Art

“When you come in, I want you to be in a world — but it’s our world.”

“I appear defiant because I have something to rebel against, something to be resistant to. Every artist I admire has something to say, to instigate, a passion to ignite.” – Amanda Charchian

Botanica by MOMIX is currently showing in Portland through March 2nd, 2013. * PURCHASE TICKETS *

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The Alchemist
“This is based on an image from a book called Alchemy and Mysticism. In the original work — from the 17th century I believe — the man in the foreground isn’t blue, but in the painting I wanted to make him into a Krishna figure or a water being. He’s there to water the trees and put out the fire. The entire image is open to interpretation, but in my mind, the symbol of the tree refers to our own feeling of being grounded — rooted within the body — or of being uprooted — lost in thought or egoistic delusion.”

Shaman

“I decided to try and get a closer look at sex trafficking and record what it means for the women to survive sexual slavery. I chose to have a glimpse of their souls — which at the time seemed very difficult to do… I wanted to look at their traces — at what women who had disappeared for years and who are believed to be trafficked and sexually enslaved leave behind.” - Dana Popa

Lansè Kòd (The Rope Throwers) 1996

Madanm Lasirèn (Madame Mermaid) 2003

Madanm Lasiren
Andre Ferner, 59 years

Lasiren is a spirit that lives under the sea and does mystical work there, she is a Vodou spirit, I dream of Lasiren all the time. That is the reason I do Lasiren for Mardi Gras. I chose Lasiren because my grandmother, father and mother all served the spirits, I love her & honour her. The baby that I carry in my arms is the child of Lasiren who is called Marie Rose. When I walk the streets I sing her song which goes ‘ I am Lasiren and I cry for Lasiren, when I work mystically in the night bad luck can come my way’.

I prepare for Lasiren by putting on a hat, a mask and carrying an umbrella. I put on a necklace and gloves. This necklace is called Mambo Welcome, it is a fetish. Because Lasiren is a fish she has to disguise herself as a woman to be at Mardi Gras. My mask and hat cover her fish’s head. And the dress she wears covers her fish’s tail. The chain I wear is a sacred chain. Each year I change the disguise and fashion a new baby. In order to get inspiration I go to the place where the big beasts live and they instruct me how to do Mardi Gras. I have been doing this for 18 years. Before that I did another Mardi Gras call Patoko. This was a group of men who were dressed as women, with a nice dresses and high heeled shoes. We did a marriage between men and woman on the street. After that we had a group called the duck who carried brushes in their hands wearing blue trousers, white t-shirts, new sandles and a scarf around our waists. We swept the streets of Jacmel. I have always found a way of doing a Mardi Gras.

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Multi-faceted artist Saya Woolfalk is burning hallucinatory fires up and down both coasts the beginning of 2013, with dual shows in NYC and Portland. Three-dimensional or two-dimensional, still structure or moving image, Woolfalk navigates it all like a Play-Doh wizard gone haywire or a visionary artist on acid.

Her latest solo show, Chimera, is a full-bodied, multi-disciplinary exploration of Woolfalk’s fictional species of Empathics, who are genetic chimeras comprised of two or more genetically-distinct tissues. The series is sci-fi-inspired, with an underlying commentary about the transformation of identities through biological hybridization. Though these issues may seem foreign and otherwordly — especially when tackled in the visually-striking way that Woolfalk has — they may indeed have increasing relevance in our world in the face of scientific progress.

Stay tuned for Woolfalk’s in-depth interview with REDEFINE this upcoming month, and view the full post for more information on Woolfalk’s shows and the Empathics.

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Inside this feature are 98 album covers spanning a wide array of sonic and visual styles, each selected for its own unique contribution to the world. They are not ranked; instead, they are broken down into sections based on conceptual underpinnings or artistic mediums, and then are displayed on spectrums.

In this bi-lingual Japanese and English interview, Jon Barthmus of Sun Airway and Takayuki Nakazawa, art director and designer for Japanese art collective NAM, offer their perspectives on designing an album cover together.

Karen Knorr

In Karen Knorr’s India Song series, she digitally inserts rare and wild animals, from cranes and tigers to elephants, in ornate north Indian buildings.

Where Yun-Fei Tou’s appeal to human nature is more obvious (below), Knorr’s is more veiled and steeped in cultural knowledge. According to her website, “The photographic series considers men’s space (mardana) and women’s space (zanana) in Mughal and Rajput palace architecture, havelis and mausoleums through large format digital photography.”

Yun-Fei Tou

For his Memento Mori series, Taiwanese photographer Yun-Fei Tou has taken over 40,000 portraits of dogs just hours away from euthanization. By seating the dogs in upright, human-like positions, they become almost human-like, giving viewers more to relate to.

“I believe something should not be told but should be felt,” says Tou, in an interview with Huffington Post. “And I hope these images will arouse the viewers to contemplate and feel for these unfortunate lives, and understand the inhumanity we the society are putting them through.”