ARTLO Magazine Issue 5

EXHIBITIONS BOOKS ARTISTS COLLECTORS CURIOSITIES

ARTLO

The International Ar t Magazine

Jacques-Louis David: Art, Authority and the Invention of the Hero

Robert Selfors & Sotaro Takanami: Two Visions of Creation Across

Landscapes and Time

Issue 5 | Dec–Feb 2026

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows

7 November 2025 – 10 May 2026

The National Gallery - London

The National Gallery will present Wright of Derby: From the Shadows (7 November 2025 – 10 May 2026), the

first exhibition devoted to Joseph Wright of Derby and his celebrated “candlelight” paintings. Bringing together

masterpieces such as An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump and The Orrery for the first time in 35 years, the

show highlights Wright’s dramatic use of light to explore themes of science, death, morality and the sublime.

Alongside paintings, visitors will see prints and Enlightenment instruments like an orrery and an air pump,

situating Wright within the scientific and artistic debates of the 18th century. After London, the exhibition will

travel to Derby, returning Wright’s most famous works to his hometown for the first time in 80 years.

Joseph Wright 'of Derby' - An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768

Oil on canvas 183 x 244 cm © The National Gallery, London NG725

ARTLO

magazine

Edition

Issue 5 - Dec - Feb 2026

Founder & Editor-in-chief:

Jessie S. Martin

Curator:

Susan Wilson

Art Advisor:

Matteo D´Angelo

Social media manager & web:

Marie Dubois

Website and app development:

Robert Miller

Contributors:

George Smith

Ana Brown

Martina Marcus

Alfonso Sánchez

Maite Rodríguez

Linda Harrington

Emile Dupont

Winston Pérez

On the Front Cover:

Jacques-Louis David, Self-

Portrait, 1794.

Oil on canvas. Musée du

Louvre, Paris.

info@artloving.com

All rights are reserved. ©

No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without

prior permission of the publisher.

For information regarding

permission, write to

info@artloving.com

Published in Madrid, Spain

Distributed internationally

Jessie S. Martin

Editor-in-Chief

Dear readers...

What does it mean, in an age of acceleration, to pause long

enough for an image to truly speak?

Across this issue of ARTLO Magazine, we return to this question through practices that

span centuries, continents, and states of mind — from the icy thresholds of the Arctic to the

charged salons of Napoleonic France, from Japanese meditation in oil to the analytical rigour

of modern iconology.

Our In Focus feature enters the world of Robert Selfors, whose work rises not from

representation but from immersion. Beneath translucent layers of frozen rivers, he uncovers

architectures of water, pressure, and suspended light — reminders that fragility can be as

revealing as force, and that the natural world still holds forms of knowledge that resist

spectacle. His images ask us to look downward, inward, and more slowly than we are used to.

In contrast, our interview with Sotaro Takanami opens a different register of interiority.

Takanami paints from an almost existential necessity: a lifelong ascent through gesture,

memory, and physical intensity. His canvases — dense, rhythmic, uncompromising — speak of

the solitude required to reach authenticity, and of the strange clarity that emerges when

repetition becomes revelation.

The historical sections expand this dialogue, reminding us that art has always been shaped by

the forces that surround it. David’s Bonaparte Crossing the Alps returns not as a patriotic

emblem but as a study in image-making, ambition, and the creation of myth. Panofsky’s

methodological legacy appears not as academic exercise but as a reminder that meaning is

layered, negotiated, and never accidental.

Across these pages — contemporary, modern, and historical — a shared idea emerges:

that art is not merely something we look at, but something that reshapes the way we inhabit

the world.

Whether through the quiet intelligence of ice, the physical urgency of paint, or the symbolic

languages of earlier centuries, each contribution invites a deeper encounter with the act of

seeing.

Thank you for pausing with us.

Thank you for looking deeply.

I E d i t o r i a l C o n t r i b u t o r s I

Maëlys Picard holds a PhD in art

history from the Université Paris 1

Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research

focuses on female portraiture in

Renaissance Europe and the

representation of physical difference in

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century

art. She has contributed to

international projects exploring the

intersections of art, science and

anatomy in the early modern period.

Émile Dupont is an independent art

historian and writer based in Lille.

With a background in comparative

literature and visual studies, his work

often explores the intersections

between art, society, and cultural

memory. He has published essays on

nineteenth-century painting,

exhibition histories, and the shifting

role of museums in contemporary life.

Passionate about making art history

accessible without losing nuance,

Dupont brings a layered, humanistic

perspective to each subject he

examines.

Matteo D’Angelo is an Italian art

historian, photographer and advisor

with experience across Europe’s

cultural landscape. Trained in Rome

and Berlin, he has worked with

galleries, institutions and private

collectors, focusing on emerging talent

and the shifting dynamics of the

contemporary art market. His expertise

bridges critical insight and curatorial

strategy, with a particular interest in

artists whose work challenges

conventional narratives.

ARTLO - 3

I B O O K S I B Y J E S S I E S . M A R T I N

Studies in Iconology: Decoding

the Symbols of the Renaissance

Studies in Iconology:

Decoding the Symbols

of the Renaissance

Erwin Panofsky, 1972

Routledge

ISBN: 978-0064300254

The Rape of Europa. Attributed to

Thomas Walleys (or Valeys). Bibl. 386

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1939, Studies in

Iconology by Erwin Panofsky remains one of

the most influential books ever written in the

field of art history. While earlier art historians

had often limited themselves to describing the

style of a work of art or identifying the hand

of an individual artist, Panofsky proposed a

new way of seeing: one that searched for

meaning beneath the surface of images. For

him, a painting was never just a painting, but a

coded message that could reveal the

intellectual, cultural, and even spiritual

currents of its time.

Panofsky developed what is now known as the

iconological method. At its most basic level,

this involved three stages of interpretation.

First comes the pre-iconographic description—

the recognition of pure form, of figures,

gestures, and objects. Then comes

iconography in the narrow sense, where these

forms are identified as conventional motifs—

Saint George slaying the dragon, the Virgin

and Child, the Annunciation. Finally,

iconology reaches deeper, asking what these

motifs meant to the people who created and

viewed them. It seeks to uncover the

underlying principles, philosophies and

worldviews of an age.

In Studies in Iconology, Panofsky applied this

method to the Renaissance, showing how its

art was saturated with humanistic themes

drawn from classical antiquity, philosophy, and

theology. For example, he analysed how the

figure of Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, was

revived during the Renaissance as a symbol of

the instability of human affairs; or how

representations of Father Time drew on

ancient personifications but were reshaped to

reflect Christian concerns with mortality and

salvation. Each case study in the book is an

excavation, peeling back layers of imagery to

expose the cultural logic that shaped it.

What makes Panofsky’s work so enduring is

not simply the brilliance of his analyses, but his

insistence that art history must connect with

broader intellectual history.

Renaissance painting and sculpture are not

isolated achievements of genius, but part of a

vast conversation with philosophy, literature,

science, and religion.

By tracing these connections, Panofsky

showed that to understand Renaissance art one

must also understand Renaissance thought.

The influence of Studies in Iconology has been

profound. Panofsky’s method has shaped

generations of scholars, opening the way for

interdisciplinary approaches that treat images

as texts to be read and interpreted. His work

laid the foundations for cultural history, visual

studies, and even fields far removed from art

history, such as semiotics and anthropology.

Today, when we ask how visual culture

encodes power, belief, or identity, we are still

working in Panofsky’s shadow.

Yet the book is not only a methodological

landmark; it is also a reminder of the richness

of Renaissance art itself. By showing how

paintings and sculptures embodied humanist

ideals, revived classical forms, and grappled

with questions of fate, time, and truth,

Panofsky brought out the intellectual drama

that runs beneath their beauty. His vision

allows us to see Renaissance images not as

remote relics, but as vibrant participants in

debates that still matter—about chance and

destiny, knowledge and faith, the fleeting and

the eternal.

More than eighty years after its publication,

Studies in Iconology continues to challenge us

to look harder, think deeper, and read images

as cultural documents. It remains a classic text

because it changes not only how we study the

Renaissance, but how we see the very act of

interpretation itself.

ARTLO - 6

I B O O K S I

From Understanding

Illuminated Manuscripts: A

Guide to Technical Terms

Understanding Illuminated

Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical

Terms, Revised Edition

UNDERTANDING ILLUMINATED

MANUSCRIPTS: A GUIDE TO

TECHNICAL TERMS

Michelle Brown

J. Paul Getty Museum

PUBLICATIONS, 2025

ISBN 978-1606065785

THIS UPDATED EDITION of Michelle P.

Brown’s Understanding Illuminated

Manuscripts remains one of the clearest and

most practical introductions to the world of

medieval book production. Designed as a

reference guide rather than a historical survey,

it defines and explains more than two hundred

technical terms used in the study of

illuminated manuscripts — from materials such

as vellum, pigment, and gold leaf to structural

components like canon tables, initials, and

bindings.

The book’s strength lies in its precision and

accessibility. Each entry is concise, illustrated,

and cross-referenced, allowing readers to

navigate the complex vocabulary of

manuscript studies with ease.

The revised edition, prepared by Elizabeth C.

Teviotdale and Nancy K. Turner for the J.

Paul Getty Museum, incorporates the latest

scholarship and reflects advances in

conservation and digital imaging.

Beautifully illustrated with examples from the

Getty’s collection and other major libraries,

this compact volume serves as an indispensable

resource for anyone interested in the making,

preservation, and visual language of medieval

manuscripts. It is equally valuable for students,

scholars, and museum visitors seeking to

understand how these extraordinary books

were conceived, produced, and used.

ARTLO - 8

Japanese Screens: Through a

Break in the Clouds

Japanese Screens: Through a

Break in the Clouds

EDITED Abbeville Press

Anne-Marie Christin; Claire-

Akiko Brisset; Torahiko

Terada

ISBN 9780789214072

JAPANESE SCREENS (byobu,

meaning "barrier against the wind")

are made of wooden lattices with two

to twelve panels, covered with a paper

or fabric canvas. They are unique for

being beautiful artworks as well as

portable furnishings, acting as

backdrops for court ceremonies or

partitions for intimate tea services.

Artists have embraced screens as threedimensional

objects, creating dynamic

compositions that guide the viewer's

eye from one panel to the next.

This sumptuous book explores the

1,300-year history of Japanese screens.

The authors, leading experts on

Japanese art and culture, describe how

screens developed from the eighth to

the twenty-first century, from their

ceremonial use in palaces and temples

to their functional and decorative use

in ordinary Japanese homes.

They examine the stylistic evolution of

screens and the wide variety of

subjects, such as animals, the seasons,

The Tale of Genji, and calligraphic

designs.

Bound in the Japanese style and

housed in a handsome clamshell box,

this volume includes 166 color

illustrations, many reproduced at fullpage

size. It also comes with a postersized

reproduction of an exceptional

screen, suitable for framing. Japanese

Screens will be an essential addition to

any art lover's library.

ARTLO - 9

I N E W S & E V E N T S I

Theatre

Picasso:

Performance,

Myth and

Transformation

at Tate Modern

TATE MODERN

Bankside, London SE1 9TG

17 September 2025 – 12 April 2026

https://www.tate.org.uk/

Marking the centenary of The

Three Dancers (1925), Tate Modern

presents Theatre Picasso, a major

exhibition exploring Pablo Picasso’s

lifelong fascination with

performance, movement and

transformation. Bringing together

over fifty works – including Weeping

Woman (1937), Nude Woman in a

Red Armchair (1932) and the tapestry

Minotaur(1935), displayed for the

first time in the UK – the exhibition

delves into the theatrical dimension

of Picasso’s art and persona.

Curated by Wu Tsang and

Enrique Fuenteblanca, the

exhibition takes a

performative approach,

interlacing paintings,

sculptures, drawings and

textiles with newly

commissioned works and live

performances. Tsang and

Fuenteblanca invite dancers,

choreographers and flamenco

artists to respond to Picasso’s

legacy through an

accompanying performance

programme, highlighting the

artist’s enduring dialogue

with the stage and his

fascination with outsiders and

entertainers – from acrobats

and bullfighters to flamenco

dancers.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Minotaur (1935), Musee Picasso

Antibes. Photo © François Fernandez © Succession

Picasso, DACS, London 2025

The Three Dancers (1925) Tate. © Succession Picasso

DACS, London 2025

The Studio (1955) Tate. © Succession Picasso DACS,

London 2025

At the heart of Theatre Picasso lies

Picasso’s own construction of identity:

the artist as both genius and outcast,

performer and myth. This dynamic

vision is echoed in Clouzot’s 1956 film

The Mystery of Picasso, included in the

show, which captures the artist’s

physical engagement with painting as

an act of drama and revelation.

Supported by White & Case, the Huo

Family Foundation and Tate Members,

Theatre Picasso continues Tate Modern’s

tradition of presenting foundational

figures in new, contemporary light.

A companion publication, Theatre

Picasso (edited by Rosalie Doubal and

Natalia Sidlina with Wu Tsang and

Enrique Fuenteblanca, £25), will

accompany the exhibition.

Highlights from the related

programme include:

Transposition by Yinka Esi Graves — 17

& 18 October 2025, Turbine Hall (Free)

Composition V (rebellious birds) by Wu

Tsang and Moved by the Motion — 17

& 18 October 2025, South Tank (£18/

£16)

Rocío Molina: Contemporary Flamenco —

6 & 7 March 2026, South Tank (£18/

£16)

ARTLO - 10


Record-Breaking

Auction: The Aga

Khan Collection at

Christie’s London

TOP TO BOTTOM: A Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape, attributed to

Basawan (Mughal India, circa 1575–1580).

From The Personal Collection of Prince & Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan.

Sold at Christie’s London, 28 October 2025, for £10,245,000 — a world record for a

Classical Indian or Islamic painting.

© Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025

Rahul Kadakia, President of Christie's Asia Pacific and Chairman of the Global

Luxury Group, selling A Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape, attributed to

Basawan for £10.2 million, a world auction record for a Mughal painting

CHRISTIE’S LONDON

8 King Street, St. James’s, London

SW1Y 6QT

www.christies.com

Christie’s London has achieved a

landmark result with the sale

Exceptional Paintings from The

Personal Collection of Prince &

Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan, which

totalled £45,760,485 / $60,952,966 /

€52,212,713 — six times the pre-sale

estimate. The auction was 100%

sold, confirming the extraordinary

demand for museum-quality works

of Indian and Islamic art.

The highlight of the evening

was A Family of Cheetahs in a

Rocky Landscape, attributed

to Basawan (Mughal India,

circa 1575–80), which

reached £10.2 million, setting

a world record for a Classical

Indian or Islamic painting.

Other remarkable results

included Maharao Umed

Singh and Zalim Singh

Hunting Tigers by Shaykh

Taju (Kotah, Rajasthan,

1781), sold for £5.05 million,

and A Prince Hawking,

attributed to Muhammad Ali

(Mughal India, circa 1610),

which realised £3.95 million.

According to Sara Plumbly,

Christie’s Head of Islamic and

Indian Art, “The results

illustrate the enduring appeal

of works of such calibre and

provenance, many regarded as

true icons of Indian and

Persian painting. The

energy in the room

reflected the

excitement of a truly

historic sale.”

Held during Asian Art

Week in London, the

auction stands as a

milestone in the global

recognition of Indian

and Islamic art — and

as a tribute to the

refined taste of Prince

and Princess Sadruddin

Aga Khan.

ARTLO - 11


Wright of Derby: From the Shadows

The National Gallery, London

7 November 2025 – 10 May 2026

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk

THIS AUTUMN, the National

Gallery presents Wright of Derby:

From the Shadows, the first

exhibition dedicated to Joseph

Wright ‘of Derby’ (1734–1797) at

the Gallery, and the first to focus on

his celebrated series of candlelight

paintings. Organised in partnership

with Derby Museums, the exhibition

will later travel to Derby in 2026,

returning two of Wright’s

masterpieces to his hometown for

the first time in eighty years.

Joseph Wright of Derby was born in

1734, the son of a local lawyer.

Although his name is often linked to

the Industrial Revolution, largely

because of his connections with

patrons such as Josiah Wedgwood

and Richard Arkwright, Wright’s

true artistic preoccupation lay

elsewhere: the dramatic interplay of

light and shade. He found in subjects

illuminated by candlelight the

perfect stage for exploring not only

the visual impact of chiaroscuro but

also the philosophical and emotional

questions of his age.

Traditionally celebrated as a painter

of the Enlightenment, Wright has

often been cast as a chronicler of

science, reason and discovery. Yet

this exhibition aims to deepen our

understanding of his art by showing

how, in the years between 1765 and

1773, he deliberately used nighttime

settings and artificial light to

probe themes of death, melancholy,

morality, scepticism and the sublime

His candlelit scenes are thrilling, not

only because of their theatricality,

but because they capture the shared

Joseph Wright of Derby A Philosopher by Lamplight, about 1769

Oil on canvas 128.2 x 101.6 cm Derby Museum and Art Gallery (1961-508/1)

© Derby Museums X12393

experience of observation and

wonder at a moment when science,

art and philosophy intersected.

The exhibition brings together over

twenty works, including drawings,

paintings, prints and Enlightenment

instruments, to explore Wright’s

artistic practice and the intellectual

context of his time. Highlights

include the dramatic An Experiment

on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768,

National Gallery), A Philosopher

giving that Lecture on the Orrery in

Which a Lamp is Put in Place of the

Sun (1766, Derby Museums), and

Three Persons Viewing the

Gladiator by Candlelight (1765,

private collection). This marks the

first time in thirty-five years that

these masterpieces have been

reunited. Also on display is An

Academy by Lamplight (1769, Yale

Center for British Art), which has

not been seen in the United

Kingdom for over a decade.

ARTLO - 12

Joseph Wright of Derby. A Girl Reading a Letter with an Old Man Reading Over her Shoulder, about 1767-70

Oil on canvas 91.5 x 71.2 cm Private collection, care of Omnia Art Ltd. © Omnia Art Ltd. X12400

Joseph Wright of Derby The Blacksmiths Shop, 1771 Oil on canvas 125.7 x 99 cm

Derby Museum and Art Gallery (1979-598) © Derby Museums X12394

«Wright

transformed

candlelight into a

theatre of

knowledge and

emotion, bridging

Enlightenment

reason with the

sublime visions of

Romanticism..»

In these works, Wright pushes beyond

technical brilliance to confront the

viewer with moral ambiguity and

emotional tension. In The Orrery, a

philosopher demonstrates astronomy

through a mechanical model of the solar

system, the sun replaced by a flickering

oil lamp. In The Gladiator, artists

scrutinise the classical form by

candlelight, questioning not only the

sculpture but the act of looking itself.

Most famous of all, in The Air Pump,

Wright stages a scientific demonstration

in which life, death and wonder hang in

the balance, forcing each member of the

gathered audience—and, by extension,

the viewer—to confront their own

response to the spectacle.

What makes Wright’s approach to light

remarkable is the way he borrowed

from Old Masters while pushing their

ideas into new territory. Caravaggio

had used stark contrasts of illumination

to heighten drama and evoke spiritual

intensity; Rembrandt, too, mastered the

play of light and shadow to probe

psychological depth. Wright, however,

applied these techniques to secular

subjects rooted in science and everyday

life, transforming candlelit interiors into

theatres of knowledge and human

emotion. In doing so, he bridged the

gap between the sacred chiaroscuro of

Baroque painting and the rational

inquiry of the Enlightenment,

producing images that were at once

intellectually modern and visually

timeless.

This rethinking of light did not end

with Wright’s century. His dramatic

nocturnes, with their heightened sense

of atmosphere and emotional charge,

laid the groundwork for artists of the

Romantic period. Painters such as

J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David

Friedrich, though working in different

idioms, shared Wright’s fascination

with the sublime and with experiences

that transcend the rational. Wright’s use

of shadow, ambiguity and intense

illumination can thus be seen as a

precursor to Romantic explorations of

awe, mystery and the darker side of

human imagination.

The exhibition also places Wright

within a broader history of viewing and

dissemination. His works were

produced at a turning point in 18thcentury

Britain, when public art

exhibitions were first being promoted.

Alongside paintings, visitors will

encounter mezzotint prints that spread

Wright’s reputation internationally.

These luxury reproductions reveal his

astute understanding of how images

could circulate widely, ensuring that his

candlelit dramas were experienced far

beyond the confines of the original

canvas.

To complement the paintings,

Enlightenment instruments such as an

orrery and an air pump, on loan from

the Whipple Museum of the History of

Science in Cambridge, will be

displayed, immersing visitors in the

TOP TO BOTTOM: Joseph Wright of Derby. A Philosopher

Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in

Place, 1764-1766 Oil on canvas 147.3 x 203.2 cm Derby Museum

and Art Gallery (1884-168) © Derby Museums X12392

Joseph Wright 'of Derby' - An Experiment on a Bird in

the Air Pump, 1768 Oil on canvas 183 x 244 cm © The

National Gallery, London NG725

scientific and intellectual culture that

shaped Wright’s work.

By gathering these extraordinary

works, Wright of Derby: From the

Shadows not only celebrates the

technical mastery of an artist long

admired for his use of light but also

repositions him as a thinker deeply

engaged with the existential concerns of

his age. This re-evaluation situates

Wright not merely as a “painter of

light”, but as an artist of shadows, one

who used darkness and flame to

illuminate the anxieties and aspirations

of the Enlightenment—and, in doing

so, to foreshadow the Romantic

imagination that would follow.

ARTLO - 15


Antonio Muñoz Degrain: The Romantic

Visionary of Colour and Imagination

Museo Nacional del Prado (The Prado Museum)

Paseo del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

30 June 2025 – 11 January 2026

www.museodelprado.es

TOP: Javier Barón, curator of the exhibition and Chief

Curator of XIX Century Painting of the Museo

Nacional del Prado, and Alfonso Palacio, Deputy

Director of the Museo Nacional del Prado, during the

press conference. Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado

THE MUSEO NACIONAL DEL

PRADO celebrates one of Spain’s

most imaginative nineteenth-century

artists with a focused exhibition

dedicated to Antonio Muñoz Degrain

(1840–1924). Installed in Room 60 of

the Villanueva Building, the

presentation gathers ten of his most

striking works—five of them newly

restored—to explore the painter’s

technical brilliance, thematic variety

and poetic vision.

A master of atmosphere and light,

Muñoz Degrain developed a highly

personal style that set him apart from his

contemporaries. His Landscape at El

Pardo, Mist Rising (1866), awarded a

medal at the National Exhibition of that

year, exemplifies his loose, expressive

brushwork and mastery in conveying

mood through colour and tone. The

composition’s velvety skies and fluid

strokes recall Velázquez while signalling

a new romantic sensibility rooted in

emotion rather than precision.

ARTLO - 16

The artist’s deep affection for Granada—

its hills, gardens and luminous air—runs

through Memories of Granada(1881)

and View of Granada and Sierra Nevada

(c.1915). In these paintings, Muñoz

Degrain dissolves the boundary

between dream and reality,

transforming landscape into reverie.

His interest in historical and literary

subjects also emerges through The

Lovers of Teruel and Before the Wedding,

in which vivid colour and movement

hint at Venetian influences. Meanwhile,

The Moroccan Eavesdroppers (1879), Jesus

at Tiberias (1909) and Corner of a Toledo

Courtyard (1904) demonstrate the

painter’s versatility—ranging from

exotic Orientalism to spiritual reflection

and domestic intimacy.

The exhibition closes with Interior of

Muñoz Degrain’s Valencia Studio,

painted by his friend Francisco

Domingo Marqués, a tender homage to

the artist’s creative world and the

Valencian milieu that shaped his career.

Part of the Prado’s long-running

programme of small monographic

displays dedicated to nineteenthcentury

art, this exhibition reaffirms the

museum’s commitment to revisiting

overlooked masters. Following shows

devoted to Aureliano de Beruete,

Rosales, Sorolla and Pradilla, Antonio

Muñoz Degrain highlights the

originality and emotional depth of a

painter who turned colour into poetry

and imagination into truth.

Christophe Cherix © 2021 The

Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Photo by Peter Ross.

AFTER THREE DECADES under

the leadership of Glenn D. Lowry,

The Museum of Modern Art in New

York —the world’s most influential

institution of modern art— enters a

new era. This autumn, Christophe

Cherix, a Swiss-born curator and

long-time head of MoMA’s

Department of Drawings and Prints,

officially took over as David

Rockefeller Director. His

appointment marks a generational and

philosophical shift within the Museum

— one that could see MoMA reembrace

its intellectual and

experimental roots, after a period

defined by global expansion and

institutional branding.

Cherix’s nomination followed an

intensive six-month international

search and a unanimous vote by the

Board of Trustees. Chair Marie-Josée

Kravis highlighted his “brilliant

curatorial leadership and steady

stewardship,” while Board President

Sarah Arison praised his “scholarship

and internationally respected research.”

«After three

decades under

Glenn D. Lowry, the

Museum of Modern

Art enters a new

era defined by

curatorial

reflection and

intellectual

renewal under

Christophe

Cherix.»

A New Chapter at MoMA:

Christophe Cherix Appointed

Director

Together, their statements reflect

confidence not only in Cherix’s

managerial skill but also in his capacity

to bring renewed depth to the

Museum’s curatorial identity.

A figure deeply embedded in MoMA’s

intellectual fabric, Cherix joined the

institution in 2007 and has led the

Department of Drawings and Prints

since 2013. Before that, he served as

curator at the Cabinet des Estampes of

the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva,

where his work focused on avant-garde

and conceptual practices. His academic

grounding in works on paper and the

histories of conceptualism places him

closer to the laboratory of ideas that

shaped post-war art than to the

corporate arena in which modern

museums often find themselves today.

Among his many projects, Cherix has

curated major exhibitions that reveal

both historical insight and curatorial

precision: ED RUSCHA / NOW

THEN (2024), Adrian Piper: A

Synthesis of Institutions (2018, with

Connie Butler and David Platzker),

Marcel Broodthaers: A Retrospective

(2016, with Manuel Borja-Villel),

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show(2015),

and In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in

Conceptual Art, 1960–1976 (2009).

Under his leadership, MoMA has also

integrated significant archives and

collections — including those of Merrill

C. Berman, Seth Siegelaub, Gilbert and

Lila Silverman, and the Art &

Project/Depot VBVR Collection —

reinforcing its position as a global

centre for conceptual and archival art.

In contrast to Lowry’s long tenure —

marked by architectural expansion,

fundraising success, and MoMA’s

evolution into a global cultural brand

— Cherix’s directorship suggests a

more introspective chapter. His

curatorial sensibility is less about

spectacle and more about structure: the

systems, networks, and documents that

sustain artistic thought. This

intellectual orientation could restore to

MoMA a spirit of inquiry that once

defined its modernist mission.

As the Museum approaches its

centennial, Cherix has stated that his

priority is to “support MoMA’s

exceptional staff and ensure that their

ability to navigate the ever-evolving

present continues to thrive.” In that

statement lies a subtle promise: that the

future of MoMA may depend not on

expansion, but on cohesion — a return

to the dialogue between art, research,

and society that first gave the Museum

its authority.

The transition from Lowry to Cherix

thus marks more than a change of

leadership. It symbolises a shift of tone

— from an era of visibility to an era of

reflection. For a museum that has long

defined the modern, it may be the

beginning of a quieter, more analytical

modernity: one that listens as much as

it leads.

ARTLO - 17

TEXT by Marie Dubois

When Lost Paintings Return: Reflections on

Looted Art and Cultural Memory

Each rediscovered artwork reopens a

chapter of history, reminding us that

the traces of loss, exile and restitution

still shape our cultural memory.

ARTLO - 18

A few weeks ago, international

headlines reported the rediscovery of

Portrait of the Countess Colleoni by

Fra’ Galgario — a work long

believed lost to Nazi looting during

the Second World War. Its

reappearance was not announced by

a museum, an auction house, or a

restitution committee, but through

photographs taken for the sale of a

villa in Mar del Plata, a seaside city

south of Buenos Aires. There,

among velvet armchairs and lace

curtains, the image of the Countess

hung quietly above a sofa — a

survivor of war and exile that had, by

chance, entered the lens of a realestate

photographer.

Beyond its curiosity, the episode

serves as a reminder that the past can

re-emerge through the most

ordinary means. It also prompts

reflection on a much broader

question: how many other works,

displaced by war and politics,

continue to sleep behind the walls of

private homes? The rediscovery of

Fra’ Galgario’s Countess Colleoni is

not merely a story of loss and

recovery, but a lens through which

to contemplate the resilience of

cultural memory — and the

unpredictable ways in which history

insists on being seen again.

The rediscovery of Portrait of the

Countess Colleoni by the Italian

painter Fra’ Galgario (Giuseppe

Vittore Ghislandi) is one of those

cases that demonstrates how the

history of art can unexpectedly

collide with the everyday present.

The painting, long believed lost as a

result of the systematic looting

Image from the estate agent’s website showing Giuseppe Ghislandi’s painting Portrait of a Lady

inside the property. Photograph: Robles Casas & Campos

carried out during the Second World

War, resurfaced not through an

auction catalogue, a museum

exhibition or a scholarly bequest, but

in photographs taken for the sale of a

house in Mar del Plata, a coastal city

south of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Image from the estate agent’s

website showing Giuseppe

Ghislandi’s painting Portrait of a

Lady inside the property.

Photograph: Robles Casas & Campos

In those photographs, intended

merely to present a villa with velvet

sofas, lace doilies and the predictable

decorative objects of a provincial

middle-class interior, the

unmistakable image of the Countess

Colleoni appeared hanging on the

wall. For specialists used to studying

blurred archival photographs and

catalogue entries, the recognition

was immediate: the composition, the

palette and the dimensions matched

exactly what was known of the

missing canvas. The episode

illustrates with unusual clarity the

unpredictable itineraries of looted

artworks, the fragility of cultural

memory, and the persistence of

traces that resurface decades later in

the most banal of contexts.

The painting had belonged to the

collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a

celebrated Dutch dealer who, before

the war, had assembled one of the

largest private galleries in Europe,

with more than a thousand works

ranging from Italian Renaissance

panels to Dutch Golden Age masters

and eighteenth-century portraits

such as Fra’ Galgario’s. When the

Nazis occupied the Netherlands in

1940, Goudstikker’s gallery became a

prime target for confiscation.

Goudstikker himself fled with his

family, but died in a tragic accident

during the journey, leaving his

widow Desi to face the devastating

consequences.

His inventory was forcibly sold, and a large

part of it was absorbed into the personal

collection of Hermann Göring, who

systematically built a private empire of art

on the suffering of others.

For decades, the Goudstikker family fought

to recover parts of the collection, and their

case became a landmark in the history of

restitution. Among the works that

disappeared during the occupation was Fra’

Galgario’s portrait, which was remembered

only through early black-and-white

photographs and notes in catalogues. Its

absence was typical of hundreds of works

whose physical presence had been effaced

but whose memory lingered in archives.

The trail of the painting after its removal

from Amsterdam leads to Friedrich Kadgien,

an SS officer and senior administrator in the

Reich’s economic apparatus. Kadgien was

one of many bureaucrats who profited from

the confiscation of Jewish property, and as

the war drew to its inevitable conclusion he

fled first to Switzerland and then to

Argentina, carrying with him not only

jewels and money but at least two paintings,

one of them Galgario’s portrait of the

Countess.

The trajectory is consistent with that of

numerous Nazis who sought refuge in

South America after 1945, carrying cultural

property across the Atlantic and integrating

it into discreet domestic contexts far from

the eyes of European investigators.

Kadgien’s life in Argentina remained quiet,

but subsequent testimonies and documents

confirm that he was part of that larger

movement of looted property which

travelled thousands of kilometres from the

European war to the relative anonymity of

the southern hemisphere.

The fact that the painting remained in a

private house in Mar del Plata for decades

explains why it escaped the radar of

institutions and scholars. Unlike works that

entered public collections, those absorbed

into family inheritances could remain

hidden for generations, appearing

occasionally in the background of

photographs but never formally identified

until chance intervened. The property

listing in which the portrait was detected is

a good example of how digital technology

has transformed the work of provenance

research: images circulate online with

unprecedented speed, and recognition can

occur not only in museums or libraries but

in the most unexpected digital

environments.

When art historians noticed the Countess

Colleoni above the sofa, they compared the

image with existing archival records: the

pose of the sitter, the tonal balance, the

dimensions of the canvas as recorded in

catalogues, and the subtle characteristics of

Fra’ Galgario’s brushwork. All elements

aligned, leaving little doubt about the

identification.

The discovery triggered immediate

official action, but by the time

investigators reached the property the

painting had already been removed,

probably alerted by the sudden

visibility of the house online. This

disappearance caused alarm, since many

similar cases have ended in works

vanishing once again into the grey

zones of the art market. Objects present

in family collections can be transferred

quickly, hidden in new locations, or

even sold through intermediaries.

However, in this case the story took a

more positive turn: after several tense

days, the portrait reappeared in official

custody, ensuring that its eighty-year

journey had finally reached a point of

visibility from which it could no longer

retreat.

The irony of its re-emergence is

obvious: a painting by Fra’ Galgario,

whose portraits are valued for their

restraint, psychological depth and

ability to communicate dignity

without excess, had been reduced to

mere background decoration in a set of

real estate photographs, an image

intended to sell a house rather than to

reveal a cultural treasure. To

understand the significance of this

rediscovery, one must consider the

broader history of Nazi looting.

Between 1933 and 1945, hundreds of

thousands of artworks were confiscated

from Jewish families, collectors, dealers

and museums.

The scale of appropriation was

unprecedented, and it was driven not

only by greed but also by ideology: the

Nazis sought to annihilate

communities and to reshape cultural

identity by appropriating or destroying

their heritage. Göring’s collection

alone amounted to more than a

thousand paintings, assembled through

coerced sales, confiscations and forced

transfers. Other officials, such as Alfred

Rosenberg and his Einsatzstab

Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR),

organised systematic seizures across

occupied Europe. Many works entered

German state museums; others were

absorbed into private collections;

thousands disappeared into hiding.

The case of Goudstikker is emblematic

because his gallery was dismantled so

thoroughly and because his heirs

fought so persistently for restitution.

After the war, Desi Goudstikker and

later her son Edo pursued legal and

moral claims, but the process was slow

and complicated by post-war politics.

For decades the Netherlands resisted

large-scale restitutions, and it was only

after sustained international pressure

and new principles established in the

late 1990s—such as the Washington

Conference Principles on Nazi-

Confiscated Art—that significant

progress was made.

In 2006 the Dutch government

returned more than 200 works to the

Goudstikker heirs, one of the largest

restitutions in Europe. That precedent

changed the landscape for similar

claims. Each restitution is more than

the return of property: it represents the

recognition of injustice and the

reconstruction of historical truth. The

reappearance of the Countess Colleoni

portrait now extends this narrative,

adding one more piece to the puzzle. It

reminds us that looted art often

survives not in museums but in private

contexts, invisible to the public until

chance intervenes.

The South American dimension of the

story is also important. Argentina,

along with other countries such as

Brazil and Chile, became a refuge for

many Nazis after 1945. Some carried

with them not only money and

identities but also cultural objects,

which entered local economies in

discreet ways.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied

Commander, accompanied by General Omar N.

Bradley and Lieutenant General George S. Patton,

inspects looted artworks hidden by the Nazis in a

salt mine in Germany, 12 April 1945.

Photograph by Lt. Moore, U.S. Army.

National Archives and Records

Administration (NARA), Public Domain.

ARTLO - 19

Villas in Mar del Plata, neighbourhoods in

Buenos Aires and provincial estates

occasionally contained paintings, sculptures

and decorative arts of European origin with

uncertain provenance. Most remained

unknown to the wider world. The Colleoni

portrait illustrates how these objects could

survive for decades without detection, until

an incidental photograph broke the silence.

In terms of art history, the painting itself

deserves renewed attention. Fra’ Galgario,

born in Bergamo in 1655 and active until

his death in 1743, cultivated a style of

portraiture distinct from the theatrical

exuberance of Venetian contemporaries. His

sitters are characterised by sobriety, clarity

and a refined attention to individuality. He

avoided excessive ornament and instead

concentrated on conveying presence

through subtle gestures, nuanced

expressions and carefully modulated tones.

The Portrait of the Countess Colleoni

exemplifies this approach: the sitter’s poise is

calm but authoritative, her individuality

expressed without ostentation. The portrait

is not only evidence of a crime but also a

significant work of art in its own right, part

of a corpus that situates Fra’ Galgario among

the most notable Italian portraitists of his

time.

The rediscovery also raises questions about

the responsibilities of museums,

governments and the art market today.

How should works identified in private

houses be handled? What mechanisms

ensure that heirs are recognised and that

restitution is implemented effectively? The

case intersects with international

frameworks such as the 1970 UNESCO

Convention on cultural property and the

1998 Washington Principles, but it also

exposes the gaps that persist. Many works

looted during the war remain missing;

others are in museums where provenance

has not been fully investigated; still others

circulate quietly in private hands. The fact

that a major portrait could surface in an

online real estate listing demonstrates both

the fragility of our control over cultural

memory and the possibility of its recovery.

To situate the Colleoni portrait among

comparable cases, one can recall the

restitution of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele

Bloch-Bauer I to Maria Altmann in 2006

after a long legal battle in the United States,

or the return of works by Lucas Cranach,

Vermeer and others to heirs across Europe.

Each case has contributed to a broader

awareness of provenance research as an

essential field. Museums now routinely

investigate the ownership history of works,

and many publish databases of works with

gaps between 1933 and 1945. Scholars

cross-reference catalogues, photographs and

archives to reconstruct the paths of objects.

Yet despite this progress, many mysteries

remain.

ARTLO - 20

The reappearance of Fra’ Galgario’s

portrait therefore acts as both a success

story and a reminder of unfinished

work. To follow the journey of this

painting is to confront the entangled

histories of art and power. The Nazis

did not merely plunder; they attempted

to reconfigure cultural identity

according to their ideology. The

survival of works like the Countess

Colleoni, and their eventual return to

visibility, testifies to the resilience of art

against such attempts. Paintings

endure, carrying with them the traces

of injustice but also the possibility of

restitution and renewal.

In this sense the banal photograph of a

house for sale becomes a document of

historical importance, because it

revealed what decades of archives could

not: the continued existence of a

missing work. From Amsterdam to

Mar del Plata, from the hands of a Nazi

bureaucrat to the digital page of a

property website, the portrait has

traversed improbable spaces and

emerged once more into public

awareness. Its rediscovery is a reminder

that the work of justice in art history is

not complete, and that every object

that resurfaces brings with it the

obligation to restore memory as well as

possession.

The Portrait of the Countess Colleoni

thus enters not only the catalogue of

Fra’ Galgario but also the charged

terrain of restitution, where art, law

and history converge. The implications

of the Colleoni portrait’s rediscovery

extend beyond the single case and open

the door to a wider discussion about

how the global art world has dealt with

the legacy of wartime plunder, a

discussion that involves not only legal

frameworks but also the responsibilities

of scholars, curators, collectors and

governments.

Ultimately, what makes the story

remarkable is the tension between the

everyday and the extraordinary. A villa

in Mar del Plata, photographed for sale,

revealed a painting that had travelled

through the great traumas of the

twentieth century: confiscation under

occupation, transfer to a Nazi official,

displacement across oceans, decades of

silence in private hands, and finally reemergence

in the age of digital images.

That trajectory encapsulates the ways

in which art becomes entangled with

power and survival.

It also underscores the resilience of

cultural objects, which outlive regimes,

wars and concealment, only to return

when circumstances allow. The

Portrait of the Countess Colleoni is

now more than a portrait of an

eighteenth-century aristocrat. It is a

document of expropriation and

restitution, a witness to historical

injustice, and a reminder that art can

never be fully absorbed into the

darkness of history.

Its rediscovery through a banal real

estate advertisement is more than a

curiosity: it is a symbol of how

memory resurfaces when least

expected. For specialists, it will become

a reference point in discussions of

provenance; for the heirs of

Goudstikker, it represents another step

in the recovery of a dispersed legacy;

for the broader public, it is a

compelling story of loss and survival.

The work has moved from the silence

of archives and the obscurity of a

private living room into the visibility of

scholarship and the possibility of

restitution.

It demonstrates that the work of

confronting the past continues, that

each object recovered is a fragment of

justice achieved, and that cultural

heritage, however long displaced,

remains capable of re-entering the

present. In the end, the Countess

Colleoni looks back at us not only

through the eyes painted by Fra’

Galgario but also through the layers of

history inscribed in her journey:

dignity captured by an artist in

eighteenth-century Bergamo,

confiscation under a regime that

sought to erase whole communities,

concealment in exile, and a final return

to visibility through the casual lens of a

property website. That unlikely

trajectory transforms the painting into

more than an artwork: it is now a

testimony to survival, a challenge to

oblivion, and a reminder that even in

the most ordinary contexts the past

remains embedded, waiting to be

recognised.

Theatre Picasso at Tate Modern

17 September 2025 – 12 April 2026

www.tate.org.uk

© Tate (Larina Fernandes)

The Pompidou Centre closes

for a bold reinvention

Reinventing Beaubourg

This autumn, Paris’s Pompidou Centre enters a decisive interval in its history:

a comprehensive transformation set in motion in 2020 with the backing of the

French Ministry of Culture, one that requires the complete closure of the

building to allow, among other things, full asbestos removal. Far from a

routine upgrade, the institution frames the pause as a rare chance to rethink

the Centre from the ground up and to bring its radical spirit forward into the

twenty-first century.

T E X T B Y É m i l e D u p o n t

A r t i s t ’ s i m p r e s s i o n o f t h e v i e w t o w a r d s t h e n o r t h w i n g ,

C e n t r e P o m p i d o u © M o r e a u K u s u n o k i i n a s s o c i a t i o n

w i t h F r i d a E s c o b e d o S t u d i o

FROM THE OUTSET, THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR:

this is not expansion for its own sake, nor an exercise in

architectural bravura. It is a careful, eco-responsible recomposition

of what already exists — preserving the

essence of the original manifesto while adapting it to

today’s needs. The plan includes reconfiguring key spaces

to host new cultural formats, reaffirm the Centre’s

multidisciplinary DNA, and re-present Europe’s largest

collection of modern and contemporary art with renewed

clarity. Tellingly, the Atelier Brancusi will be reintegrated

into the Centre, restoring the visibility of a studio that

remains central to the institution’s identity. Equally central

is a commitment to hospitality and access: simplifying

circulation, improving legibility, and placing accessibility

at the heart of the project so that all publics — including

visitors with sensory, physical or cognitive disabilities —

are welcomed with dignity.

The stakes of renovation

If the 1977 building embodied a bold grammar of structure

and services turned inside-out, the 2030 project seeks to reopen

those transparencies and renew the dialogue with the

city. Nowhere is this more visible than in the creation of

the Agora, a vast multidisciplinary platform carved from

former underground parking at level –1. Directly

connected to the Forum through an enlarged opening, the

Agora will host two theatres, two cinemas, four flexible

“boxes” for cross-disciplinary exhibitions, a central stage

linked to stepped seating, and a café — an urban stage

where visual art, live performance, film, talks and debates

interweave. It is a structural answer to a curatorial

conviction: that the Centre’s vitality lies in friction and

encounter.

The environmental brief is equally explicit. After five

decades of intensive use, the building will undergo a

heritage ‘surgery’ of high technical complexity: deasbestos,

fresh air systems, fire stability, structural audits and

a complete overhaul of electrical and heating infrastructure.

Every technical choice is directed at significantly reducing

energy consumption — with a target of about a 40%

reduction in electricity use, a major step for the Centre’s

environmental performance. In parallel, the process for

listing the Pompidou as a historic monument has been

formally initiated, a recognition of its significance in the

global architectural canon even as it undergoes

transformation.

«Not a new Pompidou,

but a renewed one —

clearer, more

generous, and more

attuned to the rhythm

of the city.»

Modular islands punctuate the open plan, supporting

reading, consultation and sharing, while a mix of re-used

furnishings and new, low-rise pieces enhances

transparency and aligns with the exposed structural ceiling

— a material ethics to match the Centre’s original

frankness. Taken together, these moves recast the Bpi not

as an auxiliary service but as a civic core, an everyday

cultural space where learning and art meet.

The project also creates a dedicated pole for new

generations, uniting the Bpi and the Centre’s public

programmes to re-invent cultural practices for children,

teenagers and young adults. The aim is not to ring-fence

them but to offer formats and workshops that reflect

evolving social behaviour and media habits — an

investment in future audiences that keeps faith with the

Centre’s long tradition of innovation in education.

A constellation of authors

Behind the scenes, the team is deliberately plural. AIA Life

Designers serves as technical lead (architecte mandataire,

technical scope), responsible for the orchestration of the

engineering “surgery”.

The library and the city

Much of the project’s civic meaning crystallises in the

Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi). The design

imagines a through-perspective that links interior and

exterior, fostering a constant conversation with Paris. An

animated, forum-like welcome area and collections that

remain accessible along the visitor’s path aim to encourage

serendipity and exchange.

Artist’s impression of the view towards the north wing, Centre Pompidou

© Moreau Kusunoki in association with Frida Escobedo Studio

ARTLO - 23

Moreau Kusunoki carries the architectural and cultural

vision, with Frida Escobedo Studio as associated designer

— a collaboration that pairs Paris-based refinement and

structural clarity with a sensibility attuned to time, light

and civic ritual. The tone of their joint intent is telling:

to listen to the building, to lighten the palimpsest of

accumulated interventions, and to restore legibility,

transparency and generosity without denying the

prototype spirit that remains part of Beaubourg’s DNA.

For Moreau Kusunoki, the task is to free the original

coherence inscribed by Piano, Rogers and their

engineering peers — not to fix the building in amber,

but to return it to liberty: to dust down, clarify and

reopen, revealing moments of pause and resonance that

future generations can re-invent. In parallel, Frida

Escobedo’s note reads the Centre’s “structural alphabet”

and “infrastructural grammar” as the basis for a renewed

vocabulary of openness and exchange, amplifying the

monumentality of the frame while offering clarity and

calm across the floors and towards the city. The Bpi and

the New Generation pole, she argues, are the Centre’s

true civic heart — the proof that Pompidou’s radical

vision was always about culture as an everyday

experience.

In sum, the first movement of “Pompidou 2030” sketches

a future that is less about novelty than recognition: of an

architectural language that still speaks, of publics that

have diversified, and of a city whose cultural metabolism

has only quickened. The renovation reads as a return to

first principles — structure made visible, culture made

porous — recalibrated to an era of ecological

responsibility and common access.

Spaces reimagined

The guiding principles of the project, as set out by

Moreau Kusunoki, are not about rewriting the

Pompidou but about making its original generosity

legible once again. Physical and visual porosity is central:

new transparencies open up connections between spaces

and towards the surrounding city. Light penetrates

deeper into the plateaux, tracing paths that become more

readable and welcoming. In effect, the city is invited to

continue through the building — a conscious extension

of the street into the cultural heart of Beaubourg.

The design also restores clarity of movement. What has

at times become a confusing circulation pattern is

simplified into fluid journeys, naturally legible for firsttime

visitors and seasoned audiences alike. The

Pompidou was conceived in an age that celebrated speed,

animation and the diffusion of information. Today, in an

era of digital overload and fragmented attention, the

Centre’s ambition is inverted: it becomes a place where

mediation, human interaction and physical presence

regain primacy.

Activation of spaces

This renewed legibility allows forgotten or underused

corners of the Centre to be reactivated. Transparency

reveals potential, variety of uses becomes possible, and

visual cross-views reconnect visitors across different zones.

The goal is once again to affirm the Pompidou as a living

platform, mixing publics, activities and events in the spirit

of the original project.

Equally important is the dialogue with the existing

structure. Moreau Kusunoki insists on a posture of respect,

restraint and continuity rather than rupture. Materials and

vocabulary are chosen in resonance with Piano and Rogers’

1977 language. The result is not a new Pompidou but a

revitalised one — an institution renewed without losing the

living energy that has always come from its public.

The Piazza

«By listening to the

building, we return to

its first language:

transparency, openness

and the quiet strength

of structure made

visible »

At the urban threshold lies the Piazza, always central to the

Centre’s identity as a porous, outward-facing institution.

The renovation aims to fully integrate this space into the

city’s fabric. While the upper square has long been lively,

the project activates its underused lower zones, with ramps

for accessibility and redesigned flows that open the Piazza

to multiple sides. Café terraces spill naturally into the

public realm, restoring the porousness envisaged in the

1970s.

The Piazza will continue to host spontaneous street culture

— performers, dancers, poets, activists — but now with

renewed attention to inclusivity and access. It is not just a

forecourt but a theatre of urban life, a democratic stage

where formal and informal culture coexist.

ARTLO - 24

Technical transformations

Behind these cultural gestures stand ambitious technical

interventions. Entire façades will be replaced: the existing

asbestos-laden cladding, fragile and thermally inefficient,

gives way to safer, better insulated modules while

maintaining the clarity of the original design. Energy

systems and service networks are comprehensively

rethought to favour efficiency and durability. Fire safety,

accessibility, and working conditions for staff are all brought

up to contemporary standards. Vertical circulation is

renewed, with new lifts and escalators at the heart of the

Forum. The building, weathered by time, corrosion and

constant use, undergoes a structural “reset” that secures its

future without altering its DNA.

Top: Artist’s impression of the Piazza, south side, Centre Pompidou ©

Moreau Kusunoki in association with Frida Escobedo Studio

Bottom: Frida Escobedo, Hiroko Kusunoki, Nicolas Moreau and Adrien

Paporello – Photo: © Jair Lane

ARTLO - 25

I I N T E R V I E W

I R I I T A N E L I M A R K K A

«A new Pompidou

for a new century»

The Forum and the Agora

At the Centre’s heart, the Forum is re-imagined as a social and

cultural stage. The arrival sequence is now intuitive: the famous

escalators along the façade are visible from the entrance, and

the Forum opens directly to the Agora below via an enlarged

central void. Together they form a three-level volume where

circulation, performance and everyday encounters flow into

each other.

Gradual steps connect Forum and Agora, reinforcing the

theatrical and social quality of the space. Visitors can pause

informally, or the steps can host programmed events. Public

services — ticketing, information, cloakrooms — are now

placed logically at the entrance, anchoring intuitive journeys

whether towards the Galleries, the Bpi, the Agora or the New

Generation pole.

The Agora’s spine runs north–south, hosting foyers for theatres

and cinemas, circulation paths, café areas and flexible furniture.

Its “boxes” can be subdivided or opened for temporary

exhibitions and installations, while the stepped seating

descending from the Forum binds the two spaces. Façade

modifications, including glazed modules replacing opaque

fireproof panels, draw daylight deeper into the interior.

Obstructive elements — central lifts, kiosks — are removed,

opening new perspectives towards the city.

Top and bottom: Artist’s impression of the view towards the north wing,

Centre Pompidou © Moreau Kusunoki in association with Frida Escobedo

Studio

ARTLO - 26

To the north, the Pôle Nouvelle Génération highlights the

Centre’s youngest audiences — infants, children, teenagers and

families. With attention to care and hospitality, the design

provides a joyful, playful atmosphere that supports shared

discovery of books, art and creative practice.

On the lower level, minimalist large spaces allow children to

roam freely. Families access directly from the Forum via a clear

northward axis that simplifies orientation. It is conceived as a

complete, pleasant experience for families, ensuring that the

Centre is not only accessible but welcoming at the earliest

stages of cultural life.

The Public Information Library also undergoes a profound

redefinition. Already exceptional in size and mission, it is recast

as a singular environment for learning and encounter,

reinforcing its role as a national library. The design introduces

a new north–south opening, enabled by fire safety upgrades,

granting panoramic views of Paris and a sense of permeability

through the building.

New furnishings combine re-use of existing elements, rich

with memory and attachment, with original designs that

refresh the overall atmosphere. Low-rise shelves and seating

echo the exposed blue pipes and structural beams, maintaining

horizontal transparency between floor and ceiling. More than

ever, the Bpi will stand as a civic core, an open stage for

collective knowledge and cultural practice.

The project is steered by an international constellation of

voices. At its heart are the architects Moreau Kusunoki, joined

in association with the Mexican studio of Frida Escobedo,

whose combined sensibilities bring both Parisian refinement

and a global outlook. They work in close dialogue with French

specialists such as AIA Life Designers, ensuring that the

engineering and environmental demands of the renovation

remain inseparable from its cultural ambition. It is a partnership

that mirrors the very ethos of the Pompidou: collaboration

across borders, disciplines and scales. Rather than imposing a

new identity, their task is to listen to the building, to free it

from decades of accumulated interventions, and to restore the

clarity and generosity that once shocked Paris in 1977.

Artist’s impression of the view towards the north wing, Centre Pompidou

© Moreau Kusunoki in association with Frida Escobedo Studio

Seen against the wider history of the Centre — from Georges

Pompidou’s visionary decision in 1969 to unite a museum and a

vast public library on the Beaubourg site, through Piano and

Rogers’ radical design, to the later satellites in Metz, Málaga,

Shanghai and soon Seoul, Brussels, Paraná (Curitiba, Brazil)

and Jersey City — the current project reads as both continuity

and renewal. As the fiftieth anniversary approaches in 2028, just

two years before reopening, the symbolism becomes powerful:

a building once dismissed as a provocation now pauses to

reinvent itself, still faithful to its mission of reinventing the

encounter between art, city and public life.

ARTLO - 27

Jacques-Louis David, Bonaparte

Crossing the Great St Bernard Pass,

1801. Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin.

This is the most celebrated of the five

versions painted by David between

1801 and 1805, commissioned by

Charles IV of Spain. With its blazing

red cloak and idealised calm, it

became the definitive image of

Napoleonic heroism — a fusion of

classical grandeur and revolutionary

myth.

Above: Jacques-Louis David, Self-

Portrait, 1794.

Oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Painted during his imprisonment after

the fall of Robespierre, this selfportrait

shows the artist at the height

of his technical precision and

psychological intensity —a

declaration of creative authority that

anticipates his later role as the

painter of empire.Below, Drawn study

for Bonaparte, c. 1800, Musée Fabre,

Montpellier. Squared study for

Bonaparte, c. 1800, Musée Fabre,

Montpellier.

Napoleon in the Studio

of Jacques-Louis David

TEXT by Jessie S. Martin

On a cold morning in January 1801,

the First Consul of France stepped into

the studio of Jacques-Louis David. The

painter’s atelier, installed in the former

convent of the Feuillants near the

Louvre, was thick with the scent of

linseed oil and pigment. Upon the easel

stood a monumental canvas: Bonaparte

Crossing the Great St Bernard Pass.

The visit was not a mere gesture of

courtesy. It was, in essence, a private

audience between power and its image.

Napoleon Bonaparte, still in the fragile

years of the Consulate, had come to

inspect how his likeness —and, by

extension, his legend— was taking

form under the disciplined hand of the

greatest painter of revolutionary

France.

The birth of a modern icon

Only two years earlier, France had

been exhausted by a decade of

revolution. The new regime sought

legitimacy not in divine right, but in

glory —in the carefully staged theatre

of authority.

David, once the official painter of the

Republic and a deputy who had voted

for the king’s execution, had become

the visual architect of this new order.

Napoleon, acutely aware of the power

of imagery, understood that the

stability of his rule depended as much

on symbols as on armies. The result of

their collaboration would become one

of the most effective pieces of political

art in modern history.

In reality, the crossing of the Alps in

May 1800 had been an arduous, muddy

expedition. The general rode not a

rearing charger, but a sure-footed

mule, swathed in a plain grey coat. Yet

Napoleon wanted no record of fatigue

or circumstance —only the purified

vision of command. “Paint me calm

upon a fiery horse,” he reportedly told

David, “and let my gaze be fixed upon

the future.”

The artist obliged. The resulting

composition, all diagonal energy and

classical restraint, fuses the traditions of

Roman triumph and Enlightenment

geometry.

ARTLO - 29

Bonaparte is immobile in the midst of

motion, his cloak sculpted by the wind

like a crimson standard. The horse’s

spiral movement, the triangular

construction of figure and drapery, the

sharp engraving of “HANNIBAL –

KAROLUS MAGNUS –

BONAPARTE” upon the rock:

everything proclaims the inevitability

of destiny.

The studio as a theatre of state

Those who witnessed Napoleon’s visits

to David’s workshop describe a ritual of

mutual fascination. The future emperor

walked slowly around the canvas,

hands clasped behind his back,

interrogating the painter on every line.

David, ever the pedagogue of

composition, explained the balance of

masses, the architectonic clarity of

gesture, the controlled harmony of

colours.

Their dialogue —preserved in letters

and recollections— reveals the paradox

of their alliance: the revolutionary

moralist and the nascent autocrat, both

believing in the redemptive power of

art.

The studio thus became a microcosm

of France itself: a republic giving birth

to empire beneath the measured light

of classicism.

David’s discipline was military.

Assistants ground pigments, mixed

varnishes, stretched the enormous

canvas under his strict supervision. The

background was built from pale glazes

to achieve an almost sculptural

luminosity; the figure of Bonaparte, by

contrast, emerged in layered tones of

ochre and vermilion. Every brushstroke

was a manoeuvre; every correction, an

act of obedience to order.

The language of power and serenity

Jacques-Louis David – Napoleon in His

Study at the Tuileries (1812, National

Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

The innovation of Bonaparte Crossing

the Alps lies not merely in its grandeur

but in its rhetoric. David rejected the

Baroque turbulence of earlier

equestrian portraits —those of Rubens

or Van Dyck— in favour of a new,

intellectual heroism. The general’s

expression is impassive, almost abstract,

his calm transcending human emotion.

ARTLO - 30

Here, neoclassicism becomes not a style

but a creed: virtue through discipline,

beauty through reason. For David, who

had painted the stoic deaths of Socrates

and Brutus, Napoleon was the living

embodiment of that ideal. And for

Napoleon, David offered what no

proclamation could achieve —

immortality in the language of art.

A portrait multiplied

Between 1801 and 1805, David produced

five almost identical versions of the

composition, each destined for a different

court or palace. This repetition was no

commercial strategy but a diplomatic

one. Each painting acted as an

ambassador of the regime —a silent

envoy proclaiming French grandeur in

oil and gold leaf.

The first version, painted for the Château

de Malmaison, celebrated the domestic

glory of the Consul and his wife

Joséphine. The second, sent to the

Prussian king Frederick William III and

now in Charlottenburg, was a gift of

persuasion to a hesitant ally. The third, in

the Palace of Versailles, became the state’s

own emblem. Two later versions reached

Vienna and Liverpool, extending the

myth beyond France’s borders.

In each, slight variations reveal shifts in

tone: the Liverpool version softens the

blaze of the earlier canvases; the Viennese

one refines the drawing; the Malmaison

original remains the most theatrical.

Together they form a constellation of

power —five mirrors reflecting the same

calculated serenity.

Behind the composition

David’s preparatory sketches, preserved

in the Louvre’s Department of Prints and

Drawings, show the evolution of the

design: the horse at first more docile, the

figure less vertical, the drapery less

monumental. Through layer after layer

of adjustment, the image approached

abstraction. By the time Napoleon

approved the final version, the event itself

had vanished; only the symbol remained.

Letters exchanged between the artist and

the Consul attest to Napoleon’s keen

involvement. He dictated the direction of

the wind, corrected the placement of the

scabbard, even debated the hue of the

uniform. For him, the canvas was not

decoration but instrument —as crucial to

command as a map or a treaty.

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of

Jaffa, 1804, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Painted by David’s pupil

Gros, this work transforms Napoleonic heroism into

compassion, offering the emotional counterpart to David’s

classical restraint.

The politics of appearance

The late eighteenth century had

witnessed the decline of royal portraiture

as divine testimony. David reinvented it

as civic scripture. The painting’s Latin

inscriptions

—HANNIBAL,

CHARLEMAGNE, BONAPARTE—

rewrite the lineage of conquerors,

inserting a modern soldier among ancient

demi-gods. The horse, half-reined and

half-wild, symbolises the balance between

instinct and control; the diagonal ascent

across the rock face becomes a metaphor

for historical ascent.

It is no accident that, when the Empire

was proclaimed three years later, David

would again be summoned to stage its

visual grammar, this time in The

Coronation of Napoleon. The language

born in that modest studio in 1801 would

become the empire’s official syntax: cold,

luminous, disciplined.

ARTLO - 31

Afterlife of a myth

Two centuries later, the five

Bonapartes remain scattered

across Europe, each with its own

biography. In Malmaison, the

painting still dominates the salon

where Joséphine once hosted

diplomats; in Charlottenburg, it

survives as a relic of Franco-

Prussian courtship; in Vienna, it

hangs almost ironically, the

image of the conqueror among

those he once defeated. The

Liverpool version, purchased by

the British government in the

early twentieth century,

transformed propaganda into

heritage.

David’s calculated equilibrium —

between movement and stillness,

reason and passion— continues to

exert its strange fascination. It is a

work that reminds us how art can

fabricate history even as it records

it. What began as a private act of

painting became a public contract

between image and empire.

In that studio on the Rue Saint-

Honoré, under the pale winter

light of 1801, Napoleon

understood that his greatest

conquest would not be territorial

but visual. A brush, not a cannon,

would secure his place among the

immortals.

This version remained in Madrid until

1812, after which it passed through

several heirs before being

bequeathed to the Château de

Malmaison in 1949.

Napoleon Crossing the

Alps – Five Visions of

Power

Jacques-Louis David, the official

painter of Napoleon Bonaparte,

created five versions of Napoleon

Crossing the Alpsbetween 1800 and

1805. Each canvas, while similar in

composition, reveals subtle variations—

refinements of gesture, light, and

symbolism—that mirror the political

intentions behind their commissions.

The story began when King Charles

IV of Spain, wishing to honour

Napoleon after the exchange of

diplomatic gifts, decided to send him a

portrait painted by David. Learning of

this gesture, Napoleon—already

enthralled by David’s vision of heroic

grandeur—personally requested

additional versions for himself, to be

displayed at the Château de Saint-

Cloud, the Library of Les Invalides, and

the Cisalpine Republic Palace in Milan.

The painting presents the First Consul

as a fearless commander ascending the

Great St Bernard Pass, wrapped in a

dramatic cloak,

wearing the uniform of a general, and

holding a finely crafted sabre. Yet the

image is entirely idealised: Napoleon

never posed for the portrait, having

refused to sit for David. He believed

that art should convey the spirit of

leadership rather than mere physical

likeness. Denied a live model, David

relied on a sculpted bust of the general

to capture his features, and asked his

own son to pose on horseback for the

figure’s posture and anatomy. The

result was not a record of an actual

event but an artistic construction—a

fusion of political myth and classical

heroism.

Each version of Napoleon Crossing the

Alps was painted in oil on canvas and

transformed into an emblem of

authority. Though inspired by the real

crossing of 1800, David’s interpretation

transcends reportage: it presents

Napoleon not as a soldier enduring

hardship, but as an eternal symbol of

control, reason, and destiny.

Left: This 1801 version,

originally created for

the Château de Saint-

Cloud, was taken by

Prussian soldiers and

presented to the King of

Prussia. It is now housed

in the Charlottenburg

Palace in Berlin.

Right: The 1802 copy,

initially intended for the

Library of Les Invalides,

was placed in storage

until 1837, when it was

ordered to be hung in

the Palace of Versailles,

where it remains today.

ARTLO - 34

Although all five canvases spring from

the same composition, no two are truly

alike. When seen together, the

differences become a quiet symphony

of detail. The horses shift from white to

chestnut; the capes glow alternately in

vermilion, gold, or carmine; the

mountain winds change direction,

reshaping the drapery; and even

Napoleon’s gaze evolves from youthful

intensity to calm omniscience. Each

variation carries its own emotional

temperature, a reflection not only of

pigment and light, but of the changing

political moment in which it was

painted.

These divergences reveal the artist’s

method rather than his inconsistency.

David never worked from the original

version. Instead, he reconstructed each

painting from drawings, compositional

grids, and memory — assisted by

students who helped prepare the

canvases and block in colour.

The pigments he used could never be

reproduced with exact precision, and

his technique of layered glazing

allowed each surface to breathe

differently under light. Some signatures

appear bold and dated, others discreet

or absent altogether, as if the painter

had gradually withdrawn his own

presence to let the image speak for

itself.

The variety among the versions also

mirrors Napoleon’s metamorphosis.

When David first conceived the work

for Joséphine’s residence at Malmaison,

Bonaparte was still the rational hero of

the Consulate — elegant, ambitious,

restrained. By the time of the later

paintings for Berlin, Vienna, and

Versailles, he had become a figure of

imperial command. The brush

followed the man: the light hardens,

the gesture stiffens, the myth

consolidates. In this sense, the five

Bonapartes are not repetitions, but

chapters of a visual biography — a

narrative of ambition turned into

empire.

Left: The 1803 version was transferred to Milan,

where it remained until 1825, before being

installed in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, where

it is currently housed. Right: This canvas was the

one David kept for himself until his death in 1825.

In 1850, the painter’s daughter offered it to

Napoleon III, who placed it in the Tuileries Palace;

in 1979, it was transferred to the Palace of

Versailles.

Technically, they also embody the peak

of the neoclassical ideal: clarity,

geometry, and moral order fused into

motion. Yet beneath that control, a

tension remains — the same tension

that defined David himself, a

revolutionary who painted authority

with the discipline of a philosopher.

Each canvas vibrates between precision

and passion, intellect and spectacle.

That is perhaps why these paintings

continue to fascinate two centuries

later. They are not mere monuments to

power, but meditations on the making

of power itself. The calm mask of

Napoleon conceals the energy of an

age obsessed with image, reason, and

destiny. David, who understood both

politics and paint, gave this obsession

its most enduring form.

So when we stand before any of these

versions — whether in Malmaison,

Berlin, Versailles, Vienna, or Liverpool

— we are not simply looking at history.

We are witnessing the deliberate

invention of it: a vision constructed

stroke by stroke, where myth and

mastery became inseparable.

They remain, beyond diplomacy and

empire, the ultimate testimony to

Jacques-Louis David’s genius — a

painter who transformed the act of

representation into an empire of its

own.

ARTLO - 35

T A T E M O D E R N , L O N D O N

Emily Kam Kngwarray –

The Dreaming in Colour

Europe’s first major solo exhibition dedicated to one of the most extraordinary

figures in international contemporary art.

Tate Modern – Bankside, London SE1 9TG

www.tate.org.uk

Until 11 January 2026

Tate Modern presents Europe’s

first major solo exhibition dedicated

to one of the most extraordinary

figures in international

contemporary art, Emily Kam

Kngwarray (c.1914–1996). A senior

Anmatyerr woman from the

Sandover region in the Northern

Territory of Australia, Kngwarray

translated her ceremonial and

spiritual engagement with her

ancestral Country, Alhalker, into

vivid batik textiles and monumental

acrylic paintings on canvas.

AEmily Kam Kngwarray, Yam awely, 1995.

NGA © Emily Kam Kngwarray Copyright

Agency. Licensed by DACS 2025

Taking up painting in her seventies

and devoting her final years to

creating a large body of work,

Kngwarray forged a path for

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

artists, women artists, and Australian

artists at large. She continues to

captivate audiences around the

world three decades after her

passing.

Organised in collaboration with the

National Gallery of Australia, this

extensive survey brings together

over eighty works spanning her

extraordinary career. Many are

being shown outside Australia for

the first time, offering European

audiences a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity to experience

Kngwarray’s powerful batiks,

paintings, and vibrant legacy.

From Batik to Monumental

Painting

Kngwarray began experimenting

with new art media at Utopia

Station in the 1970s. After mastering

the technique of batik, she

transitioned in the late 1980s to

acrylic painting on canvas. Her

practice was shaped by her deep

knowledge of Country and her role

in women’s ceremonial traditions of

awely — song, dance, and the

painting of bodies with ground

ochres.

ARTLO - 36

She worked seated on the ground, in

the same position used to prepare food,

dig yams, or draw stories in the sand.

Her approach to painting was

developed in isolation from European

and North American movements of

her time, reflecting an entirely

different relationship between body,

land, and mark-making.

The Language of Country

Encapsulating the ecology of her

homeland, Kngwarray’s work features

motifs derived from native plants,

animals, and natural forms. She

frequently depicted the pencil yam

(anwerlarr) and its edible underground

tuber and seedpods (kam), after which

she is named, as well as the emu

(ankerr), an important ancestral being

for Aboriginal Peoples.

The exhibition opens with three

acrylic paintings acquired for Tate’s

collection in 2019 — Untitled

(Alhalker) 1989, Ntang 1990, and

Untitled 1990 — featuring layered fields

of dots representing native seeds.

These are shown alongside Awely 1989

and Emu Woman 1988, her first canvas

to attract national attention. Together,

they trace the evolution of her visual

language, grounded in her profound

understanding of the desert ecosystems

of Alhalker.

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Ntang Dreaming 1989.

NGA, Canberra.. © Emily Kam Kngwarry Copyright

Agency. Licensed by DACS 2025

ARTLO - 37

ARTLO - 38

Emily Kam Kngwarray installation

view at Tate Modern 2025. © Emily

Kam Kngwarray Copyright Agency.

Licensed by DACS 2025. Photo © Tate

(Kathleen Arundell)

ARTLO - 39

T A T E M O D E R N , L O N D O N

Top: Emily Kam Kngwarray, Alhalker-

My Country, 1992 installation view at

Tate Modern 2025. © Emily Kam

Kngwarray Copyright Agency.


(Kathleen Arundell).

Bottom: Emily Kam Kngwarray,

Untitled, 1995, Helen Eager and

Christopher Hodges. Installation view

at Tate Modern 2025. © Emily Kam

Kngwarray Copyright Agency.


(Kathleen Arundell).

The Alhalker Suite and Beyond

At the heart of the exhibition lies The

Alhalker Suite (1993), one of

Kngwarray’s most ambitious works, on

loan from the National Gallery of

Australia. Consisting of twenty-two

canvases, it forms a vibrant portrait of

Alhalker Country. Bright pastel pinks

and blues evoke wildflowers blooming

after rainfall, while dense constellations

of dots suggest rockfaces and

grasslands.

Kngwarray imposed no fixed order on

the panels, allowing the work to be

rearranged each time it is displayed — a

reminder that the stories and places she

painted remain alive and mutable.

In her final years, she adopted a new

visual language of parallel

monochrome lines painted in red,

yellow, and white, echoing the

gestures of awely body painting. Tate

Modern presents Untitled (Awely)

1994, originally the centrepiece of the

Australian Pavilion at the 1997 Venice

Biennale, alongside late works such as

Yam Awely 1995, a masterful

evocation of roots, grasses, and tracks

interwoven in radiant movement.

Curated by

Kelli Cole (Warumungu and Luritja

peoples), Director of Curatorial &

Engagement, National Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander Art Gallery

project; Kimberley Moulton, Adjunct

Curator, Indigenous Art, Hyundai Tate

Research Centre: Transnational;

Charmaine Toh, Senior Curator,

International Art, Tate Modern;

Genevieve Barton, Assistant Curator,

International Art, Tate Modern; and

Hannah Gorlizki, Exhibitions Assistant,

Tate Modern.

Organised in partnership with the

National Gallery of Australia,

Fondation Opale, and Wesfarmers

Arts, with additional support from

Bloomberg Philanthropies and the

Emily Kam Kngwarray Exhibition

Supporters Circle.

After its presentation at Tate Modern,

the exhibition will travel to Fondation

Opale, Switzerland, in a new

iteration developed with curator Kelli

Cole.

ARTLO - 40

Grace Rosario Perkins:

C I R C L E S , S P O K E S ,

Z I G Z A G S , R I V E R S

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART · THROUGH FEB 8

W H I T N E Y · N E W YO R K

S P E C I A L F E A T U R E : R o b e r t S e l f o r s

Robert Selfors:

An artist shaped by the

North, exploring the

hidden architectures of

ice and landscape.

www.arcticmoods.org

“His work does not depict the

North; it speaks its

language.”

Where Ice Becomes Language

There are artists whose work reflects a landscape, and then

there are artists whose practice is formed by the landscape

itself — forged by its temperatures, its silences, its fractures.

Robert Selfors belongs firmly to the latter. His art does not

simply depict the Arctic: it rises from within it, shaped by

the same forces that sculpt frozen rivers, split glaciers, and

bend the horizon into glow or shadow. In a moment when

contemporary art often turns toward spectacle, Selfors’s

practice insists on something far more difficult:

attentiveness, sincerity, and a form of perception anchored

in the raw, unmediated North.

The path that led him here was neither linear nor

predictable. For nearly thirty years, Selfors built a successful

career in Oslo, moving through design, photography,

visual communication and entrepreneurship. His work was

recognised, awarded, and widely circulated. Yet beneath

the achievements, a dissonance grew.

The tempo of the city — its abstractions, its noise, its

relentless acceleration — no longer matched the internal

rhythm of someone shaped by Arctic stillness. Each time he

travelled, returning to Oslo felt increasingly like returning

to a place that no longer held him.

In 2019, he made a decision that appears simple from the

outside, but represents a profound shift in orientation: he

went back North. Not for nostalgia. Not for retreat. But as

a value-based act of reconnection — an instinctive

recognition that the landscape of his childhood was not a

backdrop but the true axis of his creative life. Bodø, with

its darkness, wind, and endless variations of frozen water,

offered the one thing his practice required above all else:

presence.

What he calls “small treasures” began to accumulate. Not

grandiose vistas, but micro-events: the interior glow of a

frozen river at dusk, the complex geometry of bubbles

trapped under three layers of ice, the muted thunder of

shifting glaciers, the strange softness of daylight returning

after months of absence. These phenomena, unnoticed by

most, became foundational in Selfors’s evolving visual

language.

ARTLO - 42


He understood that the Arctic was not simply a site to

document — it was a form of knowledge. A slow, ancient,

difficult tutor that demanded stillness, discipline, and an

alertness to things that exist for seconds and then vanish

forever.

From this recalibrated way of seeing, a new project began

to form. He did not name it immediately. It began with

walking — literal, physical walking across frozen lakes and

rivers, letting the ice dictate direction. Looking downward

rather than outward. Discovering what lay beneath the

surface. What he found there would shape the next four

years of his practice: an entire hidden world of fractures,

currents, crystals and suspended time. The ice revealed

itself as a natural abstraction of incomparable complexity,

and Selfors recognised in it a metaphor powerful enough

to sustain a long-term inquiry.

This is the origin of Walking on Arctic Water — not as a

photographic series, but as a conceptual universe. An

ongoing investigation into fragility, transformation and the

cyclical intelligence of water.

Top: Hacienda, I could call you home, oil on canvas

Bottom After life game, oil on canvas

The project has since expanded into performance, largescale

projections, multimedia events, painting, digital

composition and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Yet its

core remains unchanged: the belief that the Arctic is not

simply a location, but a living architecture of thought,

perception and emotional truth.

To enter Selfors’s world is to step into a space where ice

becomes language; where fractures read like memory lines;

where colour behaves as if illuminated from below; where

photography dissolves into something closer to painting;

and where the viewer is invited not to interpret, but to

listen. In an art world that increasingly prioritises speed,

irony, and conceptual distance, Selfors’s work stands apart

— not because it resists contemporaneity, but because it

engages with time, vulnerability, and environment at a

deeper register.

This article traces that journey — from the moment of his

return to the North, through the emergence of WOAW,

to the paintings, performances, exhibitions and future

works that have built a practice unlike any other in the

Nordic art scene today. To understand Selfors, one must

begin here: on the ice, where his vision was broken open

and rebuilt.

ARTLO - 43

WOAW — The Threshold:

Looking Down into a Hidden World

The genesis of Walking on Arctic Water lies in a moment

of pure attention. While crossing a frozen river near Bodø,

Selfors looked down through the translucent surface — and

the world opened. Beneath the ice was not darkness, but

complexity: layered currents, suspended air pockets, deep

fractures, mineral traces, and shifting fields of light. It was

as if the river revealed its own inner architecture, a natural

abstraction formed without human intervention.

For Selfors, this was not a passing observation but a

revelation. The ice was not a surface; it was a threshold. A

portal into the unseen, and a reminder that what appears

solid is always in transition. Water, in its frozen state,

mirrors the human condition: fragile, changing,

unpredictable, and profoundly shaped by pressure.

The first photographs he made were not documentation —

they were encounters.

This moment marked the beginning of a long-term

inquiry into perception, presence, and the intelligence of

natural forms. WOAW became the container for this

inquiry, growing organically with each winter, each walk,

each discovery beneath the surface.

Ice as Natural Abstraction

What distinguishes WOAW from environmental

photography is its refusal to treat the landscape as a motif.

Selfors does not look “at” the Arctic; he looks “into” it. His

images capture the interior structures of frozen water —

the labyrinthine pathways of trapped air, the tension lines

created by pressure, the slow drift of sediment, the

luminous gradients produced by buried sunlight. These

formations resemble painting more than photography:

gestural fields, calligraphic lines, chromatic veils.

ARTLO - 44

ARTLO - 45


TBut unlike painting, they are entirely unrepeatable. Each

winter creates new geometries; each shift of temperature

rewrites the composition. What Selfors brings is not

control, but attention. His role is to witness, not impose.

The resulting works operate at the intersection of

observation and intuition, revealing patterns that feel

universal yet intimately tied to place.

“Each winter

rewrites the

geometry of the

world.”

A Visual Language Born Under Ice

Over four years, WOAW developed into a visual language

defined by translucency, depth, and a sense of suspended

time. Light behaves differently in the Arctic — it enters the

ice, scatters, softens, and returns altered. Selfors learned to

work with this phenomenon, positioning himself so the

camera could register what the eye alone cannot: luminous

fields buried beneath several layers of frozen river.

The images move between clarity and opacity, between

the readable and the enigmatic. Some compositions

resemble celestial maps; others evoke geological crosssections

or microscopic structures. Their ambiguity is

intentional. By removing the horizon and any

conventional sense of scale, Selfors invites viewers to enter

the work without assumptions. WOAW is not a window

onto a landscape; it is a space of immersion.

ARTLO - 48

ARTLO - 49


The 2024 Outdoor Performance — and

National Television

TIn February 2024, WOAW expanded beyond the

photographic field. At a ski-jumping hill in Mo i Rana,

Selfors orchestrated a large-scale outdoor performance that

brought sound, movement and projected imagery into

dialogue with the Arctic environment. Musicians

performed on instruments carved from ice; dancers moved

across snow illuminated by shifting projections; the frozen

hillside became a temporary stage for an ephemeral, siteresponsive

artwork.

The national broadcaster NRK documented the event,

recognising its cultural and artistic significance. Their

coverage introduced WOAW to a national audience,

framing it not merely as a visual project but as a

multidisciplinary examination of the Northern

environment and the emotional states it provokes. The

performance marked a turning point: WOAW was no

longer a photographic exploration — it had become a

living, evolving ecosystem of artistic practices.

ARTLO - 50

ARTLO - 51


WOAW — Presence, Vulnerability and

the Changing North

At the conceptual core of WOAW lies a simple but

profound observation: water is never still. Even when

frozen, it carries memory — of pressure, temperature,

movement, and time. Selfors sees in this continual state of

transformation a parallel to the human condition.

Vulnerability, rather than weakness, becomes a source of

insight. The cracks that define the ice are not flaws; they

are histories.

Selfors’s practice is grounded in this ethos of presence. To

walk on Arctic water is to engage with instability without

fear — to trust the surface while acknowledging its

fragility. In a world that accelerates without pause,

WOAW proposes slowness, attention, and an acute

awareness of subtle phenomena that exist only for those

who are willing to look closely.

WOAW is not a documentary project about climate

change, yet its environmental resonance is unmistakable.

The calving of glaciers, the shrinking of winter cycles, and

the increasingly unstable freeze-thaw patterns form the

silent backdrop of the work. The beauty within these

images is inseparable from their precarity.

This tension — between wonder and warning — is what

gives WOAW its emotional force. The works are

aesthetically captivating, but they also confront viewers

with the reality of a landscape undergoing rapid

transformation. In this way, WOAW operates on two

registers: as a meditative visual universe, and as a quiet,

insistent call to awareness.

For Selfors, the project has been transformative. “We are

part of the life cycle just like water,” he says. The statement

is neither metaphor nor thesis. It is the axis on which

WOAW turns.

ARTLO - 52

ARTLO - 53


Between

Atmosphere and

Earth: The Painterly

Continuum

Alongside the photographic

universe of WOAW, Robert Selfors

sustains a substantial and

independent body of work rooted in

painting. These paintings are not

illustrations of the Arctic, nor

translations of his photographs into

another medium. They emerge

from a different register of

perception — one concerned with

atmosphere, gravity, materiality and

the emotional pressure exerted by

the northern landscape.

Where WOAW looks downward,

into the interior of frozen water,

Selfors’s paintings look outward and

upward. They navigate the vast

spatial fields of the North: abrupt

mountainsides, shifting skies, heavy

weather fronts, dark fjords and the

luminous thresholds where storms

fracture into light. Executed in oil,

acrylic and textured media, these

works develop a physicality absent

from the photographs. Surfaces are

scraped, layered, compressed or

dissolved; pigments behave like

sediment, cloud or

erosion, accumulating

and collapsing in a

rhythm reminiscent of

geological time.

In the atmospheric paintings, light

becomes terrain — a structural force

rather than a decorative element.

Narrow bands of brightness cut

through dense fields of shadow,

recalling the slow return of daylight

after winter or the brief, electrifying

intervals between storm and calm.

These works oscillate between

landscape and abstraction, offering

not a view but a sensation: the way

space is felt in the North, rather than

how it appears.

ARTLO -54

A different vocabulary

emerges in the textured

works, where the artist

turns toward earth rather

than sky. Using acrylic,

mediums, sand and layered

surfaces, Selfors constructs

compositions that echo

sedimentation, weathering,

collapse and renewal. These

pieces belong to what he

refers to as Grounding — an

exploration of stability,

pressure and the deep

material memory of the land

itself. Their colours shift

from icy blues to iron-rich

reds, mineral greens and

dense blacks. If WOAW

examines the fluid

intelligence of water, these

paintings examine the

endurance of matter.

Together, the paintings and

the photographs form a dual

cosmology: fluidity and

solidity, translucency and

opacity, the ephemeral and

the enduring. They reveal

different dimensions of the

same environment, each

medium extending the

other without imitation. In

Selfors’s practice, painting

becomes the counterbalance

to WOAW — a way of

addressing the Arctic not as

surface or spectacle, but as a

living, shifting architecture

of emotion and earth.

ARTLO - 55


A Northern Vision

Arrives in Madrid

The exhibition of Walking on

Arctic Water at Galería Gaudí

marked the first international

presentation of Robert Selfors’s most

ambitious project to date. Bringing

the Arctic to the centre of Madrid,

the show introduced Spanish

audiences to a visual and emotional

universe shaped by ice, light and

presence. Installed across the

gallery’s spaces, the works created

an immersive environment in which

viewers could encounter the hidden

architectures of frozen water as if

standing on the threshold of the

North itself.

WOAW was presented exactly as it

was conceived: not as landscape

photography, but as a meditative

inquiry into human vulnerability

and environmental transformation.

The translucent depths of the ice,

the suspended air pockets, the

fractures and internal reflections —

all became part of a visual language

that speaks to cycles of change,

fragility and renewal. The gallery

setting amplified the contemplative

nature of the project, allowing the

works to breathe as a cohesive

atmospheric field rather than

isolated images.

For many visitors, the experience

was unexpected. The works resist

conventional expectations of Arctic

imagery; they require a slower,

more attentive form of looking.

In the density of

Madrid, the exhibition

created a rare pause -

— an invitation into the quiet

intelligence of water and the

rhythms of a landscape far removed

from urban life. The response from

audiences and collectors confirmed

the resonance of WOAW beyond

its geographical origins, revealing

the project’s capacity to connect

with universal states of presence,

tension and transformation.

As Selfors’s first major presentation

in Spain, the exhibition at Galería

Gaudí stands as a pivotal moment in

the evolution of WOAW, signalling

its entry into an international

discourse and laying the foundation

for its forthcoming large-scale

iterations.

ARTLO - 56

and environmental transformation.

The translucent depths of the ice,

the suspended air pockets, the

fractures and internal reflections —

all became part of a visual language

that speaks to cycles of change,

fragility and renewal. The gallery

setting amplified the contemplative

nature of the project, allowing the

works to breathe as a cohesive

atmospheric field rather than

isolated images.

For many visitors, the experience

was unexpected. The works resist

conventional expectations of Arctic

imagery; they require a slower,

more attentive form of looking.

In the density of Madrid, the

exhibition created a rare pause — an

invitation into the quiet intelligence

of water and the rhythms of a

landscape far removed from urban

life. The response from audiences

and collectors confirmed the

resonance of WOAW beyond its

geographical origins, revealing the

project’s capacity to connect with

universal states of presence, tension

and transformation.

As Selfors’s first major presentation

in Spain, the exhibition at Galería

Gaudí stands as a pivotal moment in

the evolution of WOAW, signalling

its entry into an international

discourse and laying the foundation

for its forthcoming large-scale

iterations.

ARTLO - 57


Toward a Larger

Horizon: Stormen

2026

The next chapter of Walking on

Arctic Water will unfold on an

entirely different scale. In March

2026, the project enters the main

concert hall of Stormen, Northern

Norway’s leading cultural

institution, for an ambitious

multidisciplinary event that expands

WOAW far beyond the gallery

format. Conceived as an immersive

environment of sound, light and

moving image, the presentation will

bring together more than two

hundred artworks in large-scale

laser projection, accompanied by

live music that mirrors the rhythmic

pulse of the Arctic.

If the Madrid exhibition introduced

audiences to the inner architectures

of ice, Stormen will place viewers

inside a living, shifting field of

reflection. The concert hall becomes

a vast chamber of light where the

translucent geometries of WOAW

unfold across monumental surfaces,

dissolving the boundaries between

image and atmosphere. The scale of

the projection allows the microworlds

captured within the ice to

assume an almost architectural

presence — a reminder that fragility,

when magnified, becomes both

powerful and disarming.

National broadcaster NRK, which

previously documented the outdoor

2024 WOAW event, will follow the

project once more, situating the

Stormen presentation within a

broader cultural narrative. For

Selfors, the event represents not

only a technical achievement but a

culmination of the project’s

emotional and philosophical arc: a

return to the North, a deepening of

presence, and an encounter with

water as both material and

metaphor.

Stormen 2026 transforms WOAW

from a contemplative image-based

project into an expansive sensorial

experience. It stands as the clearest

expression yet of Selfors’s artistic

vision — one in which the Arctic is

not an idea or a landscape, but a

living force that shapes perception,

awareness and the fragile

architectures of the world we

inhabit.

ARTLO - 58

JUAN USLÉ

FROM 26 NOV 2025 TO 20 APR 2026

www.museoreinasofia.es

I I N T E R V I E W

I S O T A R O T A K A N A M I

SOTARO TAKANAMI –

The Endless Thirst for Creation

www.sotaro.amebaownd.com

Renowned for his uncompromising dedication and the meditative intensity of

his canvases, Japanese painter Sotaro Takanami has spent decades

transforming an inner compulsion into a visual language that bridges the

physical and the spiritual. His work moves between abstraction and emotion,

restraint and release, revealing a lifelong dialogue between East and West,

discipline and instinct. In this conversation, he reflects on painting as both

necessity and revelation—an act that deepens with age, carrying the weight

of memory, solitude, and transcendence.

T E X T B Y S u s a n W i l s o n

A p r i l 2 0 2 5 a t Y o k o h a m a T a k a s h i m a y a s o l o

e x h i b i t i o n v e n u e

You have described painting as a vital act, almost as

essential as water in the desert. Could you tell us how

this profound necessity has evolved throughout your

life? Has the thirst changed?

Ever since graduating from art school, I have felt an almost

compulsive need to paint at a fixed time each day. Until

the age of forty, I found enjoyment in other pursuits as

well, but beyond that point, painting became the only

means by which I could truly feel alive. The older I grow,

the stronger this thirst becomes, to the extent that I now

find myself questioning whether I live to paint or paint to

live.

Many of your works carry an intense physicality, both

in gesture and in material. When you are painting,

how conscious are you of the body – your own, and

perhaps the viewer’s?

When I begin a painting, I observe it with a calm and

analytical eye. Yet as time passes, I am drawn into the

canvas, absorbed entirely by the act of creation. It often

feels as though the painting itself is dictating its form,

urging me to follow its lead. Once completed, I transition

into the role of an observer, continuously studying the

work until I instinctively recognise the precise moment to

intervene and refine it.

In your practice, the abstract and the emotional seem

inseparable. Have you ever felt that certain emotions

resist translation into painting? What happens when

the feeling is too vast, or too complex?

When my desire to paint is at its most intense, I apply

pigment directly from the tube onto the canvas, allowing

instinct to guide my movements. Yet, even in such

moments of unbridled expression, my discerning eye

remains engaged, ensuring that the composition ultimately

reaches its intended completion. Minor imperfections are

refined later.

Your titles—enigmatic, poetic, at times playful—seem

to open a window into your inner world. How do you

choose them? Are they born with the work, or do they

arrive after the painting is complete?

I have always loved literature, cinema, and music. If a

painting’s emotional resonance aligns with a particular

theme, I may borrow titles from these mediums. At other

times, inspiration strikes upon viewing the final work,

prompting me to choose a name that reflects its essence.

As an artist who grew up surrounded by both

traditional Japanese aesthetics and Western

modernism, how do you feel these two worlds coexist

within your paintings? Do they clash, harmonise—or

create something entirely new?

As a Japanese artist, I have been influenced by the great

painters of my homeland, both in traditional Nihonga and

Western-style painting. Naturally, my artistic sensibilities

have also been shaped by masters from Europe, America,

and beyond. If I can internalise these influences and distil

them until they truly become my own, then surely my

paintings will emerge as creations that no one else could

produce.

«Painting became

the only means by

which I could truly

feel alive»

Your works often carry a deep sense of time: memory,

transience, repetition. How does your experience of

ageing influence your brushstroke, your themes, your

sense of urgency—or patience?

Memory is, for me, a formidable force—both exhilarating

and terrifying. Throughout my life, certain memories have

been deeply imprinted upon me, just as each painting

retains its own distinct recollections.

In your career, you’ve passed through many mediums

—from oil to hand-coloured woodblock prints and

back again. What draws you to change materials? Is it

curiosity, restlessness, or necessity?

My personality is very impatient, and when I am depressed

with a lot of emotional ups and downs, everything is

troublesome, but when I start painting, I think I have to

live my life with a positive attitude.

I draw about 30 points on one theme, but when I don't feel

any change in it, I move on to the next theme. The

important thing is to pursue it to the extreme. There is

nothing is more tedious than stagnation. My artistic style

and themes have always evolved naturally, and I liken this

journey to ascending a spiral staircase—each step leading to

a new vantage point that enhances the whole. Regardless

of style, I feel that my paintings have steadily become more

authentically my own.

At the 2022 Sinjyuku Takashimaya solo exhibition venue

ARTLO - 62

There is a spiritual current running through much

of your work—what you’ve described as a “voice

from heaven” that guides your hand. Do you think

art can serve as a bridge between worlds?

To grasp the profound essence of art is no easy task; I do

not believe that everyone can achieve such insight.

However, a true visionary—an opinion leader—has the

capacity to guide others and, through patient effort,

bridge cultures and ideas across the world.

You’ve said repetition is something you resist. How

do you continue surprising yourself as an artist, even

after decades of painting? What makes you stop and

say: “This is new”?

Only I can discern whether my work is truly new, yet

each discovery offers fresh inspiration. When the process

ceases to yield revelation, I will know that it is time to

stop. Those who advance towards true originality will

find that those capable of recognising it will indeed

understand. To break through the barrier of repetition,

an artist must possess an unrelenting, deep-seated desire

to paint.

In Japan, you are widely known and respected, yet

your recent exhibitions abroad show a growing

international interest. What does it mean to you to

have your inner world recognised by people from

entirely different cultures?

Human nature remains fundamentally the same across all

nations. If a work is genuinely remarkable, people from

any country will be able to appreciate it. There is great

joy in knowing that one's art is understood.

«To grasp the

profound essence of

art is no easy task»

Page 63 : : Asiatic Dayflower 1, oil on canvas, 122 × 127.5 cm

Page 64: Asiatic Dayflower 2, oil on canvas, 73 × 91 cm

Top: Chioranthus and Spear flowers, oil on canvas 73×91cm

Bottom: The artist in her Tokyo studio

ARTLO - 65

If one of your paintings could speak, what do you

think it would say? Would it whisper? Would it

sing? Or would it remain silent, asking the viewer

to do the talking?

I believe that a painting serves as a mirror to the

viewer’s soul—it whispers to those who look upon it,

inviting them to perceive its meaning through the depths

of their own hearts.

You once shared that you do not teach, because you

believe talent cannot be taught. Yet if someone

truly wishes to be a painter, what do you believe

they must be willing to risk or endure?

If one can sustain a lifelong yearning to become an artist,

somewhere along the way, providence will lend its aid.

Yet within the soul of one who maintains such passion,

there must also exist darkness. The true test is whether

one has the strength to endure it.

You have painted thousands of pieces over the years.

Is there one that you consider a personal turning

point—something that changed how you see your

art, or yourself?

After graduating from art school, I initially painted in

oils. Around the age of thirty, I turned to hand-coloured

woodblock prints, yet by forty-five, I found myself

drawn back to oil painting. I made this transition because

I sensed that printmaking had begun to succumb to

repetition, prompting my return to oils. At first, the

approach was to apply a thin layer of oil paint, but as the

oil painting changed one after another, the painting

became thicker and thicker. At its peak, it reached the

stage of "Asiatic Dayflower" with deep blue dots - one of

my most thickness oil paintings, 73 × 91 cm and

weighing about 30 kg. My style is still evolving. My

latest series, Clouds, is painted in oil on cardboard.

Finally—what is the question you wish someone

would ask you, but no one ever does?

Are you happy at this moment?

Top: The artist in her Tokyo studio

Left: Chioranthus and Spear flowers Oil on canvas 73×91cm

Right: At the 2022 Takashimaya Osaka solo exhibition venue

ARTLO - 66

I I N F O C U S

I B Y J E S S I E S . M A R T I N & S U S A N W I L S O N

Contemporary Voices Worth

Knowing

Jessie S. Martin

Editor-in-Chief of ARTLO

Magazine, Jessie S.

Martin is a curator and

editor with a

background in the

humanities, classical

music and independent

publishing. Her career

spans over a decade of

experience in editorial

direction, content

curation and crossdisciplinary

storytelling.

With a particular interest

in the intersection

between visual culture,

language and critical

thinking, she leads the

magazine’s vision with a

sharp editorial voice and

a commitment to

independent artistic

perspectives. Her

curatorial approach is

guided by sensitivity,

contextual depth and a

deliberate distance from

market-driven

narratives.

Susan Wilson

Susan is an awardwinning

painter and

former gallery owner

based in London. After

decades curating

exhibitions and

representing

international artists—

including through her

own gallery—she brings

to Artloving a precise,

experienced eye. Her

past work in advertising

and branding, combined

with her lifelong

dedication to the arts,

make her an essential

voice in selecting works

that balance visual

impact with substance.

A curated space for contemporary voices.

In this section, we bring together artists whose work has resonated with us—

whether through their mastery of technique, conceptual richness, or the quiet

power of their visual language. Some are well-established names, others are

new to our radar, but all share a commitment to authenticity and the kind of

art that lingers. On Focus is not about novelty; it is about depth, connection,

and the pleasure of truly looking.

Curated by Jessie S. Martin & Susan Wilson

In a world saturated with noise and visual

overproduction, On Focus offers a deliberate

pause—a space to look closely. Conceived as an

evolving curatorial project within the pages of

this magazine, the section presents a group of

contemporary artists selected for their capacity

to move, challenge, or simply linger in the

mind’s eye.

The selection is not guided by the market, nor

by dominant art world narratives. Instead, it

reflects a curatorial sensibility shaped by shared

values and aesthetic intuition. The aim is to

trace practices that resonate—sometimes quietly,

sometimes defiantly—but always with

authenticity. From emerging talents to underrecognised

mid-career artists, these profiles are

not endorsements, but invitations: to look

deeper, to engage, to connect.

Art is not only what hangs on walls, but what

shifts our way of seeing. And in that spirit, On

Focus aims to shine a light on those creators

whose work, regardless of fame or recognition,

feels urgent, necessary, or simply unforgettable.

Whether poetic, political, tactile, conceptual,

playful or raw, the voices featured in these pages

remind us that contemporary art is not a style,

but a constellation of ways of being in the

world. To focus, here, is to care.

ARTLO - 67

I I N F O C U S


Ruhi Sali

Between Darkness

and Light

ARTLO - 68

@_ruuuhhhi_

At just 15 years old, self-taught artist Ruhi

Sali is creating works that show a depth,

skill, and emotional maturity far beyond

her years. Working primarily in oil and

charcoal, she explores the rawest corners of

human emotion with a sensitivity that

captivates viewers. In this interview, we

aim to uncover the inspirations,

techniques, and inner world of a young

artist whose talent is impossible to ignore.

For someone who’s only 15, your work shows

an extraordinary level of technical skill and

emotional depth. How did your journey in art

begin?

From a young age, much before my memory recalls,

art had stirred my curiosity and people had told me I

had a gift for it. I loved scribbling away and external

encouragement definitely aided in my growing

interest in the arts. I took a few art classes but art

was still just one of many random side hobbies.

During the pandemic, also my first year of middle

school, I decided to start taking art a little more

seriously. I spent the time in between (sometimes

during) online classes devoted to learning how to

draw portraits from youtube. It pains me a little to

look back at those first few faces, but at the time I

was really proud of what I was learning to do. I was

shocked at what I was able to do and I started

technically improving really fast. I started to love

drawing faces and being able to capture expressions

on paper.

Up until the last few years of middle school I

absolutely loathed color, but I slowly started

venturing out and exploring different mediums,

which led to my ultimate discovery of charcoal and

oil paint, two of my now-favorite mediums. I think

these mediums unlocked new styles, subjects, and

ideas, allowing me to create on what felt like a more

professional, refined level.

You work in both oil and charcoal – two very

demanding mediums. How did you teach

yourself to master them at such a young age?

I started working with charcoal in my last year of

middle school. During my online exploration of

various artworks and different artists, I found

numerous pieces in charcoal that I felt so drawn to.

One night I sat down itching to make something,

and looking around I found my dad’s old box of

charcoal supplies. I pulled up an image of a charcoal

piece and tried my best to recreate what I saw.

Charcoal was definitely one of the most abstract

mediums I had worked with, so there was a lot of

freedom, but also unknown territory in it. I was

amazed at how I was able to blend realism and chaos

to something almost beautiful. With each piece I

did, I grew more and more surprised at what I was

able to make, even if it wasn’t perfect, I felt growth

in every piece. I think my love for what I was doing

pushed me to keep at it and grow to the level I am

now. Similarly with oil paint, I was just very

mesmerized by the medium and the legitimate look

of the art I was making. Oils were the first paint that

I actually enjoyed working with and produced the

look I envisioned. With practice; trial and error; and

a little bit of online research, I figured out how oil

painting worked best for me.

ARTLO - 70

Many of your pieces deal with sadness, longing,

and vulnerability. What draws you, at your age,

to explore such profound emotions?

I think the subject matter of my pieces are less about

the specific emotions and more about the reality and

depth of those emotions. The world can feel too

artificial and I hate the sensation of shallowly

floating through the everyday. Because of this, I end

up searching for stuff with impact-some

unadulterated foundation of human nature.

Sentiments such as longing and vulnerability

comprise some of the rawest parts of the soul.

These emotions feel real-they feel like they truly

matter, they are the undeniable universal bond

between people. When working with this subject

matter, I feel like what I’m doing goes beyond the

canvas and it helps me connect with my art and

derive more value out of it. I think my age is

precisely one of the reasons why it makes sense for

me to explore these things. Being a teenager, it’s

really easy to lose yourself to the ever changing

world and get caught up in some synthetic facade

because you’re still learning how to make sense of

the life, let alone what you want from it. My art

helps me stay grounded and interpret reality in a

way that holds value.

Your painting "Don’t Wake Me Up, I’d Rather

Just Keep Dreaming" carries a strong narrative

and symbolism. Could you share the story

behind it?

The glowy version of the girl represents a dream she

longs for, it's a reflection of all her wishes for a life of

wonder and joy-almost childlike in nature. She is to

the girl, the embodiment of perfection and within

her lies all the enchanting lures of blissful, magical

childhood ignorance. The girl on the right uses this

fantasy of a perfect world and woeless times to

distract herself from the monotony and cruelty of

reality. The girl is repulsed by the real world, she

hates the thought of existing in such a bland,

nihilistic world where she is faced with the horrors

of growing up. So she lives in her head, resenting

the world around her because she has built a much

better one in her mind. In her dreams she is

unbound by the cold shackles of truth. She can be

god if she pleases. But looking back at the painting,

the glowy girl is just out of reach- visible but

untouchable. The girl’s craving for this fantasy, no

matter how strong, can never be fulfilled. All the

girl’s yearning will ultimately be in vain, turning a

blind eye to the world to fuel her impossible desires

has festered up some narcissistic creature within her

that has sacrificed its humanity for a delusion.

Resenting reality in this way is comfortable and

bewitching, but ultimately, it's an endless pursuit of

chasing the intangible. A tragic dead end that's so

easy to get sucked into.

What’s your process for starting a piece – do

you plan everything, or does it develop

naturally as you work?

As much as I love making art, I love consuming it

too. My process starts with inspiration, it’s what gets

me excited about a piece and helps me develop what

I want to create. I love finding new pieces and artists

with different styles and interpretations. Music and

film are a big source of inspiration as well, they

provide such a wide spectrum of themes and ideas to

explore.

Once I have an idea for a piece I find or create a

good reference and interpret it into a painting or

drawing. In school the past year, I had to make a

portfolio with 13 pieces so my best friend modeled

for many of my references. I dressed her up and did

her makeup the way I envisioned, and then we

would take a two hour long photoshoot in my

room. Once I have a picture, the painting process is

relatively straight forward but sometimes I tweak a

few things or add elements.

People are often surprised when they learn

you’re only 15. How do they usually react to

your work?

I have most of my artwork hanging on my bedroom

walls, so whenever my parents invite people over

they end up showing off my room and it's usually

met with a bit of shock and awe. It’s an amazing

thing to watch people take in everything you’ve

made and it’s really fascinating seeing how different

people react. Some people seem really intrigued and

will ask me about specific pieces and what inspired

them or what my thought process is when I create.

My grandmother is a big supporter of my work

because she's always sharing pictures with all of her

friends and our family. A lot of people tell me to

keep it up or tell me I have something special and it

truly means a lot to know people think of my work

in that way.

Which artists or works have inspired you the

most, and how have they influenced your style?

From an expressive perspective, one of the modern

artists I admire the most is Henrik Uldalen. He’s

primarily an oil painter who does a lot of portrait

work and he has such a beautiful way of blending

realism and abstraction. His pieces feel so vulnerable

and enchantingly capture this deep, raw,

unspeakable emotion. I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration

from his seamless mix of the physical world and his

chaotic, angry, heartbreaking, silent understanding

of human nature. Jeremy Mann and Rembrant are

oil painters who I strive to draw lots of style

influence from. I adore Mann’s use of color and the

mood he conveys with his pallet and his beautiful

subjects.

Being self-taught, what has been the biggest

challenge – and the biggest advantage – for your

growth as an artist?

As a self taught artist, I’m able to shape what I do

around the things I enjoy the most. Everything I do

is the way I taught it to myself, so nothing really

feels confusing or like work. I think a lot of people

lose interest in things when they are forced to learn

it in a formal, classroom-like setting, but I didn’t

have to deal with that. I was forced to hold myself

accountable, but I was also able to pace myself and

cater my learning around what I wanted.

One of the biggest advantages to being self taught is

definitely the passion and pride you take in your

work and the progress you’ve made. I feel like there

aren’t many challenges to being self taught, but

sometimes if you don’t push yourself to improve,

you can get stuck in a static state where the quality

of your work doesn’t grow very much.

Your portraits feel both realistic and dreamlike.

How do you find that balance?

I think balance is found when you know what you

want to emphasize in a piece. Different portraits

carry different ideas and moods, so they will

subsequently emphasize different features or aspects.

Each part of the face has the ability to convey

something different, so depending on what I want

to focus on, I will make a part realistic and another

abstract. For example, the eyes can carry heartbreak,

so if I wanted to accentuate that I would make the

eyes really realistic and maybe blur out the rest of

the face. When balancing abstraction, it’s also

important to look at the position of your subject.

Abstract lines can flow with the lines of the face or

the tilt of the head, so curved eyebrows or mouths

could provide a guideline for the direction of the

dreamy marks. The marks aren’t just random, rather

they provide an extension of the subject in a

dimension that reality can’t replicate, they speak in

dreams.

How do you think your age influences your art – do

you feel it gives you a unique perspective?

Page 68 Fallen Princess, oil paint on wood panel 30 × 23 cm

Page 69 Find Me in All My Madness, charcoal and acrylic paint

on paper 60 × 23 cm

Page 72 Untitled, charcoal on paper

Top: Untitled, charcoal on paper

Bottom: Do You Hear It?, oil paint on canvas, 30 × 20 cm

ARTLO - 71

Do you ever feel pressure to “prove” yourself

because you’re so young, or do you see your age

as an advantage?

My age isn’t typically at the front of my mind when

it comes to art just because the majority of the

interactions I have with artists are my peers rather

than older artists. I haven’t had a lot of opportunities

to talk with older artists, but whenever I do I love

hearing their perspective and I feel like I’m able to

have very insightful conversations about art without

feeling intimidated or the need to prove myself.

I believe anyone has the capacity to learn to create

beautifully regardless of age, however, I am glad I

learned so much at a young age because I think it

will give me a lot of time to explore and develop my

skills with an already strong foundation.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned

so far in your artistic journey?

I’ve learned the importance of staying true to myself

and creating out of genuine passion. Art is one of

my favorite things, it has shown me so much and it’s

one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.

However, when I stray too far from creating things

that truly interest me or I push myself too hard to

meet deadlines, creating can start to feel like a chore.

I’m still learning, but I’ve realized that my heart

needs to be in what I’m creating, otherwise I start to

resent the thing I love. It’s okay to do art studies,

commissions, or assignments, but it’s also crucial to

find a balance and create purely for myself.

Looking ahead, where do you see your art

taking you in the next 5–10 years?

I want to share my art with a lot of people and meet

artists I admire. I want to continue to work on

projects I’m passionate about and I want my work to

impact people. There are a couple of animated films

that I absolutely adore, so I would love to do

artwork for them or be a part of creating a project

like that.

Outside of art, what are some things you enjoy

doing in your daily life?

I’m interested in philosophy and the humanities so I

try to read often. I enjoy classics. I think this pursuit

inspires a lot of my art because it surfaces new ideas,

concepts, and often makes me look inward or at an

issue through a different lens. I’ve been playing

piano and guitar for a long time, both of which I

enjoy very much. Unfortunately, I’ve been very

busy with school, so a large part of my day consists

of schoolwork or homework or stressing about

school.

Other than that, I like to concern myself with

random pursuits around the house like cooking;

creating something random to hang in my room; or

watching a good film or show.

Do you see yourself pursuing formal art studies

in the future, or would you rather continue

learning on your own?

I personally feel like formally studying art will

slightly ruin it for me. In my experience, deadlines

and strict perimeters take the passion out of art and I

end up with something disingenuous, sloppy, and

half-heartedly made. I believe that I can continue to

advance my skills in art without a formal education

in it, but I definitely plan to pursue it in the future. I

have a lot of different interests so I’m planning on

studying something different in college but if I have

the opportunity I would definitely take a few classes

revolving around art.

ARTLO - 72

What’s a typical day like for you? Do you have a

specific time when you prefer to create?

Since I’m still in school for most of the day I don’t

have a lot of time to create (especially recently, I’ve

been very busy), so I try to paint or make art on the

weekends. Almost all the time I spend painting is

late at night because that’s when I feel the most

productive and in the mood. I paint in my bedroom,

and I have a very nice atmosphere with fairy lights,

candles, and music at night so I feel very immersed

in what I’m doing. I’m also undisturbed in the night

and nothing else is really on my mind, therefore

creating feels very spiritual and dreamy in a way as I

can sit alone with my thoughts and my own world.

Bottom: Ddon't wake me up i'd rather just keep dreaming, oil on

canvas 40x50

When people look at your art, what do you

hope they feel or think?

I think the art that resonates with you the most and

stays with you the longest is the art that holds a

mirror to your soul and shows you the deepest parts

of yourself or the pieces you didn’t know you had. I

aspire to have my art inspire and connect with

people in that way and evoke a feeling of something

real and genuine.

Thank you so much for taking the time to

answer these questions for ArtLo Magazine.

Your perspective as a young, self-taught artist is

truly inspiring, and we are delighted to share

your story and your work with readers around

the world. We believe your journey will

resonate with many aspiring artists and art

lovers, and we can’t wait to see where your

talent leads you next.

ARTLO - 73

I I N F O C U S


Patricia Porcher –

The Calm Within

the Tide

@patriporcher.studio

Born in Madrid in 1998, Patricia Porcher

moves gracefully between two worlds:

medicine and art. A gynaecologist by

profession and an artist by instinct, she

transforms resin into a mirror of the sea —

fluid, transparent, and alive.

Through her work, the ocean becomes both

subject and metaphor: a space of healing,

rhythm, and renewal. Each piece captures the

quiet equilibrium she seeks between caring for

others and caring for herself.

In her studio, as in her practice, Patricia

reminds us that nurturing can take many forms

— from the delicate gesture of a surgeon to the

slow flow of resin that settles into stillness.

Your resin artworks capture the rhythm and

transparency of the sea with striking precision. When

you work with resin, do you approach it more as a

painter, a sculptor, or a scientist exploring a living

material?

My approach to resin art combines all three disciplines.

However, I feel closest to a painter, as my process begins

with a clear visual concept in my mind — imagining the

movement, the light, and the balance of colors and textures

before bringing them to life. There is also a strong

scientific component in my work; resin requires precision

in timing, proportions, and the blending of pigments.

Finally, there is a sculptural dimension, as I shape and

model the landscapes, rocks, and surrounding forms to

create depth and structure within each piece.

You describe both medicine and art as ways of

nurturing. How do you see these two callings

influencing one another in your daily life and creative

process?

My artistic process stems from the same desire that led me

to medicine — the need to care. Through art, I take care of

myself, finding calm and balance, while also offering others

the opportunity to surround themselves with pieces that

bring comfort and identity to their spaces. In my daily

medical practice, I see nurturing in its purest form —

mothers caring for their babies, women seeking healing, or

the creation of new life. These experiences constantly

inspire me and remind me that both medicine and art share

the same foundation: empathy, connection, and the will to

help others feel whole.

The ocean often symbolises vastness, calm, and

renewal. What personal memories or emotions lie

behind your fascination with the sea?

The sea has always held deep emotional meaning for me.

As a child, my mother would calm me by reminding me of

the sea — its sound and its vastness. I remember building

sandcastles on the beach and feeling completely at peace,

free from worry. Those moments of simplicity and joy

stayed with me. Today, the sea remains my safe space, the

place where I go to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with

myself. It’s also where I feel most creative. In my art, I try

to capture that same sense of serenity and infinite

movement that the sea has always represented in my life.

ARTLO - 74

Resin is a demanding medium — technically

and physically. What have you learned from

working with it about patience, control, or

letting go?

Patience is a virtue I’ve carried over from my

medical work, and it has become equally essential in

my artistic practice. Working with resin requires

time — to mix, to cure, to settle — and some pieces

can take months to complete. No matter how much

you plan or control the process, resin has its own

behavior. It flows and transforms in ways that are

often unpredictable. I’ve learned to embrace that

uncertainty — to balance control with trust. There’s

beauty in allowing the material to move freely, in

understanding that sometimes perfection comes

from letting go.

Your work reflects a dialogue between precision

and serenity. How do you envision the

experience of someone living with one of your

pieces in their home?

Every artwork I create begins with a story — one

that starts with my inspiration but evolves with the

person who lives with it. I hope each piece evokes a

personal connection, a sense of calm, and a feeling

of ownership over that shared story. My greatest

wish is that my work brings into people’s homes the

same serenity, inspiration, and quiet joy I feel when

creating it — a lasting reminder of the beauty and

balance found in the sea.

ARTLO - 75

I I N F O C U S


Marc D. Lariviere

didiermarclariviere@gmail.com

Marc D. Lariviere is an

internationally recognised visual

artist whose practice has developed

over several decades, maintaining a

consistent presence within the

international art scene. His work has

been referenced in major

biographical and art publications,

including Who’s Who in

International Art, international

encyclopaedias of modern and

contemporary art, and specialised art

magazines.

Alongside his artistic production,

Lariviere has received a number of

institutional and academic

distinctions in Europe and the

United States, reflecting longstanding

recognition of his

contribution to the arts.

His career has been marked by

participation in international

cultural networks and academies,

situating his work within a broader

historical and institutional context.

Through his practice, Lariviere

explores visual language as a means

of expression that bridges personal

vision and universal themes,

positioning his work within a

dialogue between artistic tradition

and contemporary sensibility.

ARTLO - 76

I I N F O C U S


ARTLO - 78

I I N F O C U S


Teal Williams

Teal Williams fuses raw

emotion, pop culture, and

coded language into vividly

charged compositions that

pulse with urgency and

defiance. His work, rooted

in abstract word art and

outsider aesthetics, creates

a frenetic yet intimate

landscape—where identity,

trauma, and resistance

collide in electric colour.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois,

Teal has always felt the urge to

create. He views art as a therapeutic

practice, allowing him to display

every range of emotion in vivid

color and abstract composition. His

art reflects various periods of his life

in a scope that viewers can relate to.

Teal’s favorite genre to paint is

abstract word art, which allows his

thoughts and feelings to be hidden

in plain sight, available for anyone

who puts in the effort to look just

beneath the surface. You can find

more of his work on Instagram

@twexpressions

and

twexpressions.com

Top: Teal Williams

Bottom: Locked in Focus. acrylic on

canvas.

page 80: Avatar Self Element, acrylic on

canvas.

oage 81: Echoes, acrylic on canvas.

ARTLO - 79

ARTLO - 80

ARTLO - 81

I I N F O C U S


Nándor Bozsóki –

The Energy Behind

the Brush

“Bozsóki transforms abstraction

into atmosphere — painting

emotional landscapes where

colour, movement and energy

become a living force.”

www.bozsokiart.com

Born in 1974 in Bečej,

Serbia (Vojvodina), and

now based in Hungary,

Nándor Bozsóki is a painter whose

practice explores the emotional

depth and atmospheric power of

abstract art. His artistic journey

began with decorative wall

painting, a discipline that shaped his

sensitivity to large-scale gestures

and spatial impact. In 2016 he

transitioned fully to canvas,

developing the distinctive expressive

language that defines his work

today. He began exhibiting in 2019

and has since presented his art in

numerous national and international

venues, both physically and online.

Air vortex 140x80cm

ARTLO - 82

I I N F O C U S


“In Bozsóki’s paintings,

abstraction is not a style

but a pulse: a dialogue

between human feeling and

the vast, shifting rhythms of

nature.”

Bozsóki’s work has been shown in a

wide range of exhibitions and

collaborations, including the

Luxembourg Art Prize (three-time

participant), M.A.D.S. Gallery

(Milan and Barcelona), Galeria Azur

(Berlin), Capital Culture House

(Rome), La Pedrera (Barcelona),

Artist of the Year 2025 (Florence),

Holy Art Gallery (London and Los

Angeles), Index (Saudi Arabia),

Villa Gyetvai (Balatonfüred,

Hungary), Otthonok és Kertek

Magazine, Spotlight Magazine and

the Circle Foundation in Santa Fe.

His paintings are also part of a

permanent exhibition at the Hotel

Szépia Wellness Centre in Zsámbék,

Hungary.

At the core of his philosophy lies a

fascination with the balance

between opposing forces and the

profound bond between humanity

and nature. His paintings explore

the harmony of contrasts —

tranquillity and intensity, purity and

passion — aiming to evoke

emotional depth and spiritual wellbeing.

Through movement, colour

and texture, Bozsóki creates works

that resonate with viewers on a

personal level, each piece becoming

a unique dialogue between artwork,

space and spectator.

Top: The River 50x100cm Bottom:Air vortex at night 140x80 cm

ARTLO - 83

I I N F O C U S


Arides Pichardo

aridesfinearts.blogspot.com

Dominican artist Arides R. Pichardo

was born in Sabana de la Mar,

known as “Bay’s Bride”, a coastal

town whose atmosphere and

cultural richness left an early imprint

on his visual imagination. Now

residing in Rhode Island, USA,

Pichardo carries with him a

profound connection to his

Caribbean heritage, weaving it

subtly through a practice grounded

in symbolism, structure, and an

evolving contemporary vocabulary.

Initially self-taught until 1991, he

later pursued formal studies at the

Universidad Autónoma de Santo

Domingo (UASD – Primada de

América), where he earned a

Bachelor’s degree in Publicity with

a major in Graphic Design,

graduating Cum Laude. This dual

formation — intuitive artistic

exploration followed by rigorous

academic training — shaped the

foundations of his characteristic

style: a synthesis of graphic

precision, conceptual clarity, and

expressive autonomy.

Pichardo’s work embraces a

vanguard perspective, asserting the

independence of artistic language

and its ability to transform personal

evocation into a renewed form of

realism. His visual world is built

upon the semiotics of colour, light,

movement, segmentation, and

symbolic structure.

Top: Infinity Skies – 35.05 × 26.92 cm

Bottom: Shyness Break, Acrylics on

canvas

ARTLO - 84

I I N F O C U S


Through these elements he

constructs compositions that operate

both as aesthetic experiences and as

cognitive reflections, often

engaging indirect analogies that

invite viewers to reinterpret their

own perceptions.

His practice rejects the limitations of

the “daily and traditional”, moving

instead toward a realm where

intuition, symbolism, and

introspective synthesis become the

essential components of meaning.

Pichardo sees each artwork as a

space where universal imagination

and individual consciousness meet,

forming what he describes as the

“independent dimension” of art — a

place born in the cognitive

imagination of the artist, yet

accessible to all through perception.

Today, Pichardo continues to

explore this conceptual terrain,

refining a visual language that

balances modernity with timeless

symbolic resonance, and inviting

viewers to engage with painting as

both expression and theory.

Top: Warm Face, 30.48 × 22.86 cm

Bottom: Moon Dance, 30.48 × 22.86 cm

Page 85: Still Life of Muses, Acrylic on canvas

Page 87 : Recomposing the Ether, Acrylic on canvas

ARTLO - 86

I I N F O C U S


Tobias Indermühle

www.tobias-indermuehle.com

Tobias Indermühle has dedicated

over three decades to the

photographic medium, developing a

body of work that spans abstraction,

surrealism and realism.

In his current practice, he explores

the threshold between reality and

the surreal — a tension shaped by

years of deep-sea diving across the

globe. These immersive experiences

beneath the surface inform a visual

language where perception shifts,

and the boundaries between worlds

begin to dissolve.

Top: dynamic abstract expressionism

Tenerife, photography

Right: Surreal Underwater World 4,

photography – Photoshop. Bottom:

Colombia, photography

ARTLO - 88

Underwater World Philippines

Photography - Photoshop

I I N F O C U S


Hans van

Wingerden

www.hansvanwingerden.nl

Dutch conceptual artist Hans van

Wingerden has spent nearly five

decades examining the unstable

meaning of images within a world

increasingly shaped by mass media,

technological acceleration, and the

psychological pressures of

contemporary life. His practice,

which resists stylistic categorisation,

is grounded in a rigorous

philosophical inquiry into

perception, conditioning, and the

contradictions embedded within

modern civilisation.

Top: Self-Portrait in the Studio

Bottom: The Z word

ARTLO - 90

I I N F O C U S


Educated at the Academy for Art

and Design in ’s-Hertogenbosch

(1969–1974), Van Wingerden first

emerged as a technically

accomplished photorealist painter,

earning the prestigious Royal

Subsidy for Painting in 1977. Yet

rather than solidifying a single

aesthetic identity, he embarked on a

long journey of artistic

transformation. Over the subsequent

decades, his work shifted from

figuration to geometric abstraction,

and eventually to a conceptual

language in which the image

functions less as representation and

more as a vehicle for critical

reflection.

Central to this evolution is his

integration of salvaged neon,

electronics, photography, and

industrial remnants — materials

charged with social and historical

memory. The neon elements, many

rescued from demolished factories in

the 1990s, carry traces of labour,

obsolescence, and commercial

ideology. Recontextualised within

his installations, they form new

symbolic structures where

illumination becomes both

revelation and critique. His works

frequently adopt a diptych format,

juxtaposing opposing forces to

expose fractures in perception,

meaning, and collective

consciousness.

Across his oeuvre, Van Wingerden

challenges the erosion of

authenticity in the age of

reproduction, interrogating how

images circulate, distort, and

condition the viewer. His practice

offers not decorative comfort but

conceptual confrontation: a space in

which ambiguity, tension, and

contradiction become central tools

for understanding the world we

inhabit.

Recognised with the Premier Artist

Prize 2025 and the Artist Index

Prize 2025, Van Wingerden

maintains a distinctly autonomous

voice within the international art

landscape. His work continues to

evolve while remaining faithful to a

principle that has guided him for

decades — that art must illuminate

not what is visible, but what lies

beneath the surface of contemporary

experience.

Top: study for a new planet Bottom: Informatie Paradox

ARTLO - 91

I I N F O C U S


Lynne Meneses

www.lynnemeneses.com

Beijing-born and New York–based

artist Lynne Meneses brings

together a rich blend of cultural

influences, technical training, and

modern artistic vision. With an

MFA from the City College of New

York—where she studied Modern

Art under renowned professor

Madeleine Gekiere—and a

background in engineering,

Meneses has developed a distinct

visual language that merges

structural clarity with expressive

intuition.

Top: Lynne Meneses in her

studio

Bottom: Downtown NYC,

Acrylic on canvas, 60.96 × 45.72 cm

ARTLO - 92

I I N F O C U S


Her early professional life ranged

from billboard painting and

decorative commercial work to

engineering roles in major

construction projects across New

York City and Long Island. This

multifaceted experience informs her

signature style: vibrant, dynamic

compositions that balance precision

with emotional resonance.

Inspired by the Blue Rider

movement and Henri Matisse,

Meneses creates works that explore

beauty, movement, and the

transformative power of colour.

Today she is dedicated exclusively

to her artistic practice, exhibiting

locally and across respected

platforms, and producing paintings

that invite viewers into a world of

energy, joy, and wonder.

Top: Meeting at MoMA, Acrylic, 60.96 × 45.72 cm

Bottom: Urban Pulse at Twilight, Acrylic, 60.96 × 60.96 cm

Page 93: View from the Window, Acrylic, 60.96 × 91.44 cm

Page 95: Country Spirit, Acrylic, 60.96 × 76.20 cm

ARTLO - 94

I I N F O C U S


Rachael Bliss

www.blissfulworks.portfoliobox.net

Rachael Bliss creates intimate mixed-media

works that balance emotion, atmosphere and

gesture. Her imagery moves between quiet

observation and inner tension: a poised frog

rendered with luminous precision, a flame

dissolving into smoke, or a solitary figure

drifting in water alongside koi.

Bliss’s strength lies in how she turns small

moments into symbolic ones. Light, texture and

layered brushwork become emotional carriers,

giving each piece a sense of vulnerability and

introspection. Her work invites the viewer into

scenes that feel personal yet universal,

suspended between stillness and transformation.

Top: The Two Sides

Gouache, 81 × 66 cm

Bottom: Drowning in

Thought

Watercolour, 15.2 × 10.1 cm

ARTLO - 96

I I N F O C U S


Rachael Bliss is a mixed-media artist

based in Winston-Salem, North

Carolina, whose practice explores

introspective narratives, symbolism

and the expressive potential of

gesture. Her work spans painting,

drawing and graphic

experimentation,

often

incorporating layered textures and

dynamic lighting to heighten

psychological impact.

Bliss has been recognised with

numerous awards at the Carolina

Classic Fair and has been featured in

publications such as The Eleventh

Hour Literary. She is also the

winner of the United States

Congressional Art Competition, an

honour that resulted in her work

being displayed at the US Capitol in

Washington, D.C.

Her commitment to craft and

storytelling continues to shape a

body of work that is at once

emotionally resonant and visually

compelling, positioning her as an

emerging voice in contemporary

American mixed-media art.

orld of energy, joy, and wonder.

Top: The Barbershop

Gouache, 81 × 66 cm

Left: The Flame

Oil painting, 15.2 × 10.1 cm

Bottom: The Frog

Coloured pencil, 15.2 × 10.1 cm

ARTLO - 97

I I N F O C U S


Versiliy | Algae Artifacts

www.versiliy.com

Versiliy is a Los Angeles–based jewellery

artist whose practice revolves around

sculpting rare, ocean-grown Stramenopile

algae into one-of-a-kind artefacts. Born in

Saint Petersburg and trained not in

traditional art schools but through

independent exploration, he began creating

small sculptures after moving to California,

where the dramatic variety of landscapes and

natural forms profoundly shaped his creative

direction. What began as simple curiosity

gradually evolved into a dedicated

investigation of algae—a material

unpredictable, once alive, and largely absent

from the history of sculpture.

Unable to find references or techniques in

libraries or online, Versiliy developed his

own methods through persistence,

experimentation, and an almost scientific

approach to observing how the material

behaves. His processes remain entirely selfinvented,

allowing each piece to form

through a dialogue between intention and

the natural evolution of the algae itself. This

resistance to control is central to his

philosophy: the material’s cracks, folds, and

transformations are not corrected but

honoured as expressions of imperfection and

organic truth.

Left: Sarcolaria; Centre: Padocystis; Right: Fucaris.

ARTLO - 98

I I N F O C U S


The themes underlying his work reflect a

quiet rebellion against the polished aesthetics

of mass production. For Versiliy,

imperfection is not a flaw but a release from

cultural ideals that demand constant

refinement—of objects, of appearances, even

of human emotion. His wearable artefacts

propose a different standard: instead of

perfection, they celebrate irregularity,

unpredictability and the lingering presence

of life.

Influence, for the artist, arrives gradually. He

compares it to dormant spores on the ocean

floor, waiting for the right conditions to

awaken. His creative process mirrors that

natural cycle: gathering materials after

coastal storms, observing their reactions to

treatments, shaping them primarily by hand,

and allowing intuition and scientific

curiosity to guide each stage. Some attempts

fail, rot, or collapse; others reveal unexpected

possibilities. All are part of the same ongoing

exploration.

Versiliy’s work has recently been presented

at the California Seaweed Festival, an event

that brings together science, sustainability

and contemporary art. Exhibiting his algaebased

pieces among living marine life

created a powerful resonance—an apt setting

for an artist whose practice lives at the

intersection of biology, craft and emotional

symbolism.

Left: Peliacys; Centre: Caulonaria; Right: Egrophel.

ARTLO - 99

I I N F O C U S


Amanda Heenan

www.arcofinclusion.co.uk

Amanda is a mixed-media artist

whose practice is deeply rooted in

healing, introspection, and the

restorative power of creativity. Her

artistic journey began over a decade

ago while supporting an art and

wellbeing project for individuals who

had experienced trauma and mental

health challenges. What started as a

gesture of support soon became a

personal revelation: seated at the table

with a paintbrush in hand, she

discovered an unexpected joy in

colour, process, and creative flow.

Although she began painting during

that early period, life circumstances

led her to step away from her practice

for several years. It was only after

being hospitalised following a severe

health crisis, coming close to death,

that she picked up a brush again —

and has continued painting ever since

During her recovery, Amanda

found comfort and strength in the

quiet world of watercolour videos,

particularly those by Kirsty Rice.

These moments of light and gentle

inspiration helped her reconnect

with creativity at a time of deep

reflection. Art became not only a

refuge, but a means to heal body,

mind, and spirit.

Her practice is guided by an inner

voice and by attentive observation

of the natural world — birdsong, the

flutter of wings, and the small

miracles of everyday beauty. She

views creativity as a form of

freedom, a state of flow where time

dissolves and imagination takes

shape. This philosophy informs both

her work and her commitment to

helping others explore creativity as a

pathway to wellbeing.

Bottom: Buzzy Bee,

Charcoal with gold ink, 22.9 X 30.5cm

Page 101: Waiting in the Wings,

watercolour, 19 x 27cm

ARTLO - 100

I I N F O C U S


Amanda now offers creativity-forhealing

talks and workshops, where

she shares her lived experience of

how art can transform moments of

profound difficulty into renewed

strength. Alongside these

workshops, she creates original

paintings, prints, bespoke

commissions, and personalised pet

portraits that integrate

compassionate bereavement support.

For Amanda, creativity is not an

escape from the harshness of the

world, but a powerful force — much

like love — that enables us to

imagine, nurture, and build

something kinder and more

hopeful.

Top: Airy Fairy Roses,Watercolour, 21 x 29.7cm

Bottom: Birds Play, Watercolour and ink pen, 22.9 X 30.5cm

Page 103: Edinburgh at Play, Watercolour, 28 x 38.5cm

ARTLO - 102

I I N F O C U S


ROB CHEVALLIER

www.robchevallier.com

Rob Chevallier (b. 1957, Oss, The

Netherlands) is a Dutch visual artist whose

practice bridges photography, conceptual art

and environmentally engaged installations.

Trained in graphic design at the Academy of

Arts in Arnhem (1992–1996), he has worked

as a professional photographer across the

Netherlands, Belgium and Germany since

2006. In 2017 he expanded his practice to

include photo objects and installations,

developing a distinctive artistic voice centred

on sustainability, climate awareness and the

environmental challenges facing

contemporary society.

Chevallier’s work is grounded in a clear

ecological concern: the accelerating impact of

climate change, rising sea levels, and the

fragility of natural systems. Nearly half of the

Netherlands lies below sea level, and the

annual flooding of river landscapes has become

a tangible reminder of a changing world. His

installations and photo objects often

incorporate recycled materials and repurposed

objects, chosen deliberately for their

familiarity. These forms — once seemingly

ordinary and unburdened — are paired with

contemporary photography to reveal tensions

between past and present, comfort and crisis.

Through this interplay, Chevallier visualises

themes of industrialisation, environmental

degradation and the urgent need for

sustainable living. His work serves both as a

call for recycling and as a broader reflection on

the limits of Western consumption.

Chevallier has exhibited widely, participating

in significant climate-focused and museumbased

exhibitions across Europe. Recent

presentations include Volta (Art Basel) 2025,

EuropArtFair Amsterdam 2024 — where he

received the jury’s second prize — Artist

Meeting Knokke, and the Climate Expo at the

National Museum Muiderslot, Muiden.

Between 2018 and 2023 his work was shown

in numerous institutions, including the Dutch

Climate Expo (Zwolle), CODA Museum

(Apeldoorn), IJsselbiënnale, Zandvoorts

Museum, Watermuseum Arnhem, and

Museum Energetiocon (Aachen).

Receding Biodiversity

Receding Biodiversity

This object highlights the growing threats to biodiversity caused

by climate change, particularly rising water levels. The items

placed within the photographic composition offer a glimpse into

a possible future — one in which certain animals and plants may

no longer exist if we continue on our current path. Here, they

appear preserved under bell jars and other containers, suspended

between memory and warning.

ARTLO - 104

I I N F O C U S


Artist’s Statement – Rob Chevallier

Friend & Enemy

Half of the Netherlands lies below sea level,

and scientists predict that rising water levels

may increase by another metre within the

next fifty years. This threat is already visible

each year as river landscapes overflow and

the country is confronted with the realities

of climate change.

Friend & Enemy is a series of photo objects

depicting trees and people under the

pressure of high water. The spirit levels

integrated into the works serve as a

metaphor for our climate dilemma. After

seeing these objects — and holding a level

in your own hands — the message becomes

clear: climate change is a serious issue, and

part of the solution begins with adjusting

the way we live.

This installation evolves continuously as

works are sold and new pieces are created.

A warning from a country

below sea level.

Friend & Enemy challenges us

to face climate change before

it rises further.

Friend & Enemy

Climate Scales

Climate Scales consists of seven glass plates,

each printed with an image of the same tree

captured across different moments in time:

winter, spring, summer, late summer,

autumn, winter, and a final “future winter”.

Across the plates, the artist has painted the

average annual temperatures of the

Netherlands in the form of “warming

stripes”, where each vertical band represents

a year.

These colour transitions — from cool blues

to increasingly warm reds — visualise the

steady disappearance of cold years and the

rapid rise in temperature. The scale ranges

from 7.8°C to 11.7°C and clearly illustrates

how quickly the Netherlands is warming,

reflecting a global trend far beyond its

borders.

Climate Scales

ARTLO - 105

I I N F O C U S


Pedro Sousa Louro

www.pedrosousalouro.com

Pedro Sousa Louro is a Portuguese-born

artist of aristocratic heritage, raised between

Africa, Estoril and Lisbon before moving to

Madrid in 1989 and later settling in the

United Kingdom. Educated at Chelsea

College of Art and Design (1997) and

holding an additional degree in Abstract

Vision and Modern Expressionism (2011), he

has developed a distinctive practice rooted in

architecture, Neoplasticism and abstract

geometric expression.

Working with reclaimed wood, oxidised

metals, textiles and vintage materials, Pedro

creates mixed-media compositions that

merge Cubism, abstract expressionism and

architectural forms. His work is known for

its textural depth, structural clarity and the

interplay between geometry and colour.

Influenced by Andrea Branzi—whose family

he remains close to—as well as Mondrian,

Rauschenberg and Nicholson, Pedro

approaches composition as both an aesthetic

and conceptual investigation.

ARTLO - 106

I I N F O C U S


His artworks have been featured

internationally in publications such as

British Vogue, House & Garden, Vanity

Fair, Tatler and The Wall Street Journal,

positioning Pedro as a distinctive voice in

contemporary mixed-media practice. In

recognition of his contribution to the

international art landscape, he was

honoured in 2021 by the President of

Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa,

together with Ambassador Manuel Lobo

Antunes. Today, his works form part of

numerous private collections across Europe,

the Middle East, India, Australia, the United

States, Russia and South America, and he is

increasingly acknowledged within global

LGBTQ art circles.

In 2023, his artistic reach expanded further

through collaborations with the film

industry, as his compositions were selected

for set design in two major productions by

20th Century Studios | Disney USA—an

affirmation of the cinematic potential of his

architectural language.

Pedro’s process is rooted in curiosity,

structure and material exploration. He

works with reclaimed woods, oxidised

metals, archival objects and textiles,

constructing layered surfaces that echo

architectural strata and historical memory.

Copper powders are oxidised to achieve

distinctive patinas; fragments of journals

and vintage materials are embedded to

introduce a sense of time and lived

experience. Once assembled, each artwork

is sealed with yacht varnish, a signature that

both protects and unifies the composition

while enhancing its tactile presence.

Rather than pursuing conventional notions

of beauty, Pedro aims to challenge

perception through geometric tension,

colour evolution and neoplastic order. His

compositions are built through a dialogue

between strict architectural rhythm and

intuitive abstraction, merging precision

with spontaneity. Producing between

twelve and seventeen works each year, he

embraces the uncertainty inherent in the

creative process while maintaining a

meticulous sense of structure.

This balance between discipline and

expressive freedom defines his practice: an

ever-evolving exploration of form,

geometry and memory that offers collectors

a unique—often deeply personal—visual

universe.

Mixed media,

Acrylic pencils,

charcoal, 1.05H x

58W cm, framed

in a relaxed blue

navy colour. The

piece is in Madrid

in a Gallery

Artwork info:

Mixed media, tiles, cement, copper powders, leather squares, and objects were fixed in place.

On Canvas and framed on Oak wood with a gold line on the surface. 1,84H x 1,23W cm.

The piece is available for purchase

Price £6,000.00

ARTLO - 107

"Webb sommaire"Mixmedia, Black oil. Acrylic pencils, copper powders for rustic

deteorating metal elements. 1.05H x 58W cm on canvas and framed in a green rustic

mould colour.

Exhibited once in 2022 at the Saatchi Gallery and sold to an Austrian Art Collector on

the same night of the opening.

Artwork info:

Mixmedia, acrylic pencils, Charcoal, gold leaf, and black oil on canvas. 1,55Hcm x

1,25Wcm double framed on oak wood.

The painting belongs to an accountable art dealer who got it at the 2022 exhibition in

the Saatchi Gallery on the opening Private View evening.

I I N F O C U S


Belinda Kröll –

Myth, Motherhood

and the Body as

Site

www.belindakroell.art

Working from Tyrol, Austrian artist Belinda Kröll

uses linocut as a language of resistance and repair.

Her hand-carved prints transform archetypes of

motherhood and myth into contemporary allegories.

Through repetition, texture and symbolism, Kröll

exposes the tension between domestic intimacy and

cultural expectation — between the private body and

the public image of womanhood.

Her practice stands at the intersection of craft and

statement: the gesture of carving becomes both

meditative and insurgent, an act of reclaiming

authorship over narratives long spoken about women

rather than by them

Top: Linoleum block carving process (artist’s studio view)

Page 111

Top: Dahoam, linocut

Middle : Divine, linocut

Bottom: Belinda Kröll in her studio

Your work often reclaims mythological or archetypal

figures through a maternal lens. What does myth offer

you that contemporary imagery cannot?

I have nothing against contemporary imagery, as I am also

in the process of creating such works. Yet when I express

my inner thoughts and feelings, I use mythological

attributes as a universal language — something that can be

understood more easily by a broader audience.

In several of your prints, the act of nursing appears as

both tender and raw — almost cosmic. What draws

you to this intersection between the body, nature and

the universe?

Motherhood has been both the most physical and the most

transcendental experience of my life.

Nursing in particular — it is all body: skin, touch, milk,

exhaustion. But through that intensity, during all those

sleepless nights, something shifts. You open up. You move

beyond yourself. You find yourself providing for someone

else in a state of exhaustion you never thought possible.

The transcendence doesn’t come from escaping the

physical but from embracing it — finding something

sacred in the rawest moments and growing stronger day

by day.

You’ve written that “the mothers’ self-portraits are

missing.” Do you think motherhood is still culturally

invisible — even within feminist art?

Motherhood in art has always been a prominent theme —

just think of the countless depictions of Saint Mary. But

those images were mostly created by men, about women

rather than by them. What we inherited is an idealised

vision of motherhood, often turned into a symbol of purity

and self-sacrifice.

On the other hand, within feminist art, motherhood is

often left out, as if being a mother somehow contradicts

creative freedom altogether.

That leaves the many facets of motherhood unsaid and

unseen — the power, the ambivalence, and the tenderness

that come with it.

As a mother and an artist, I want to occupy that empty

space. Motherhood isn’t the end of feminism, but another

frontier of it.

ARTLO - 110

Linocut is traditionally seen as a craft technique.

In your hands it feels almost sculptural, political.

What draws you to its physicality?

Linocut demands touch and strength — it is carved,

gouged, pressed. That act of cutting feels both

destructive and creative.

Like birth itself, it is a process in which the creation

of something new requires the painful destruction of

what already exists.

In your prints, colour seems to act as a physical

substance — almost like blood or milk. Is colour

emotional for you, or material?

Colour is absolutely emotional for me. I use it as a

language of feelings. Magenta carries intensity,

vibrating between joy and pain. Yellow stands for

energy — that pulse of life that keeps everything

moving.

In printmaking, the “key” colour plays an essential

role. It provides depth and detail in the final image.

Traditionally the key colour is black, but in my

prints I use violet instead, to soften the edges and

shift the mood.

How do you navigate the duality between

motherhood as subject and as lived experience

in your work?

I don’t separate them. My studio practice happens

between school runs and nap times — it’s fully

integrated into daily life. The tension between the

chaos of living in a big family and the desire for

reflection and expression creates the emotional

charge in my work.

My prints are not just about motherhood; they are

embedded in motherhood.

ARTLO - 111

Much of your practice seems to balance

vulnerability with assertion. How do you decide

what to reveal and what to protect in your

images?

Vulnerability is a precondition for assertion.

I’m not holding back much — radical openness is

the way.

The fact that you create small, affordable and

reproducible works — such as postcards — feels

political. Do you see this as part of your vision

to democratise art?

It is political. I see it as part of empowering women.

My work creates space for open conversations about

topics that can be difficult or even taboo.

Speaking about birth, birth rights or exhaustion is

profoundly important. Knowledge is a shield in

vulnerable situations. Does it save you from harm

entirely? No. But understanding what is happening

— and knowing your rights — makes violence less

likely. Women from socially disadvantaged

backgrounds are especially affected.

I want to make my art accessible to help improve an

outrageous situation.

Do you consider your practice part of a broader

feminist continuum, or is it more an individual

negotiation with identity and autonomy?

In my opinion, being part of a broader feminist

movement doesn’t contradict following my own

convictions. My work grows out of personal

experience — especially those shaped by

motherhood and womanhood — but these

experiences are also deeply connected to the paths

opened by the women who came before me.

Simone de Beauvoir’s words, “One is not born, but

rather becomes, a woman,” resonate with me

because they remind me that womanhood is not

something given; it is socially defined, and therefore

can be redefined.

My art is part of that ongoing process: an act of

shaping my own story about what it means to live

and create freely as a woman.

What are you working on next — conceptually

or materially?

I want to continue printing about birth and the

female body, creating a platform for sharing

experiences and exchanging knowledge.

My goal is to raise awareness and help make birth

experiences less violent and more sovereign.

I’m exploring larger-scale prints and work in public

spaces — outside the safe space of galleries.

Top: process Lupacapitolica

Bottom: Lupacapitolica, linocut

page 113: Judith, linocut

ARTLO - 112

I I N F O C U S


Mónika Katalin Pál

– The Poetry of

Surreal Emotion

www.mkpal.art

ARTLO - 114

Rooted in a dialogue between spirit and nature, Mónika

Katalin Pál’s paintings reveal a world where emotion and

symbolism intertwine. Her works speak in quiet tones of

connection, resilience, and reverence for life’s invisible

harmony. Through dreamlike compositions and radiant

colour, she transforms stillness into movement, and solitude

into light.

In this exclusive conversation with ARTLO Magazine, the

Hungarian artist reflects on intuition, empathy, and the

poetic depth that guides her creative path.

Your paintings seem to exist between dream and

memory.How do you find the balance between

imagination and emotional truth in your creative

process?

I don’t seek balance—my process is entirely guided by

emotion. I listen inwardly, and what emerges on the

canvas is shaped by feeling rather than concept. While I

pay attention to visual composition, it’s always the inner

voice that leads. Sometimes the image arrives like a

whisper, other times like a wave—but it’s never calculated.

I trust the moment, and I trust that what needs to be

expressed will find its form.

The concept of “Spirit through hand” feels central to

your work. Could you tell us how this idea manifests

when you paint — is it a meditative state, an intuitive

flow, or something more intentional?

Painting is often described today as a form of meditation.

While I understand that view, for me, meditation and

painting are not the same. Meditation is an inward stillness,

a quiet presence. Painting, on the other hand, is a kind of

calling—a message that arrives not only from within, but

also through the canvas itself. Sometimes I feel the canvas

speaks first, and I respond. Other times, something beyond

me moves through my hand before I even understand it.

That’s why Spirit through hand is not just a concept—it’s the

guiding force behind my work.

It’s not about control or intention. It’s about surrendering

to something deeper, and allowing it to take form.

Many of your compositions feature animals—wolves,

eagles, horses—each carrying symbolic weight. What

do these creatures represent to you on a personal or

spiritual level?

Animals carry a truth that humans often forget. Though

the natural world can be harsh, many animals live with a

purity of emotion—without deceit, without manipulation.

They embody loyalty, instinct, and presence in ways that

feel deeply spiritual to me. In my paintings, wolves, eagles,

and horses are not just symbols. They are messengers.

They speak of courage, solitude, and the wild grace that

exists beyond language. I believe spirituality is part of our

nature, but in today’s noisy world, many people lose touch

with their own spiritual capacities. Animals remind us of

that forgotten depth. They move through my

work as guides—silent, powerful, and honest.

Colour in your paintings seems to breathe emotion

rather than simply illustrate form. How do you

approach colour choice as a language of feeling?

I almost always mix my own colours, and this process is

guided entirely by emotion. I don’t choose colours to

match form—I choose them to reflect feeling. Each tone

is born from a moment: a breath of sadness, a flicker of

hope, a quiet strength. Mixing paint is like listening to a

language that doesn’t use words. I follow what I feel,

and the colours respond.

Sometimes a single hue carries the whole atmosphere of

a painting. It’s not about harmony or contrast—it’s

about truth.

There is a quiet optimism running through your

work, even when touching on loss or solitude.

What role do light and hope play in your artistic

philosophy?

I don’t enjoy painting sadness. Even when my work

touches on solitude or loss, it’s never meant to dwell

there. If a viewer senses melancholy, I hope they also

feel the quiet strength beneath it—a readiness to endure,

to rise, to connect. Light and hope are not decorative

elements in my paintings; they are emotional anchors.

I want my work to offer a kind of soul-to-soul

resonance. Not a loud optimism, but a gentle reminder

that even in stillness, something luminous remains.

You often describe your work as an offering or a

portal. When you finish a painting, do you

feel that it still belongs to you—or does it begin a

new life with the viewer?

My paintings are fragments of my soul. Of course,

they remain connected to me in some way—but once

finished, they begin their own journey. Each work

becomes a portal, reaching out to those who can

connect with it—spiritually, emotionally, or even

simply through visual resonance. I believe that art

lives beyond the artist. When someone truly sees a

painting, it no longer belongs only to me. It becomes

a shared space, a quiet offering, and sometimes even a

mirror.

Your artistic language blends surrealism,

realism, and abstraction. What draws you to

combine these visual worlds instead of choosing

one clear direction?

I find it impossible to choose one visual language—

because I myself am not one single thing. Just like

life, my personality moves between layers.

Surrealism, realism, and abstraction each offer

different ways to express a theme, and I love the

freedom to shift between them. Mixing these

directions feels rebellious in the best way—like a

refusal to be boxed in.

Page 114 Mónika Katalin Pál – The Untamed Within, oil on canvas,

87 × 77, Untamed Continuum Series

Page 115 Sentinel of the Ember Sky, oil on canvas, 62 × 37 cm, 2025,

Untamed Continuum Series

Bottom The Wild That Remembers, oil on canvas, 72 × 87 Untamed

Continuum Series

ARTLO - 116

Why should I paint like others? That has already

been done. I’m interested in what hasn’t been seen

yet—what emerges when I follow my own rhythm.

You’ve mentioned that your art aims to inspire

environmental and animal awareness. How do

you see the relationship between art, empathy,

and preservation in today’s world?

I prefer to highlight beauty rather than depict

destruction. Through my paintings, I try to show

the richness of our world—its emotional, spiritual,

and everyday layers. I believe that when people truly

see the natural world, not just as scenery but as a

living presence, empathy begins to grow. And

empathy is the root of preservation.

Art has the power to awaken something quiet and

lasting. By portraying animals and nature with

reverence, I hope to remind viewers of their own

connection to life—beyond the noise, beyond the

rush. Sometimes a single image can shift perception

more deeply than a thousand warnings.

What first led you to painting — was it a

conscious choice, or something that revealed

itself slowly over time?

Painting was always within me—I just didn’t listen

to the inner voice. For a long time, I let the noise of

the world pull me away from myself. I searched for

direction, but never truly looked inward. It wasn’t

until my late forties that something shifted. The

feelings, the calling—they rose up with quiet

insistence, and I could no longer ignore them.

Art didn’t arrive as a decision. It arrived as a return.

Now I feel I’ve arrived, even if it took a long and

winding path to come back to myself.

When people describe your work as “soulful” or

“spiritual”, do you recognise yourself in

those words? How would you personally define

the emotional core of your art?

Yes, I do recognize myself in those words—because

my art is born from the soul. I don’t paint ideas. I

paint presence. Each work begins with a feeling,

often wordless, that insists on being seen. The

emotional core of my art is a kind of quiet truth—a

longing for connection, for meaning, for something

beyond the surface.Spirituality, for me, is not a

concept. It’s a way of being. When I paint, I enter a

space where emotion and intuition guide me. If the

result feels soulful, it’s because it carries something

real—something that moved through me and found

its form.

My studio is a place of retreat. It’s where I can listen

—not to the world, but to the quiet resonance

between my inner self and the canvas. I paint in

solitude, because that’s where the subtle vibrations

become audible. If I don’t feel the connection, I step

away. I let the silence breathe, and I return when

new energy finds me. Nature surrounds me, but it’s

not just scenery—it’s part of the rhythm. The

stillness, the light, the movement of air—they all

shape how I see, how I feel, and how I paint.

Looking back on your journey, what

experiences or turning points have most defined

who you are today — not just as an artist, but as

a person?

I don’t believe our lives are shaped by just one or

two milestones. Every encounter, ever experience is

a choice—and each choice transforms us in some

way. We give, we receive, we lose our way, and we

find it again. Perhaps that’s the essence of earthly

life: the constant unfolding, the quiet learning, the

deepening through experience.

My journey as an artist and as a person is not linear.

It’s a spiral of becoming. And if I’ve arrived

somewhere now, it’s only because I’ve walked many

paths to return to myself.

Art, for me, is not a profession—it’s a way of

being. Each painting is a quiet offering, a fragment

of my soul shaped by emotion, intuition, and the

silent dialogue between spirit and nature. I don’t aim

to impress—I aim to connect. If my work touches

someone, even for a moment, then it has fulfilled its

purpose.

We are all searching for something real. Through

colour, form, and feeling, I try to offer a space

where the soul can breathe.

Where Spirits Meet, oil on canvas72 × 87 cm

You often work in solitude, surrounded by

nature. How does that quiet environment

influence your rhythm, focus, and way of

seeing?

ARTLO - 117

I I N F O C U S


Dita Jacobovitz

Colour is how I listen to

the land.

www.ditasart.com

Israeli painter Dita Jacobovitz transforms the act of seeing

into a form of remembrance.

Living for many years in a quiet village in northern Israel,

she has developed a language of landscape that is both

introspective and timeless. Her canvases, often rooted in

the same surroundings, shift between observation and

memory, blending emotion and structure in delicate

equilibrium.

Working primarily in oil on canvas, Jacobovitz builds her

compositions through layers of colour and rhythm rather

than narrative. Each painting becomes a meditation — a

dialogue between what is present and what has already

faded. Critics have compared her work to that of the

Macchiaioli and to Paul Nash, yet her approach remains

deeply personal: an intimate geography of light, time, and

silence.

Over nearly four decades, Jacobovitz has returned to the

same landscape — a familiar view that continues to reveal

new meanings. What began as observation has evolved

into an act of meditation, bringing her both peace and

renewal. Her paintings no longer aim for descriptive

precision but seek openness on a sensory level. Each work

grows from its predecessor, forming a continuous inner

dialogue in which time accumulates, changes, and

reorganises.

Her fascination with colour — even when it seems absent

— sustains her long pictorial journey, where every gesture

holds traces of the moment and the depth of time.

Influenced by Israeli masters such as Uri Reisman and

Anna Ticho, Jacobovitz’s art remains faithful to a personal

language patiently woven through years of observation,

reflection, and devotion to place.

ARTLO - 118

You have lived for many years in a small village in

northern Israel. How has this landscape shaped

your perception of the world and your artistic

identity?

The open landscape I see just below is indeed what

made me a landscape painter. The variety of landscapes I

can grasp has taught me a lot during these four decades

of creativity. From the first early years, trying to capture

it all, I later began to focus on windows to the view.

This environment has helped me understand the beauty

of nature as it changes hourly and with the seasons.

Many of your works return to places that have long

accompanied you — what makes them so enduring

for you?

The deep familiarity I have developed with the

landscape over the years has instilled a sense of trust

in my creative process. This ongoing relationship

with my surroundings allows me to confidently

experiment with different artistic approaches and

adapt my methods as I observe the landscape’s

continuous changes

Returning to the same place again has revealed the

remarkable diversity contained within a single

environment. The landscape offers a multitude of

perspectives—both distant and close, like a rich

biotope. This intimate knowledge of the mountains

and valleys in my environment enables me to

improvise freely.

Page 118 Top: Dita Jacobovitz – At Her Creating Spot Bottom: Squares,

100 × 120 cm, oil on canvas, 2025.

Page 119 Top: Floating, 70 × 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2025. Bottom: Last

Square, 60 × 90 cm, oil on canvas, 2025.

Page 120 Top: Dita Jacobovitz – At Her Open Studio Bottom: Gold

Mining, 70 × 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2024.

Bottom: Evolving landscape,110X130 cm, oil on canvas 2021.

You’ve studied under artists such as Sigal

Tsabari and Aram Gershoni. What have you

carried forward from those experiences into

your current practice?

Many years have passed since then.

I learned from both of them the passion to create,

together with the understanding that meaningful

artwork requires sustained effort and commitment

— and to approach my own work with a critical eye,

always seeking ways to improve and refine my

practice.

ARTLO - 121

Colour in your work feels both emotional and

architectural. How do you approach it — as

sensation, as structure, or as narrative?

Colour plays a central role in my work,

underpinning every approach I take, whether it be

sensation, structure, or narrative. For me, colour is

not merely an element to be applied, but a living

sensation — there is a unique magic in arranging

colours together, a miracle found in the relationships

that emerge on the canvas. Each hue and tone

interacts with the others, creating a dynamic

interplay that brings the composition to life. This

process of combining colours is both intuitive and

intentional.

What remains constant for you in painting,

despite the changes in style, place or time?

This is actually a very good question. It is the

connecting thread that runs through all these years. I

think it is my taste for colours and my drawings.

These two aspects — my taste for colours and my

commitment to drawing — form the backbone of

my creative process, providing continuity and

identity to my evolving body of work.

Finally, what would you like a viewer to feel

when standing before one of your landscapes?

First, I would want the viewer to feel the same joy I

felt while creating the landscape. Second, I would

like the viewer to take a journey into the landscape,

follow the lines and shapes, and return to the point

they started from.

Top: Dead Sea spot

Bottom: Now, oil on canvas, 70X100 cm 2024

ARTLO - 122

I C U R I O S I T I E S I B Y M A T T E O D ´ A N G E L O

CURIOSITIES

Text by Matteo D´Angelo

Picasso and the Painting Beneath

Another

Radiographic analysis has revealed a

fascinating secret beneath Picasso’s The Blue

Room (1901), painted during his early Blue

Period. Hidden under the brushstrokes of a

simple interior scene lies the portrait of a

man with a bow tie. The discovery illustrates

not only Picasso’s tireless experimentation

but also the economic difficulties he faced at

the time, when canvases were a luxury he

could scarcely afford. Rather than discarding

unfinished or unsold works, he painted over

them, layering new stories upon old ones.

Today, thanks to modern technology, we

glimpse both paintings at once: the visible

composition and the ghostly portrait

beneath, a testament to the restless creativity

of an artist who was constantly reinventing

himself.

Salvador Dalí

Basket of Bread

Dalí Theatre and Museum, Figueres

Dalí and the Eternal Bread

Salvador Dalí nurtured a peculiar and

almost devotional fascination with

bread. What for most was the simplest

of foods became, in his hands, a symbol

of tradition, eternity, and even artistic

provocation. He would sometimes turn

up at press conferences carrying giant

loaves under his arm, a surrealist

gesture designed to bewilder and

amuse in equal measure. For Dalí,

bread embodied the permanence of

culture and the continuity of life itself.

His Basket of Bread (1945),

painted with obsessive

realism, transforms an

everyday object into

something sacred and

eternal, blurring the line

between the ordinary and

the transcendent.

Picasso

Blue Room (1901)

The Phillips Collection

The Sistine Chapel and the Hidden Insults

Michelangelo’s monumental Last Judgement

in the Sistine Chapel is not only a triumph of

art but also a canvas for personal vendetta.

Among the hundreds of figures, one stands

out for its biting satire: Biagio da Cesena, the

papal master of ceremonies, who had publicly

criticised the fresco as indecent. In retaliation,

Michelangelo portrayed him as Minos, judge

of the damned in the underworld, complete

with donkey’s ears and a serpent gnawing at

his genitals. Outraged, Biagio complained

directly to Pope Paul III, demanding that the

insult be erased. The Pope turned to

Michelangelo, who replied with a line as

sharp as his brush: “The Pope has power in

heaven and on earth, but not in hell.” With

this witty defiance, the artist ensured that his

mockery would remain untouched. To this

day, visitors to the chapel can still see Biagio’s

eternal punishment, painted for posterity.

ARTLO - 123

KATJA LÜHRS

Save the Earth — A Vision for Our Planet

FEATURED IN ARTLO MAGAZINE

“Don’t miss our next issue, where Katja Lührs will share her vision on

Save the Earth in an in-depth feature.”

ARTLO Magazine Issue 5

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Delete template?

Save as template ?