Jimena Kato: “Every artwork is a way we have found to solve a specific problem”.

Jimena Kato (Lima, Perú) is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Madrid. I discovered her in an art fair and the pieces she was presenting remained in my memory for a long time. Time. Unstable. Precarious. Delicate. Popcorn. These are the words I would use to describe her work, if only art could be translated to language. Her artworks could be thought as time experiments where matter is studied through the slow but constant processes of change. As if they were natural objects, as if they were us.

Jimena Kato studied sculpture, video and performance in ESADMM Marseille, France. After that she  obtained her transmedia post-diploma in Sint­Lukas Hogeschool, Brussels. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Paris, Lima, Brussels, Philadelphia, Bogotá, and Spain.

 

 

How would you describe your work?

Adaptable to circumstances.

What can we learn from ourselves through artworks?

Every artwork is a way we have found to solve a specific problem, so with every piece we make, we learn something.

 

 

What kind of feelings do you wish to communicate?

I don’t want to communicate feelings, nor I think I have anything to tell to other people, I think what I do are tests, attempts, trys and fails and then when I show my work the question is more likely “what do you think?” or feel for that matter. I’m curious about the reaction in other people, if they get something. Of course I want them to like it, to take with them something from it after experiencing it, but that is all I can wish for.

 

 

Where do you find beauty?

Normally I don’t find it because I’m not particularly looking for it. I think beauty happens, as a consequence of something. It doesn’t exist as a closed predetermined form, it is more a sort of transitional movement that suddenly unveils it. Beauty always surprises me coming from nowhere or from unexpected places, gestures, situations, always from nature, nature can be terrible too.

 

 

 

 

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Learn more about Jimena Kato here!

 

Interview with Jessica Wilson: “Creation is the rebellion”

Jessica Wilson (b. 1986) is a British visual artist currently based in Glasgow. She studied Fine Art at University College Falmouth (UK) before going on to become part of the Turps Banana Painting Programme, an experimental art school in East London, run by Marcus Harvey and Peter Ashton Jones. Since then she has co-founded the artist led initiative The Juncture and had a two person show at Standpoint Gallery, London. Jessica Wilson has recently completed a Masters at Glasgow School of Art and was a finalist for the 2015 Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in public and private collections.

Untitled (2014)

I remember that the first thought that came up to my mind when I came across Jessica Wilson’s paintings was “wow, this has kind of a Mary Heilmann spirit”- and Mary is definitely one of the cool girls-, so I started following and very soon loving Jessica’s work. One of Wilson’s project is an imaginary exhibition under the title, ‘Mary, Blinky, Jessica, Yay!’, where she fantasies about exhibiting her work next to Heliman’s and Palermo’s. So that made me realize that I had captured her essence in some sense from the beginning.

Average-pretty (2016)

I think that sharing what you love with others creates an invisible bond: a bond that we could name ‘having a particular sensibility’. Maybe is Mary Heilmann what brought me to Jessica’s Wilson art, but what really interests me is her own world.  A series of paintings that relate to echoes, moments, or remembered memories written in a language that we can only give meaning by looking, deeply.

How much can we learn from ourselves through art?

What we can learn is immeasurable. Art makes us question and search. It allows us to place things and to place oneself.

Mary, Blinky, Jessica, Yay! (2016)

Why painting? And why abstraction?

I’ve always had a love of paint since I was young and my obsession with it continues to grow. For me, painting is discovery.

 I wouldn’t describe my work as abstract. They all come from life. They’re translations, just like Ellsworth Kelly’s works are translations of things he’s seen in the world.

Where do you find beauty?

 I look to nature first to find beauty but it can be found everywhere, from patterns in weather to music and relationships.

The bricks that built the houses (2016)

What kind of feelings do you wish to communicate with your artworks?

 For me painting and drawing is about communicating things I don’t have the words for. I don’t have words for how I want the viewer to feel, I just want them to take the time to look, really look.

 A fictional character that inspires you

 That’s a tricky one to answer as I think I’m most inspired by other artists. Viv Albertine’s autobiography, ‘Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys’ jumps straight to my mind as an inspirational read. Her song that said “Typical girls / Don’t create / Don’t rebel / Have intuition / Can’t decide”? Well, Albertine decided. Creation is the rebellion.

Interview with Annekatrin Lemke: “Art encourages us to think and rethink about life”

Annekatrin Lemke (1980) is a German freelance artist known for her colorful ‘sculptural paintings‘ made out of wood. Abstraction, geometry, and powerful colors usually combined by a neutral white, meet in a three dimensional space of wooden relief. She studied wood design at the Academy Of Applied Art in Schneeberg, and currently she lectures at sculpting workshops and teaches future “master” wood-carvers. Her creations have been exhibited in Brussels, Karlsruhe, Liechtenstein, Erfurt and Suhl.

 I contacted Annekatrin to ask her some questions about her work and the meaning of art, here is what she told me. Hope you enjoy her words and her beautiful pieces!

 

How much can we learn from ourselves through art?

Art encourages the viewer as well as the artist to think and rethink about life at all, about memories as well as future plans, about how to live, how to communicate and how to see. Yes, by dealing with art you get a more complex and precise view of what surrounds us.

 

Where do you find beauty?

Beauty is everywhere around us. I find beauty in the nature as well as in the city and especially in art, architecture, music, literature, fashion and human relationships.

What kind of feelings do you wish to communicate with your artworks?

I think this is open to the personality of the viewer. I like the different perceptions and the discussion about the artworks!

 

A fictional character that inspires you.

Honestly, I’m more inspired by other artists- sculptors, painters and photographers-, as well as musicians and actors. There’s such a great amount of inspiring artists to focus on! I like for example Agnes Martin, Frank Stella, Imi Knoebel, Giorgio Morandi and Rachel Whiteread.

You can find more of Annekatrin’s work here!

All photos belong to the artist.