Vanderlove Leŧŧer

My journey through the world of Art and Culture began in 2005 in Barcelona, where I started working as a proofreader for an art magazine. In no time I started to visit numerous exhibitions, art events and fairs, so i began to write my own articles and reviews. Later, in 2015, I decided to move to Seville and started studying Graphic Design at Seville ́s Art School.

In parallel to my work as a Graphic Designer, in 2019 I began to develop
a series of creative pieces, mostly composed of digital collages, under the title “Sanctified Shit”.

Many of these creations are influenced by advertising and editorial resources, designed as posters, single pages or covers. Most of them focus on messages, sometimes contradictory, related to sexual desire, intimacy, censorship itself, and error, sometimes using Glitch Art techniques such as pixelation and image fragmentation.

I see pornography as an entity through which society can find a “solution” to certain fantasies that are politically inappropriate. Sex and sexuality are eminently creative energies, capable of driving social, economic and political transformations.

As an artistic theme, I find it exciting to be able to question concepts such as “intimacy”, or even “censorship” in times when the politically correct is imposed through social networks.

DR / David Guillén, 2020
IG / David Guillén
WEB / David Guillén

Selected works, 2020

ARTIST STATEMENT

My name is Thomaz G. Meanda, I was born in 1982. I’m a visual artist from Brazil and I work in São Paulo. 

What to say about my series? They speak for themselves. I don’t like to finish a work or a series with explanations, I like their character to leave an open door for new interpretations, for new poetry.

I can say that I work with what touches me, what draws my attention in an existential impulse. To be at once about people on the edge of society and how they are dehumanised and have their voices taken away. It hurts me, it touches me. What also touches me is the psychological problems we all go through, panic, anxiety, a constant frustration in how the world is built and how it works. And how this whole world differs from our purest desires. I think I can say that I work with existential issues. Personal and collective. 

I work in many different strands. Sometimes I could be a pure abstract, and others a pure figurative. 

I always expect from a work of mine to teach me something new, I enter the opening of the novelty and let myself be taken to face whatever is necessary and leave from other side more enriched as a human. I hope that the works go through this process and that they can help others to see themselves as well.

I work with visual poetry, with a heart in fantastic realism. I like to explore the idea of seeing the world through different psychological and emotional perspectives. That exercise interests me. To see the essence and not the projection of it. 

I go through very different topics, optics and languages on my explorations. I have a necessity to do art. To understand, to digest, to overcome, to surpass. I have to work or I can’t survive. I’m obsessive about my work. I’m very prolific and I work very fast and for long hours, and days and so on. I have to be in the flow, moving, I can’t stop.

DR / Thomaz G. Meanda, 2020
IG / Thomaz G. Meanda
WEB / Thomaz G. Meanda

Various works, 2020

ARTIST STATEMENT

I love bright, bright colours, in big hunks and chunks. Details zoomed in on. Light and shadows, folded-in-on itself to present something altogether different but recognizable. Alluring and intriguing. Never boring. Always engaging. Right now that comes out as paintings, on big canvases, close-up slightly abstract and yet incredibly crisp at the same time.

As a child of the 80’s/90’s not only was I influenced by the bold in your face neon colours, big shoulder pads and modern technology take over, I was also greatly influenced by both my baby boomer parents and my grandparents. I’m very inspired by pop culture, fashion, style, design and architecture across many generations as far back as the 1920’s art deco and flapper girls right through to the 2000’s mega stars like Lady Gaga and the haute couture trends of today. As a self taught artist I’m influenced by the well known artists I had access to, many popularized in pop culture like Tamara de Lempicka, Rene Magritte, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso. 

My work takes from my obsession with fashion and that the clothes we wear is how we tell the world who we are, or maybe who we aspire to be.  Sometimes it speaks our culture and can connect us to a place or time in history. Sometimes it blurs the lines of all that. It always tells a story.

I start with an image or a piece of clothing that inspires me. It has to speak to me. I’m slow. I work in many layers. I start with acrylic to block in main colours and shapes quickly. Then I switch to oils. I take my time carefully studying my references and refining section by section. 

I love that my paintings look realistic from far, but up close as I work it’s just abstract colour and shapes—like an illusion.

I create because it’s fun, it challenges me and gives me energy. I’m a champion of colour and exuberance. I want the joy and pleasure I have making my works to go with them. Like coming home to a bouquet of wildflowers on the kitchen table­—an unexpected pop, a wow moment on an ordinary day.

DR / Celine Gabrielle, 2020
IG / Celine Gabrielle
WEB / Celine Gabrielle

Scoop

What I’m working on right now, testing some squishy flexible foam. How to work with this material, how to layer it how to play with the colours and textrures. The material shapes the outcome more than the tools and the way I pour the foam does. The resistance of the material informs the maker and play a big role into shaping the outcome.
The material moves under gravity, the dome is hollow. The look and flexibility of the material adds something flesh-like to it – creature like – , creating this abject attraction present in slime. The result is something on the line between disgusting and beautiful. Also, the ‘sweet’ purple, levander and pink colours are distrupted by this pastel neon yellow. The charming, bright gems sit on top of silicon gue.

Installation/ Sculpture Variable Dimensions

Hott Fuzz

Sink the Pink and
Butterfly Caught

Marry The Night

A similar concept as the drawings ones. Different forms and colours come together and are layered, to interract into variable compositions. The styrofoam is friendly, soft, light, its rough texture is amplified as the colour enters all its nooks and crannies.

DR / Sofia Fresey Angelopoulou
Lausanne,
Switzerland

sofia.fresey.angel@gmail.com | +41796192171 | @grecobomb

Figure internationale de l’art contemporain, Barbara Polla, installée à Genève, se met dans la peau de ses artistes pour mieux les saisir et produit de petites vidéos les incarnant avec un premier épisode :

« Moi, Barbara Polla, je suis Abdul Rahman Katanani« 
 
Barbara nous explique :

J’ai commencé cette série par hasard. Mounir Fatmi m’a demandé de faire une vidéo pour lui, pour l’exposition « Rock me Baby ». Alors au lieu de dire Mounir Fatmi ceci, Mounir Fatmi cela, j’ai dit « je ». Avec une musique à la fin.  
 
Abdul Rahman Katanani a vu la vidéo et m’a dit : « Moi aussi je veux ! Je veux que tu sois Abdul Rahman Katanani. Tu vois Barbelé, c’est une nouvelle manière de parler des artistes. Au lieu d’expliquer, tu ressens, tu incarnes, tu es l’artiste même. » 

Alors j’essaie. Anne Kerner filme, elle réalise. Elle m’accompagne, me guide, elle crée la série. Une série d’Artvisions. 
 
Artistes, je vous aime, je vous admire et j’essaie d’entrer en vous.
La semaine prochaine, je serai Mimiko Türkkan.
Puis Julien Serve. Et d’autres, si vous le souhaitez.

Une série à suivre sur la chaine Vimeo d’Analix (abonnez-vous pour recevoir les dernières vidéos).

DR / Barbara Polla / Analix Forever,
2021

Un choix de pièces disponibles en click & collect

Abdul Rahman Katanani, dimensions variables, Tôle ondulée et bois
Daté et signé au dos,
2020

Illustration : Abdul Rahman Katanani, Vulvae, environ 150 x 100 cm, tôle, 2020