musetouch_issue_17

musetouch 

Visual Arts Magazine 

ISSUE 17 JANUARY 2012 

Olga Suvorova Mukti Echwantono Brooke Shaden Jean-Simon Begin Igor Samsonov 

Lilyana Karadjova Seanen Middleton Russ Mills Shaun Kerr Jayde Pedler 

musetouch.org

Dear readers, 

I have finally opened the gate of the New Year. There is a city of light in 

front of me, flashing towers, purple sky and long endless streets. Where 

will they lead me? Hard to answer, but it is good to know that they are 

endless. 

I promise to you that Musetouch will grow, transform, become even 

more beautiful. I promise to you many wonderful surprises, possibilities, 

chances and smiles. Smiles above all. I will give my best to make you 

happy and accomplished. I will be here. 

Special thanks goes to Ljiljana Bursac, Nini Baseema, Kiyo Murakami, 

Murielle Mirabelle Velay Michel, Jelena Grujic, Ian Furniss, Bolek 

Budzyn, Dejan Bogojevic, Gines Serran, Mark Sadan and to all of you. 

Maia Sylba

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THE FORM OF 

BEAUTY 

blog 

by Nini Baseema 

theformofbeauty.tumblr.com 

KIYO MURAKAMI 

photography 

www.kiyomurakami.com

Strychnin Galery 

Berlin New York 

London 

Boxhagenerstr. 36 

10245 Berlin 

www.strychnin.com 

Last Rites Gallery 

511 W. 33rd St, 

New York City 

www.lastritesgallery.com

MUSETOUCH MAGAZINE January 2012 

Editor 

Maia Sylba 

Graphic designer 

Dejan Silbaski 

Contributors 

Nini Baseema 

Ian Furniss 

Cover 

Nini Baseema 

MUSETOUCH is a magazine about visual arts. It has been created by Maia Sylba out of a love and passion for 

art with the hope that people will be able to use the publication and website as a platform to showcase their 

skills and gain recognition. 

Facebook 

facebook.com/musetouchvisualartsmagazine 

Twitter 

Linkedin 

Mail 

twitter.com/musetouchmag 

linkedin.com/in/maiasylba 

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Submission Guideline 

If you want to contribute to the next edition, you can send us an email with your data and a PDF file that 

shows your works, also a link of your website if you have any. 

We would love to see your art so don’t hesitate to contact us and welcome. 

All artwork in this magazine is copyright protected under the MUSETOUCH Magazine brand or remains 

property of the individual artists who have kindly granted us permission to use their work. 

musetouch 8

Mukti Echwantono 

Field of Broken Dreams 

Lilyana Karadjova 

Touch of Silence 

Olga Suvorova 

Imagination Lady 

010 

Igor Samsonov 

The Greatest Strength 

140 

044 

Brooke Shaden 

Each Image is a Story 

Jayde Pedler 

Her Passion 

166 

064 

Shaun Kerr 

A Visionary Creative Thinker 

188 

Seanen Middleton 

Love, Dream and Darkness 

Jean-Simon Begin 

Awakening Sense 

094 

Russ Mills 

Expressions 

212 

116 

238 


Mukti Echwanto 

“I was born in 1976, in Indonesia. I really like misticism and this strongly affects my work. The 

beauty of a photograph is not obligately about being clean and bright ....we must learn to have a 

sense, a special touch for it ... so that we can create a photograph which presents not only beauty 

to the eyes, but that is also making an impression to the heart ...so ... shoot it with a heart.” 

Mukti Echwantono 

musetouch 10 

illdispose.tumblr.com

no Field of Broken Dreams 







musetouch 17



























Olga Suvorova 

Olga Suvorova was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1966. She studied monumental composition 

at the famous St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. Her career has been greatly influenced 

by her parents, both highly praised artists in St. Petersburg. Other sources of influence 

include Gustav Klimt, Piero Della Francesca, and traditional Russian icons. Olga’s talent and 

overwhelming response to her work led and was rewarded with a unique solo exhibition in St. 

Petersburg Art Academy in the spring of 1990 where her paintings were received with great 

enthusiasm and praise; in 1993 she was awarded the first prize of the year. 

Nowadays Olga is an accomplished artist, a well recognized master, possessing her own inimitable, 

easily recognizable style, and a member of the Union of Artists of Russia. 

It is for her stirring portraits that Olga first gained her reputation in Russia, and then abroad. 

These paintings have a startling vitality. Filled with warmth and harmony, the paintings of 

Olga make the viewer’s soul kinder and more compassionate. Her paintings of the players 

in “Comedia dell’arte” have a lasting quality. Her style can be more realistic in the historical 

depictions but it is strongly impressionistic in other scenes. In her paintings Olga sometimes 

uses silk fabrics for costume details. Recently she has produced a series of magnificently detailed 

screens which have been widely praised and collected. 

She exhibits regularly in Paris and London. Olga has also exhibited in Italy, Germany, Sweden, 

Finland, France, Britain, Ireland, China, and the USA. Her work is highly regarded and 

acquired by galleries and serious art collectors around the globe. 

Olga’s beautiful paintings are available through www.academart.com - is an online Visual 

Arts gallery representing modern professional paintings by artists from Saint-Petersburg, 

Russia. The Gallery was founded in the year 2000 by the “Academy of Arts” Foundation. 

In it’s eleven year activity the Foundation has participated with well known and young 

talented artists in modern Russian figurative art. We represent more than 50 artists — 

graduates and students of the I.E. Repin Institute. The Gallery presents a variety of styles 

in oil paintings: Impressionism, Realism, Naturalism, Postmodernism and Fantastic Realism. 

The online art gallery of the «Academy of Arts» Foundation provides collectors and 

connoisseurs of fine art with original oil paintings. You can order and purchase an artist’s 

original composition, Still Life, Landscape, Portrait or masterpiece copy. Art for pleasure 

and investment. 


academart.com/suvorova

Imagination Lady 




















Brooke Shaden 

Brooke Shaden was born in March of 1987 in Lancaster, PA, USA. She grew up near the 

“Amish Country” until attending Temple University. Brooke was photographically born in 

December 2008 after graduating from Temple with two degrees: film and English. She now 

resides in Los Angeles, CA, USA with her husband and three cats. 

She began creating self-portraits for ease and to have full control over the images, and has 

since grown into a self-portrait artist. Self portraiture for her is not autobiographical in nature. 

Instead, she attempts to place herself within worlds she wishes we could live in, where 

secrets float out in the open, where the impossible becomes possible. 

Brooke works to create new worlds within her photographic frame. By using painterly techniques 

as well as the square format, traditional photographic properties are replaced by otherworldly 

elements. Brooke’s photography questions the definition of what it means to be alive. 


brookeshaden.com

Each Image is a Story 






























Shaun Kerr A Visiona 

Who are you Shaun? 

I am a fine blend of maturity with life’s many experiences, somewhat introverted yet at times 

gregarious. I am a complex idealist of intense qualities, a perceptive rational character. I am 

an artist, a musician and a visionary creative thinker. My name is Shaun William Kerr and I 

am a classical narrative oil painter, originally hailing from Dundee, Scotland and now residing 

in Texas, USA. 

Why are you an artist, and when did you first become one? 

Throughout my childhood I was always content being left alone delving into drawing and 

colouring books, paint by numbers and model kits, wondering in awe how adults could paint 

great tapestries of real art. Although, music and not art was the path which I followed, and 

drawing was a contemplative retreat that I occasionally dabbled and meandered through. 

I had previously spent my wild youth pursuing rock n roll dreams as a drummer in Punk/ 

Goth/Industrial/Heavy Metal bands. This took me to London where I lived and worked as a 

Courier and Logistics Coordinator. Relocating years later back to Scotland (and after a few 

years as a security guard) life’s path opened another opportunity, so I enrolled to college and 

gained an HND in Illustration and Graphic Design. This proved only to be a stepping stone as 

my goal of learning how to create beautiful illustrative works of art was just simply not taught 

in the local education establishments. 

Throughout all these years many mundane non creative jobs sapped the soul, so it was in 

2004 that I seriously took up the challenge. I researched all available avenues, analytically 

studying in depth the great masters of old and the illustrators of today their paintings, techniques 

and anatomy skills, applying these into my own attempts, a continually evolving journey 

of self discovery, teaching myself how to paint the stories that I consistently muse over 

within my head, images that I have an endless passion to share with the world. 

Could you tell us some more about your painting? 

Blending the gap between Fine Art and Fantasy my paintings are steeped in historical cultures, 

nature’s beauty, Celtic mythology and sublime backgrounds; ethereal and sensual 

themes combine with intricate details and portions of symbolism and life’s own enrichment; 

an alluring dramatic sense of mystery and beauty unfold engaging the audience with ambiguous 

titles to perceive the allegory on a personal level. 

I paint entirely now with Alkyd oils in and require an ambient and most definitely distraction 

free environment with a variety of soothing or rock music in the background to set variable 

moods. 


y Creative Thinker 


What famous artists have influenced you, and how? 

The Pre-Raphaelite influenced Neo-Classical artist John William Waterhouse, whose semi 

realistic and Impressionistic mastery of storytelling I see emulated in one of today’s great illustrators 

Donato Giancola. It’s this type of realism that I adhere to without the constraints of 

photorealism. 

Over the years and through the wonders of the internet, my influential list increases daily as 

I stumble upon many old and new artists who I greatly admire, and consequently, they push 

me to expand my own skills. 

What inspires you to create? 

Inspirations could come from many sources. I have always been visually stimulated by my 

analytical observations of surroundings, nature, scenery, people (their behavioural facets and 

appeal), the diversity of photography, models in creative poses, etc. Movies, books, poetry all 

lend an inspirational element, all of which I integrate with my own fertile imagination. 

What is the message of your paintings, and also your own personal message to the world? 

I don’t dictate any type of message other than visual enlightenment. Art should speak for itself, 

whatever it may try to convey. I believe that if you have to be told what a painting means 

by some upper echelon art critic or that it’s too surreal to comprehend (I love surrealism art 

by the way, don’t take that the wrong way)... then the artist has failed. 

My own personal message comes as a quote from English fell walker, guidebook author and 

illustrator Alfred Wainwright - “One should always have a definite objective, in a walk as in 

life-it is so much more satisfying to reach a target by personal effort than to wander aimlessly....life 

without ambition is...well, aimless wandering.” 

How do you see yourself and your art in the future? 

It would be comforting to know that like my peers (and for the profit of my family), I will 

continue to refine my abilities and produce numerous rewarding and alluring works of art 

that will be appreciated through various channels globally, and in turn, inspire others. 

MS 


swkerr.com




















Jean-Simon Beg 

“I needed a lot of time to give to the art the place which it had to have in my life. What appeared 

to me as being an instinct during several years was able to be analyzed only by a thought become 

now mature, critical and articulated. I bathed in the most imaginative and creative sea currents 

with only companion my natural display by means of the art. I speak here about exploration and 

about bare experiment of aesthetic criteria. I understood one day that the authentic art had to 

act as display. This sudden awakening of sense allowed me to manage and create completely by 

disregarding aesthetic criteria emitted by our society. The creation is so intense an liberator when 

we practise it in the good optics; create for one without any critical glance on the result of the action, 

but only concentrate on the action of creation.” 

Jean-Simon Begin 


jeansimonb.com

in Awakening Sense 

musetouch 117























Lilyana Karadjo 

Lilyana Karadjova is a journalist and art photographer from Sofia, Bulgaria. She is working in 

the genres of portrait, conceptual and experimental photography. As a portrait photographer, 

she is inspired to show an interesting individual behind the common mask. In the field of experimental 

photography she is examining alternative paths of light and uses different, mostly 

hand-made constructions to shape it. 

Lilyana was born on 5th of Decembre 1984 in Sofia. She graduated form Sofia University in 

philosophy and from National Academy of Arts in photography. Lilyana was a reproter in 

“Nova” television, an editor in “Wine and power” magazine, now she is an art journalist in 

Novinar daily newspaper, writes in Bulgarian magazines L’Europeo, Amica and “Art and Critique”. 


lilyanakaradjova.com

va Touch of Silence 


























Igor Samsonov 

Born in Voronezh, Russia in 1963, Igor Samsonov began drawing when he was six years old 

and revealed his talents in his first public exhibition at age ten. Blessed with talent in both 

painting and mathematics, Samsonov pursued a duel career in mathematics and art until he 

realized that his artistic muse was slowly dying. Applying to the exclusive Academy of Fine 

Arts in Saint Petersburg, Samsonov was accepted in 1990 and began his seven years of tutelage 

under the finest painters in Russia. During this time Samsonov’s complete immersion 

into the art world began to define and sharpen the artistic style that would become his own. 

Samsonov’s influence from the early Renaissance period known as the Quattrocentro period 

is evident in his work. At this time in art history late Gothic influences were blending with 

new 15th century Italian Renaissance sensibilities. Quattrocento artists and sculptors incorporated 

the more classic forms developed by Roman and Greek Sculptors. Quattrocentro 

artist Piero della Francesca whose style brought a serene humanism to his work is Samsonov’s 

favorite from this period. Other influences include15th century Dutch artist Bosch whose 

themes dwelled on human sin and moral failings, 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer 

whose interior scenes of ordinary bourgeois life seem luminous with his use of translucent 

light and 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt whose treatment of mankind is full of 

human empathy and whose work represents the zenith of Dutch Renaissance painting. 

Blending modern artistic techniques and influences with Renaissance traditions has in the 

words of one museum curator “ created non-derivative works of unique originality and 

beauty.” Linda Zimmerman, curator of his recent exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona says of 

Samsonov “he has such a respect for art history and of the Renaissance painters in particular 

but his work incorporates strong modern elements of surrealism and mysticism.” 

Samsonov’s rich imagination is the source for most of his subjects. Sometimes serious, sometimes 

fanciful and sometimes sublime his compositions are the result of great forethought and 

draw much or their power from the themes of conflict that he sees as inherent in the human 

and natural world. He explains, “There are always natural elements that oppose each other. 

Light and dark, young and old, the beautiful and the horrendous, all of my work plays on 

these themes.” Samsonov’s work is rich in symbolism. Many symbols are from the early history 

of China usually signifying philosophical ideas such as balance and generosity. Samsonov 

often incorporates Latin to title a painting and has created a unique alphabet to incorporate 

his most private thoughts about a painting into the work. 


academart.com/samsonov

The Greatest Strength 




musetouch 170


















Jayde Pedler Her 

Jayde, also known as Adara Rosalie, is a self taught digital artist living in the Sydney Region of 

NSW. Her works bring forth the beauty in the dark, strange and Gothic. Her images are beautifully 

rendered, with a blend of photo manipulation and digital painting, showing a natural 

talent for creating new and fantastic visual artworks that are original in concept. 

Fast becoming sought after for her particular style Adara has been commissioned for the 

design of a number of CD covers, a book cover by the Author Dez Del Rio, has worked with 

talented Photographer Binh Trinh who is the owner of Picture Perfect Photograph and is now 

working with E. Van Lowe in creating vibrant covers for his series “Fallen Angles”. 

She has also been featured in magazines such as Advanced Photoshop (Issue 81), won a number 

of awards on artist community websites (thanks to all her supporters, whom bolster and 

strengthen her and her art with their wonderful comments) and a variety of other wonderful 

things that are to be confirmed in the near future. 


redbubble.com/people/jayderosalie

Passion 
























Seanen Middleto 

“My name is Seanen. You say it like SEN-EN just so you know. Im 18. 

Reality bores me, so i like to create my own.” 


flickr.com/photos/seanenmiddleton 

facebook.com/pages/Seanen-Middleton-Photography

n Love, Dream and Darkness 





musetouch 217





















Russ Mills Expressions 

“Born: 1971 Exeter, Devon. UK Art Schooling: Nothbrook College, West Sussex 1990-1992 

Leeds Metropolitan University 1992-1995 . 

I Graduated Leeds Met University in 1995 after completing a BA in Graphic Art and Design, 

specialising in Experimental Film and Animation. After finding gainful employment in various 

non-creative institutions went back to basics and began work with pen, pencil and computer. 

Spent almost 20 years crafting skills, absorbing influences from every facet of visual culture and 

archiving found objects and ephemera to substantiate his work he has worked as a freelance 

illustrator with numerous clients in publishing and entertainment, more recently pursuing the 

more traditional gallery/exhibitive path with solo shows in London and Bristol and group exhibits 

in the U.S. Numerous sell out print releases and coverage worldwide. 

My current work is an clash of styles from classical to pop surrealism, focusing predominantly on 

the human form though abstracting elements from nature and the animal kingdom. Covering 

subjects such as superficiality and isolation progressing into more socio-political expressions. “ 

Russ Mills 


byroglyphics.com 

facebook.com/russ.mills 

behance.net/byroglyphics

musetouch_issue_17

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