Dear Readers,
I am writing to share something a little bit special with you. We all know that warm butterflies-in-the-belly feeling when envelopes arrive through the letterbox with your name and address handwritten carefully on the front with a return address of a friend or lover on the reverse, a beacon of personal correspondence among a mundane plethora of bills, takeaway menus and bank statements. How much more sincere is a ‘Thank You’ or a ‘Sorry’, how much more romantic is an ‘I Love You’ or ‘Marry Me’ when it comes in pen to paper form rather than digitalised and, heaven forbid, abbreviated via modern technological means.
Letter writing may be an old fashioned and somewhat dying art, one that we all claim to still do or intend to do, but actually don’t make time for in a world of convenient instant messaging, free text plans and social network sites, but Jamie Atherton and Jeremy Lin refuse to abandon the old worldly ways of communication just yet.
Finding their stationery was like being invited to a secret society for letter writers, a prize from the postal Gods to congratulate and reward all those who participate in mail exchanges, to inspire us to keep going to strive on and not let the Royal Mail network collapse from lack of traffic. The more I find out about this creative pair of gents the deeper I fall under their spell. Two handsome young men, madly in love with each other, one English one American, live together in London nowadays but in the 12 years that have passed since they fell head over heels they have lived in San Francisco too and co-created Atherton Lin, the name under which they produce, distribute and sell their products.
Their work, such as the collections of Winter and Summer greeting cards, is as collectable as it is sendable. Each of the four cards in a set tells a tale; funny, sentimental, melancholic and earnest. They strive to avoid clichés or overused formulaic recipes for ‘commercialised cute’, but instead the boys have created a world of butterflies, badgers, bicycles and balloons, using recycled materials and harm-free inks. It is not just their illustrated correspondence materials that Atherton Lin have become known and adored for, that paved the way to being noticed by and sold alongside Marc Jacobs’ wears and tears, as well as being stocked at places such as London’s ICA, LA’s Ooga Booga and San Francisco’s Little Otsu.
Working on the basis that not all correspondence is text, stationery therefore does not have to be exclusively on paper. With a nod to their burgeoning passion for mix tapes, which featured heavily through their transatlantic courtship, they created artwork for a series of blank CDs. The pair have collaborated with a number of talented outfits such as the musicians Vetiver and Elks, and for a book of poems published by Fithian Press, in addition to eye wateringly lovely calendars.
They cite their inspirations to include the charmingly unaware wit of Japanese stationary with its mysteriously nonsensical English translations, Peanuts comic strips, the lyrics to strumming shoe gaze bands such as Ride and poet Dylan Thomas. Having conducted the first three years of their blossoming relationship as long distance partners, they perhaps know better than anyone the value and worth of the handwritten word, the virtues of patience while awaiting the postman and the magnified importance of every tiny detail when letters are sustaining your longing heart.
Now that I’ve been well and truly bitten by the Atherton Lin bug, I have an overbearing urge to dig out my address book and scribe catch up letters to friends in far-flung corners of the globe, and those just around the corner. And for the scented pastel coloured envelopes about to reach the letterboxes of my acquaintances in the next couple of weeks, you have Jeremy and Jamie to thank, for restoring my faith in the romantic, timeless pastime of writing letters.
Yours ever so faithfully,
Alice Watson
By definition, Documentary Photography as an artistic genre attempts to capture truthful, objective, accurate images which are undistorted by interpretation. They provide a record or ‘evidence’ of social and political situations with the aim of conveying information. According to film theorist Paul Rotha, “Documentary defines not subject or style, but approach. It justifies the use of every known technical artifice to gain its effect on the spectator.” While it may be best described as a mindset of the photographer, the purpose of this approach to photography greatly varies; from the straightforward need of recording, revealing or preserving, to more passion driven motives such as persuading or promoting, analyzing or interrogating.
Kiryl Smaliakou
With these understandings and interpretations of this interesting arts category in mind, I attended the preview of Wake: Newport’s Documentary Photography show at the Candid Arts Gallery and was pleasantly surprised to find such a range of response and method in the graduate’s work on display. I have picked out a handful of students that really stood out for me; not just for their technical ability or mastering of the medium, but for their rationales, their background stories and their enthusiasm for their chosen subjects.
Siobhan Canavan: The Remembrance of Things Past
Reminding us that ‘when our memories of people and places fade and blur, the photograph may be all that remains as a replacement’, Canavan used a once mass-produced but now retro-esque cheap ‘toy’ camera, the Holga (designed in 1982) to create these fanciful, eerie, dreamworld images. Using the Allt-yr-yn View Nature Reserve outside Newport as her backdrop, Canavan explored the nostalgic childhood recollection evoked by dusty forgotten family albums, carefully complemented by the format and presentation of her work.
Kiryl Smaliakou: Saturday Nights
From the beauty and wilderness of rural Wales, to the shock and awe of the happy-go-lucky capital, Cardiff. Smaliakou described her venture out into the city on a series of Saturday nights ‘more exciting than my dreams and more frightening than my nightmares’. Less out of focus, red eyed or unflattering than pictures drunkenly taken at arm’s length on your mate’s disposable camera from Boots, but just as brutally telling, insightful and honest, these photos taken on black and white film accurately depict the lifestyle and activities of a generation of young adults, and will provide beautiful if not cringe-inducing evidence of a capital’s sordid goings-on for decades to come.
Ivar Kvaal: Tethered To The Polestar
I was fascinated by this project, and Kvaal’s detailed written accompaniment to the photographic images provided a wealth of interesting background that without the images would have surely been understood in lesser depth.
The Samis, indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, have experienced mistreatment, hardship and struggle in preserving their heritage and culture. Kvaal cleverly highlights the anchor-like quality that the Polestar, an omnipresent night sky navigation point, has for the Sami people. In an atmosphere of lost identity and cultural oppression the Polestar serves as a shining reminder of their history and traditions.
Francis O’Riordan: Black Valley
Another photographer exploring political-geographical themes was O’Riordan, who singled out Ireland’s Black Valley in his project. Interested in human behaviour, technological advances and our growing dependence on modern amenities in a quest to live easier, more convenient lives, O’Riordan chose to capture the last community in mainland Ireland to have been connected to the national electrical grid, which happened as surprisingly late as 1979. Using night photography as a tool to underline how light represents our modern existence these photographs use the less is more principle and it works perfectly.
Piers Cunliffe
Examining what draws different people to climbing or mountaineering, whether for stress relief, for excitement, for payment or competition, Cunliffe portraits ordinary people who are linked, if by nothing else, by a pursuit of cliff faces and dizzy heights. The photographs are intended to provide a visual link to the everyday person and provide us with a clue as to why they climb.
Meg Rumbelow: Only Animal
This project focuses on specific species or breeds of animal that are currently being tested on in UK labs. The photographs have titles originating from the defining codes used by the Home Office when in correspondence with the laboratories. Rumbelow states her aim as being ‘to rekindle the relationship between viewer and animal, questioning the way in which we view animals today’. Animal testing is just one way in which humans have disconnected from the magical intuitive relationship they once had with nature, though she remains hopeful that her pictures can put us back in touch with the value and respect these creatures deserve from us.
Tobias Beach-Wyld: The Summer Isle Project
This project had me wondering whether the intent was a hopeful or a rueful reaction, as I experienced both in short succession. The documenting of a community that is amidst a substantial population shift, such as this isolated group of islanders in the harsh and dramatic Outer Hebrides, has been timed carefully to ensure enough remains of the ‘old way’ to give a fair impression of the way things were, and the remaining inhabitants who are witnessing their community transform to a settlement that Beach-Wyld calls ‘as homogenized as the rest of the United Kingdom. Immigration and integration are surely positive, forward-thinking and inevitable human phenomena, the images beautifully captured here seem full of imminent loss and awkward transition.
Hugo Feio Machado: Requiem to a dying planet
In Merzouga, a small settlement in the region of Er-rachidia on the Moroccan border with Algeria, a devastating lack of water dominates and dictates the landscape, and all life that surrounds it. Machado wanted to represent the beauty and colour that exists in these barren terrains despite the odds being set against them. He is also interested in the ecosystems that are maintained there and explains ‘the farming is of a sustainable nature, where plants need each other; but it is the hand of man that makes these plants a symbol for life’.
Corinne Flynn: A Case Of Clothing
If you’ve ever wondered what happens to unclaimed left luggage once the last passenger has left arrivals, Flynn can fill you in. After three months all the suitcases, backpacks and holdalls are auctioned off and the contents are reborn and re-worn in strangers’ wardrobes. This little-known discovery makes a fun and observant commentary on perceptions we have of the clothed body, our ties to our possessions, and the invention of certain narratives and identities for these belongings with unknown histories.
William Edward Head: Humane Errors. Vol.1
For me the bravest project and the one which haunted me the most after leaving the exhibition was Head’s photographs from Talgarth, a mental institution which was closed in 2000 after the best part of 100 years of housing patients. Each ward had its own selection of repeated wallpapers, perpetuating the uniformity and dividing nature of the institution. The prints may suggest a bright, cheery optimism but in truth they hide a terrifying reality of the treatment and segregation of some of the most vulnerable members of society. The inclusion of bird carcasses, the last living beings to inhabit Talgarth, are a macabre reminder of it’s dark history and they seek our empathy for the residences and furthermore the experience of all who were institutionalised during the 20th century in uncompromising conditions.
Wake: Exhibition of Newport's Documentary Photography Graduates
Candid Arts Gallery
3 Torrens Street
London EC1V 1NQ
1st - 4th July
10am - 6pm
Free Entry
More information about each photographer mentioned and the others in the exhibition can be found here.
There lies a certain harmonious relationship between music and art, sound and illustration, noise and drawing. Perhaps more intensely paired than any of the other two senses, our ears and our eyes stimulated simultaneously can spark something fairly major in both nostalgic recollection and creative interpretation. It appears that Alex Jako would agree with me, her poster and flyer artwork for bands being some of her most distinctive and brave pieces of illustration to date.
Perhaps it’s her experience of working at Notting Hill’s rare record mecca Rough Trade, or maybe her impressively intimate knowledge of all things prog and psych circa Germany 1970, that means melodies and motifs find themselves overlapping inseparably throughout her work. She confesses that “Music consumes my thoughts... Some of my most articulate works involve representing music..the most exciting for me- as far as challenges go for my personal illustrative communication.”
This is not a lady who does things by half. She describes herself as “a completely self-taught escapist”. She is more than aware of the hold that drawing has over her; in fact, she readily admits that artistic expression is a lifeline. “Drawing has become my most healthy habit. I have had to turn a lot of dangerous, self-destructive habits into positive obsessive ones. Drawing is one of those things which I can make as horrific or dark- or light as I want to without destroying myself or anyone around me.”
Jako arrived in London a decade ago aged 17, a fresh faced yank with a penchant for the dark and the alternative, taking a string of “various horrible low-wage jobs.. and doodled away stale time.” She reflects that it was unlikely she was ever going to settle into a 9 to 5 work environment. “I'd always get into some sort of trouble in these jobs, until eventually winning my employers over. My time-keeping is awful, my compromising potential completely non-existent.. I've always felt like a caged animal working for other people.”
When I ask her where her creativity can be traced back to, she tells me “I've always drawn since I was a child- like, a necessity. It was a great way to escape life fear, anxiety.. the never-ending cycle. Souls are powered by new music all the time. Everyone that saw what I was working on started asking me to do things for them.” Modestly, she describes herself as still just a beginner. “I still feel I have something to prove, personally and professionally.. I'm not at that stage yet where opinions don't matter to me”. Having said that, her upcoming work schedule sounds borderline frantic; Italian horror film poster re-enactments using porn stars, fields of flowers using pointillism, monstrous blobs for LMNO Projects.
I’m interested in how much free range she is given, or feels she can take, with briefs or specifications for commissions. “There is a huge amount of personal autonomy when creating these pieces, like a burning flame; the more the resistance I feel against what I'm aiming for, the bigger the fire roars and rages rebelliously.. and the more intense the urge to make something amazing, in my own way, to prove them wrong.”
And once that’s established, how long do you spend on each project, on average? “Once the spark has ignited I can steam through most pieces within days, weeks. Some projects become more ambitious naturally and like a chess game or a puzzle, I will sit and look at them for hours until each stroke pieces itself together organically, into the final work, using my subconscious to direct the piece.. a sort of meditation also. Sometimes it just all falls into place at an extraordinary rate!”
As a Londoner myself I am always curious as to what those who flock here from far flung corners of the world feel about the city and what it has to offer creatively compared with their home ground. “I have many people I admire and love over in the U.S. I spent time in NYC a few years ago and fell deeply in love with it. But sometimes I wonder if I truly exist when I am over there. I feel more real over here. I believe London holds an incredible amount of magic and opportunity and allows for anyone to be self-made if they seize the chance. London contains 'beacons in the maelstrom'.”
And now for the quickfire question round.
Hey, Alex Jako, what makes you so awesome?
My pirate ship.. steering through the rough seas and mighty winds in search of freedom and gold.
If you could travel back or forward to any era, where would you go?
I'm scared of time travel at this speed let alone moving it backwards or forwards!
Which illustrators/artists do you most admire?
Nick Blinko the punk illustrator and musician, Austin Osman Spare, his line, and his wonderful world of 'chaos magic' , Henry Darger, his insanity, and his beautiful odd drawings, Hasegawa Tōhaku, his simplicity, his wisdom and finesse, Aubrey Beardsley .. the old masters.. I'm fascinated by painters such as Italian Renaissance artist Bernardo Belloto. His execution of detail is mind-blowing.. I can stare into any section of a painting for hours, days.. admiring his use of colour, application of paint onto page.
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be doing?
Working in a record shop in Notting Hill.
Who or what is your nemesis?
Computers.. they hiss when they catch sight of me..
What piece of modern technology could you not live without?
ID cards- no one believes that I'm not 13 and who I say I am.
What advice would you give to up and coming artists?
As Robert Crumb said "Draw your way out!"
Which band past or present would provide the soundtrack to your life?
I listen to many different forms of music and musicians.. It'd be hard to pick just one. I'm very fickle with my flirtations with records also. This week the soundtracks to my life include: Pisces-A lovely Sight, Cate Le Bon's forthcoming record on Randomonium (Gruff Rhys' new label), Sam and the Plants, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac.. Amon Duul II, Honest Jon's new "Open Strings" compilation.
I say Modern art is rubbish, you say..?
I don't really consider simply being a fan of music or art as a great achievement. Nor is merely regurgitating music or art which one is a fan of already. I agree that artist should be social terrorist, as Billy Childish puts it.. crushing boundaries, fighting upstream, existing contrary to the flow that is fashionable. Symbolically, for this reason, we need modern art. As long as the cycle constantly renews itself with fresh ideas..approaches, I will adore modern art. But I refuse to glorify any particular fashion scene labeled as modern art. I like my coffee strong not watered down. Glorification by me is my silent open gaping mouth as I bury my head into my lap and stare at old things, objects, books, smelly old disintegrating yellow paper.. gawp at the old masters, etchings, paintings in Belgian art galleries...
Who would be your top 5 dream dinner guests? Who would do the washing up?
Roy Harper because I love what he has to say and he is incredibly handsome and writes beautiful songs, Werner Herzog because he might challenge everyone's perceptions on life theory or imagery and might ruffle some feathers, Chris Packham because of his intensive geek knowledge about nature, Stewart Lee for his perverse sense of humour, and Jordan just because she'd rock the dinner boat. All five of these people are a great inspiration to me in their own way. Werner Herzog would probably do the washing up.. and then make a film about washing up, which could draw people to tears. Haha!
What is your guilty pleasure?
pushing buttons.
Stop, Look AND Listen: Alex Jako proves there is more to music than the sound and more to art than the visual.
Unfold
Nettie Horn
25b Vyner Street
London E2 9DG
Until 2nd August
Wed-Sun 12-6pm
Free Entry
Gordon Cheung
“Unfold questions a creative and explorative process which has the particularity of stepping, conceptually or concretely, from two dimensional mediums into a three dimensional space. These “new types of spatial fields” consecutively play and emphasize the virtual aspect of the “drawing process”, the physical nature of its material (carbon, paper) and techniques often associated to paper such as cutting, collage, folding; and therefore focusing on an interest in the physical world surrounding us.”
Artists include: Abigail Reynolds, Tove Storch, Emma McNally, Rosie Leventon and Gordon Cheung.
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Yayoi Kusama: Outdoor Sculptures
Victoria Miro Gallery
16 Wharf Road
London N1 7RW
Until 25th July
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am-6.00pm
Monday by appointment.
Yayoi Kusama fever hits London this month, with this presentation of new sculptural work at the Victoria Miro Gallery, as well as a more extensive collection at the Hayward Gallery as part of Walking in my Mind (see below). Celebrating her 80th birthday this year, Kusama has an impressive six decades of success under her belt. These oversized colourful formations have become something of a signature for Kusama, and the Victoria Miro Gallery does them justice in their placing of them by the canalside for all to admire.
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Time and Tide: Al Lapkoysky and Katya Evdokimova
Hay Hill Gallery
23 Cork Street
Mayfair W1S 3NJ
29th June - 18th July
Monday - Saturday 11am - 6pm
Free Entry
Photograph by Al Lapkoysky
“‘Time and Tide’ is a joint show of the most recent work by internationally recognised London-based Russian photographers Al Lapkovsky and Katya Evdokimova. Both Lapkovsky and Evdokimova have won many photographic awards including Professional Photographer of the Year and the International Photographic Awards and often work together. Lapkovsky’s collection of works in this exhibition juxtaposes the surreal and the ordinary enabling the viewer to take a leap of imagination and look at our ordinary lives through the realms of fantasy.”
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Walking in my Mind
Hayward Gallery
South Bank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XZ
Until 6th September
Open daily 10am - 6pm, late nights Friday until 10pm
Entry: £9/£6
Chiharu Shiota
Reminiscent of last summer’s hugely successful ‘Psycho Buildings’ exhibition, Walking in My Mind explores the imagination of ten international artists with individual large-scale interactive installation. Exploring interior worlds of thoughts, dreams, fears, memories and ideas and their inevitable confrontation with exterior reality, the boundaries between inner and outer space blurred and redefined.
Artists include: Charles Avery, Thomas Hirschhorn, Yayoi Kusama, Bo Christian Larsson, Mark Manders, Yoshitomo Nara, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, Chiharu Shiota and Keith Tyson.
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Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed 09: Recent Graduates Exhibition
Photographer’s Gallery
16 - 18 Ramillies St
London W1F 7LW
Until 5th July
Monday - Saturday 11am-6pm, Thursday 11am-8pm, Sunday 12pm-6pm
Free Entry
Photograph by Petros Chrisostomou
Navigating your way through the vast ocean of Graduate art shows that continue to fill the gallery wall space of the capital can be a daunting and exhausting exercise. Thank the heavens then that for photography fiends the highlights in new photographic talent can be found in this second annual showcase at the Photographer’s Gallery.
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We Dream of Language Without History
Paradise Row
17 Hereford Street
London, E2 6EX
Until 25th July
Wed-Sat, 12-6
Free Entry
Samta Benyahia
Playing on society’s linguistic assumptions about names and origins, this exhibition of Middle Eastern or Muslim ‘sounding’ names is actually made up of artists who were born, grew up and live and work in a highly disparate series of locations and whose work reflects and explicitly engages, both individually and collectively, with the complex diversity of their backgrounds. This show raises issues of individual human identity and mass political definition; clever, challenging and thought provoking.
Artists participating in the exhibition: Farhad Ahrarnia; Lulwah Al-Homoud; Samta Benyahia; Shezad Dawood; Ala Ebtekar; Mounir Fatmi; Karim Ghelloussi; Aïcha Hamu; Hayv Kahraman; Timo Nasseri; Henna Nadeem; Ayman Yossri Daydban.
Thumbnail: Abigail Reynolds
