// Richard Orjis.

// Michael Zavros.

// Daniel Stier.

// Sekitani Norihiro.

// Kirra Jamison.

// Simen Johan.

// Larry Dunstan.

// Patrick Holland.

Click images to enlarge

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

“Nature can be seen as beautiful and pure, and intrinsically good, but also as dangerous and destructive, a spectacle of the devourers and the devoured. ”

INTERVIEW by Jason Lingard

1) Where are you from?
Auckland, New Zealand

2) How did you get into photography?
I’ve always been obsessed with magazines, as a teenager I would live for my subscriptions of The Face, I.D and Dazed and Confused (the usual suspects), I loved how the fashion editorials were like still movies with these crazy narratives and amazing locations.

Before I graduated art school I spent the summer in New York working for David LaChapelle, it really cemented my desired to become a photographer. It opened up my eyes that photography has been the creative medium, of the last century, that could move between life and art like nothing else.

3) What are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently working on a show for the end of the year; it will be a collection of portraits that I’ve been painting with mud. They are all members of a fictional earth worshipping pagan boy cult, but its contemporary. I’ve also been doing some photographs of wreathes and icons to go with it.

4) Your work is varied: people, nature, still life, and art photography. Do you have a favourite?
I’d have to say people, just because it more exciting, there’s always an element of chance, its not all about me but about a collaboration.

How do you feel the alternating subjects relate to or influence each other, and also how you shoot them?
I can see that it might seem like I’m working with lots of different things, but everything I do comes from the same place and is normally about the same concerns. For me, the work revolves around four main intersecting and fluid connections, that of nature, cult, myth and the gothic.

Nature can be seen as beautiful and pure, and intrinsically good, but also as dangerous and destructive, a spectacle of the devourers and the devoured. This tense relationship of attraction and repulsion feeds into my practice, I explore notions of beauty laced with an undercurrent of ugliness, or vice versa.

5) A lot of your work has a dark or mysterious feeling to it, hinting that "there's something else going on". What do you think that is?
My work sits itself with in the framework of the gothic. Just as society seeks to sanitize nature, many human emotions are repressed in the on going process of civilisation. The gothic sensibility explores this dark underbelly, seeking to access the sublime through dark beauty, melancholy, lust, death fear and violence.
I seek to connect contemporary culture with antiquity, the gothic psych surfaces in many different forms in art and culture through out history. The gothic is present in contemporary culture in the form of heavy metal music, video games, horror and science fiction movies.

6) What would be your dream project?
That’s a great question, today I’d like to be given loads of money to do a huge event in a dark Russian forest, paint all the houses black, burn some things, lots of people carrying out pagan rituals, animals, Banks Violette sculptures, McQueen Clothes, masses of rotting banquets of food and flowers,... Photograph it and make an oversized coffee table book out of it.

7) Who would you would most like to have sit for a portrait?
Kylie Minogue

8) What next? Plans for the future?
I’d like to do a few more projects overseas, a few more collaborations with inspiring people, and I’m planning on starting a creative agency… and may be a cult ?.

Click images to enlarge

Burberry Prorsum/Bay 2006
195 x 250cm oil on canvas

Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking/ Bay 2006
195 x 250cm oil on canvas

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

"...they bring together several threads of my practice and they talk on one level about the folly of art and fashion. They are a complete fiction but I will them to exist."

1) Where are you from?
Brisbane

2) How did you get into what you do?
Art chose me. I was one of those little kids that just drew all the time. I’d draw on scraps of paper, fill sketchbooks then draw on the back pages and no-one asked me the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

3) What are you working on at the moment?
I’m making sculpture at the moment, which is something I haven’t done for a long time and I’m really loving it.  It’s fresh and exciting to be working with media that I’m not experienced in. I don’t notice the time at the moment – It melts away and I put my tools down when I’m really hungry. I 'm working in plasticine and when I’m finished this  work will be cast in bronze.

4) Well done on being a finalist in the Archibald portrait competition. What did you think about the "controversy" over the winner?
The controversy is great and the Art Gallery of New South  Wales clearly love it each year. It’s good for the prize and keeps people interested. The Archibald is really a very conservative prize but the selection of more challenging winners in recent years sets up an interesting tension with the traditional regulations and frameworks playing with ideas about what contemporary portraiture can be.

5) Do you feel painters can get in a rut of churning out "pretty pictures"? You employ traditional techniques in a fresh and contemporary manner, do you think it's important to push the boundaries?
It can be difficult to not be repetitive if your work finds a market or some critical attention and I think this is something many artists have to deal with. But I think it is important to be brave and push boundaries whatever those boundaries may be for you personally.

4) Your subject matter varies, but recently there is a merging of "fashion" images with horses. Where did this combination come from? and how do they work together?
The centaurs are really a natural progression for me. Drawn from classical Greek mythology they bring together several threads of my practice and they talk on one level about the folly of art and the folly of fashion. They are a complete fiction but I will them to exist. They also talk about impossible beauty and desire.

6) What would be your dream project?
Designing for Mercedes Benz. I love automotive design and draw cars all the time, although I am  less fanatical about what's under  the bonnet, just the pure aesthetics of the car itself  and the grand tradition of luxury and quality . I have painted Mercedes several times in different contexts. My favourite is a small painting entitled "Killing me Softly" that depicts a sumptuous interior with all  its airbags deployed so that it is one big cushion. I am intrigued by the idea that something you love may cause you harm; love is a bit like that. All of my work takes love as its larger theme really, love and the loss of love.

7) Who would you most like to have sit for a portrait?
My baby daughter Phoebe but she wouldn't sit still 

8) What next? Plans for the future?
I have a solo show next March at Wollongong Regional Gallery and soon after one at Gold Coast City Art Gallery. I will put together a show for my commercial gallery up here, Schubert Contemporary and late in 07 I will show with Sophie Gannon Gallery in Melbourne. I'm excited about a 2008 show with Sydney artist Nell at Gertrude St Contemporary Art Spaces in Melbourne

Click images to enlarge

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

"...you sometimes have to present your work in categories so people can digest it."

1) Where are you from?
Frankfurt, Germany

2) How did you get into photography?
As a 14 year old with a Minolta XD5 taking sensitive double exposures of myself in my bedroom. And from there on I didn`t leave out any embarrassing phase or style.

3) What are you working on at the moment?
A project called `In my country` - portraits of immigrants in London.

4) Your work is varied: people, landscapes, still life, and art photography. Do you have a favourite?
No. I don`t see them as different categories. I have grown up with old school photo essays and reportage which always consisted of portraits, stills and landscapes. Since reportage is dead you sometimes have to present your work in categories so people can digest it.

Art photography is quite often just a label that means this or that photographer succeeded selling his photos on the art market.

There are many professional photographers who should be in Galleries and even more `Art photographers` who should be shooting for the next best trendy magazine. To me the only distinction is between commissioned and personal work.

How do you feel the alternating subjects relate or influence each other, and also how you shoot them?
I should think I treat them the same. It`s all about a clear idea behind a work.

5) What would be your dream project?
Go and do your thing. Stay as long as you need, and go far.

6) Who would you would most like to have sit for a portrait?
Very difficult question. Johnny Cash probably. Buster Keaton, Bruce Lee? I don`t know.

7) What next? Plans for the future?
My first book is published in 2007 and then more books, books, books. And a new bicycle for my daughter.

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

Click images to enlarge

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

“There is nothing more that I want to explain using words. So I just want people to interpret [my work] in their own way. I have no lofty intentions to make a statement about something by using human body parts. ”

INTERVIEW + TRANSLATION by Mariko Oya

1) How did you start making your collages?
I started making collages after I bought my computer and got Photoshop. It may sound a bit silly as a reason for why I started doing what I do, so let me explain more… Photoshop appealed to me because it can crystallise what's in my mind at such amazing speed. Also, Photoshop enables me to keep creating my artworks with very little cost. As long as I don't print them out, I can create as many artworks as I want without buying any paint or paper. That was appealing to me, since I was very broke at that time (unfortunately, that hasn't changed much yet).

2) What or who inspires you?
The pictures I use for my collage, such as photos from all sorts of encyclopaedias, porn sites, pictures of bowels etc… basically whatever images I find.

In terms of a person, Takashi Nemoto is a special comic writer who inspires me. I don't think my artwork would have had the same sort of expression, if I hadn't read his works in my adolescence.

3) A lot of your work details with the manipulation or transfiguration of the human body. Why do you think you feel the need to do this?
I use pictures of bowels because they have such beautiful colours! My artwork doesn't mean anything more than how it looks. There is nothing more that I want to explain using words. So I just want people to interpret it in their own way. I have no lofty intention to make a statement about something by using human body parts.

4) Tell us about your book "Sexoide".
I adore it. I made that book around two years ago and I was creating so much work at such an intensive speed at that time. I'm not sure whether that was a good thing though. That book was created by momentum, but that was good too. It may not be a good way to put it, but I think it was a great practice for me, as I look back now. That book should contain the origin of all the works I'll create in the future.

5) What projects are you working on at the moment, or do you have planned for the future?
Deeper, crazier, bigger stuff! But I never know what I'm gonna come up with.

Click images to enlarge

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

“What I will always love about painting is the ability it gives me to manipulate the image every step of the way. The way I paint doesn’t require me to plan anything, I’m attracted to that spontaneity.”

INTERVIEW by Ella Mudie

1) When did you first start painting?
I always painted as a kid. I’m an only child so I spent a lot of time drawing and painting on my own. I remember very clearly getting my first stretched canvas and oil paints for my tenth birthday. I felt like quite the professional artist. I painted a portrait of Vincent Van Gogh on it that very day. Only problem was I painted it on the reverse side of the canvas, thinking the wooden stretcher was supposed to act as a frame when you hung the painting. Very cute.

2) What puts you in the mood to paint?
Ohhh, a nice hot cuppa, some tunes, baggy clothes, bare feet, a nice new canvas, a thick soft brush and a freshly tidied studio…there’s nothing better in the world. At the moment I share a very small studio with five other women. Their support and laughter is addictive but sometimes I do like to work in a more private and quiet space so I sometimes creep in late at night after everyone’s gone home.

3) Your paintings often feature animals. Where does your fascination with animals come from and what do they mean to you?
I use a lot of birds and deers in my work. It has been a fairly intuitive step. I think the animals I choose all have a fantastical, even mythological quality about them. Certainly my work is focussed on the natural world, in fact the only man made imagery I use are patterns, which are of course derived from nature.

4) There’s a fairytale feeling to your work as well. What was your favourite fairytale when you were a kid and why?
“The Fairy Who Wouldn’t Fly” by Pixie O’Harris was my favourite. It is a story about one fairy and her interaction with the natural universe around her…much like my paintings. She was the grumpiest, most stubborn fairy who had these amazing wings but refused to use them. She was so small that she was able to sleep inside a rose bud, but had such attitude. When the roots of the trees would try to trip her over she’d go around kicking and cursing at them. Then one day a bunch of butterflies got together and created a chariot for her to fly in, it was beautiful. I think I liked her because she was a bit wild, a bit of an outcast, a bit of a tomboy. She didn’t take crap from anyone.

5) What appeals to you about painting compared to other mediums?
What I will always love about painting is the ability that it gives me to manipulate the image every step of the way. The way I paint doesn’t require me to plan anything, I’m attracted to that spontaneity.

6) What’s coming up next?
I’m heading to Tokyo for a couple of weeks in December to be in a group show. When I get back I’m facing some major changes. I’ll be on the hunt for a home and a new studio. Maybe even a job…scrap that, I think I’ll have a giant garage sale instead. I have some huge plans for 2007 but you’ll have to stay tuned for the details.

Kirra’s solo show Pretty Faults and Petty Concerns is running at Ryan Renshaw Contemporary Australian and International Art, Fortitude Valley QLD
27 October - 15 November 2006

She is also exhibiting in Tokyo at the National University of Fine Art and Music, from
4 – 8 December 2006

Click images to enlarge

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

“[Do I call myself a photographer?] No. I see a photographer more as an observer than a creator of
things. Photography is the end product of my work, but it is a very small part of a greater creative process.”

INTERVIEW by Jason Lingard

Simen Johans’ earlier work showed a child’s world in which the primal need to explore and search for meaning manifests itself in mysterious forms of creativity and play. His work explored how we instinctively form our understanding of the world, not through reason, but through imagination, creativity and emotion.

His current series of images and sculptures, "Until the Kingdom Comes" continues to explore the human predilection toward fantasy and emotional fulfillment, but here through the depictions of animals who mirror human conventions. A pair of dreamy foxes in a park during a snowstorm appears to be crying; a llama with a poodle haircut exhibits flamboyance. He creates mythical landscapes that hover in a space between fantasy and reality, emotion and reason, desire and fear, artifice and nature. Pastel colors, misty settings and fuzzy animals create beauty and wonder, but bloody noses, artificial hair and strangely knowing expressions suggest a darker reality.

1) Where are you from?
Born in Kirkenes (Lapland), Norway, raised in Sweden, live in New York.

2) How did you get into what you do?
I studied film and photography in Sweden for 2 years. I came to New York in 1992 to go to film school, but it turned out to be too expensive for me, so I transferred to study photography instead. Photography appealed to me because it allowed me to finalise projects myself, and I liked experimental aspects of it. I started out doing physical collages and painting on photographs, but later I learned to manipulate my images digitally.

3) If you didn't work in a creative field what do you think you'd be doing with your life?
Something to do with logic, strategy and having the final say.

4) Your work blurs the lines between installation, painting, and photography. Would you class yourself as a photographer?
No. I see a photographer more as an observer than a creator of things. Photography is the end product of my work, but it is a very small part of a greater creative process.

5) What elements do you feel make a good image?
While there are all sorts of good images (an image can be great solely based on its composition or color), I'm generally drawn to images that communicate something meaningful.

6) You've shot children, and more recently animals. You manage to bring out something hidden in your subjects to the forefront. How do you do this?
There's no specific formula to how I make the work. Every image I make is the result of extensive experimentation. If you look at anything in life you realize that things and situations are never quite what they are made out to be. Life is filled with hidden meanings, myths and illusions, and it is we ourselves who have created life that way. The reality- that we are only one in billions of other people, in a world of endless time and space and soon will vanish and be forgotten for all eternity-is just too scary for us to acknowledge in every day life.

7) So what's next?
I'm still working on more images and sculptures for my animal series "Until the Kingdom Comes", which will eventually result in another book.

IMAGES courtesy and © the artist

“Computer montage allows me to make a new image, by mixing layers I can create the ideas that are in my head...”

After graduating from Westminster, Larry was taken under the photographer Platon's wing. His first commission was for I-D magazine in 1999.

Larry Dunstan's work includes commercial campaigns for BBH, Sony Ericsson, Paul Smith, DDB London, Polydor, Warner Music, XL Recordings and Independiente. He continues to pursue personal projects exploring health, science and perceptions of beauty.

1) Where are you from?
London, England.

2) How did you get into photography?
I liked photography as a young boy at school, but not until i was 25 did i start night school / college to pursue it.

3) A lot of your work is montage do you find this to be a powerful medium?
Yes, computer montage allows me to make a new image, by mixing layers I can create the ideas that are in my head, without having to rely totally on prosthetics.

4) Your work often looks at the human form in a deformed or altered way. Are there deliberate reasons for this?
To change perceptions of beauty.

5) What would be your dream project?
My dream project would be a music video I've had in my note books for 4 years which I sketched for the song Division Bell by Pink Floyd.

6) Who would you would most like to have sit for a portrait?
Secretary of State Colin Powell.

7) What are you working on at the moment?
Experimenting with portraiture, and I'd like to get a another strong advertising shoot.

The Long Road of the Junkmailer by Patrick Holland is out now through University of Queensland Press.

"The junk mailer really is a very depressed fellow, but somehow his sadness lends him a depth of perception that makes him endearing."

The Long Road of the Junkmailer
by Patrick Holland

BOOK REVIEW by Ella Mudie

Delivering junk mail might not be the most salubrious job in the world but I’ve always had this idea that it wouldn’t be so bad. Working out in the sunshine, dropping letters at your own speed, no annoying co-workers to hassle you, I mean really, who could complain?

Well, the hero of this book for one. The Long Road of the Junkmailer is the story of Erskine, a lonely and melancholic young man who delivers junk mail for a living. His job hasn’t many perks, but it does give him the freedom to wander the city, which is actually more interesting than it sounds. The setting is the Australian city of Brisbane, but through Holland’s imaginative treatment it is transformed into a fantastical dreamscape on the verge of an apocalypse, and the junk mailer is the only one who seems to care.
The junk mailer really is a very depressed fellow, but somehow his sadness lends him a depth of perception that makes him endearing. Through his eyes a homeless bum might just be an angel, or a pant less man a prophet. It also explains how he manages to fall in love with Isla, the wild-haired amnesiac runaway, and mystery at the centre of the novel.

In the spirit of fantasy, cause and effect has little to do with the plot. Some readers will enjoy this, while others will just find it frustrating. But really, as you might guess from the title, this novel is all about the journey. And the Junkmailer’s is a lyrical and poetic one worth travelling.