Driftwood...Miles Toland
"Driftwood" is inspired by the journeys of discarded and wandering pieces of scrap wood that become weathered with stories and defined by the elements. The unique shape and material of the panels inform the composition and content of each painting. The figures in the paintings melt into and emerge out of the wood grain to depict a sacred union with nature. Form fitting geometries provide a harmonious structure to the figures and reveal a glimpse of coexisting realities that often go unnoticed. Miles has chosen to paint the members of the Vaayu Waterman's Village of Goa, India. They are water sportsmen, environmentalists, musicians, and artists who embody the spirit of creation and love for nature.
Migrating Whales and Other Stores...DRIFT
Invited to Goa in November, 2014 to be an artist in residence with the Vision Collective Artist Residency Program, Sachin has been floating about the streets of Goa for the past month observing life, soaking in inspiration, and leaving behind distinctive Driftian traces. As if spontaneously, walls in and out of people's homes seem to be sprouting mysteriously minute Red Doors or suspended whale-like forms. The idea behind 'Migrating Whales and other Stories' was triggered by the casual observation that Goa more than most other beach-destinations has a number of mothers, among its tourist population, either pregnant with child or with their new-born infants in tow, (perhaps the natural birthing centre in Assagaon has something to do with this) while the idea of migrating, shifting populations is integral to Goa's 'seasonal' rhythms. The show brings together photo and video documentation of Drift murals as well as pen-and-ink drawings on fresh banana leaves and paper, all of which was produced while in residence. Besides this the exhibition will also show some older vector-based print-works and giff animations. Migrating Whales and other Stories illustrates Drift's artistic process as one that is entrenched in its contexts – whether in its engagement with community or the landscape it occupies, and one that seeks to strike a balance between traditional modes of expression like drawing or wall art and contemporary tools like computer-based interfaces, vector drawing and digital projection.
Mythopolis: the Goa Chapter...INKBRUSHnME
MYTHOPOLIS is a way of keeping alive stories heading towards extinction. I attempt to re-contextualize Indian mythologies and magical moments from popular myths in a contemporary lexicon. The intention is to sustain and celebrate the essential and eternal messages encoded within. I am sharing my interpretations of mythologies through street art murals and through digital paintings.
The street art aspect of MYTHOPOLIS engages the public, exposes them to new interpretations of mythological symbolism, and hopefully gives them a reason to smile. While these murals may wither with time, they have the power to nurture consciousness. Some may influence generations and some will fade with little notice, but every piece will have its voice for a while. In the end. only stories remain.
-INKBRUSHnME
Water Worlds...Krilly Moon Snail
For the most part, reality as we experience it in our human jumpsuits assumes the form of a narrative of linear events flowing from one moment to the next. Current paradigms informing this perception of reality demand that an experience must be quantifiable, replicable and observable in order to exist. Any experience challenging this collective rendering of reality is diagnosed as a maladaptive encoding, hallucination or delusion.
This seems ridiculous when one considers that a majority of people encode experiences that traverse accepted boundaries of reality on a regular basis. Déjà vu, sleep paralysis, the feeling of someone’s eyes staring into the back of your head on the bus… are all but small aberrations in the linear reality narrative, although the fact that they are hard to quantify and repeat reliably mitigates their potential significance. Larger reality aberrations like extra terrestrial visitations, telepathy, meditative states and near death experiences are almost completely excluded from definitions informing the boundaries within which consciousness is permitted to operate in modern society. Water
Worlds is a playful exploration of alternate encodings of reality and a celebration of the infinite possibilities through which consciousness can manifest. Krilly draws upon the experiences in her life that have left her with the most questions about reality, including telepathic communication with plant and animal consciousness, extra terrestrial visitations, and altered states of being through meditation, dreams, entheogens and fevers. Scenes inspired from these experiences are implicitly watery in their nature because a liquid multiverse of ever-changing reality potentials becomes possible when the present moment is experienced without the filters of collective consciousness. Water becomes an analogy for the ways in which parallel and closely existing reality potentials melt into and influence one another, and are inseparable as drops in the ocean.
The Chrysalis
Seeing Sound, Hearing Color...Shane Heath
With this series I am exploring a visual interpretation of memories. Each piece summarizes the contrast of a detailed recollection with abstraction of the senses. Such as a deep and shared exploration through the eyes of a stranger. Where time stops and reality gets refracted into both boundless complexity and condensed clarity all at once. The minds eye renders specific features in vivid vibrant detail. Others; the amalgam of sounds, smells, feelings, tastes of the moment, get abstracted into texture and symbols. Sounds are reinterpreted through shape, colors can be heard, the recollection of a memory is a beautiful abstraction of a previous reality.
With influences from street art, realism, and expressionism this work is created using a stylistic fusion developed specifically for the series. The process begins with a charcoal under drawing. Texture is then built using pastels, charcoal pencil, paint pens, and spray paint. The resulting compositions are rendered using artist grade acrylics letting the underlying texture seep through to the surface. Patterns and symbols are then applied to give the piece it's unique language. The result is a still image encoded with the visual and sensory information of a dense moment in time.
Enjoy.
Sublime Landscapes
The sound of containers being loaded onto a ship is a sound that brings me back to my childhood. My father is a captain on commercial sea vessels which ply worldwide. Both my parents insisted that sailing from one country to another on magnificent cargo ships was as valuable an education as going to school in India. Sailing on these surreal structures was my matrix to the perfect world. The Ship and the Ocean together form a space of pure vacuity, solitude and silence.
My relationship with ships and the sea as home, geographical space and identity is complex. Although people back on land didn’t always get this connection, my art practice gave me a space to share and explore my deep rooted love of the Ocean. Even as a 5 year old I knew that exact feeling of the Sublime that engulfed my body and mind while witnessing the infinite sky against the ocean, the ever changing texture of the sea, the beautiful but furious storms… the list goes on. I hunger to taste these experience over and again. The Art Residency at Vaayu provided me with the perfect combination of the ocean and a creative space to further explore the Sublime though painting.
Concord
My name is Joey Baker, I am a 22 year old Fine artist, illustrator and designer living and working in London, Uk. My work focuses on the meaning behind the human experience, investigating life and death and everything in between through the observation of ancient philosophies and art to modern science and maths.
My newest art collection for Concord exhibition follows this ongoing investigation as I experiment with new painting techniques and concepts in an attempt to create a new stem of original visionary artwork.
I have become fascinated with humanities relationship with technology, the synergy of nature combining with machine has lead to humans living in their dreams, re programming their reality and manifesting their imagination. The sharp rise in technology has become a pinnacle point in the evolution of human kind, it has also created new age symbolism for generations to follow in juxtaposition to old religions and traditions.
By combining traditional themes of ancient artwork from various cultures with new age symbolism I am able to show the transition of our evolution, from the similarities to the differences.
You have to know where you’ve come from to know where your headed…..
To fit this theme the work, I have painted with the aid of computer design programmes, combining imagery sourced from my travels with symbols created by our new generations, mapped out electronically and executed traditionally.
Finding balance and harmony through intense transformation.
Butterfly and moth symbolize morphing from one phase to the next. Just like the moon, our constant cyclical evolution is always on the horizon.
Our own thoughts and actions can enhance or stunt our progress, but the world keeps burning and turning. What will you do with the challenges (re: opportunities) that life presents? Will you fight it and prolong the inevitable or jump on a rocket to find the next sunrise? Will you dance and flow with the truth or let fear push you off a cliff?
Complementary colors bring light to these choices and the magic of working relationships. Focus on the small winged creatures bring awareness to the details of life around us every moment and the ability to rise above. Poems accompany each painting to offer an even deeper insight to my process and feelings while it was created.
Gratitude prevails to bring this personal series of my minds eye and human experience into the public eyes and ears. May your senses be stimulated and your perspectives expanded.
With love- Kahili
Stellar Frequencies
With this passage I speak to you personally. To create is to give life. As human beings, with our creations we have the ability to connect through art, music, language, or any form of artistic expression. We urge for that connection, that communication, that understanding. As the creator, my purpose is to inspire the observer to acknowledge and chase that creative energy that burns deep within themselves, to pursue it, and give life to these ideas. As the observer, my purpose is to listen to what this person has to say and to admire the existence of these creations. To me, the art that we create as human beings has the ability to transport energy, evoke emotion, and inspire love long after it’s creator has left this world. We’re playing with space and time through art and love; transcending the idea of finite human existence.
Living in Goa has introduced me to a new freedom, urging the art to use less mind and more being – where the subliminal and subconscious realms take over. This collection is about exploration; allowing the creative energy of the Universe to flow in any way it asked to, without the bounds of reason or fear. These are my conversations with the stars. Stories told in modern hieroglyphics - unexplored, ancient in their movements, and simultaneous of the future. The intent of the artwork is not to dictate how you feel, rather it asks you how you feel in its presence. They are meant to energize the space as a whole and speak to each observer individually.
I’m really excited to share this work with you. If there is one resonating feeling I hope to leave you with, it would be that you are limitless – that you feel you are unbound and inspired to explore your own creative energies, that you answer to whatever calling has been burning steadily at your core, and that you share these gifts with the world.
Moontides
My journey of art and design was indeed adventurous but art was left behind when design took to the fore. This residency was about rediscovering facets of myself that i left behind along this journey. be it art , emotive strength , fear, fascination.
Rediscovering a source of creativity which was independent of clients and deadlines. and just for itself and the joy it created.
it also made way for fascination of an environment that earlier sparked fear in my mind: the sea.
once feared, i grew to be accustomed to it and explored it in wonder as different characteristics of the sea played around me.
fluid form and abstract shapes and lush environments inspired by the beautiful surrounding, surface tension of the water, fresh blues, shifting of sands because of the tides, the roar of waves breaking on my cheeks.
the whole environment during my residency also flourished and took me along. the moon held power to my emotional being, the sound of the waves drifted me to sleep, the fresh greens awakened me in them morning”
this collection is my homage to the sea and this place, its magic on me and my realisations of it.”
For example, I feared the sea, until I decided to steal one of its greatest assets: fluidity. When applied to my work, fluidity allowed me to discern the harmony existing within abstract forms just the way water finds harmony with any shape that it is subjected to.
On realising this, my fear of water became a source of fascination. And in submerging myself in this fascination, i give you "Moontides"
Decorative Nature
Fields of organic form and pattern synthesize natural reality, a space that is entirely in the realm of human manipulation and influence but still affected by and existing in nature. The paintings are subjective landscapes/inscapes, an interpretation of environmental surroundings and a reflection of the interaction between nature and human nature, especially in the context of an urban environment.
Seemingly erratic yet ultra controlled manner of painting is a reflection of the human condition amid the calm, sure chaos of nature. We don't follow the rules of the land we come from. The paintings feel organic but don't present the relaxation or awe of viewing a landscape. They are not meant to be an escape or decoration, just as nature isn't decoration or a tourist destination. It is real, it is constant, and we affect it with our messes, movement and frivolous lives.
While at Vaayu, I've utilized traditional methods of sewing and embroidery, a skill taught to me by my mother which are also passed down and utilized in many cultures. By mixing traditional artisan techniques with contemporary painting and illustrative aesthetics I've been exploring the ideas behind the value of 'Art' vs artisan and the underlying theme of value of women's work on a greater scale. These general questions appear as a jumping point for further research while acknowledging that these micro issues in human nature are still part of the macro issue of environmental damage and the human's displacement of themselves as a contributor or actor in a role of nature as a whole.