. After that, I wanted to play with the brains perception of faces. The first piece I made was a combination of a male and female face. The original portraits came from a cigarette ad in a 70s Life Magazine. They were both perfect, both respectively very masculine and feminine. I wanted to confuse perception by creating a face that was both at the same time. After that, I started playing with more recognizable faces. By rearranging vintage celebrity portraits (I find them in used books, mostly) I made them unrecognizable and essentially synthesized face blindness. The pieces are all scrambled to varying degrees- some are completely rearranged and combined, with an eye from one person, a nose from another, and so forth. Some are slightly shifted. The result across all of the work so far has been the same though. The celebrities turn into strangers. I used the diamond shapes do imitate looking through a kaleidoscope. I prefer to use images from the 60s and 70s, because to me their looks are classic and just fit with the sort of psychedelic theme. Please, tell us a bit more about who Allison Diaz is: Where do you come from, what are youre doing when youre not an artist, what kind of style is very typical for you and why? I was born in Hawaii but grew up in California. Ive been studying Spanish Literature at California State University, Sacramento for the last four years but finally graduated this year. Im really excited because this will really be the first time I can spend some serious time and energy on my art, which has always taken a back seat to my studies. During school I was heavily influenced by Magical Realism, which is a Latin American literary movement that was

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unted Mirrors

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characterized by realistic stories invaded by strange and otherworldly elements. Theyre not fantasy or science fiction, they dont take place on other planets or far in the future, but right here and now. Theyre incredible stories on a completely feasible, normal back drop. I love that idea because it kind of mirrors the ways our brains can go haywire and create unrealities in the human mind. In particular I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges- their stories are the kind that you never really get to the bottom of. If youve ever been really pummeled by a huge wave at the beach, tumbled end over end and couldnt figure out which way was up- reading Borges is like that. Im always looking for that sensation, in everyday life, in literature and art, and in my own work. Right now Im working nonstop to finish this series for my first gallery show in January and making my living as a bartender. In my free time Ive been watching a lot of X-Files and David Lynch, and planning future travel. I discovered your art via your lovely Tumblr (URL:http://astrallove.tumblr.com/) where you have some amazing stuff collected. Not only from yourself but also other artists. Whats your opinion about the modern way of sharing art in blogs and social media networks? I love art and the internet! I live in a smallish city, and the art scene is small as well. I really love Sacramento because its very nurturing for artists, and the community is very close knit and supportive. On the other hand, it sometimes lacks diversity and motivation. Things like Tumblr and Flickr give small artists the opportunity to show their work to a larger audience. Ive found so many artists that I wouldnt have known otherwise, and of course I would never be doing this interview if someone hadnt found my Flickr page and blogged about it! If you could meet one famous artist and hang out with them for a night (regardless if they are still alive or not) who would it be and why? They would all be writers! Aside from Marquez and Borges, who I already mentioned, I would probably go with Haruki Murakami, a contemporary Japanese writer. His books are pure dreams. Im sure he would have plenty of magic stories to tell me. NB

astrallove.tumblr.com
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Julie de Waroq
I am a 21 years old french photographer, also student in philosophy. Three years ago, I got in photography quite randomly, but now it has become a true passion. My pictures are a mixture of fantasizing, surrealism and conceptualism; I try to create pictures which remind fairy tales and dreams, which look out of this world. Indeed, I enjoy the contradiction of the art of photography: this is firstly a technique which copies reality, while art is all creation and invention. Photography thus becomes fascinating: how can one create, re-create reality and what is seen, with an art which precisely duplicates theworld as it is ? This is the reason why I try to make reality look surreal in my pictures. I prefer showing the world as it could be rather than as it is. I do not want silent pictures: I want to let dreamlike images and symbols speak, I want to show how meaningful a picture can be. I am mainly inspired by myths, tales, and by artists and writers such as Freud, Perrault, Magritte, la Comtesse de Sgur and Tim Walker. During the past year, Ive been achieving several projects such as collective and personal exhibitions, book and CD covers, and other collaborations with artists. Julie de Waroguier

juliedewaroquier.com
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quier

Out of this World

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Briggit Huttem

In the studio of her uncle Werner Holz, an outstanding German artist, Birgit HttemannHolz was exposed to Imaginary Realism/Phantastische Malerei from an early age. Intrigued by the contradictions of the human psyche, she first started to write poetry. Whilst working as a Physical Therapist, she studied Literature, Philosophy, Education and Media Science at the Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany. A sudden change in her life, a move to the USA, triggered a stop to her writings, and a universal language was needed, taking visual form. Birgit Httemann-Holzs work is exhibited nationwide and internationally, she lives and works as an artist in the Greater Detroit Area.

brightstroke.com
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mann Holz

Silent Memories

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I understand my paintings as modern icons of the feminine. Although the primary role of the icon is to bring the viewer into relationship with the depicted saint rather than tell stories about him or her, I aim to achieve both in the form of opening a dialogue. In my female portraits Inscapes I look for imagery that derives symbols from mythology, nature and spirituality. As an artist I neither accept myth or religion as a historical fact, nor reject it as useless. I move between those two extreme poles to mine history and its trends, trying to understand and communicate its meanings for today. Therefore, these Inscapes aim to make a political, religious and cultural statement. My landscape paintings are acting more as a sanctuary, a retreat; it gives you time to breath and to reflect. They also pose as a metaphor for societys need of refuge. As every artist visits his or her places of childhood, I too am very influenced by my European roots, earliest memories and experiences with art and nature. I paint with hot liquid beeswax, pigments and fire. My process of painting begins with composing paint from pigment and wax, giving me the joy to truly create the right consistency of paint in terms of hues and transparency. This ancient raw painting technique constantly copes with loss and restoration, reflecting the themes of my imagery. For me the beauty of an encaustic paintings lies in its uniquely transparent layers that are catching the light. The painting comes to life from within, giving way to luminous and lush colors that are sealed in a jade-like surface. Birgit Huttemann Holz

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I paint in oil with palette knives. I seek to represent the light and heat of summer, I invite

Jean Marc Jan

Jean-Marc Janiaczyk

everyone to wander and dream in these landscapes, I paint freely, with color and contrast.

jean-marc.janiaczyk.pagesperso-orange.fr

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niaczyk

Wander and Dream

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I am an artist... a term that I never thought that I would use for myself. Why? Life hap-

Pamela Dzaet

pens. I didnt pick up a paintbrush until February of 2007, when I thought that I would test the waters and see what I was capable of. Within the first month of painting, my work took on a very interesting aspect, in that it began to show the first signs of personal memories, anguish, unresolved feelings. I used the art to vent past hurts, pains, rejections... My earlier work was raw with emotion, using symbolism to convey the hidden messages. I drew all of my inspiration from my life experiences, thus creating a canvas journal. I use the symbolic, neo-surreal style, exclusively in oils. My work now has evolved into a more spiritual nature. Each and every painting has a message for the viewer, and my hope would be that the paintings will aid the viewer in self-discovery. My work is born from deep within, a spiritual place, resulting in my complete inability to paint if not led by this inner voice. I paint under the name of dzaet, which simply means 808 in Armenian. I was born at 8:08 and I know that a complete rebirth took place when I picked up the brush 4 years ago. My life has taken an entirely new direction, old hurts are resolved, and new messages of hope are born daily, finding their way eventually to the canvas. Without painting, I simply would not know my place in the universe, I feel as though I would die. As you look at my art, my thought would simply be I hope you will see something you would like to hear. Pamela Dzaet Hill

dzaet.com
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Hill

My Place in the Universe

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