Collect

Art
Drawings
Special Edition

VOL 73 August, 2025

on the cover ‘Expecting Others’ by Jan Wurm
 Table
of
Contents
Jing He 05

Geraldine Leahy 08

Zorg (Yifan Jing) 14

Lewis Andrews 20

Yuchen Li 25

Nadia kissel 27

Angeline D’Balentine & 31

Chris Pent Robinson

Jan Wurm 39

Monika Ruiz-B 44

Joshua Turner-Mallett 48
EDITOR'S
MESSAGE
In an age defined by digital speed and hyper-saturated landscape of the mind. Each artwork carries its own
imagery, drawing remains one of the most direct and rhythm, from the meditative repetition of graphite lines to
intimate expressions of the human mind. It is the first the bold immediacy of ink and charcoal.
language of the visual artist — a whispered thought on Accompanying these visuals are artist biographies and
paper, a gesture that captures a fleeting idea before it statements that allow readers to step into the worlds
disappears. With just a line, a smudge, or a shadow, behind the marks. In personalized interviews, our artists
drawing allows the hand to speak directly to the world share their processes, inspirations, and philosophies — the
without mediation, bridging the space between the tactile rituals of holding a pencil or brush, the quiet
internal and the external, the imagined and the moments of solitude where ideas surface, and the cultural
observed. or emotional landscapes that inform their work. Some
Volume 73 of our magazine is dedicated to speak of drawing as a daily meditation; others approach it
celebrating the profound simplicity and complexity of as an act of resistance or an exploration of identity.
drawing. Across centuries, drawing has been the Collectively, these narratives remind us that drawing is as
foundation of visual storytelling and creative much about presence as it is about image.
exploration, from prehistoric cave walls to Through these pages, readers are invited to witness how a
Renaissance studies to the conceptual sketches of line becomes a voice. Drawings can murmur or shout,
contemporary art. But today, drawing is more than a meander or strike with precision, but they always carry
preparatory act — it is a fully realized, autonomous art the fingerprints of thought. In presenting these diverse
form that reveals the pulse of its maker. practices, our goal is to honor the universality of drawing
In this issue, we bring together international artists — its ability to transcend language, geography, and time
whose practices expand the definition of drawing in while remaining profoundly personal.
unexpected and thought-provoking ways. Their works As you explore Volume 73, consider the quiet power of a
traverse continents and cultures, yet all share a single line. Perhaps it will remind you of the last time you
devotion to the hand-drawn mark — whether it picked up a pen and let your mind wander freely across a
appears as an intimate diary, a dynamic sketch of page. In the simplest of marks lies an entire world,
urban life, or an expansive abstraction that feels like a waiting for connection.
Jing He
Jing He focuses on the folklore and cultural gaps where vague, unnamed emotions and symbols
reside. She explores marginalized narratives that carry deep layers of collective memory and
personal experience. Though often unstable and fragmented, these narratives possess a unique truth
and quiet power.
Through surrealist storytelling, she seeks to reawaken hidden cultural fragments and present them in
a renewed visual context. In her practice, unease serves as a guiding emotion, not to instill fear, but
to heighten the viewer’s sensitivity and invite reflection on the structures, symbols, and subconscious
forces embedded within the image. Drawn to subtle details and symbolic constructions, she allows
each image to unfold as a poetic, open-ended experience.

Guhuo Birds
Stone Lithograph on paper, 57x75cm, 2024

This work is inspired by the Chinese folklore of the Guhuo Birds—a spirit said to be born from mothers who died in childbirth, wandering the night to steal other
people's children. I intertwine this ancient legend with the modern reality of child trafficking, reimagining it through a surrealist lens. In this narrative, the
boundaries between reality and myth blur, giving new meaning to a traditional tale. Through distorted visual storytelling, the piece explores themes of
motherhood, loss, and longing, shedding light on the hidden and often overlooked darkness within modern society.

05
You speak of “vague, unnamed emotions” in your work—can you describe how you sense or identify
these feelings before translating them visually?
These emotions usually stem from moments that make me feel uneasy or unfamiliar, such as strange stories I
heard as a child, recurring images in my dreams, or suddenly feeling out of place in a familiar location. I transform
these feelings into specific images, such as a recurring object, a distorted space, or an incomplete body, using them
to express those indescribable emotions and resonate with the audience as they view my work.
Folklore is often both deeply rooted and ever-shifting—how do you navigate the tension between
tradition and invention in your storytelling?
I typically do not recreate traditional stories directly, but rather extract certain key characteristics from them, such
as a symbol, a character trait, or a character's emotional state. Then I combine these characteristics with emotions,
social issues, or personal experiences from real life, using my imagination to reconstruct them. This approach
preserves the depth of traditional culture while allowing it to take on new meaning in a new context. For me,
tradition is the starting point, imagination is the tool, and the tension between the two is precisely the most
fascinating part of my creative process.
Unease plays a central role in your practice—not as fear, but as heightened sensitivity. What draws
you to that emotional state as an artistic tool?
For me, unease is a state of openness that compels one to observe and question the overlooked parts of daily
experience. When an image provokes a slight sense of discomfort, it has the potential to disrupt habitual ways of
viewing and guide the audience into a deeper level of consciousness. I use it as a trigger point connecting the
subconscious, cultural structures, and the power of symbols.
Can you share an example of a specific cultural fragment or symbol you‘ve recontextualized in your
work, and what it meant to you personally?
I used the image of the ‘Guhuo Bird’ from Chinese mythology and combined it with the issue of child trafficking in
modern society to create this work. For me, this symbol is not only mysterious, but also represents those who
cannot speak out in society. It reminds me of the silent suffering that exists in reality, and makes me realise that I
have a deep emotional response to these issues. In the process of creating this work, I was not only telling a story,
but also sorting out my complex feelings about violence and silence.
How do you decide what to leave unexplained or ambiguous in your imagery, and why is that ambiguity
important to the viewer’s experience?
I will save emotions or imagery that are inherently difficult to define for explanation, as they are more likely to
spark the audience's imagination. However, I will make key clues or important background information in the
narrative more explicit. The balance between ambiguity and clarity depends on whether I want the audience to
‘approach’ or ‘explore’ the work. For example, in traditional stories and modern events, I will depict certain explicit
traits or characteristics in detail, while for emotions themselves or scenes that evoke emotions, I will choose to
handle them ambiguously. In that work on the topic of child trafficking, I did not directly depict the process of
children being trafficked, but instead created a seemingly warm and welcoming children's playground scene,
hiding the guhuo birds—symbolising the trafficked children—in various corners of the playground, using contrast
to convey the underlying unease.

06
Your work seems to dwell in liminal spaces—emotionally, culturally, and visually. What attracts you
to the in-between?
‘The middle’ is a state of flux, escaping clear categorisation and judgement. It is precisely in this ambiguous area
that many forgotten and unrecognised cultural experiences quietly exist. For me, these transitional areas are more
real and even more powerful than the centre. At the same time, this state leaves more room for the audience's
imagination and provokes their thinking, which is precisely what I hope to convey and inspire through my work.
Do dreams or subconscious experiences inform your surrealist approach, and if so, how do they
merge with cultural memory in your process?
Yes, dreams and the subconscious play a significant role in my creative process. I often encounter vague yet
recurring imagery in my dreams, such as bizarre creatures, people with indistinct faces, and rooms filled with
sound yet devoid of speech. These images overlap with the cultural memories I have accumulated since childhood.
For instance, the grotesque figures from traditional stories or folk beliefs, along with fears of death or loss of
speech, manifest in my dreams in distorted forms. I collage these dreamscapes with cultural symbols to create a
visual language that is both familiar and alien. This fusion allows me to explore emotions that are difficult to
articulate through language and reawakens the subconscious layers of traditional culture.
When engaging with marginalized or forgotten narratives, how do you approach the ethics of
interpretation and reimagining?
When dealing with these marginalized or forgotten narratives, I avoid turning them into consumable topics or
objects of curiosity. What I focus on is the emotional impact, hoping to create a vague, unsettling atmosphere that
prompts the audience to confront the social issues that have been overlooked. Rather than reconstructing a
complete story, I prefer to preserve its contradictions and complexities, allowing the audience to resonate
emotionally rather than merely understand an issue. This approach is also a form of respect and restraint for me.
How do you hope your audience will engage with the symbols in your work—intellectually,
emotionally, spiritually?
I hope that the audience will not merely ‘understand’ the images, but will be drawn in by them and feel those parts
that are difficult to express in words. If, while viewing, they begin to reflect on their own relationship with cultural
memory or resonate with a certain vague emotion, that is the kind of interaction I envision. I also hope that the
audience can approach the social issues addressed in the work from different angles, as I did not focus solely on a
single aspect during the creative process. I believe these issues are often the result of multiple intertwined factors,
so I also anticipate that the audience will bring their own experiences to uncover the various layers of possibilities
within them.
Do you see your work as a kind of visual archaeology—uncovering, preserving, or transforming
forgotten cultural truths?
Yes, I really like the term ‘visual archaeology.’ My work is like searching for forgotten or suppressed meanings
among cultural fragments, and through collage, reorganisation, and renaming, allowing them to be seen again in
the contemporary world. This is both a form of preservation and a transformation. I also often reflect on how
ancient monster culture inherently carries many social issues and responses to natural phenomena, such as fears
and projections related to death, disease, and marginalised identities. If one observes closely, these issues have not
truly disappeared but continue to persist in different forms today. Therefore, I hope that through these images, I
can prompt audiences to rethink their own cultural memories and social realities.

07
Geraldine Leahy
‘’Concerned with the exigent and immediate issues of climate change, my practice focuses on coastal erosion
and involves an awareness of the entanglement of natural and manufactured debris in the sand. As I walk the
beach, I investigate residual marks in the littoral landscape following severe weather events. Regular sketching
on-site enables me to record changes in the terrain and maintain a connection with the coastal environment.
Found objects become the subject of representational drawings in the studio or are used in monoprinting initial
layers of paintings. Sometimes, materials such as dried seaweeds and grasses become natural drawing tools.
My sketchbooks provide inspiration and a starting point for much of my work. They allow for a space where I
can record mood and weather, explore composition and experiment with techniques before commencing
finished pieces’’

Geraldine Leahy is a contemporary landscape artist with an interest in environmental concerns. She
returned to education to study art and was awarded a BA (Hons) Painting Degree from The University for
the Creative Arts (UCA) in 2022. Her practice involves the observation of traces and imprints in the littoral
landscape, the marks of natural processes and human interventions. Observing the entanglements of
natural and manmade materials on the beach, she uses shoreline debris in layered processes that suggest
changes in the environment and encourage reflection on the effects mankind has had on the coastline. Her
intriguing combinations of monoprint and paint reveal the devastating consequences of coastal erosion at
a local level. However, the artist also brings this issue to universal attention through her continued
engagement with art awards, publications, and exhibitions.

Beach Study with Broken Fence - Charcoal on paper, 21x28.5cm, 2022 08

Your work emerges from a direct engagement with the coastal environment—can you describe the
emotional and sensory experience of walking the beach after a storm?
Walking the shoreline following a turbulent weather event, I am always dismayed by the changes that have
occurred. A confusion of new materials is embedded in the sand, creating a desolate and overwhelming sight.
Items such as corroding metals, coils of wire, and a surfeit of plastic debris linger on the windswept beach like
traces and imprints of the processes of a changing climate. Walking is interrupted by subsiding fence posts and
collapsing dunes. It is unsettling to consider how long it took this tenuous landscape to form and yet how relatively
quickly it can be destroyed.
What draws you to the littoral zone specifically, and how does this transitional space reflect the
tension between natural forces and human impact?
The littoral zone is an exhilarating place to be, revealing shifting moods and changing prospects. This mutable
space between land and sea, which is particularly subject to severe weather events, is a good indicator of what is
happening elsewhere in the natural world in terms of the detrimental effects of climate change. Entangled
materials, both natural and manmade, linger on the beach, ironically creating through their presence an acute
sense of absence and loss about the littoral environment.

Eroding Dunes
Ink on paper,
21x28.5cm, 2022

09
How do your sketchbooks function in your creative process, not just technically, but emotionally or
philosophically?
My sketchbooks establish a connection with the littoral zone. They help me to remember my thoughts about the
beach and how the weather was on a particular day, as well as record unusual sights and embedded debris. A
sketching session on the beach necessarily involves walking. As I walk and sketch the shoreline, I am inspired by the
philosophical conclusions of anthropologist Tim Ingold, social scientist Sarah Pink, and geographer Tim Edensor
about how the sensory aspects of walking, often in various weather conditions, makes us knowledgeable about a
place.
You use both natural materials like seaweed and manmade debris in your work—how do these
materials interact, and what conversations do they spark on the canvas?
I am continually amazed by how these diverse materials have become entangled to the point where it can be
difficult to differentiate between them on the beach. In the studio, manmade items adopt natural characteristics
throughout the monoprinting and painting processes. This sense of entanglement and mutation is an ironic
confirmation of the extent of mankind’s detrimental effect on the coastline. On the canvas, these transformations
create paintings that are intriguing and open to interpretation, and which I hope will encourage the viewer to
carefully consider their behaviour towards the natural environment.

Eroded Dunes and Exposed Grass Roots

Charcoal on paper, 21x28.5cm, 2022

10
In what ways does your use of monoprinting influence the mood and message of paintings?
The monoprinted materials create the mood. It is an accidental and unpredictable process, over which I have little
control. Sometimes the monoprint creates a sinister mood. For example, I have a painting called ‘Expired,’ where
plastic strands have adopted the appearance of dead or dying fish. At other times, the mood seems more positive.
For instance, in my painting ‘Plastic Paradox,’ the monoprinted plastics have created attractive, floaty shapes. Once
the mood is established, I respond to the monoprinted layer, deciding which areas of the painting to develop, what
to hide, and what to reveal. Of course, whatever the mood, the message to the viewer is the same.
How do you navigate the balance between the personal and the universal in your art?
While my work begins in my locality, I also like to bring it to universal attention because climate change is a
worldwide issue. I regularly submit work to art prizes, publications, and exhibitions, both at home and abroad.
Some of the opportunities I choose are directly concerned with environmental issues. Others are more general. I
usually take part in interviews if they are available. In this way, I can draw attention to the problem of climate
change, highlighting my personal experiences and my efforts to demonstrate it through my artwork.
How has your return to education and formal art study shaped the evolution of your practice?
I engaged in distance learning with the Open College of the Arts (Barnsley, UK) for a BA (Hons) Painting degree,
which was accredited by The University for the Creative Arts (Farnham, UK) in 2022. The support I received from our
Programme Leader, tutors, and fellow students was hugely instrumental in establishing my voice as an
environmental artist. The skills I learned were wide-ranging, from academic reading and essay writing to practical
advice when organising a solo exhibition – and much more. Without this formal study, I would not have acquired
the personal voice I now possess.

11 Manmade Debris in the Dunes - Charcoal on paper, 20.5x29.5cm, 2020

Are there specific sites or coastal communities that have particularly influenced your work?
In 2021 and 2022, I took part in shoreline exhibitions on a number of beaches, where the work was curated about
the particular location. Sometimes the paintings were hung on driftwood poles in the sand, laid out on a rocky
foreshore, and once they were suspended from a small, wrecked boat. Each exhibition was hung in an
environmentally friendly way and was subject to tidal and weather conditions. The coastal community, curator,
and fellow artists were very supportive, and I found the whole experience extremely interesting, informative, and
uplifting.
As someone working with themes of loss and transformation, what role does hope play?
Climate change is an overwhelming presence in all our lives, and it is easy to become depressed about it. I think it is
important to possess a sense of hope and to look for the good news stories as an antidote to all the negative press.
I try to make my paintings look appealing – some of them are quite attractive – because I’m aware that not every
viewer wants to look at ugly or distressing images. By getting my point across in a subtle, less abrasive manner, I
hope to engage more viewers and encourage them to want to take action. Actively working for the environment, as
opposed to merely worrying about it, should make viewers more hopeful and resilient.
How do you see the role of the artist in environmental advocacy today?
The artist has a very important role to play at this critical time of climate change and there are a great many
creatives who have become activists for our endangered planet. Working in various media and a variety of
processes, they are highlighting different aspects of the climate emergency from rising sea levels and flooding to
the proliferation of plastics in our environment. In terms of the diverse range of approaches adopted by artists
today, it is both an exciting time to be an artist working in landscape and environmental art, but also a worrying
time because of the reason we are compelled to do it.

Monoprint, acrylic, and gouache,

Monoprint of Plastic Strands
20.5x30cm, 2021

12
 Monoprint of Plastic Strands
Monoprint, acrylic, and gouache,
30x20.5cm, 2021
Zorg (Yifan Jing)
Zorg (Yifan Jing) is a visual artist based in London, with a background in Illustration from Goldsmiths,
University of London. His practice is grounded in field research and explores migration, cultural symbolism,
and cross-cultural narratives. Working through illustration and spatial construction, Zorg reflects on social
structures and psychological states embedded in real landscapes.
His work examines how images generate meaning in motion—often rooted in marginal communities and
non-mainstream contexts. Through listening, collecting, and recomposing, he creates fluid visual texts that
negotiate identity, emotion, and power. From tracking elephant migration routes in Asia to documenting
East London’s multi-ethnic neighbour-hoods, Zorg explores the image as a site of relational tension and
coexistence.Rather than reproducing stories, his practice generates them—layering fragmented
compositions, totemic motifs, and participatory spatial languages. For Zorg, images are not just tools of
expression, but visual agreements shaped by social relations.

14
Your practice is rooted in field research and engages with migration and cultural symbolism. What
initially drew you to these themes, and how do they shape your creative process?
My interest in migration and cultural symbolism emerged organically through conversations with friends from
different backgrounds. I became increasingly aware of how accent, gesture, and everyday customs quietly carry
layers of cultural history and displacement. These small yet intimate markers drew me toward a kind of visual
ethnography, translating such ephemeral signals into visual languages. I began collecting and reworking symbolic
elements that speak to hybrid identities or fractured narratives, layering them with personal memories and lived
experience. In a way, I’m not documenting others, but mapping how these elements resonate within my shifting
sense of place and self.
Could you elaborate on what “meaning in motion” means to you and how it appears in your art?
For me, “meaning in motion” speaks to the fluidity of identity and space—how they are never static but constantly
reshaped by experience, memory, and displacement. Movement allows fragments of time and emotion to collide,
overlap, or fade, much like frames in a film that together build an unfolding narrative. In my practice, I extract and
reconfigure these fragments—whether through drawing, collage, or field imagery—to create visual sequences that
feel both transitional and unsettled. Each fragment holds a momentary truth, but it’s the shifting relationship
between them that reveals something deeper, something that mirrors the layered and evolving nature of who I am.
From tracking elephant migration routes in Asia to documenting East London’s multi-ethnic
neighborhoods, your projects span very different geographies. How do you approach connecting
these diverse landscapes and communities in your work?
At first glance, these sites may seem disconnected—jungles in Yunnan, urban alleyways in East London—but what
interests me is the invisible geometry that links them: the flows of displacement, memory, and survival that cut
across species, borders, and histories I approach each geography not as a static place, but as a layered narrative
system. Whether it’s tracing the disrupted routes of Asian elephants or mapping the visual vernacular of diasporic
communities, I’m drawn to how migration reshapes landscapes—physically, symbolically, and emotionally. I don’t
aim to compare these sites, but to listen closely to what each environment holds: unspoken rhythms, fragments of
resistance, traces of entanglement between the human and more-than-human. Through field research, symbolic
collection, and image recomposition, I build works that allow these disparate geographies to echo within the same
visual space. It's less about stitching together a global narrative and more about exposing the tensions and
harmonics between different forms of movement, dwelling, and marginality.
Your practice often reflects on social structures and psychological states. How do you translate
these intangible concepts into visual or spatial forms?
Much of my practice begins with lived perception—how different environments, sounds, and encounters subtly
shape our internal states. I’ve traveled through over 40 countries, and I often reflect on how the same song, heard
in different places, can evoke entirely different emotional registers. These fleeting impressions—rooted in place,
memory, and atmosphere—become emotional coordinates in my visual language.
To translate these into form, I work across mediums—drawing, digital collage, installation—to orchestrate spatial
compositions like a kind of psychological concerto. I treat image and sound as notations of feeling, isolating
transient moments of intensity and recomposing them to reveal new relationships. Social structures often appear
in my work as fragmentary architectures or coded symbols—never didactic, but suggestive of constraint, absence,
or longing. I’m drawn to combinations that resist closure: overlapping timelines, echoing gestures, or deliberately
disjointed narratives that mirror the emotional dissonance produced by displacement and social tension.

15
 Fade away, 2023
This drawing is part of the Migration Plan series, developed through field research tracing the migration of Asian elephants across Yunnan. The image
captures a steamship drifting across a moonlit sea, rendered in soft graphite tones. Though no elephants are visible, their presence is implied—perhaps
already aboard, or symbolically embodied by the vessel itself. This work reflects on the quieter, more elusive dimensions of migration: not only physical
movement, but emotional and atmospheric displacement. The ship becomes a vessel of both transport and transformation, caught between departure
and arrival, presence and erasure. The vast seascape and towering cloud suggest the immensity of geopolitical space, while the crescent moon alludes to
cycles of exile and return. As with much of the Migration Plan series, this image does not illustrate a specific event, but evokes an impression—an echo of
movement, shadowed by control. It invites reflection on forced migration, ecological precarity, and the invisible systems that shape how life moves through
space.

The Quiet Crossing, 2023

This drawing is part of the Migration Plan series, created following field
research tracing the southward movement of Asian elephants through
Yunnan. The image captures a herd mid-journey, rendered with soft graphite
to emphasize both physical mass and quiet transience. Rather than
dramatizing a moment, the drawing offers a slowed, contemplative
observation—an impression of movement held just before it vanishes. The
open space above the elephants accentuates their groundedness, while also
hinting at the vast, unseen forces shaping their path: environmental change,
human encroachment, and state-led tracking efforts. This work resists turning
the elephant into a romanticized icon of wilderness. Instead, it presents them
as political subjects—migrating through controlled landscapes, caught in a web
of visibility and constraint. The drawing becomes a site of tension and care,
recording not just where the elephants go, but what is asked of them in going.
It echoes broader questions about how both animal and human lives are
mapped, moved, and made legible under pressure.

16
Can you walk us through your process and how it influences the final artwork?
Listening is always the starting point. I attune myself to the rhythms and textures of a place—its environment,
cultural codes, material presence, and lingering historical traces. I try to perceive not only what is visible or audible,
but also what resonates in silence: gestures, absences, frictions. From there, I begin collecting fragments of images,
found objects, linguistic remnants, colour samples—assembling a kind of visual vocabulary rooted in lived
perception. The most transformative phase is recomposition. I treat these collected elements like syllables in an
unstable language, deconstructing and reconfiguring them through collage, installation, or drawing. I look for
internal tensions—formal dissonance, symbolic contradiction, or unexpected alignments—that can activate a
different kind of meaning. What may appear fluid is never smooth; it’s a result of careful layering, rupture, and
reassembly. This process shapes the work’s final form: a spatial or visual field where multiple histories collide, and
familiar symbols are estranged just enough to provoke re-reading. I aim to construct not answers, but visual
poems—spaces that pulse with ambiguity, and invite viewers into a process of sensing rather than decoding.
Arrive, 2023
This drawing is composed as a fragmented narrative, reflecting the disjointed and often concealed realities of the forced relocation of both animals and
people. Rendered in graphite, the sequence of boxed, cinematic frames depicts moments of confinement, control, and arrival: an elephant stands in an
enclosed space, human figures push boxes, grip bars, and interact with abstracted limbs. This work is part of the Migration Plan series, rooted in field
research on elephant migration in Yunnan, and speaks to the hidden infrastructures that shape movement under state management. Rather than
presenting a linear story, the drawing unfolds like a collection of partial memories or surveillance stills—glimpses of a process that resists full visibility. Here,
the elephant is not only a biological subject but a political body, processed through systems of containment and erasure. The disorienting composition
underscores the emotional and spatial fragmentation experienced during migration, where bodies are uprooted, classified, and controlled. In this way, the
work becomes a meditation on the violence embedded in logistics—and the quiet resilience that endures beneath it.

17
Totemic motifs and participatory spatial languages appear frequently in your work. What role do
symbolism and audience interaction play in your storytelling?
Symbolism and spatial participation are two intertwined pillars of my practice. Symbolic elements—whether found
objects, fragmented maps, or reassembled images—serve as vessels for layered meaning. I often work with
materials that carry embedded memory: a broken key might signal forgotten access; a decaying map may point to
erased geographies. These motifs operate like codes—open-ended, associative, and evocative. Rather than offering
fixed interpretations, they invite viewers to project their own readings, allowing the narrative to take root in
personal experience. Audience interaction shifts the work from a static tableau into a living system. Through spatial
arrangements, tactile elements, and interactive components, I create conditions for viewers to move, intervene, or
even leave marks. Their gestures become part of the unfolding structure, modifying the narrative in real time. No
two encounters with the work are the same, and this instability is intentional. The two strategies function together:
symbolism cultivates a ground for meaning, while interaction activates it. I see the exhibition space not as a site of
passive reception, but as a field of generative potential—a shared, shifting space where story is co-authored
between artist, object, and audience.
You mention that your work generates stories rather than reproduces them. Could you share an
example of a project where the narrative emerged organically through the creative process?
One of the clearest examples is my project on elephant migration in Asia. It began with field documentation—
photographing the landscapes along the migration routes: dense foliage, dry riverbeds, and scattered traces of
human infrastructure. At that stage, there was no fixed narrative—just a series of visual observations. But as I
began translating these into drawings and layered collages, the narrative started to surface on its own. A dry
riverbed became not just a terrain, but a symbol of ecological precarity. The posture of elephants struggling
through it began to speak of resilience and uncertainty. A factory, incidentally captured in one image, evolved into
a jarring intrusion, raising questions of boundary, violence, and cohabitation. Rather than constructing a linear
story, I allowed these visual cues—gesture, setting, absence—to guide the flow of meaning. The composition,
colour, and rhythm of the image-making process became narrative agents in themselves. By listening to the
material, not scripting over it, the story of endurance, entanglement, and environmental tension revealed itself
slowly, like a migration path traced over time.
How has living and studying in London’s multicultural environment influenced you?
Living in London—a city built on overlapping histories of migration—has radically reshaped how I approach
identity, emotion, and power in my work. Rather than treating identity as fixed or singular, I began to see it as an
assemblage of interchangeable and reconfigurable cultural parts. The city’s layered urban textures—Arabic street
signs beside Bengali shopfronts, graffiti over colonial façades—inspired my use of collage as a structural logic, not
just a visual technique. Emotionally, London grants visibility and legitimacy to marginal affect. It permitted me to
transform intimate memory into something spatial and shareable—what I call “breathable memory fields.” These
become sites of collective resonance, where emotion acts as resistance against dominant narratives. The city also
functions as a theatre of power. Watching public art being constantly reinterpreted—or contested—has shaped
how I design participatory works that invite the audience to act as conscious agents of disruption. I became less
interested in symbolic appropriation and more focused on deep cultural hybridity: combining diasporic craft
traditions with materials from the contemporary urban landscape. In doing so, the artwork itself becomes a site
where power dynamics are rendered materially visible. In many ways, London taught me to become a translator of
culture, not by simplifying, but by complicating, layering, and reorienting how we understand place and belonging.

18
 Your approach frames images as visual agreements shaped by social relations. Can you discuss how
collaboration or community engagement informs your work?
I see images not as isolated expressions, but as visual agreements formed through social negotiation, and
communities are the authors of these agreements. In East London, I’ve observed how residents construct hybrid
symbolic systems in everyday life: Buddhist motifs, Egyptian iconography, Christian saints, and Islamic geometry all
coexist across shop signs, murals, and handcrafted décor. My process is less extractive and more embedded. I
document how symbols are reassembled, collect multilingual prayers, and listen to stories where myth becomes
metaphor for migration. The resulting works—whether wood carvings inspired by local designs, printed “faith
collages,” or reenacted street rituals—function as physical manifestations of communal visual codes. Collaboration
pushes me to shift from artist-as-author to artist-as-translator. The artwork becomes not a representation of “the
other,” but a living contract of shared cultural authorship, where visual power returns to the people who create
and sustain these languages every day.
Looking ahead, are there new landscapes, cultural contexts, or experimental mediums you are
eager to explore to further this dialogue between image, migration, and social narrative?
I’m developing a new UK-based project titled Archaeology of Migrant Objects, which uses painting and installation
to reframe everyday items—such as diasporic ceramics, market fruits, and ritual objects—as visual carriers of
migration memory. These objects, collected from local communities in East London, will be composed into layered
visual arrangements that explore shared heritage, cultural layering, and symbolic translation. The project reflects
the UK’s unique multicultural fabric and creates a space where marginalised stories become visible.
By working with residents through workshops and exhibitions, I hope to build a platform where material culture
becomes a site for dialogue between generations, between cultures, and across histories.

Cathedral III, 2019

Cathedral IV, 2019

19
 Lewis Andrews

Lewis Andrews moved to Leeds in 2016 to study a BA(Hons) in Fine Art at Leeds Arts University. After
graduating in 2019, Lewis continues to work in Leeds. In 2022, Lewis completed his Postgraduate Fine Arts
Degree also at Leeds Arts University, graduating with a Masters Degree in the Creative Arts. During his
Master’s Degree, Lewis’s practice became deeply focused on the methodology of translating information
and data from sources within science into artworks. Lewis has continued to work and build upon this
method in his work constructing a theory of working called ‘The Informative Encounter’.
Since 2019, Lewis has participated in 100+ exhibitions across the UK and internationally with many notable
achievements. Lewis held his first solo show '186,000mi/s' whilst studying at Leeds Arts University in 2018 at
Wharf Chambers, Leeds, UK. Lewis was one of the artists picked to participate in the Aon Community Art
Awards program 2019 running through 2021 with his oceanic sublime photography work displayed in Aon
Headquarters, London. In November 2020, Lewis was selected to participate in the Mayes Creative
Watching the Sun: Virtual Residency alongside other artists with an interest in astronomy and ancient
astrology. Lewis participated in two more virtual arts science residences with Mayes Creative. work from
the residency was included in a publication that now resides within the Royal Astronomy Society Archive.
Lewis joined Mayes Creative once again for their January 2024 residency in the Cot Valley, Cornwall, UK.
Lewis has formed strong relations with the Brazilian art organisation Artlymix and the Georgian-based
gallery Collect Art. As of present, Lewis has featured in 16+ exhibitions with Artlymix in Sao Paulo, Brazil and
12+ of Collect Art's publications & Digital exhibitions as of July 2024 to name a few of his achievements.

Lewis’s work acts as a conduit between art and science. The supply of information from science fuels the
production of visual material, which communicates the knowledge of a scientific endeavour. In short,
Lewis’s work focuses on dealing with complex thoughts, ideas, and facts within nature and science. Some
explore those in which we seem to be overshadowed and overpowered in comparison by the vast
distances, size, or quantities. Others investigate moments of extreme power, creation, and rebirth on a
molecular scale or on a scale comparable to that of the universe. Questioning our relationships, place, and
role within the universe, environmen,t and natural spaces.

20
'Death of the Universe' explores the three current theories on the eventual 'end' of the universe. Greatly
depending on the future properties of the ever-mysterious Dark Energy of which 68% of the universe is
theorised to be, the current theories point towards either 'Heat Death' (being the most likely at the moment),
'The Big Crunch' or 'The Big Rip'. Dark Energy could remain constant or become stronger or weaker
compared to gravity as the universe ages, thus changing the eventual 'death' of the universe. Through each
sub-series in the 'Death of the Universe' drawings, each of the outcomes is explored in more detail and
analysed to bring the viewer forward through time to watch the events and ramifications of whichever
route dark energy will progress down and, in turn, bring forth the 'end' of the universe.

Heat Death - Dark Energy Remains Constant.

The Big Crunch - Dark Energy Decreases.

The Big Rip - Dark Energy Becomes Stronger.

The Big Bounce - The Big Crunch followed by a Rebirth of a New Universe.
‘Heat Death I - XIV’. 2024. Indian Ink on Watercolour Paper. 210mm x 297mm (x14)

‘The Big Crunch I - XIII’. 2024. Indian Ink on Watercolour Paper. 210mm x 297mm (x13)
‘The Big Rip I - XV’. 2024. Indian Ink on Watercolour Paper. 210mm x 297mm (x15)
‘The Big Bounce I - XV’. 2024. Indian Ink on Watercolour Paper. 210mm x 297mm (x15)
 Yuchen Li
Yuchen Li is a Chinese artist based in London and Shanghai. She offers alternative perspectives to
everyday manners, using art narrative to clarify relationships within systems from an individual’s point of
view.
Mooncycles - 14.8x21cm, 2024

Your work reimagines everyday manners through an artistic lens—what initially drew you to
explore the mundane in such a nuanced way?
For me, art begins in the quiet moments. It’s the alchemy of the everyday, where the smallest gestures, like the guilt
of a broken glass or the rhythm of counting, carry entire worlds within them. I believe the mundane holds secrets,
tucked into the folds of routine. In paying attention to these details, I give form to what’s often overlooked—so it
might echo, and speak.
How do you define “alternative perspectives” in your practice?
​We’re so used to the basics in our lives that we often forget to question them. By “alternative perspectives,” I mean
looking at the root of a behavior, almost in a psychoanalytical way. It’s about re-seeing what’s familiar, and gently
pulling apart the logic behind it.
25
Your art often clarifies complex relationships—how do you balance personal perspective with
broader societal narratives in your work?
I believe in ‘personal is political’. Just like Chantal Akerman‘s film Jeanne Dielman, which focuses on the quiet
rhythm of a woman’s daily life, small changes in detail reveal larger shifts. I believe this is a profoundly feminist
perspective on the world, and it enables us to challenge systems from within.
Living between London and Shanghai, how does the cultural contrast between these two cities
influence the way you see and represent systems?
London and Shanghai are fundamentally different—historically, culturally, and racially. As an immigrant
constantly moving between these two worlds, I’ve had to adapt to navigate completely different social
environments. This experience has made me more aware of how systems shape our lives, and how many of our
choices are shaped—often unconsciously—by these invisible structures.
Can you share an example of a specific ‘everyday manner’ that transformed significantly through
your artistic process?
One of my works, The Variations, was inspired by my experience teaching math to young people with special needs.
I was struck by how difficult it was for some to understand the concept of “zero.” That moment made me want to
explore the logic behind how we grasp something so abstract yet fundamental.
What role does narrative play in your visual work, and how do you build a narrative without relying
solely on text?
There’s often a textual foundation when I start creating. But as the work develops, the material and medium start
to shape the narrative. It’s a process of thinking through making, where language gives way to form.
When addressing systems from an individual’s point of view, do you consider your work to be
autobiographical, observational, or something else entirely?
It’s both autobiographical and observational. My own experiences often shape the work, but I also see myself as an
observer, trying to understand broader patterns through personal encounters.
How do you ensure your audience engages critically with the systems you’re unpacking, rather than
simply consuming them as aesthetics?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with engaging with art aesthetically. Beauty itself carries meaning. If something
feels pleasing or “pretty,” that reaction says something—there’s often a subconscious layer at play. Aesthetics can
be a doorway into deeper questions.
Has your understanding of certain social or behavioral systems changed as a result of making art
about them?
Yes. Especially when the works are shown in exhibitions. The way people react to them brings in new perspectives
—it’s like I’m seeing the system again through someone else’s eyes. I try not to get stuck in my narrative.
In today’s rapidly shifting social structures, what responsibilities do you think an artist has in
representing individual voices within complex systems?
We now live in a world shaped by algorithms and automation—a system driven by growth, efficiency, and data.
Within this, individual stories become even more crucial. They are the source of imaginative power, the key to
transformation. In this era, personal narratives are more important than ever, and an artist’s job is to dig into the
details, looking for the glitches in the world.

26
Nadia Kissel
Nadia Kissel was born in the former USSR and trained at the Ryazan College of Art and the Leningrad
Academy of Art. After relocating to Kenya in 1980, her artistic vision was transformed by African cultural
influences, becoming characterised by vivid colour, bold contrasts, and symbolic motifs.
In the 1990s, following a move to the UK, Kissel’s practice evolved toward concept-based painting, where
each project is shaped by a central idea, allowing form, medium, and technique to shift accordingly. This
approach gives each body of work a distinct identity while remaining unified through her commitment to
painting as a core medium. She holds an MFA with distinction from Birmingham City University (2016) and
was awarded First Prize for her project "Stripped", exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Kissel’s nomadic life, spanning continents and cultures, informs her ongoing exploration of identity, history,
and the human condition. By allowing concept to lead, she pushes the boundaries of traditional painting,
inviting viewers to engage with meaning beyond aesthetics.

Body 2 - Mixed media on paper, 29.7x42cm, 2025

27
 Body 1 - Mixed media on paper, 42x29.7cm, 2025
The inspiration for this series of drawings stems from a visit to a museum of ancient sculpture in Greece. Many of the female forms
on display had been partially destroyed, damaged by time, conflict, or cultural beliefs. Yet in their fragmented state, they evoke a
sense of mystery and timelessness. The gaps invite the imagination to move beyond the present, reimagining what once was and
what could be. Using a “re-draw” technique, I focus on capturing the movement and essence of the figure, rather than
reconstructing it literally. Watercolour allows me to emphasize the fluidity of form and introduces a sense of spontaneity, giving the
work both immediacy and emotional depth.
Your journey spans the former USSR, Kenya, and the UK. How have these distinct cultural
experiences shaped the evolution of your artistic voice?
The rich cultural experiences that I embraced during my life in different countries and places made me inquire into
customs, way of life, and ask questions like “Why is it like this?” or “What makes it work?” The most important thing
was to look for the answers. Asking and finding a response is already a powerful stimulus to personality
development and to the evolution of creative voice.
Moving to Kenya in 1980 marked a transformative shift in your work toward vivid colors and
symbolic motifs. Can you describe a pivotal moment or inspiration from that period that still
influences you today?
Back in East Africa, I discovered the strength of vivid and vibrant colours that reflected the colourful environment.
My colour palette changed from neutral tones to clear “out of tube” paints and, at the same time, my painting
acquired strong tonal contrasts. The moment of revelation was my discovery: the best play of colours in my
paintings was achieved by blending them directly on the canvas and paper, away from the palette. I apply this
approach to my work even today.
In the 1990s, your practice evolved into concept-driven painting, where medium and technique
follow the idea. How do you approach the process of developing a new concept for a series?
If we are talking about the mechanics of concept–based painting, I can describe it like this: My work begins with
research on subject matter close to my heart or at the core of my personal experience. The material collected
during this time helps to clarify the concept and give shape to a project. The sources may come from all directions:
news, texts, social networks, family photos, stories of friends and relatives, etc.
The practical studio work begins when I find some resonance within myself that triggers the action of painting. It
usually happens when I can connect the threads of information from different sources to perceive “a bigger
picture”. At that moment, the significant apt form is imagined, and the process begins.
Each of your projects has a distinct visual identity. How do you maintain a sense of continuity across
such diverse bodies of work?
What unites all my projects is not only my vision but my experience and past encounters that are part of my life.
Therefore, I see a natural progression based on my life line. They are also connected by my philosophy of change
as a natural factor of life. On a technical side, as a painter, I make sure that all my projects are, at essence,
paintings. The sense of colour and use of brash mark is also relevant in this case.
Your project “Stripped,” which won First Prize and was exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale, tackled
profound themes. Could you share the concept behind this work and how audiences responded to
it?
The project Stripped began as an inquiry into the ‘archaeology’ of memory, how personal experience shapes
identity over time. By physically removing existing imagery, stripping paint from the surface, I reversed the
traditional act of painting.
The idea of disrupting the traditional approach by developing the artwork in the ‘reverse’ direction places Stripped
within a ‘post-postmodernist’ context with a reflection on shifting views on painting practice, its processes and its
meaning. The response to this project was very encouraging right from the beginning. In its original form, it
included texts describing my encounters in Africa. I used my old canvases to dismantle and reshape them into a
new form. The idea of developing painting in reverse to the traditionally accepted method of building up the layers
of paint indicates a shift into concept building of the media.

29
How do themes of identity, history, and the human condition emerge in your paintings today?
History, identities, and the human condition are all areas that are closely entwined. Understanding these
connections helps me to make a work that has many layers and also conveys a strong underlying message. My
work covers a wide range of themes that are interconnected and show complex universal associations.
How do you balance African cultural influences with your European artistic roots?
It is inspiring and stimulating to bring together the bold patterns and colours of Africa, together with academically
informed imagery or human form. Here, two different philosophies meet to support each other and to enrich each
other. Finding the right balance is a main task, which I overcome thanks to my experience, intuition, and love of
challenge. I find these two areas, when brought together, help each other because they create the right amount of
tension in the image. This way of working can open endless possibilities for work.
How do you hope viewers will engage with the ideas behind your work beyond its visual appeal?
My work allows a settled discovery of underlying currents, be that aesthetic qualities, a political stand, or personal
assertion. They can connect to the ideas behind paintings because they can follow a link to a deeper meaning that
is behind the image. “Concept-led” painting is a complex quantity consisting of an underlying message, the
treatment of the image, the clarity of the idea, the meaning of the title, and the visual form and presentation.
The viewers enjoy the engagement with the network of signs and visual impulses. Every detail is important,
including information in the form of a title or text, and how it works is displayed in space. Yet, everyone can have
an individual reading of artwork based on their personal experience, culture, or level of information. This can be
overcome by providing additional information in the form of articles in press or periodic, press releases by the
gallery, and by artists' workshops and presentations.
How has your technical foundation supported
your ability to experiment and innovate?
My academic background, which dates back to Ryazan
College of Art, allows me to experiment freely, take
risks, and, what's more, find the appropriate visual
form for each project. My art practice is versatile
because I can work with various materials and in
different media. It also includes the knowledge of
various techniques due to my earlier training.
Looking ahead, what themes or concepts are
you most interested in exploring in your future
projects, and how might they push the
boundaries of your practice even further?
Several themes I have are still waiting for realization.
Presently, I am working on the “Rare Metals” project,
which is about geopolitics. It is also a commentary on
the rising competition for the Earth's minerals. In this
project, the landscapes, distorted by signs of violence,
may appear stunning in their turbulent state, but
behind their striking imagery are signs of warning.
Body 3 - Mixed media on paper, 42x29.7cm, 2025

30
 Angeline D'Balentine

Born in southern California and raised in Michigan, Angeline received her BA in Creative Writing with a
minor in Art. She is a published international poet and is also a produced stage and screenwriter. She
enjoys the art of poetic verse and expression through words. She fell in love with both art and writing as a
child and knew she wanted to make this a part of her world.

&

Chris Pent Robinson

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and now living in the beauty of the Virginia Foothills, Chris Pent wrote his first
poem as a teen and had it published in the local paper. He went on to become a musical lyricist and music
score writer. He has been in several rock bands where he has used original lyrics into musical scores that
have been played on the radio and showcased in concerts. Over the years he has written poetry for himself
only and recently decided to share them with the world.

Wolves of My Devour, Angel’s Grail

Ink and Marker
8.5x20, 2025

This is an illustration + poetry as an art piece created by Angeline and Chris Pent in 2025. It is poetry on the evolution of each as a self and then coming
together, bonded. The use of symbolism and mysticism further cements the bond and represents a lifelong journey together from childhood to middle
age. Angeline wrote Wolves of My Devout, and Chris Pent wrote Angel's Grail.

31
You’ve built a career across poetry, stage, and screenwriting—how do these different forms
influence each other in your creative process?
I’d say the poetry is the easiest for me to write on some days, as I let it flow. Writing for stage or screen can be more
constrictive, as I’m writing in a different way that can sometimes be complicated. Factoring in that there is an
audience to please while relaying a story and trying not to be too poetic about it. I can get poetic in my stage and
screen writing, and I must pause to make sure I am not. So, there is less expressionism in stage/screen writing, and
I have found it to be boring. It isn’t until you see it on stage being performed or in the final cut for film that you see
the beauty and poetry of your script. However, in poetry, it is always beautiful, while writing it, reading it, and
delivering to an audience. No matter the context of the poem, dark or light, it is a beautiful and fluid experience for
me with only myself to please. If it pleases the audience, then it is a bonus and even more of a pleasure. A beauty.
Having studied both Creative Writing and Art, how do you navigate the space between language and
image in your work?
I navigate between the two in a form of description and experience. One helps your mind see what I want you to
see, to experience. The other is to see with your eyes. While in college in my undergrad, I became inspired by pieces
that I would see others make that fused both word and art. I always found these pieces enriched. And so, working
on this piece with Chris to bring his poem that he wrote for me “Angel’s Grail,” in response to my “Wolves of My
Devour” poem, we agreed it might be neat to explore how they’d look married on a page together with both our art
pieces we did in ink and marker. It is nice to see the results of such a navigation.
Do you find that certain emotions or ideas are better expressed visually, while others demand the
precision of words?
I would have to agree with this statement. I think that some expressions can only be fully experienced in their
beauty in either word or art. Not all expressions can be successful in a fusion of both, but some pieces I do think
can find a good marriage in sharing the canvas.
As someone who fell in love with writing and art as a child, how have those early passions evolved?
They’ve evolved, I think, the most dramatically in business. When I was younger, I didn’t ever think to see myself as a
business person, or to get a master's in entertainment/media business, but I did. I’m not half bad at business for
the creative side of projects. It landed me a few roles in both Creative Direction and a seat at the Creative Boards in
companies. The second impact of evolution in my art and poetry would be what college opened for me. Not just in
opportunities, but also in devoted time and space to explore and grow as an artist and writer. I have dyslexia,
which set me back a little in my writing ability after high school. But in college, with all the standardized systems of
grade school, etc. out of the way, in college I was given agency and ability to find out who I was and showcase that
in my work – and in the evolution of that work. I don’t think I’d be the artist and writer I am today if it weren’t for
that experience for my own self.
What draws you to poetic verse specifically, and how does it inform your narrative work for stage
and screen?
I’m drawn to poetic verse in the sense of having some structure while also creating a free form for expression. I
think that translates over into the script in helping to find a character’s voice. I will say that poetry has influenced, in
a positive way, the creation of my stage/film characters. I would say it has informed my narrative in that way.
How does your sense of place—being born in California and raised in Michigan—shape your creative
worldview or the themes you explore?
I used to not realize that where I was born and where I was raised had any influence on my work until people

Angeline D'Balentine 34
started noticing it. For example, Michiganders would notice I had this sometimes beachy or west coast vibe, almost
Jim Morrison style to some of my poetry. Maybe not so much in this publication’s piece (Wolves of My Devour), but I
have other poetry that is more California than Michigan. The same with my scripts. I have one film script called
“Sister Butterfly” that is very California and partly takes place there. But then there is another short film project I
made the screenplay for, “One Last Call” that is set in Detroit, and very Detroit vibe. I’d say in my poetry, you can see
this, too. “Wolves of My Devour” is more Michigan than California. I have a sestina poem called “The Searching
Spirit” that reads more like a native Californian.
Do your visual artworks ever originate from your poems or vice versa? Can you share an example of
that crossover?
The girl wearing the ceremonial wolf headdress in the piece Chris and I submitted was inspired by “Wolves of My
Devour.” I wrote the poem and then the next day drew her. The necklace in her hand with the emblem is an actual
necklace Chris designed and had made for us. He also has that necklace.
What inspires you most when crafting a character for the stage or screen, and does the differ from
how you approach a poem or a visual piece?
In script writing, a sense of individualism for a character inspires me. Them having a sense of their own voice and
the audience recognizing that. However, I do think it can differ in poetry, as sometimes a poem is usually more
about a topic rather than the person or character that might be in the poem. Even with Wolves of my Devour” it
isn’t about her really. It is about growth in strength, and about the essence of hungry wolves coming after her for a
meal. The poem is about one overcoming and finding their warrior side to conquer and proceed in taking control
of their life. The poem isn’t so much about her. That poem, as most poetry does, relates to the reader in their own
experience vs. her experience. No one knows who she really is. But we all know her struggle and her triumph. And
in Chris’s case, as he does know who she is, he found inspiration to write “Angel’s Grail,” as he knew the inner most
struggles that not just she went through, but also himself. In his poem it is also about overcoming and finding
triumph.
As a published international poet, how do you approach the balance between personal voice and
universal resonance in your writing?
I’m fascinated by the world and have travelled to a lot of places; 27 countries at this point. I love to watch and
observe people and places not like myself or what I am used to. I love to watch how people move, even down to the
slightest twitch in their mouth when speaking in their language, to an intimate moment in their cultural practice of
some spiritual or religious item. I like to see how the natural elements of a place interact with the synthetic objects,
and what results in that. And then taking people and the place, and how they dance with one another, these things
make for great pieces to write about or to draw or paint.
What role does vulnerability play in your creative practice across mediums—and how do you decide
what to share with your audience?
The piece Chris and I did, I feel has been a very vulnerable piece for us both to share publicly. Chris’s poem was
written for me. And so, in him sharing that and it being his first international poem to be published, I find to be
super sharing – a level of vulnerability. I find that extremely brave and empowering. I’ve known for years he is a
great writer. He just doesn’t write poetry. His non-fiction and fiction alike are amazing. I hope he will consider
allowing the public to read his other works.
As for me, art and writing will always be a vulnerable space, but I’m now used to exploring it and sharing it. In my
earlier years, it was a bit startling when I first shared pieces with the public. When you have a piece first go out and

Angeline D'Balentine 35
it hits a level of success you will know, because people not only react and approach you, but they also write articles
on you or ask for interviews. And so, it’s a vulnerable space to allow yourself to step into. My first stage play that got
produced, “Spill the Beans…,” was about child sexual abuse. I always knew I wanted to use a script to address
topics of concern, to use media to move, as I once wrote in a paper at school. But when that Play came out, it was
so controversial that I had both good and bad responses to it. I got in the local paper and news in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. It opened a whole panel of discussion at an event and got me invited as a Keynote Speaker to a march
called “Take Back the Night.” My poem “Pure Poetry” that Collect Art previously published, also got all sorts of
responses and was even asked to be produced as a performance piece in Off-Broadway, which is big in the
playwriting world. That piece did get performed in many places, too. That felt great. So, opening oneself to
vulnerability in art and writing can be intimidating, rewarding, and amazing all at once – if you allow yourself to go
there. It just takes one step forward…
Angeline D'Balentine

Your first poem was published as a teenager—do you remember what it was about, and how it felt
to see your words in print for the first time?
I can't recall what the poem was about, but I'm pretty sure it was about the angst of teenage love. Because what
else are you going to write at that age? I was rather shocked when Mrs. Reed, my Lit teacher, asked me if she could
submit it, because she had forced everyone in the class to write a poem. I guess I kind of thought maybe she'd lost
her mind.
How has living in the Virginia Foothills influenced your recent poetry compared to your earlier work
in Michigan?
Writing in Michigan was a lot different from writing in a secluded place like Virginia. In Detroit I HAD to write. I was
in the rock band “Agatha Bones” and if I didn't write, we didn't have any new songs. Here, I can write when it moves
me, and the vibe is much less stressful and much more rural. Maybe less claustrophobic than writing with people
and groupies all around you all the time.
What inspired your decision to begin sharing your personal poetry after years of keeping it to
yourself?
I've collected a books worth of poems over the decades, and I guess I finally just decided I was ready to share that
part of myself with others. Literally only three people have seen any of this over the years because it was only my
band material that was ever seen by audiences around Detroit and northern Ohio. This poetry was my territory.
And I'm territorial.
Having worked as a lyricist and score writer, how do you distinguish between what becomes a song
and what remains a standalone poem?
I always know within seconds. With songs I tend to write a "hook" or chorus first and then write the verses later.
Because if the hook isn't there, nobody cares what the verses say anyways. Poetry tends to be must more flowing
and looser. As you can tell my mind goes all over the place in spasms. Songs are much more constructed to fit what
the radio stations will tolerate. And I guess that makes poetry more important to a certain extent.
How do you approach rhythm and emotion differently when writing for music versus writing for the
page?
I tend to focus on rhythm in a song and not in a poem. Nothing's worse than an overly rhyming poem in my
opinion. Or at least I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to my poems? If there is it's simple instinct from
writing songs for decades.

Chris Pent Robinson 36

You’ve performed with several rock bands—how has performing your words aloud shaped the way
you write them?
When I was in the band and performing on stage, I would observe the audience, and most times would notice how
the music and our performance would inspire them and make their jaws drop. But sometimes, I would notice how
certain songs wouldn’t be so inspiring to a point of making them fall asleep. So, as a performer, you tend to always
be trolling your audience and using words they might find either offensive or stimulating. I guess I have the same
trollish standpoint when it comes to poetry? We live in a hyper politically correct era right now, and that
exacerbates those feelings. It's almost like a drug to a troll. I used to read all this pretty stuff in school like Yeats and
Tolkien's poems, and at a certain point, I got bored of poetry. Then one day someone handed me Jim Morrison's
"Lords and the New Creatures" and I knew right then that was what I liked. He was pissed! He was so raw. Jim was
a troll. How could I not love it?
What themes do you find yourself returning to in your poetry, and have they changed over the
years?
I tend to find myself returning to my mistrust of humans usually. The pain people will cause you, people you don't
even know! We grew up during the "satanic panic" of the early to mid-nineteen eighties. We had the FBI called on us
over our little, small town Wiccan coven. It was terrifying! The paranoia. One of my coven members almost
committed suicide when the FBI showed up at his house to talk to his mom. Trauma, sheer trauma. I mean, the FBI
dropped the case, but when you're fifteen or sixteen you just don't have the coping skills for something like that.
And to think some rural house wife probably picked up the phone to the FBI, because she heard the town had
Wiccans meeting somewhere.... kind of blows my mind. It sets you up for life to not trust other humans, which is
probably a good skill to have anyways. Maybe I should thank her, the housewife that called the FBI on us. Maybe
she brought me the most important lesson in life just in time. Maybe I'd be in prison or dead, had I not learned that
lesson at that tender age.
Can you describe your creative process when writing a poem—do you start with a phrase, a feeling,
or a visual image?
It's a magical process. I really don't understand how it works any more than I understand how my computer works.
I mean, a computer is a magic box to me. I guess I see writing as pretty much the same thing. A magic box.
Now that you're sharing your poetry publicly, how has audience feedback or interaction shaped
your view of your work?
It's always weird when someone really likes something you created. You're trolling them, and then they tell you how
good it is or how much meaning it has to them. I tend to look at them like "What is wrong with you?" But I guess it
just goes to prove how subjective everything really is. People tell me they love Van Gogh, and I usually ask "Why?"
But I guess he's great because one person strongly loves it and another person strongly doesn't. I wrote a lot of very
beautiful songs over the years. All turned away by the record companies. Then on a whim, I write a song trolling my
ex-fiancé, and the next thing I know Bill Acoin (KISS's old manager) is calling me up wanting to sign me, telling me
he thinks I have a hit. I guess that's just how it goes. Ugly sometimes or often sells… and beautiful things are just
overlooked or taken for granted.
What does poetry offer you that music doesn’t—and vice versa?
Poetry has always offered me a structure free environment. Music doesn't. Music is all structure. It is very lawful.
Poetry is pure unadulterated chaos to me. It’s like smearing a bunch of paint on a canvas willy-nilly and deciding
you'll figure out what to paint after you see the first forms that come out of the chaos. I think poetry is much more

Chris Pent Robinson 37

evil than song writing. True evil only seems to come from chaos. They tell me there's no such thing as evil anymore,
but when you smear paint on a canvas or words on a sheet of paper, you get the chills sometimes. I've gotten
gooseflesh before. Only true evil can make your hair stand up like that. And I mean evil in the Milton "Paradise
Lost" kind of way. It’s very rare a song ever affects me like that.
Chris Pent Robinson

Your piece intertwines poetry and illustration to trace the evolution of two selves into one bond—
how did your individual creative voices shape, challenge, or amplify each other in this collaboration?
Chris: I think we've always sparked each other as far as creativity. She’s a much better artists than I am. We met in
art class back in school while I was standing there painting with acrylics and she was sneaking up behind me
watching. But we've always caused the other to be creative since that fateful day. And we're still friends after all
these decades. She's also one of the only people that doesn't get offended by me and can take my quirky
personality. So, it was with her or not at all, I'm afraid. I get out of hand.... she uses her Aries nature to straighten
me up. It works!
Angeline: We met as creatives first, back in high school in art class. I was 14 and he was 16. So, our friendship had
started off in that space, creative expression. It is funny that we met in painting class, and that was my thing. But
his was writing, as he was also in a music band at the time and wrote lyrics. Over time, I found inspiration in his
lyrics. Between this and my own mom’s poetry, I started also experimenting with “word art.” Through Chris’s
bravery to write what is in his heart and soul, inspired me to also explore this space and embrace both the dark
and the beauty that coincides within us all.
Symbolism and mysticism play a central role in Wolves of my Devour and Angel’s Grail—how did you
choose these motifs to represent your shared journey from childhood to middle age?
Chris: It was a long-shared journey and not always a pretty one. She was one of the people the FBI came to and
questioned about me and my coven. Luckily, she stood up for me! I think she just laughed at them. I've always been
a mystic and studied things like the "Picatrix" and the "Keys of Solomon". I also like to read Sibil Leek and Gerald
Brosseau Gardner. We once traveled to Boleskine House in Scotland, which was owned by both Aleister Crowley
and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. The place wasn't spooky like they told us it would be. It was beautiful! And I
performed the "Star Ruby" ritual, written by Crowley, right there in the front yard. Maybe yards away from where
he wrote it? And it was very meaningful to me. I was very glad we didn't let the muggles scare us away from the
place. But then I guess that's what muggles do don't they?
Angeline: We had a few pieces that we each drew on our own, before coming together on this piece. So, when he
wrote “Angel’s Grail” in reaction to my “Wolves of My Devour”, I was so moved. I cried, in a good way. It was
touching and deep. I felt our bond in his words. His understanding of my trials in life and the little things that
sometimes kept us apart, while also, what kept us together even when apart. Much of the symbolism in this piece
are pieces of our individual representations and shared motifs. Our astrological representations and our bonding
symbols are laid out in this piece.

38
Jan Wurm
Ink flows to mark speed. Conté crayon lingers for a
warm and tender glow. Chinagraph searches to
locate. Pastel colors and patterns are the person
and place. Charcoal carves and commits. Together,
they convey elements of identity, tension,
connections, or isolation.
Drawing captures life and time, however fleeting – in
the movement of the hand and the touch of my
fingers spreading chalk or charcoal to grasp the
moment. The excitement, pleasure, anticipation: all
are common and yet fresh and special and
somehow uniquely mark a moment. Drawing is the
tether to the daily, to the world around.

Expecting Others - Mixed media on paper, 12'’x9'’, 2023

Heat - Mixed media on paper, 12'’x9'’, 2022

Jan Wurm – artist, educator, and curator—is engaged

in expanding the community forum for contemporary
art dialogue. Wurm has lived in California and
Europe, where her childhood was nestled in the Alps
and where she honed an eye for social patterns,
conventions, and place. In painting, drawing, or
books, Wurm’s visual explorations are infused with
warmth, humor, and energetic line. Exhibited
internationally, her work is in collections including the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, New York Public Library
Print Collection, Archiv Verein der Berliner
Künstlerinnen, and Universität für angewandte Kunst
in Vienna.

39
Your work captures everyday moments with How do you develop a scene that feels both
such warmth and immediacy. What compels you intimate and universally familiar?
to focus on the ordinary as a subject of artistic A minimalist sensibility renders the figures in relatively
inquiry? unmarked spaces that are slightly identifiable
The “ordinary” is such an extraordinary vessel for so chromatically as interior or exterior, home or
much human emotion and socialization. Collected restaurant, beach or park, so that the narrative can live
objects can hold memories of childhood or travel, or as if within the viewer’s
loss. Simple daily activities of family life or recreation environment/experience/memory. The abstraction of
mirror relationships of commonality or conflict, isolation figures also allows for a universality of identification.
or connection. These encounters at the dinner table or With a highly reductive presentation, a figure can
on the tennis court can reveal values ingrained in private become a cipher for childhood, motherhood, or a
lives, amplified in educational institutions, and echoed in stranger in a constellation that can evoke myriad
political structures. memories or provoke deep questioning. The open
Having lived between California and Europe, how expanse also eliminates the distractions of surrounding
have different cultural contexts shaped your objects and allows for a singular focus on body
view of social interaction and visual storytelling? language, gesture, and the interaction of the subjects—it
Traditionally, there had been stronger differences in plunges the viewer into the dynamics of the captured
public and private behavior in Europe compared to moment.
more casual behavior in California. In Europe, more Humor surfaces subtly in your work—how do you
formality in a public setting would be maintained in balance tenderness with irony, or lightness with
dress and demeanor, with less public enactment of the complexity, in your compositions?
personal and private. In contrast, the private and An empathetic rendering calls for care in placement,
personal routinely found their way to California space and light for a figure to breathe and be seen, and
beaches, shopping malls, and restaurants, manifested in an engaged brush to allow a full view of experience –and
dress, posture, and language that was extremely this, just as life itself, also holds the awkward moment,
informal. A significant contributor to recent shifts in the spilled milk, the dropped ball, the lost opportunity–
public behavior in Europe, the mobile phone, now, as in and so should also retain humor to buoy the spirit, to
California, brings the conversation, whether business or bear the bruises or disappointments or sorrows.
intimately personal, to play out on a public stage.

The Conversation- Mixed media on paper, 9'’x12'’, 2015 40 The Explanation - Mixed media on paper, 9'’x12'’, 2023
How has your work behind the scenes of art institutions informed your own creative practice?
It has been a privilege working closely with the art of others. Working as a curator sensitizes one to the impact art
has on viewers, on a community. It certainly brings questions into the studio and makes it more reasonable to see
work as appropriate to some venues and not to others. Whereas before I felt art should stand its ground –the
viewer should come to the work, I have come to see a different responsibility to the viewer in certain environments.
This not acquiescing to censorship, but acknowledging different contexts for a range of artwork. My actual making
of art is not affected by these considerations, but the studio practice as it encompasses exhibitions and collection
placement now consistently takes into consideration the divergent nature of the intimate, or the political, or the
humorous.
You mention the humanist tradition. In today's digital and often fractured world, what does
humanism mean to you in the context of painting?
Painting allows, beyond direct representation, investigation, interrogation, and even invention. It allows
explorations in paint: a material that in its plasticity can present unexpected and surprising expressions of joy or
sorrow, peace or conflict, generosity or poverty. It allows for juxtapositions and fracturing and distortions that
reverberate with meanings and emotions in a visual language of an unlimited vocabulary. As such, painting is a
vehicle for, as well as itself, a humanist expression.

Moving On - Mixed media on paper, 9'’x12'’, 2022 41

How do you balance tenderness with irony, or lightness with complexity, in your compositions?
An empathetic rendering calls for care in placement, space and light for a figure to breathe and be seen, and an
engaged brush to allow a full view of experience –and this, just as life itself, also holds the awkward moment, the
spilled milk, the dropped ball, the lost opportunity–and so should also retain humor to buoy the spirit, to bear the
bruises or disappointments or sorrows.
How do you translate intangible feelings into physical gestures and color choices?
Color holds enormous power. It can activate a painting by skipping across the surface, landing on a shoe,
fingernail, necklace until it has brought the eye right to the lips for a smile or a smirk.
Color can shout opposition across team uniforms or it can whisper the enveloping devotion of father and son
wrapped in color-coded matching plaid shirts. With the same deliberation, gesture reveals the tenderness of the
hand reaching toward the friend or resting on a shoulder –or the opposition of a shoulder turned, a face gazing off
in the distance. Just as every muscle signals thought and response, the frown or laugh exudes its color and posture.
Can you speak about your relationship to line—how it serves as both structure and expression in
your work?
*** Line ! **** –it is a conduit for all those thoughts that take shape not as words but as reaching hands and
shifting feet, downcast eyes and shrugging shoulders. A line conjures forms, finds the shape of things and thickens
with weight, skips with silliness, jumps with joy, smears with movement, touches down faintly with the sadness of
loss as it disappears in a corner. Yet with all the possible variability and changing nature, a muscular line can
anchor and hold a composition together, summon and connect figures, or, shove and sunder.
With your extensive background in both
practice and pedagogy, what do you think is
essential for sustaining an art practice over
time—especially one so rooted in human
connection?
Remaining open to people, to thought and culture,
to nature and the environment –this will infuse art
with the energy of life and keep the practice
engaging. Remaining connected to the constant
movement and changes of society and the world
also keeps the work relevant – just as it also
stimulates vision and propels the hand.

Pub
Mixed media on paper,
12'’x9'’, 2023

Every posture, gesture, facial expression opens a study of attitude and

character...

42
The Dealer - Mixed media on paper, 12'’x9'’, 2005
Monika Ruiz-B
Born in Colombia, Monika Ruiz-Bernal studied Fine Arts in Boston, USA, and Aix-en-Provence, France. Her
artistic practice is eclectic, although centred on photography. Based in Marseille since 2003, she is
represented by UPA gallery and her work has been selected for exhibition at the HeadOn festival,
FotografiaEuropea, Circuit OFF, Regards Croisés et Parcours, Aix-en-Provence, Les Rencontres
Photographiques de Cassis, Fotonoviembre International Photography Biennal, Tenerife. From 2017 to
2024, her work was exhibited at the Florida Museum of Photography, Les Rencontres Photographiques de
Casis 3rd edition, Der Greif, Guest Room, Downtow Chiado Contemporary Exhibition, Lisbon, Galerie
Remp-Art, Corbières, Artemesia, Barcelona, etc.
REFLEJO
I often think of this thought from Giacometti:
"...and adventure, the great adventure, is to see something unknown emerge, every day, in the same face; it's greater
than all the journeys around the world."
I knew it I’m waiting...
30x20cm, 2022 30x20cm, 2022

44
Your journey has taken you from Colombia to Boston, Aix-en-Provence, and now Marseille. How
have these diverse cultural landscapes influenced your artistic voice?
Living in Colombia, Boston, Aix-en-Provence, and now Marseille has shaped my sensitivity to contrast, nuance, and
cultural layering. Each place has left an imprint—Colombia rooted me in storytelling, Boston sharpened my
conceptual thinking, and Provence and Marseille nurtured a deeper awareness of light, space, and emotional
texture. These influences converge in a visual language that remains open, reflective, and grounded in daily
transformation.
Photography is at the core of your eclectic practice—what draws you to this medium, and how do
you keep it fresh within your broader artistic exploration?
Photography draws me in because of its ability to reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary—what Giacometti
called “seeing something unknown emerge.” It allows me to observe closely and reflect deeply, turning everyday
moments into visual meditations. To keep it fresh, I often combine it with other media or conceptual frameworks,
allowing new forms and meanings to surface within each project.
Having studied in both the US and France, how do you see differences in the approach to fine arts
education across continents, and how have they shaped your development?
Studying in the US encouraged experimentation and personal expression, while France offered a more theoretical
and historically grounded approach. This contrast gave me both freedom and critical depth. It helped shape an
artistic voice that is both intuitive and conceptually anchored, allowing me to explore complexity with clarity.
Your work has been featured in international festivals like HeadOn, Fotografia Europea, and Les
Rencontres Photographiques. How do you adapt your work when exhibiting for global audiences?
I focus on themes that resonate beyond geography—identity, perception, transformation—while remaining
attentive to how local contexts might shape interpretation. It’s less about changing the work and more about
inviting different readings.
30x20cm, 2022
That’s it?

30x20cm, 2022
Whatever

45
Marseille has been your base since 2003. What

Believe me - 30x20cm, 2022

role does this city play in your creative process
or themes?
Marseille is a city of contrasts—raw and poetic,
ancient and ever-changing—which deeply influences
my work. Its textures, light, and cultural layers
constantly feed my visual and emotional language.
Living here grounds my practice in the everyday, while
opening it to the unexpected.
You’ve worked with galleries like UPA and
shown in diverse venues from museums to
biennials—how does the context of an
exhibition space influence how you present
your work?
The exhibition space always influences how I present a
piece—its scale, flow, and atmosphere become part of
the work’s dialogue. In museums or biennials, I often
emphasize conceptual clarity and spatial impact, while
in galleries like UPA, I can explore more intimate or
experimental formats. Each context offers a new lens
through which the viewer engages with the work.

Your practice is described as eclectic. Can you tell us about how you blend or juxtapose different
artistic methods within a single project?
In my projects, I often begin with photography as a foundation, then incorporate elements like drawings, paint, or
texture to expand the narrative. This layering allows me to explore different dimensions of perception and
meaning. I’m interested in the tension between mediums—how they contrast, echo, or disrupt each other. The
result is a visual and conceptual collage that invites multiple interpretations.
How do you approach storytelling through photography, especially when participating in
conceptually driven exhibitions like Guest Room with Der Greif?
I approach storytelling through photography as a process of suggestion, inviting the viewer to complete the story
themselves. In conceptually driven exhibitions like Guest Room with Der Greif, I focus on creating images that hold
ambiguity and emotional depth. Each photograph becomes a fragment, a visual trace that resonates beyond its
surface. It’s less about illustrating an idea and more about evoking a state of awareness or reflection.
Having exhibited across Europe and in the Americas, what recurring themes or questions do you explore in
your work that seem to resonate universally?
Across different countries and audiences, I find that themes like identity, memory, and the quiet complexity of
everyday life consistently resonate. My work often explores how we perceive ourselves and others, and how
moments of reflection can reveal the unfamiliar within the familiar. These are universal questions that cross
borders and invite personal interpretation. They connect with people on an emotional level, regardless of cultural
background.

46
Looking back on your exhibitions from 2017 to 2024, what evolution or shifts do you recognize in
your own visual language or conceptual focus?
Between 2017 and 2024, my visual language has evolved from photography-based explorations toward more
layered, intuitive compositions where abstraction, gesture, and digital interventions coexist. Photography remains
the foundation, but I now use it as a point of departure to navigate the tension between reality and fiction. This
shift reflects a growing desire to question aesthetic and societal norms, embracing uncertainty and emotional
complexity. Like Giacometti, I am drawn to the unknown that emerges in the familiar—each face, each image,
becoming a mirror of transformation.

47 Are you ready? - 30x30cm, 2022

Joshua Turner-Mallett
Drawing on his personal experiences, his work explores multiple recurring themes, with anxiety and isolation
being the most prominent. These ideas are primarily expressed through his characters, Ronnie and Clyde.
His works are not meant to be taken literally but instead serve as visual metaphors for various states of
mind, particularly those shaped by anxiety and its effects.
promise (Always0 - Digital drawing, 2025

48
 The Long wait
Digital drawing, 2024
Ronnie and Clyde appear as stand-ins for yourself—how did these characters come into being, and
what do they allow you to express that you might not otherwise?
Because Ronnie and Clyde have their own visual identity, using them as stand-ins for myself allows me to view
myself within my work without having to look at myself. It gives me the ability to approach and tackle personal
subjects or ideas, which I might find uncomfortable dealing with, through a third party, allowing me some sort of
sense of pseudonymity. Their design came about a few years ago, but the idea of using them as stand-ins for self-
expression only came about around a year ago.
How do you balance clarity and ambiguity when representing internal experiences?
For a lot of my work, I use symbolism to describe or express various emotions or states of mind. Most of the time, I
try to keep it as easily readable or familiar as possible. The ambiguous nature of avoiding the use of symbolism,
which is specifically tied to me, allows for greater relatability between my work and the viewer, as it allows the
viewer to interpret their meaning in my work instead of being forced into an idea they may not see or find
relatable.
How has your experience as an autistic artist shaped the emotional expression through your art?
A lot of my current ideas have been about the struggle with communication and the resulting sense of anxiety and
isolation. My struggle with communication also ultimately led to the development of Ronnie and Clyde as a whole,
creating a form of expression and communication that I found to be more comfortable than dealing with
uncomfortable subjects and ideas head-on.
Do you think your characters act as a bridge for viewers to access those feelings safely?
I think the symbolic nature of my work allows individual viewers the opportunity to experience my work differently
and independently, especially in terms of what my work means to me. Allowing people to interpret their meaning
means that one viewer’s experience could be different from the next; it almost creates a private space for viewers to
reflect on their interpretation rather than having a piece of work that is inflexible and has a universally shared
experience or interpretation.
Do Ronnie and Clyde evolve emotionally or visually over time as your inner world changes?
Over time, I have begun to see - or at least feel - them developing into their own thing. The more I work with them,
the more it feels like they’ve started to become their characters and personalities in their own right, and not just
extensions of myself. I like this as it feels like I can begin exploring other ideas and concepts outside of just self-
expression.
How do you protect your sense of self while sharing such intimate emotional terrain?
Ronnie and Clyde and my approach to using vague, impersonalised situational or historical context are key to this.
By using stand-ins (Ronnie and Clyde) and using metaphorical symbolism rather than a specific and/or historical
context, I can explore ideas which are inspired by personal experiences without having to divulge specifics.
Can you speak about your choice of digital media—how does the digital format affect the emotional
tone and accessibility of your work?
Using digital media came about as more of an accident and a convenience. When I was studying graphic design at
university, I spent a lot of time working with programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator, and I found them to be
more convenient than traditional analogue drawing and painting. Working digitally meant it was far quicker to
create work and experiment with various colour schemes, and it also solved one of the biggest issues I have, which
is space. I still much prefer physical media, however, as I feel that the human element gets lost in digital media, and
so I have recently begun working with canvas whilst continuing to use digital media as more of a sketchbook.

50
Your piece Hotline to Nowhere conveys a strong sense of emotional disconnection—can you talk
about the symbolism of the severed phone line and what it means to you personally?
I’ve always been quite an anxious and awkward person and tend to struggle integrating myself into social
situations. ‘Hotline to Nowhere’ explores the tension between the difficulty and longing for communication and
social interaction, with the severed phone line symbolising a failed or failing attempt to communicate.

Hotline to Nowhere - Digital drawing, 2024

Being autistic, I have extreme anxiety, and I struggle with socialising and integrating myself into social situations. Because of this, I often struggle with isolation and
depression. My works often feature my characters, Ronnie and Clyde, characters I created as a stand-in for myself and as a way to easily express myself. 'Hotline to
Nowhere' features my character Clyde attempting to listen to a landline phone with a severed cable, symbolising the quiet struggle and longing for social contact.

51
Drawings| Special Edition | volume 73 | Collect Art | Tbilisi, Georgia
DIRECTOR'S
CHOISE

Wanderers

by Nata Buachidze