THE WORKS OF DS ART
By JAF MAGAZINE 2011
The subversive creativity's of
DS ART
JAF Magazine presents the works and creativity’s of an
artist exhuming the intrigue and brash mentally that is engaging as it is
precarious.
The life of stencil artists is one of contradiction. The act
of spray-painting is immediate and chaotic; yet the stencil is created
painstakingly & with absolute precision. The wild art of the can is tamed,
controlled & brought to solid form by the template, surgically hand-carved.
The details & care that goes into creating the stencil is artisanal,
committed and focused. A stencil artist seeks not necessarily to create but to
recreate. To relocate. From the impermanent recesses of the creative mind, to
the authority & permanence of the stencil.
DS Studied fine art at university, he was fascinated by
miniature design, Japanese animation & propaganda posters. It was while
living in East London during the early 2000's that he became intoxicated by a
graffiti movement that was coming of age.
One couldn't help but notice the colour & imagery that
soaked the otherwise drab grey walls of Dalston & Shoreditch in London. For
DS trying to find the latest D-face, Flying Fortress, Obey or London Police to
name a few, was like a city-wide treasure hunt. This city was Banksys Hollywood,
his reputation blew up in London; and so too did the grafters & the artists
of the shadows as they stepped into the light of the gallery. But this wasn’t
just a time for the commercialization of graffiti. It was the playground of the
one-off creative & the political activist; the walls were speaking,
screaming and he was all ears. DS Art was the love-child of this movement.
JAF Magazine brings you the latest in DS artwork and some of
the upcoming and aspiring places he's soon to exhibit. So check out the new stuff,
bookmark, share, do what you've gotta do, DS art is making it's mark, a mark
that is firmly imprinting and creatively embellishing itself in London’s art
scene, it's a mark that isn't going anywhere, just up.
JAFART presents
THE DERELICT
THE ABANDONED By JAF Magazine
Photography By Mischelle Dawn Wright
Video By Timgame, Despite what this films states
at the end, The New Orleans six flags is still
standing to this day
It's an eerie notion, gawping at a place that usually accompanies the laughter and sounds of the formidable child winning a giant teddy at the amusements, or coming off an extreme coaster called X, that's thrown you round like a rag doll and made you puke up the hotdog and nachos you ate an hour ago for breakfast. It's weird to stare at a photo that is reminiscent of those fucking annoying queues that are 35 minutes in time, all just for a simple bottle of water.
It's an image that is as haunting as it is quite easy to imagine a sudden zombie attack from the waking dead. It's sad to see such a photographic moment that would have been and should be filled with loud jeers of the kids and the semi grown adults wanting to go on another ride. It's a place that's filled with $100 million coasters that look like something that could launch you to the fucking moon in about 10 seconds. Staring at such a visual one could imagine those screams that quickly resonate as you pass by a coaster, it speeds past you at what seems like a 1000mph, smiles are upon each and every one of you and your friends, as you decided to go on that ride next. These are the good times. These are the things you would think looking at a pic of six flag..
And these are all sounds of that notorious and nefarious theme park. The black and white image to your right are haunting as once upon a time there was little kids running a muck, eating candy floss and drinking a fresh cold $5 coca cola. Instead; as I stated before you could imagine the moans and groans of a flesh-eating zombies suddenly worming it's way out of the destructive ruin that was once a joyous and atmospheric playground, for that Sunday afternoon thrill seeker.
The eerie comes from the exact notion that you can almost hear those noises of joy. It's like a sixth sense of your past, association of sound if you will. What is laid out before you, in the contrasting visuals of a photo, is a desolate, derelict and a sad state of abandonment. It was not by choice, it wasn't by lack of up keeping, or general run of the mill maintenance, no. This was because of a hurricane called Katrina, the year was 2005, it hit the coast of America, and it's east part of New Orleans with a force of brutal reckoning. It was regrettable devastating for such an adoring city.
This devastation is one of many heartbreaking scenes that plagued the city, but with the images come a past, a past that can be forgotten but also a remembrance of what once was and one day what could be again.
The park remains closed. As you can see from the haunting photography from Mischelle Dawn Wright, it's an illegal exploration to what was once a thriving and poignant theme park. Now abandoned.
Photography By Mischelle Dawn Wright
Website: www.flickr.com/photos/michelledwright/
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IT'S FEFA ROMANOVA
The Labyrinthine's and Bewildering Work of Fefe
Fefa Romanova is a Brazilian born artist haling from the north lands of Brazil. Currently residing and impeccably painting her lavish style of art in the sometimes gloomy and murky concrete mazes of England's, city of London. Still one of Europe's top artistic jungles, regardless of it's weather. Fefa seems to have found a nice little niche where her work seems to breath that unique Fefa originality.
Inspiration can come from the most unexpected of places, tending to the creative minds of an artist, Fefe realizes her talents and paints intrigued by the unconscious and free use of the hands. The tools of which any artist transpires the thoughts and feelings into the visuals of colour intertwined with shape and line. This is the very essence of painting itself; Fefe consciously feels this with each and every painting she completes.
Miss Romanova feels the path of her style is simply to follow the art of impeccable improvisation at the same time giving her own stylistic mix to her visions. Recognizing the behavior of her own hands, almost like spontaneous brush strokes of the subconscious.
"It's like a happening of the unconscious".
Fefa Romanova
Fefa notices and is very much inspired by her surroundings, as it is with any artist. Inspiration has to come from somewhere, be it from within or all around you. Human symbols such as eyes, masks, faces, spirals have come to influence Fefa in her ever-growing pallet of work. As she so creatively puts it
"Nonsense hieroglyphs".
Fefa Romanova
Fefa sees these symbols and shapes as a gateway to her process. A way to grow and let her work become whatever the subconscious feels it should become. Fefa has a dream, a dream that is simply creating.
"Art for me is and always will be an ongoing way for me to challenge our imagination and open the way to see life around us".
Fefa Romanova
It's been a pleasure to admire some of her works and discover the intricate details of an artist truly becoming. Fefa Romanova and her labyrinth of ink, paint, shape and line, can conjure up the most bizarre of emotions when one looks at her works, the boldness and the detail stand out like no other, but there is somewhat a tranquility in her pieces, it flows, it breaths vision, it just works.
With more shows and other illustrated ventures planned, Fefe is giving JAF Magazine a good taster of what there is and what there is to come. So feel free to peruse at will, share as you like and come back for more, JAF will keep a close eye on the continuing successes of the artist intricately creating.
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The Wonderful World of
JOYJO
By JAF Magazine
The artwork of London based artist Joy Jo, is ready to take on the vast media networks of the www and create that artistic splash so many of us admire. Joy Jo has a visual distinction in her work, combining the beautiful elegant strokes of paint together with this, what seems a world of depth and intrigue. She uses an almost harmonic sound of artistic embrace to visually capture and create these colorful yet deep provoking pieces. Combined with her love for sound, song and lyrical implements, Joy Jo manipulates all of these aspects to create surrealistic,
abstract and strangely realistic pieces of artwork.
As you have seen via the Joy Jo film on the previous page, titled 'Nocturne' a weird, surreal, yet beautifully charming short film.
There is something about the way a critic or art lover simply looks at a canvas of work. It can vary from artist to artist but with Joy Jo I find myself staring into an ever-growing abyss of colour and stroke that I think is reminiscent of a modern day and vibrant Monet. With her work there seems to be something new to discover upon that second, third, fourth time around. It is what makes her work resoundingly astute and almost timeless.
It's weird how one can use an amount of words to describe the form of artwork of an artist, what usually resonates are these long lost paragraphs of artistic verbal banter? I will grit down to the bare knuckle of this here presentation before I find myself lost baffling. I will simply write that Joy Jo is an artist who deserves recognition beyond the canvas she paints. Joy Jo has exhibited all over the world and is continuing to grow with her style and these unique verbal explorations within her works of art.
JAF Magazine presents her newest works and some of her timeless classics. For your viewing pleasure, so please, admire the wonderfully innocent world of Joy Jo.
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The Art work of Charles lee
Mr Mojo Risin
Written By Sid Cocain
The first time I met
Charles Marshall was at his opening show ‘Abstract’ at the forward-thinking
gallery The Thought, on the Molsteeg in Amsterdam back in 2009. The reason I
was there was pure chance. I’d caught his flier a few days before and as I had
a date that afternoon, it seemed a great means to an end. No thought went
through my head about who he was or what he was doing, it was just an
opportunity to flex some cultural muscle in the direction of an attractive
female.
So I took her along,
and upon arrival I saw a tall and imposing black shirted bouncer-type by the
entrance. This I thought slightly odd for an art show at a small niche gallery,
but we entered and accepted the free champagne and started the tour. I was
engrossed and beholden – and not with the subject I had intended.
The first thing I
noticed about Charles’s compositions is that you do not just look at them. They
cannot truly be measured from afar or through a lens. Enough to get an impression
and to notice their forms and styles, themes and techniques. When taking span
up close they immerse you. And that’s the magic of the art of Charles Marshall.
Every piece has an unfathomable spirit. You absorb the depth of texture that
resounds unhindered by frame or prejudice. Lines grow and sprawl across the
canvas, moving with every step closer you get. Living, breathing conjurings
that embrace you into a realm that is as unknown as it is familiar, like the
raw fabric of deja-vu.
There is a biological
essence that stimulates the emotive, elements of the organic and primal.
Aggression, fear, violence, strength are all apparent but do not make the
pieces more powerful as a result. Rather, they make them more revealing,
recognisable and personal. They betray an energy and voice, one that carries
with you but the translation of which may never be fully understood. A veil of
mystique that is never made fully transparent.
 |
These pieces all had
veins of degradation…tears and rips, burns, stains that animated the paintings
over yonder, corporeal and cellular with swathes of colour mist. Pale shades of
Geiger twisting into Braques and beyond.
Painting in his studio in Los Angeles
An interview was
forming in my head. Unfortunately the place was wall-to-wall, nouveau-riche
were sniffing like terriers on fox dirt and it took several shoulder taps on
the scarf-swathed gallery manager to find out who the artist actually was in
the crowded room. He shooed me away and directed me with a cursory wave to the
entrance, and to the black-shirted man I had supposed earlier was door
security.
Amsterdam The Thought Art Gallery
He was tight with
admirers so I hovered around his orbit for a while and eventually managed to
get a few words in edgeways and scribbled my contact details down, making sure
he knew my name and that I wanted to write about him. He smiled easily and said
that sounded great.
Amsterdam The Thought Art Gallery
Since then, the date
has long gone and I still hadn’t gotten my interview. Chasing Charles had
become a pre-occupation, the apogee of which I was about to realise as I pulled
up to his workshop studio just off of the Kinkerstraat. The door cussed
cantankerously and I opened into a classical Escher-esque stairwell with a
musky tan and blisters of crumbling paint on the heavy wall. Wisps of Jim
Morrison tumbled from somewhere upstairs.
A fresh Charles Lee
I burl the tight staircase
spiral towards the 3rd floor, towards Jim Morrison and the other
side. The door is open.
I knock and ask vaguely
“Hi, Charlie? It’s Sid.”
“Yeah” he replies. As I
step inside he asks the question “Do you like The Doors?” I stop halfway inside
the door, like my answer is the password to gain entrance.
“Ahem…yes?” I answer.
Timorous truth.
“Cool. Come in and sit
down. Grab yourself a drink.”
He stands, hitting my
own height of 192, if not a shade over, with shoulder length hair grabbed into
a quick pony tail and cut like a champion freediver. I was standing in a studio
room just about big enough to paint a swinging cat, and sandwiched between two
massive mirages of works. One was a forceful fist of colour that swam into
shapes of kissing hummingbirds, soaring inside the mollusc of biological grey
matter. It was like a living Rosarch swooping above the mantle of the extinct
fireplace. Its sibling hanging from the wall opposite was - on first sight - a
huge charcoal Manga-like depiction of fear-shot saucer eyes and flying daggers
of hair caught by some unseen spectral winds. Leaning below knee level were
other small canvas portals, casually beached upon the side.
“That’s how I imagine the inside of my head to look like.
Thoughts and feelings, it’s like looking at thoughts and feelings.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Kudos, Hanna!
Across the
trapdoor-size floor stands Charlie, and between him and me on his worktable
sits a half-full bottle of Jim Beam.
“Are we on a time limit
here, or is it, you know, can we talk a bit?”
“We’re pretty cool I
think, we can just talk and shoot” he replies.
What transpired was a
long night of talk about everything, influences, music, experience and life
that could’ve went on much longer had we not finished the bottle and I ran out
of space on my recorder. It seemed the right thing to call time about then. As
I left, Jim Morrison was hitting the pulse of LA Woman and all I could think
about on the way home was Mr Mojo Risin. Because, I was sure, I had just met
him.
Charles grew up in
Hampshire, England and was inspired at an early age to draw by his mother, and
eventually, paint by his grandmother. Both were personal artists and enjoyed
the thrill of expression and this was passed on and received with enthusiasm.
This influence was fully forged by
high school and tempered in Portsmouth University, where he graduated in 2001
with honours in Graphical Media and Fine Art.
“I was always into Art,
it’s been the only thing I’ve wanted to do. Being brought up with artists I
suppose has its own influence, but I was always drawn to the abstract, the
expressionist. I especially love Cubism, I studies Picasso, George Braques and
never really looked back. Layers, my work is always layers, evolution and
re-evolution.”
It was however, his
father’s tales of travel as a sailor in the 60’s and 70’s that swept him off of
his feet, and as soon as his motar board was in the air Charles was already far
away, his imagination cruising in a Cadillac across the open roads and terrains
of Australia and the US:
“I don’t know how it
happened, all the places I went too my dad had been before. Like Sydney and
Darwin, Australia and New York City. He trained in the British navy at the
Ganges and travelled the world, met exotic women and got into some crazy
situations. In New York for example, he and his sailor buddies got caught in
the crossfire of a Bronx shootout between NYPD and some gangsters. They was all
adrenaline charged times. This happened just after a fire fight just off of the
Singapore shore. Being shot at was nothing when you train with the Ganges, but they had to duck into
the closest place – a store – to dodge the bullets pinging all around them. He never saw LA though, but I know he would’ve
loved it, especially in those days”.
A Charles Lee Triptych
“I went straight to
Sydney in 2003 and following that, Darwin. It was a real eye-opener to the
grandeur of just how fucking beautiful nature is. The landscape, bush, wildlife,
waterfalls, the ocean, sunsets, I’d never seen anything as spectacular as
Australia. Darwin was nature personified, innocent and unraped. These
incredible colours and textures make it into my work. Every day was a new
experience for me, stampeding horses chasing my 4x4, bumping into 5 foot
iguanas on walkabout. I even got to shoot” he smiles with guilty pleasure. “Not
hunting, just for the hell of it.”
“Darwin was an
experience for sure but I had to go to the states, something just kept pulling
me there so I flew to New York in 2004 and soon after, Los Angeles. L.A…L.A…”
Charles’s eyes glaze as he tells me of the City of Angels, his soul-home.
Bright lights, beaches and new beginnings:
PART 2
....."When I got there, I was astounded by the vibe of the place. Venice Beach, Hollywood, Beverly Hills just blew my mind".
Theres just so much energy, all those dreams all in one place, its just infectious. I started working for an interior design firm so every day I was involved with the designers and other artists. I started making my own art, trying different things. Id be involved with a piece day and night and retreat to Venice Beach. It was a world from a world from a world, the horizon-tilting stretch of sand, the surfI would just drift somewhere else. There was a rock I would always lay on, and I would draw or write and watch the sky shimmer. It was invigorating and breathtaking.
Charles's works from this period reflect well the bold spirituality from this place. Epitomes of the good and the bad are suffused with elegance and vibrancy. Some seem to be distraught, corrupted and violated ideals of what may have been, or used to be. Others, like shards of rainbow falling from a night sky, earth the poise and hope that to this day magnetically draws people to its shores. In 2006 it was these pieces that attracted the attention of the director of the Roche Bobois showroom, who immediately understood the commercial value of Charless work. Charles had unsofar tried to show his work, until a colleague from the design firm saw them and contacted the director personally tell him he knew just what their collection was missing:
"Yeah that happened so fast. I got a call from this guy, saying he was the director of the Roche Bobois and asking to see some of my work. I didnt know what to say, I mean, Roche Bobois is synominous with prestigious art and design. Anyway I took a few pieces over and they loved them, and they wanted to exhibit in their showroom and as part of their room designs".
"Soon after Roche Bobois, I was contacted by Robertson Boulevard. They were putting together a show of some renowned artists like Bonita Helmer and Lori Cozen-Geller and asked if I would be interested appearing with them. I literally jumped out of my seat, I mean, Id heard of these ladies and they were a pretty big deal. I knew I had to work on some more pieces".
It was, once more, the Roche Bobois showroom that had contacted Charlie in early 2007. They had arranged a design show with legendary French designer Sascha Lacik as way of tribute to his works in furniture and were sorely in need of abstract pieces to compliment his new Speed Up designs, recognised as big steps within evolutionary design:
"Sascha is like, a design icon. It was great to meet him and even greater to be a part of his show. We got to talk and Bonita [Helmer] and I got to show him our stuff. He liked it, and testified to my use of colour and atmosphere, almost as much as I did with his designs, they were flawless".
It was this show that got Charles involved in the James Gray gallery at Bergamot Station which remains one of the biggest art industries in southern California. Works are hosted and served inside the rejuvenated old industrial complex by Wayne Blank, developer and co-owner of the eminent Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Vast culture caves that wipe the minds palate with high ceiling and expansive canals tastefully dipped in white, elevating the echo of the voice of Charless paintings. Despite the social and commercial success as well as recognition, Charless feet soon began to itch once more. New horizons beckoned and Charles was soon travelling his way towards Europe:
"I left L.A. and went to Tijuana, through to Toronto and came here to Amsterdam. I checked out Berlin, Milan and Paris as well but nothing felt like Amsterdam, its a special city. Its just so international, Ive never met so many people from different walks of life. The art scene over here is thriving and theres just so many opportunities".
Amsterdam just now is the perfect location for me. There are some personal factors that played a small but the whole vibe of this city just now is immense.. Every country in Europe is literally on your doorstep.
Until his display in The Thought gallery, Charlie had focused himself on new creations. 2010 however will herald several new shows both in Europe and the States with several galleries keen on being first to announce the latest achievements. Pivotal in this retour de fortune is his upcoming show in New Yorks Ico Gallery. Scheduled for Autumn, and with many pieces ripe and ready, Charless first exhibition in the Apple will not be his last. After having the privilege of seeing live some of his works that will be shown for the first time, I am convinced that this is more a bridge than stepping stone for the art of Charles Lee Marshall.
Yeah, Im excited about New York, Im looking forward to going back there because a lot has changed since I was last there. And yeah, to be shown in the Ico is such a privilege. Everyone is excited and Im really looking forward to showing what Ive been doing.
The world has not finished with the art Charles Lee Marshall quite yet. And neither, for that matter, am I.
Charles Marshall spoke exclusively to Sid Cocain, June 2010
www.charlesleeart.com
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