Tag: artist

ARTIST FEATURE: JOSÉ DURÁN

José Durán in his Bronx studio, wearing his own designs, in front of Charo, 2026. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

 

José Durán arrived in New York from Moca in 1995, at sixteen. He grew up in a Bronx apartment where his mother covered the beds in faux satin and hung the windows with opulent curtains, so the rooms would suggest a baroque salon. Elena was a hairstylist who worked from home, and there were women in and out all day. The draping was for her, for her family, and for the women who came through.

Thirty years later, Durán has woven something taller than he is out of cut elastic bands, shaped like a body lying down. It is called Charo, and he made it after his friend Miguel died of AIDS, on the model of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The shape is deliberate. “Under a sheet, a cover, a duvet,” he says. “Protecting the body.”

Nearly everything else he has made falls between those two acts. His first solo exhibition, curated by Orlando Isaac in Santo Domingo in 2023, was called Duvet. It contained his first textile: a pair of carved wooden legs lying on a plinth, the body above the waist covered by a length of woven black and white cloth. Among the paintings was one named for Dédée Bazile, the Haitian woman who gathered the dismembered remains of Jean-Jacques Dessalines from the street in 1806 and took them for burial. When Durán’s research into cotton led him to the Indian textiles traded for enslaved people on the West African coast, he responded by building tents for public space and wrapping a found chair in fabric. He has been doing versions of the same thing for as long as he has been painting, and what interests him is what a covering can do.

He brings three works to The Armory Show, all of them tracing back to one woman. In seventeenth-century Cartagena, one of the largest slave ports in the Americas, Paula de Eguiluz was the healer people came to. Born enslaved, free by her thirties, she sold remedies and love magic to the white women of the city, and the Bishop of Cartagena eventually became one of her patients. The Inquisition tried her three times for witchcraft, had her whipped, and sentenced her to death, a sentence the Inquisition’s council in Madrid overruled.

Durán painted Paula herself in 2023, and Ana and Juana take the names of her two sisters. The third work reaches Paula through the plants. She was a healer, and her knowledge of them became part of the record against her. Sábila is the Caribbean word for aloe vera.

Everything known about the two sisters comes from a single moment in Paula’s trial, when the tribunal asked her, as it asked every prisoner, to name her family. She said she had two sisters in Santo Domingo: Ana, who was free, and Juana, who belonged to a man called Antonio de Jaques. Nothing else about either of them was written down. Durán has given them a room to rest in.

Both women recline. At eight and a half feet tall, Ana is a rococo drawing room, a wedge of acid green driven down one side of the coffered ceiling, the mismatched checkerboard floor and every other surface built from short loaded strokes laid side by side, closer to mosaic than to brushwork. Ana herself is on a blue sofa in a patterned robe, plants at her shoulder, entirely at rest. Juana is the wider of the two, a glasshouse under an iron dome, agave throwing red flower spikes toward the glass, a tiger skin open-jawed on the floor by her daybed. Juana was the sister who was owned, and Durán has put her inside a building designed to hold displaced tropical plants alive in captivity. He says that was deliberate.

Sábila does the same thing with one plant. Across three sheets of deckled paper the aloe hangs from a bare branch, its leaves falling while the flower stems climb, orange spikes against a wash that shifts from coral at the foot to cold green at the top. The lowest sheet is all undergrowth, dry twigs and small bright scrub, a hummingbird at the edge of it. Aloe crossed the Atlantic with the people who knew how to use it. Durán uses it on himself for asthma, and has since childhood. He describes the three panels as ancestor, self and descendant.

The reclining posture is Elena’s, and so is the cigarette. He remembers his mother on the bed, smoking, receiving friends, and his 2024 exhibition at James Fuentes took her name. He puts nearly every woman he paints in the same position. The rooms come from her too. Durán builds his interiors out of Renaissance architecture and the décor of Black and Latino New York in the 1980s and 90s, which is what his mother was doing in the Bronx with faux satin and opulent curtains.

Until Elena died, he had never painted. His adult life had been fashion, then Taipei, where he learned Mandarin and took an MBA, with the plant research running underneath all of it. He picked up a brush to keep his mother present, working her image into his earliest canvases. Everything since is a version of that, including the three works he is taking to the Javits Center.

This is Durán’s first art fair, and for him it stands in for a Bryant Park runway he never got. He is presented at The Armory Show by Heliconia Projects, Santo Domingo, in Focus, the section curated by María Elena Ortiz of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which this year centers artists working across the Caribbean and its diasporas. The fair runs September 24 to 27, 2026 at the Javits Center, New York, with an invitation-only preview on Thursday and public days Friday through Sunday. Durán has shown solo at Centro Cultural de España in Santo Domingo, Good Children in New Orleans, and James Fuentes and Hannah Traore in New York.

Juana, 2026. Acrylic on linen, 60 × 80 in. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

JOSÉ DURÁN IN CONVERSATION

Interview by Marc Sifuentes

The Armory Show marks an important moment in your development as an artist. What does participating in the fair mean to you?

What makes this experience especially meaningful is this year’s focus on the Caribbean and its diaspora, curated by María Elena Ortiz. My Caribbean background is deeply connected to my identity and to the inspiration behind my work. I explore history, migration, culture, memory, identity, and the ways Caribbean people have shaped and reimagined their lives across different places. To see these conversations taking place within such an important international art fair makes the experience feel very personal.

I also see this moment as an opportunity to show that Caribbean art is not confined to one visual language or history. My work moves between textiles, sculpture, painting, fashion, and research, reflecting the complexity and hybridity of the Caribbean experience.

For me, The Armory Show is not simply about reaching a larger audience. It is about entering a larger conversation and seeing how my own experiences, research, and imagination can contribute to the evolving story of Caribbean and diasporic art.

This is my first time participating in an art fair. When I first entered the art world, The Armory Show felt like something very far away, a goal I hoped I would one day reach.

In many ways, it reminds me of what it felt like to dream of showing a fashion collection during New York Fashion Week in Bryant Park, when the shows were held there. As a fashion designer, that was a dream I always hoped to accomplish but never had the opportunity to experience. Being here now, as an artist, feels like a full-circle moment in my creative journey. It feels as though one of those dreams I carried with me from my years in fashion has finally found its way into another chapter of my life through my art.

As my practice has developed, I have become more confident in my voice and in the importance of the stories I am trying to tell through my work. Being able to bring those stories to an international audience makes this experience particularly meaningful.

The three works you are presenting, Ana, Juana, and Sábila, are connected through ideas of healing, ancestral knowledge, memory, and the resilience of African and Afro-Caribbean women. Can you tell us about that connection?

The three works I am presenting at The Armory Show are connected through my exploration of healing, ancestral knowledge, memory, and the resilience of African and Afro-Caribbean women. Each work looks at the ways knowledge of plants, medicine, spirituality, and care has been passed from one generation to another, despite histories of displacement, colonialism, and the suppression of Indigenous and African-descended knowledge.

The paintings of Ana and Juana are inspired by the two sisters of Paula de Eguiluz. Ana was a free Black woman. Juana was enslaved by Antonio de Jaques. Both were born in Hispaniola, and both are connected to the same healing traditions Paula practiced. Rather than representing these women through the colonial narratives that attempted to define or criminalize them, I am interested in reclaiming their intelligence, strength, and relationship to the natural world. I place them within imagined environments filled with medicinal and botanical plants, creating spaces where they can exist with dignity, knowledge, and power.

I also use my imagination to create the work. I am sure that Paula de Eguiluz’s mother was also a healer, and that she taught her daughters her practice. On a research trip in Nigeria I sat with healers and asked them questions, and they had learned their practice from their families.

Sábila brings this historical research into a more personal and contemporary space. Aloe vera becomes a bridge between ancestral knowledge and my own lived experience. I have used aloe vera since childhood as part of my experience with asthma, so the plant carries a deeply personal meaning of healing and survival for me.

Together, these works create a conversation between past and present, ancestor and descendant, collective memory and personal experience. They ask us to consider whose knowledge is remembered, whose knowledge has been erased, and how healing traditions continue to survive through us.

Ana, 2026. Acrylic on canvas, 103.5 × 65.5 in. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

When you look at these works alongside your earlier paintings, what do you recognize as continuous in your practice, and what feels genuinely new?

When I look at these works alongside my earlier paintings and even my work as a designer, I recognize that the research process has remained very consistent. From the beginning, I have always been curious and interested in looking deeper into ideas, histories, people, and experiences that have had an impact on me, my country, my culture, and the world around me. I am constantly researching, imagining, and asking myself how I can translate those ideas into a visual language.

What has genuinely changed is my understanding of what the work can do for me personally. When I first began painting, one of the main reasons was to find a way to process the loss of my mother. Painting her image in some of my earliest works became a way of connecting with her, keeping her present, and trying to understand something I could not fully understand at the time, her passing.

Creating art as a form of healing is relatively new for me. I have always used art to investigate history and culture, but I am now recognizing that the process can also help me understand my own experiences. In that sense, the work has become both research and a personal form of healing.

Your transition from fashion into visual art happened relatively late compared with the conventional trajectory of an artist. Did you experience that transition as a reinvention, or did you eventually realize that you had been building the same practice all along?

For me, the transition from fashion into visual art was definitely a reinvention. When I left fashion, I did not immediately know that I was going to become an artist. I moved to Taipei, learned Mandarin, and pursued an MBA. My original plan was actually to return to fashion.

When I came back to New York, the pandemic happened shortly afterward, and everything changed. But even before the pandemic, I had already started thinking about creating art. I had never painted before, so there was no conventional path or training behind it. During the pandemic, I began teaching myself how to paint, experimenting and learning through the process.

Looking back, I don’t necessarily think I was secretly building the same practice all along. I really did have to reinvent myself. But I also began to recognize that the skills and experiences I had developed through fashion, my understanding of materials, construction, color, composition, textiles, the body, and creating environments, were already part of the way I thought.

So the transition was a reinvention, but it wasn’t a complete departure. I brought everything I had learned with me. Fashion gave me a foundation, Taipei expanded my worldview, and teaching myself to paint gave me the freedom to discover what could come next.

I think that is still how I work today: I allow each chapter of my life to become material for the next one.

What did fashion teach you about art that you still use every day in the studio?

Always experiment, never be afraid of colors, and don’t follow any rules.

Your practice moves between painting, sculpture, furniture, fashion, and textiles. Do you ultimately think of these as separate practices, or as different manifestations of the same artistic language?

I see them as one artistic practice expressed through different mediums. Painting, sculpture, furniture, and fashion are different tools I use to explore the same ideas, beginning with research, curiosity, and personal experiences.

I let the idea determine the medium it needs to become, whether a painting, sculpture, textile, piece of furniture, or something wearable. Each medium allows me to explore different aspects of my creativity, while moving between them keeps my practice evolving.

Ultimately, I see myself as one artist with one evolving language expressed through different materials and forms.

Textiles have always been part of your creative language through fashion, but they have taken on a different meaning in your recent work. What brought you back to them, and how do you think about them now, as painting, sculpture, garment, architecture, or something else?

Textiles have always been part of my creative language, especially through my years as a fashion designer, but I returned to them at this moment for a much more personal reason. I wanted to create something that could physically express the ideas of protection, love, and remembrance.

The loss of friends to HIV/AIDS brought me back to the intimacy of fabric and the idea of a covering, something that can hold, comfort, and protect. Using woven elastics, canvas, and textiles from Dakar, Senegal, I wanted the material itself to become part of the memorial.

For me, returning to textiles has also been a way of returning to something familiar but seeing it differently. Fashion taught me how to construct with fabric, but now I am using textiles to explore grief, memory, healing, and love. This work has allowed me to understand that materials can carry not only physical form, but also emotion and history.

I think of the textile as something that exists outside those categories. It can be painting, sculpture, architecture, or even a garment, depending on how I use it. The scale gives the material an architectural presence, while the patterns, colors, and textures connect it to painting, and the physicality of the construction brings it into the language of sculpture. What I am really interested in is the ability of fabric to transform space and create a physical experience for the viewer.

You have researched the historical relationship between textiles and the transatlantic slave trade. Can fabric function as a form of historical archive? What can it preserve that written records cannot?

For me, discovering this history completely changed the way I look at textiles. We often associate fabric with beauty, fashion, domestic life, comfort, and cultural identity, but textiles also carry histories of labor, exploitation, migration, trade, and power. Learning that Indian cotton textiles were deeply connected to the networks that supported the transatlantic slave trade made me think about how an object can carry many histories at the same time.

So yes, absolutely. I believe textiles can function as a form of historical archive because they can preserve stories in ways that traditional historical records often cannot. A document can tell us what happened, but a textile can tell us how something felt, how people lived, what they valued, what they wore, how they cared for one another, and how they carried their culture from one place to another.

Fabric can preserve personal and collective memories through patterns, colors, techniques, repairs, stains, embroidery, and the hands that made and used it. These details can reveal histories that may never have been written down, particularly the experiences of women, enslaved people, migrants, and communities whose voices were often excluded from official records.

This is one of the reasons textiles are so important to my practice. I am interested in what fabric can remember. When I work with textiles, I am not only thinking about their physical qualities; I am thinking about the people, journeys, and histories embedded in them.

For me, a textile can become an archive that is alive. It can be touched, transformed, carried, worn, inherited, and reinterpreted. It allows history to exist not only as information, but as something emotional, physical, and deeply human.

Your recent textile work is connected to friends you lost to HIV/AIDS and to the AIDS Memorial Quilt. How does physically constructing something to remember or protect another person change the meaning of the work for you?

Physically constructing something to remember or protect another person changes the meaning of the work for me because the act of making becomes an act of care. Every movement, every woven elastic, and every piece of textile becomes part of the process of remembering. I am not simply creating an image about loss; I am physically spending time with that memory.

The work was created in response to losing close friends to HIV/AIDS, particularly Miguel. The idea of creating a covering came naturally to me because a covering can represent protection, comfort, and love.

At the funeral, his mother pulled me aside. We were both looking at him in the casket. She told me he had been waiting for me at the hospital, that he wanted to see me. I could not make it on time. I will never forget that.

This textile piece was created for him, to cover him and protect him.

I think about the people I lost as people who deserve to be held and remembered, not defined only by how they died.

The connection to the AIDS Memorial Quilt is important because it transforms individual loss into collective remembrance. My work continues that idea, but through my own personal experience and material language.

In making the piece, grief becomes something I can physically work through. The textile becomes a memorial, but it also becomes a form of healing for me. I am creating something that symbolically continues to hold and protect the people I can no longer physically protect.

Charo, 2026. Elastics, textile, canvas and acrylic, 110 × 60 in. To be shown in the exhibition of GLAAD’s third Equity in Media and Entertainment Initiative cohort, advised by Mickalene Thomas. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

Your first solo exhibition was called Duvet, and it included a painting named for Dédée Bazile, who gathered Dessalines’ body out of the street and buried him when the soldiers who killed him had dared anyone to try. You have made tents for public space, wrapped a found chair in fabric, and now woven a covering for Miguel. Is covering something you think about deliberately, or is it a thread you only recognize looking back?

Yes. I am always researching powerful women, learning about them and placing them at the forefront of my practice, naming the pieces they inspired me to create so that their names will never be forgotten in history.

With my work I want to protect these women. I paint them in resting poses, in beautiful interiors, always relaxing and most of the time having a cigarette. I see these women as my mother. I see them like my mother: powerful, caregivers, revolutionaries.

And the textile for Miguel, yes. Under a sheet, a cover, a duvet, protecting the body.

Black women have been central to much of your earlier work and to your understanding of beauty, labor, aspiration, and history. How has your thinking about the Black feminine changed as your practice has expanded into textiles, sculpture, and more abstract forms?

My thinking about the Black feminine has changed as my practice has expanded. Earlier in my work, I was very focused on representation, placing Black women into spaces that were never intended for them, and allowing them to occupy spaces of beauty, luxury, power, and aspiration.

I wanted to create the images I rarely saw: Black women not as subjects defined by struggle, but as people who could simply exist, rest, dream, and take up space.

As I moved into textiles and sculpture, that idea of representation began to evolve into something more physical and intimate. I became interested not only in placing Black women within these spaces, but in creating things that could hold, cover, shelter, and protect them.

Textile became particularly meaningful because of its relationship to the body and to acts of care. A blanket, a covering, or a shelter can communicate protection in a way that an image alone cannot.

My work has therefore moved from asking, “How do I represent Black women?” to asking, “How can I create a space or object that cares for them?”

The materials allow me to explore beauty, labor, history, vulnerability, and protection simultaneously. I think of the work as creating a world in which Black women are not only seen, but held.

Nearly every painting you make carries a woman’s name. Glenda, Gloria, Nanny Queen, Marie Kingue, Rosa Elegni, Mama Eddy, Elena, and now Ana and Juana. Where do the names come from?

The names come from women I admire, sometimes friends and sometimes important Black Caribbean women. My last two works, Ana and Juana, were the names of Paula de Eguiluz’s sisters.

Sábila, 2026. Triptych, gouache, acrylic and watercolor on paper, 90 × 22 in. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

You have maintained long relationships with artists including Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, and Derrick Adams, dating back to your years in fashion, and you began painting after spending time at Black Rock, the residency Wiley founded in Dakar. What did those relationships, and that time in Senegal, teach you that formal art education could not?

I met Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, and Derrick Adams when I was in fashion school, at a time when I was still thinking of myself primarily through fashion. Kehinde was especially important in introducing me to the art world around 2004 and helping me understand that there was a place for me within it.

Those relationships have influenced me far beyond the creative side of my practice. They have also been important in my personal life and have taught me the value of community, mentorship, curiosity, and continuing to learn.

Through them, I learned that being a great artist is not simply about having talent or making objects. It is about being deeply engaged with the world around you.

They taught me the importance of research, of understanding history, asking questions, looking beyond what is immediately visible, and knowing where your ideas come from. They also showed me the importance of education as something that never really ends. You continue learning from artists, museums, books, conversations, travel, and from the people around you.

Most importantly, those relationships taught me that you do not have to build an artistic life alone. Community can challenge you, educate you, inspire you, and help you see possibilities in yourself that you might not have recognized yet. That has become an important part of how I approach my own practice today.

When I travel to Senegal I buy textiles. I am connecting the transatlantic textile trade with my own textile practice.

What are you investigating now that you could not have investigated five or ten years ago?

I have been researching plants for about fifteen years. I was investigating plants for medicinal purposes while I was in Taipei, and even before Taiwan. But what I am investigating now is something I could not have understood five or ten years ago: the use of plants as sources of medicinal knowledge, healing, and love-attraction practices, and the cultural histories carried through that knowledge.

Traveling to Cartagena, the Dominican Republic, Senegal, and Nigeria and speaking with healers about the ways plants are used was a magical investigation for me. I was not simply researching plants as botanical objects; I was learning about the knowledge, rituals, beliefs, and histories connected to them, and how that knowledge has been passed from one generation to another.

These conversations made me think differently about the relationship between nature, the body, spirituality, and cultural memory. They also made me more aware of how much knowledge exists outside of formal institutions and how easily that knowledge can be overlooked or lost.

This research is now entering my visual practice through painting and textiles. I am interested in plants as vessels for memory and as witnesses to migration, colonialism, healing, desire, and survival.

What began as research has become a way for me to reconnect with histories and forms of knowledge that feel both deeply personal and much larger than myself.

When someone encounters your work without knowing your biography, what do you hope they understand through the work itself?

Before someone knows anything about me or my biography, I hope they can feel my respect for beauty and for women through the work itself. I want the viewer to sense that the women I portray are being honored, celebrated, and given space to exist with strength, dignity, and beauty.

I also hope they recognize my love for detail, color, materials, and the environments I create. I want the work to invite people into a world that feels both familiar and imagined, a place where beauty can coexist with history, memory, and cultural identity.

Ultimately, I hope the work communicates a sense of admiration, care, and respect.

José Durán in his studio, the Bronx, New York, 2026. Photograph by Jonathan Carela.

 

GRUNGE SHANGHAI

 

Trenchcoat by C+plus Series, Shoes by MISBHV

Photographer/ Videographer: Yuti Chang @yutiphotography
Fashion Stylist: Avivi Wang @aviviwang
Make-up Artist: Jonathan Wu @jonathanbyjwmakeup
Hair Stylist: David Z.
Model: Mengwei Luo with Longteng Model Management
Photography Assistant: Jianjun
Styling Assistant: Danney Li


Top by Private Policy, Dress by C+plus Series, Skirt by Angus Chiang, Shoes by Dr. Martens

 

On the Left: Entire Outfit by C+plus Series, Shoes by Yeezy from Canal St.
On the Right: Entire Outfit by C+plus Series, Shoes by Converse

 

Entire Outfit by C+plus Series, Shoes by Dr. Martens

 

 

Entire Outfit by C+plus Series, Shoes by MISBHV

 

 

Entire Outfit is Stylist’s Own

Top by MISBHV, Body Chain by Justine Clenquet,  Skirt by C+plus Series, Bottom by C+plus Series, Shoes by Converse

 

 

Top by Angus Chiang, Bottom by C+plus Series, Shoes by Yeezy from Canal St.

 

 

Entire Outfit is Stylist’s Own

 

AINA

Earrings: Iris Trends @eyeofiris | Dress: One Trieu Yeu @onetrieuyeu

Photographer/Director: Benjo Arwas @ Seen Artists | Styling: Maison Privee | | Model: Aina Faro @ MP Model Management | Hair and Makeup: Nicole Chew @ Art Department | Cinematography: Josh Hammaren

Earrings: Iris Trends @eyeofiris | Dress: One Trieu Yeu @onetrieuyeu

Jewelry: Iris Trends @eyeofiris

Left side: Jewelry: Iris Trends @eyeofiris | Dress: One Trieu Yeu @onetrieuyeu

Right side: Dress: Masaki Matsuka @masakimatsuka

Dress: One Trieu Yeu @onetrieuyeu | Earrings and Necklace: Iris Trends

Dress: Masaki Matsuka @masakimatsuka

Dress: One Trieu Yeu @onetrieuyeu | Earrings and Necklace: Iris Trends

Dress: Masaki Matsuka @masakimatsuka

 

BOUND – MAJORLILKWEEN – EXCLUSIVE MUSIC VIDEO RELEASE

https://youtu.be/zOpROJyDECE

Director: Alexandra Elizabeth (@alexelizabethljadov) | Director of Photography: Samuel Levine (@sammy.august) | VHS: Silver (@silvernyc) | Producer: Julia Banas (@banasjulia) | Art Direction: Julia Banas & Alexandra Elizabeth | Editor: Alexandra Elizabeth & Andy Lincoln (@andyestonia) | Music: Majorlilkween (@majorlilkween) ft. Hadar Adora | Stylist: Liz Rundbaken (@iseelizrund) | Stylist Assistant: Drew Harris (@kingdrewharris) | Make Up: Ayaka Nihei using MAC Cosmetics, @ayaka_nihei | Hair: Takuya Yamaguchi (@tak8133)

Cast: Alexandra Elizabeth (@alexelizabethljadov), Alana Terumi (@meru_turao), Bridget Hearst (@bridgethearst), Danusia G (@beingsilver), Teresa J (@teresacarollynn)

Top, Hat, Skirt, and Shoes: Gucci | Gloves and Socks: Vex | Ring : Laruicci 

Photographer: Enmi Yang (@__enmi) | Stylist: Liz Rundbaken (@iseelizrund) | Stylist Assistant: Drew Harris (@kingdrewharris) | Make Up: Ayaka Nihei using MAC Cosmetics, @ayaka_nihei | Hair: Takuya Yamaguchi (@tak8133)

Models: Alexandra Elizabeth (@alexelizabethljadov), Alana Terumi (@meru_turao), Bridget Hearst (@bridgethearst), Danusia G (@beingsilver), Teresa J (@teresacarollynn)

Jacket and Skirt: MSGM | Top: Alon Livné |Boots: Daniel Silverstain | Top necklace (choker): Laruicci | Bottom Necklace: Stylist’s own

Jacket and Skirt: MSGM | Top: Alon Livné | Boots: Daniel Silverstain | Top necklace (choker): Laruicci | Bottom Necklace: Stylist’s own

Dress: MSGM | Belt: Arthur Arbesser | Gloves: Alon Livné | Top and Socks: Vex | Shoes: Gucci

Sunglasses: Bonnie Clyde | Earrings: Laruicci  |Top: Vex

Suit: Claudia Li | Earrings: Laruicci | Top: Vex | Shoes: HAVVA

Suit: MSGM | Leggings: Versus Versace | Necklace: Laruicci | Bodysuit: This Is a Love Song | Shoes: HAVVA

Bridget–Sunglasses: Westward Leaning | Turtleneck: Arthur Arbesser | Suit: Vintage YSL | Gloves: Alon Livné

Danusia–Hat and Top: Vex | Suit: Topshop | Earrings: Laruicci

Teresa – Jacket, Bralette, and Pants: Milly | Top: Alon Livné | Sunglasses: (no label) Slim Cat EyeRetro Women’s Sunglasses

Danusia – Hat and Bra: Vex | Suit: Topshop | Earrings: Laruicci

Terumi – Suit: Roberto Cavalli | Shirt: Vex | Earrings: Valen & Jette

Bridget – Suit: Topshop | Necklace: Laruicci | Top: Vex | Sunglasses: Bonnie Clyde “Layer Cake”

Terumi – Suit: MSGM | Necklace: Laruicci | Bodysuit: This Is a Love Song

Teresa – Jacket: MSGM | Top: Alon Livné | Skirt: MSGM | Top necklace (choker): Laruicci | Bottom Necklace: Stylist’s own

Teresa – Jacket, Bralette, and Pants: Milly | Top: Alon Livné | Sunglasses: (no label) Slim Cat EyeRetro Women’s Sunglasses

Danusia – Hat and Bra: Vex | Suit: Topshop | Earrings: Laruicci

Terumi – Suit: Roberto Cavalli | Shirt: Vex | Earrings: Valen & Jette

Bridget – Suit: Topshop | Necklace: Laruicci | Top: Vex | Sunglasses: Bonnie Clyde “Layer Cake”

HIROKO KOSHINO: A TOUCH OF BAUHAUS

Please join us on Thursday, November 1st from 6 to 8 PM at WhiteBox in NYC and meet Hiroko Koshino at the opening of her exhibit,  Hiroko Koshino: A Touch of BAUHAUS.

A Touch of BAUHAUS, curated by Kyoko Sato, is part of the WhiteBox Prime SAS (Seminal Artists Series), which honors artists of great repute. Past participants of the WhiteBox Prime SAS include Carolee Schneemann: More Wrong Things, Michael Snow: Snow Alert, Naoto Nagakawa: XXX-1960’s, Vienna Actionists Hermann Nitsch and Günther Brus, Hyman Bloom, Braco Dimitrijevic and Aldo Tambellini to name a few.

Post-World War II Japan found itself in the midst of rapid economic and cultural transformation – one in which growing industries such as technology and fashion shot to the forefront. It was amidst this landscape that a group of young people began rebelling by sporting a preppy, Ivy League look that broke stride with propriety-and time-honored traditions, and celebrated individualism. Known as the “Miyuki Tribe”, with Hiroko Koshino at the helm, talented young fashionistas began reinterpreting traditional Japanese artistic elements through a personalized and radical lens.

Visual artists began to be influenced by various new incoming art notions culled from Abstract Expressionism and Land Art, paralleled by the indigenous and subversive Gutai movement. This fresh shift in artistic perspectives made way for a wave of artistic leaders that included Hiroko Koshino. Building on her belief in the unity of all forms of art-a Bauhaus tenet- the classically trained Koshino used key elements to inform her paintings and sumi-ink masterworks as the basis for her stunning fashion designs, resulting in her recognition as one of the foremost couturiers in Japan.

HIROKO KOSHINO: A Touch of BAUHAUS will, for the first time in New York, reveal how Koshino’s visual artworks inform her high fashion designs. Curated by Kyoko Sato at WhiteBox, the exhibition will include Koshino’s most inventive runway pieces, side-by-side with her signature abstract paintings and sumi-ink works, including-in WhiteBox’s project space-a site-specific eighty-foot-long ink scroll that epitomizes her brilliant combination of art and design as Gesamtkunstwerk, the Bauhaus approach towards a total artwork.

After years of creating riveting artworks inspired by key painters ranging from Jackson Pollock to Gustav Klimt, as well as the Lyrical Abstraction and Tachism movements, Koshino began experimenting with the connection between art and fashion in the serene studio created for her by her colleague, genius architect Tadao Ando, in Ashiya. There she was able to deeply connect with her love for Mother Nature, free from the hustle and bustle demands of Tokyo, while infusing her paintings with a deeply Japanese attitude.

Koshino’s innovative design techniques, based on painting with sumi-ink directly onto the fabric, were the essence of many of her innovative fashion creations. In an essay on Koshino and her works, critic Anthony Haden-Guest writes, “Hiroko’s Sumi-Ink works are wholly beautiful, but not so much so as to overwhelm. They do not exclude, they embrace.”

Early in the history of Japanese art, Nihonga, tradition-based Japanese paintings, used to be exhibited in separate spaces from yōga, or artwork with Western influences. A push for change and a reconciliation of the two energies was beginning to happen. Thus Haden-Guest points out that while Hiroko’s work is “delicate, forceful and remarkably various … it embodies this accommodation, in her fashion, as in her art,” fusing the two styles.

In 1977, Hiroko joined the cutting-edge group “TD6” (Top Designers 6), presenting her fashion collection in Tokyo for the first time. Since, she has been showcasing twice a year. In 1978, she became the first Japanese designer to join Alta Moda in Rome, a sensational show earning her a thirty-page article in the Italian edition of Harper’s Bazaar.

In 1982 Hiroko Koshino created International Inc., leading the “Designer’s Character Brand” boom that turned fashion into a top industry in Japan. Subsequently, she debuted her brand and her signature prêt-à-porter collection at the Paris Fashion Week, to great acclaim.

Koshino considers herself an artist since childhood. She got started drawing characters from Manga and Anime, attending Kabuki plays regularly, influenced as well by the Bunraku national puppet theater of Japan. Six decades later, Koshino unabashedly continues her painting career, having created, by now, well over 1,900 paintings using a wide variety of techniques and inventive, unorthodox paint applications.

Her artwork continues as a wellspring of inspiration flowing right into her fashion design. “I can continue designing because I paint,” Koshino explains. Indeed, her paintings frequently function as brainstorm-drafts for what will later become one of the extraordinary design creations that she refers to as “the architecture of the body”, all along carrying as part of her signature, the elemental Japanese sense of sculptural ‘high volume’ in her couture.

Although her artwork and design are deeply intertwined, Koshino explains there is a definite separation between the two camps. “The process of production in fashion and art is very different,” she says. “When I make art, I can express my spirit directly. It is very personal. When I create fashion, I need to think about what people want, and I need to design what people will buy, so it unequivocally contains a business aspect.”

–Kyoko Sato 

Koshino’s works will be showcased at WhiteBox with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on November 1st. The exhibition runs through December 1st.

“I can continue designing because I paint,” Koshino says. “Both design and art are my creation, and I cannot divide them.” This thought reminds people of Bauhaus-style “total work of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk), which became the title of her New York debut exhibition at the WhiteBox [HIROKO KOSHINO: A TOUCH OF BAUHAUS (329 Broome Street); Curator Kyoko Sato (Nov. 1-Dec. 1, 2018)]

FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY LECTURE BY HIROKO KOSHINO

Thursday, November 1, 2018 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Fashion Institute of Technology
227 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001
Feldman C501

About WhiteBox:
WhiteBox, on its 20th anniversary remains a non-profit art space aiming for total invention catalyzing the tenor of the times. It serves as a platform for contemporary artists to develop and showcase new sitespecific work, and is a laboratory for unique commissions, exhibitions, special events, roundtables, and arts education programs, providing an opportunity to experience an artist’s practice in a meaningful way, socially inspired free from market constraints. WhiteBox artistic vision provides hard to pigeon-hole artists with sustained exposure, creating an ideal environment for more in-depth interaction between sophisticated as well as community-bound New York audiences and artists’ practices. It achieves this by inviting local and international emerging and established artists to respond to its exhibition space with leading-edge interventions, performances, and developing long-term inspired programming that allows them to develop projects and engage with audiences. The artists who exhibited at WhiteBox tend to defy easy categorization.

Special thanks to The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Nao Takekoshi.

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE: THE SONGS AND STORIES OF HEDWIG – INTERVIEW WITH COSTUME DESIGNER ERIK BERGRIN

Photographs of Hedwig by Mick Rock | Talent: John Cameron Mitchell | Interview by Benjamin Price | Costume Design by Erik Bergin @ The Industry MGMT | Video by Brian Lynch and Pier 59 Studios | Production by Liz Vap/FeralCat Productions | Wig and Makeup by Mike Potter using MAC Cosmetics @ Ray Brown | Costume Assistant Lauren Hoffman | Makeup Assistant Andrew D’Angelo 

John Cameron Mitchell rose in the world of cult-entertainment after directing, writing, and starring in the award-winning film Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). His Broadway production of Hedwig garnered him a 2014 Tony Award for Best Revival of Musical and a Special Tony Award for his return to the role in 2015. His seriously impressive depth of work includes the improv-based film Shortbus (2006), and 2010’s Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman which scored an Academy Award nomination for her role. He executive produced Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2004) and has played recurring roles in HBO’s Girls, Martin Scorsese’s HBO series Vinyl, The Good Fight and current season of Mozart in the Jungle. Mitchell has also been busy behind the camera directing and co-writing the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s punk-era How to Talk to Girls at Parties starring Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman.

“At last! My journey to Oz, long-deferred by silly obstacles like unemployment and air fare, is a reality! I shall strap on a Cubist corsette and chromium wig, regale you with haphazard stories from 55 years of fake rock stardom and wail your favorite Hedwig songs like some kind of wonder woman within. Please prepare for my eminent arrival”, Mitchell said.

Producer David M Hawkins said, “John Cameron Mitchell is one of the great artists of our generation – a multi-award winning writer, actor and director. I first saw him on Broadway as Dickon in ‘The Secret Garden’ in the early 90’s and next in his Tony winning rock star turn in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’. Since producing Hedwig in Australia in 2006 I have become good friends with John, our connection means the world to me. We have talked since 2008 about a concert tour to Australia and at last the stars have aligned. We intend to bring a decent hit of the Greenwich Village vibe to Oz. I am so very excited to share  this incredible artist with my country. You are in the best hands for one hell of a ride meeting the original Hedwig, and the man behind her!”

We had the chance to interview the artist behind the transformational costumes, Erik Bergrin, and discuss Hedwig, lucid dreaming, and finding inspiration as a bored teen at Blockbuster.

Photo by Eva Mueller at the artist’s studio

What was your inspiration behind the costumes for the tour?

John came to me and said he was thinking about a costume that had this cubist, geometric, Trompe-l’œil, black and white thing happening that wasn’t Hedwig but Meta-Hedwig. As in, it has some reference to Hedwig in the costume and there should be panels that are removed during the show to become more boy in the end. He mentioned there was not going to be a built set, but that the costume should act somehow like a set–which was the sentence that made me convulse with excitement. I love doing huge wearable things, which I think is one of the reasons he came to me.

Initially I made tons of drawings of huge pieces on wheels that would drag behind him. All of these outfits packed with tricks such as a gigantic overcoat that would slowly come apart and piece by piece be thrown onto a giant magnet board behind him to reveal a story on the inside. Or this huge mirrored contraption that would come out backstage and be placed around John, and he would spin in a circle and the drawings on the costume would come to life in an animation reflected through the mirrors of the contraption. But I had to edit it down after every meeting and not let my imagination get carried away. I knew he was going to the Sydney Opera House, so I thought it would be fun to play with multiple overlapping triangle shapes. Basically my inspiration was working in these parameters, but still making it my own.

How did you get involved with the project?

I met John years ago as an extra on one of his films, “Shortbus.” We stayed in touch and I guess he thought of me after seeing the pictures from my latest art exhibition, Shadowwork. It is a series of 9 large figurative fiber sculptures, each about 7 feet tall. I have a background in costuming and I work as a costume tailor for Broadway shows, so I think it was the combination of my large costume work and the fact that I know how to create for the stage. I was working on the costumes at the same time as preparing for Shaddowwork. At a meeting with John, I met Mike Potter who did the wigs, hair, and makeup for Hedwig since the very beginning and we became very close. He was helping me with both shows and I was helping him with sewing the wigs. We worked closely, bouncing ideas off each other, so the wig and costume were from the same world. It made the whole process such a blast!

How did the idea of the gender binary and Hedwig’s transformation from female fantasy to undressed man come about?

I always felt that the film is more about finding yourself and less about gender or another person that can define you.

And speaking of Mike Potter who has been with the show since the beginning, the film and original show, I will quote him as a more qualified source…, “It’s like she gradually sheds her armor. Her costume and hair are almost a defense mechanism. But she comes to realize she doesn’t need any of the things that she think she needs. i.e. all her artifice, in order to be whole. She’s only whole when she’s stripped bare. It’s like being reborn.”

How does the idea of Hedwig’s iconic character come into the costume construction?

Hedwig was always famous for her brilliant handmade-style clothes and is now busting out on an international stage. Enjoying the spoils of her riches, she is debuting a next-level, more mature, steel-hued Meta-Hedwig look. Shining like the brightest star. The tour is called The Origin of Love, and when the show opens John comes out singing the titular song. The sleeves open up to reveal the faces from the origin of love animation, and when closed the front of the sleeves form Hedwig’s tattoo. Mike Potter’s wig and makeup are classic Hedwig, but aged to show her impending mortality, as he says in the show.

When you began your artistic career making costumes for the clubs in NYC while in school, did you ever think it would become a career in fine art/ performance?

I don’t think so? But I’m not sure because I never really had any goals. Which I know is unusual to say, but I never really did anything with a goal in the end. I started sewing when I started making costumes. Eventually, I put a book together of the things I made and got hired at a costume shop my friend was working in. Then I hopped to other shops and spent a long time working with really brilliant tailors. Every day I used to leave feeling terrible because I was working with super talented and experienced people and I wasn’t able to do anything properly. That kind of experience really humbles you when trying to learn. It taught me to put severe focus into everything, because I never wanted to have that feeling of a broken spirit when I left the shop. I soon realized that the fear of not wanting to feel like that caused a snowball effect that grew until it was impossible to do anything right. As soon as the tiny seed of fear was planted, I kept at it and at some point something shifted, and I can’t at all tell you when, but things seem to work like that with me.

Some of Erik’s early sketches of Hedwig’s transforming costume

Can you elaborate on how your background/education in psychology influenced your work on Hedwig?

I would say everything in my life up until I made this costume are causes and conditions for the way I designed it. All of the experiences in my past have subtle effects on how I design, so its difficult to distinguish how each particular experience directly influences me. I can, however, tell you that my psychology education brought me to my study of eastern philosophy and meditation, and lucid dreaming. One instance where lucid dreaming directly influenced the costume happened a couple of weeks into the project..

I was hitting a block when I was sketching. When I get stuck sometimes I’ll turn to my dream practice for advice. I do several exercises during the day that help me become aware of the fact I am dreaming when I am asleep. When you’re in a dream you’re in a subtle part of your subconscious, so there are all of these practices you can do to explore the darkness or shadows you have lurking in there. I was in the middle of a dream that had my best friend in it, who I have a deep and long history with, and I became lucid and turned to him to ask for help.

I turned to my friend and said, ”What should I do with my project?,” In a quick and desperate manner, because I wanted the answer before I woke up. Every time I leaned in close to ask him this question, his face morphed into wolf features. He wasn’t answering so I asked again, “WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY PROJECT?” The wolf morph happened again, and again he didn’t answer, so I asked a third time and this time we fell together off of a balcony to the ground floor. We were looking at each other and he said to me,”This is all I ever wanted. For you to be nice to me…” I completely froze and remained still for a minute, just staring, and it generated this incredibly raw feeling of tenderness. I immediately had my heart broken open. I woke up after a minute or so and even when recalling this now I get choked-up. It left me in a sensitive and vulnerable state. I woke up a minute later and the strong feeling was still there. I knew what I had to do was stop working from a mass of thoughts and references and just hold this feeling to guide my mind to make the decisions. I made some drawings from this place of vulnerability and it all came together that day. I trust any design that comes from that place. I had so many moments like that when I was making, “Shaddowwork.” These experiences have taught me my creativity is best accessed from a place of vulnerability and tenderness.

What was it like working with John Cameron Mitchell?

Magical. He’s the perfect mixture of professionalism and fun. He is super sharp, always coming up with new puns. Working with someone who can bring a costume to life so magically is so valuable. I had my idea of what the costume would look like on him, and then he would try it on and animate it in a whole new way. You just have to surrender to the magic because it’s so much greater than anything you could have come up with in your head. It forces you to detach yourself from your original ideas. Something like that can only come from someone who has the magic.

When did you first watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch (the movie or the Broadway adaptation) and what did you feel from that experience?

I think I was 18 on a really boring vacation in Florida with family, and I rented it from Blockbuster video. VHS. My sister fell asleep and I watched it alone, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it the next day. I don’t think I fully understood all of it, but was so mesmerized by the way it looked and sounded, that I watched it a couple of times in the 2 days. The songs stayed with me. I got the soundtrack and the more I listened to the soundtrack the more I wanted to watch the film, and the more I watched the film the more I wanted to listen to it.

What was it like working with the legendary rock ‘n’ roll photographer Mick Rock?

It feels like you’re working with a legend. Reading about his background and everyone he’s been on tour with and the iconic shots he has photographed, it’s all in him as soon as he walks in the room. He had amazing stories; I could listen to them all day.

What was the inspiration behind the photoshoot and video?

The goal was to really capture this next interpretation of Hedwig in an amazing way. This is a whole new direction for the character, which was truly born for The stage. Mick Rock, who already shot one of the penultimate Hedwig photos as well as so many other iconic rock photographs, was the perfect photographer to capture it.

As an artist and costume designer, what is your goal with each piece? What do you want the viewer to take away from your work’s message?

I definitely made Shadowwork as a way to get something out of me. I know there are ways to merge the dream state and the conscious state. I’ve read a lot of about it and have experienced glimpses where the lines were almost blurred. It’s like lucid dreaming. When you become lucid in the dream state you can call out to different shadows in your subconscious. Shadowwork was one of my ways of doing this in the waking state. Building this series of my own mental hell in order to get it out and confront it. So one of the larger goals is to merge the dream state and the waking state.

For this costume, I think I just wanted to live up to the legacy of Hedwig and make the fans excited and proud.

What can we expect next from you? Are you going to collaborate further with John Cameron Mitchell on any other projects? Or Mick Rock?

I am currently doing a book called WORDS AND PICTURES  about my Shaddowwork series consisting of stories, drawings, and photos… and about John and Mick: I HOPE SO!!!!!!!!

WEB EXCLUSIVE – DESAMPA: NIGHTSKIN

Undercover Double Breasted Raincoat, DESAMPA’S Mask

Photography: Hans Eric Olson | Stylist: Michael Louis Umesiobi  | Talent: DESAMPA
Interview: Sarah Conboy | Creative Direction/Production/Grooming using EVO Hair Products and Lab Series for Men by: Mike Fernandez

DESAMPA isn’t an artist that’s afraid to get controversial. In fact, his work seems to beg for controversy. In our conversation with the Brazilian-native, the number of taboo subjects we touch on is numerous. But it’s not just with us: these subjects come through in all his work as a musician, whether lyrically or in his various music videos and art projects. From sexuality to immigration to the constraints of the music industry, nothing is off-limits. Rather than shy away from it, DESAMPA talks about these things with a refreshing honesty and passion, finding inspiration in these taboo realms.

Self-described as an artist for a “dystopian future filled with hope,” DESAMPA tackles the issues most personal to himself, and in the end, produces a product that everyone can somehow relate to. It’s his emotional depth and harrowing voice that draws the listener in, and his smart aesthetic that keeps them guessing and interested. DESAMPA is an enigmatic figure, always disguised by elaborate masks; an intriguing, partially-hidden identity. But despite this, DESAMPA wears his heart on his sleeve—speaking to the love and loss, trials and tribulations that all humans experience.

Here DESAMPA talks to Iris Covet Book about being an immigrant in Trump’s America, gathering inspiration from fetish play, and why he wants to be this generation’s Björk.

KYE “Rave Me” sleeveless tea, LUAR Origami belt, Reebok by Pyer Moss Vector Track Pants, Adidas shin guards, Nike Air VaporMax Flyknit 2, Mask by DESAMPA

 Grapa Wrap Vest – Sigilo, Mask by DESAMPA

To start, can you share your background?

I’m Brazilian. Born in São Paulo, 1991. I moved to New York two and a half years ago. I decided to move here right after a residency program. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Red Bull Music Academy. It’s this amazing residency program that they do every two years in a different city, and they bring out 60 musicians from around the world. It’s really competitive, and I was selected in 2015 to go to Paris. So that really changed everything for me, musically. I got more contacts and networking and I was like, “It’s finally time to move to New York.” Because it’s been my dream since I was a teenager, due to my influences in architecture and artists, musicians, films. After Paris in 2016, I was like, “Okay, I’m leaving São Paulo. There’s no scene here for me.” I was trying to create one, and it didn’t pick up. So I just moved [to New York].

How did you get into music? Is it something you always have wanted to do from an early age? Did you take music lessons, et cetera?

Yeah, I started taking piano lessons when I was seven. I was also classically trained at one point. I had the option to pursue classical music, but I was too confined. I thought, “I don’t see myself in this. Maybe I don’t want to be perfect; I just want to be honest,” and that’s when I left classical music to the side. Not that you can’t be honest with classical music, but it’s just that what I was doing, my compositions…they weren’t looked at as good, from the classical perspective. I’m like, “Well, they’re good for me and they’re honest, so I’m just gonna do my own thing.” That’s when I started using the computer to produce music, instead of the piano. I started making beats and electronic music. So I jumped towards that part, and also tried to incorporate the classical music aspect into my compositions. But yeah, it was always music. I don’t know how to do anything else; I suck at everything else. So it’s just music. I don’t even know if I’m good at it—it’s just the only thing that I know how to do.

Your music seems to defy categorization—how would you describe it yourself?

I just usually say it’s “futuristic soul” music. Because when I say I’m an electronic musician, people go listen to my music and they’re like, “Yeah, this is not electronic music.” I’m like, “Okay, so…soul?” and then they’re like, “Yeah, this is not soul.” So I’m like, “Okay. Futuristic soul.” Meet in-between. I tend to use soul music on top of the electronic beats, so I would say “futuristic soul.” It sounds cheesy…

Where do you draw inspiration from?

I usually tend to just look to the future, you know? Try to create the sound of what people are going to be listening to in the future. Like what Björk was doing 10 years ago—people are doing it now. I kind of drink from her fountain. I want to do something that people will be doing 10 years from now. So Björk is a really big influence for me, artistically. Sonically also, but artistically. [She has] a consistent career, and that’s what I want to have. It’s not based on hype, it’s just based on consistently good work and good music. That’s what I’m about.

Undercover Double Breasted Raincoat, DESAMPA’S Mask

Reebok x Pyer Moss Printed Turtleneck, Craig Green X Bjorn Borg Padded Trousers, Face Harness by Stian Louw

What about Brazilian heritage—how has it influenced your work? Specifically, how did growing up in São Paulo influence your work?

We have a lot of national holidays, [and] they have specific music for them. Like we have specific music for Carnival. They’re kind of like jingles, you would say, but they’re not promoting any product. They seem like a jingle; a small track. It’s like Samba and Bossa Nova. So yeah, I grew up every year being inserted in this scenario, of Brazilian holidays and Brazilian holiday music. That led me to Bossa Nova. Dug deeper, and found the voice of Elis Regina. She was like the biggest singer in Brazil in the ’60s. I got obsessed with her voice. I’m like, “How come we don’t talk about her? How is she not being talked about everyday?” Because what she did was so…nobody was doing that back then, in Brazil. She really inspired me. I said, “I want to do something that nobody’s doing here in São Paulo.” I grew up Brazilian, and  [I’m influenced by Brazil], not even [just] with music, but art and food and architecture as well…we wear our emotions on our skin, so I tend to do that with my music. It’s very raw. I don’t know if you’ve been to or read anything about São Paulo, but it’s such a raw city. It’s violent and beautiful and concrete and ugly. It’s everything at the same time. Graffiti tags everywhere. I’m tending to bring more of that aggression from São Paulo into my own music. I think that’s really important. Because in New York, compared to Brazil, everything’s safe and well-kept. It’s polished; [the United States] is a polished country. Brazil is definitely not a polished country. It’s how it comes…dirty and clean…contradictions all around. That really inspires me, and the architecture there inspires me. We have this…he’s the national treasure: his name is Oscar Niemeyer. He’s brilliant. He did some buildings that are oval and very round, curvy buildings. He really inspires my music as well.

So, you describe yourself as a multimedia artist—what does this mean to you?

I use that term just so I’m not stuck inside one box, you know? When I try in the future to do something [like] I don’t know, maybe fashion, I want people to take me seriously. Or anything else. Architecture. If I want to design a building, I have to study for that. But eventually, if I’m interested in that, and I accomplish that, I don’t want people to be like, “Ugh. That singer designed this building.” But at the same time, right now, I’m experimenting with different materials to create masks and molds of my face. I’m really obsessed with face masks and heads and torsos. So I’m experimenting with that…and currently I’m doing some faces with ice; I’m studying ice and how it sticks to the face. I did a mold, and I’m trying to create a lot of replicas of my face and eyes. Also, I do a lot of videos. I have so many videos that I shot in Brazil this past year, that haven’t been released yet. I direct. I’m not doing all these things by myself, by any means. I have always had friends and other creative people helping me out with all this stuff. So I have plenty of videos that I directed and came up with the storyboard and the mood and everything. Also some videos don’t even have music. I’m itching myself to put music, because that’s what I know how to do. But at the same time, I’m like, “No, maybe this should be a silent film” or something. So I’m exercising that. I don’t need to put my music out everywhere; it can be silent as well sometimes.

You explore themes of sexuality and politics in your work, to name a few. Do you think it’s important as an artist to spread a larger or public message, or are these just personal to you?

Both. They’re really personal to me. In any of my tracks, I’m not talking about things that I haven’t experienced, or that I’m not close to. Everything that I’m talking about like immigration and sexuality and being dumped and loving unconditionally, all of that is close to me. I’m facing that right now. Immigration—what is [it like] being a Latino guy from Brazil in New York, in this country ruled by Trump? It’s something [in which] I have no option. I live it 24/7. Because in Brazil I’m “white,” and then I leave there and come here, and I’m “Latino.” But at the same time, in some Latino communities, Brazilians are not considered Latinos. Where do I belong even? If Brazilians are not considered Latinos, but they are considered Latinos to white people, and in Brazil I’m white…I fluctuate between things. So I’m trying to find the light in all that, in the difficulties. The track  I am referring to has not been released yet, it’s going to be on my EP that I’m hopefully releasing by the end of this year. It’s just taking so long because of labels and life…

Speaking of labels—you’ve self-released music. What is your reasoning behind this? Do you think the music industry is restrictive in your artistic process in any way?

It is pretty restrictive. From what I’ve learned, labels are not signing albums anymore unless you’re a bigger artist. They don’t want to risk it. It’s a risk for them to sign a full album––nine tracks. It’s a lot of tracks to be mastered; it’s more promotion and more singles and videos and all that. There’s no money in the music industry anymore, so they’re signing smaller EPs, and if that works out, then maybe a second EP and if that works out, maybe an album. So nothing’s certain anymore in the industry. That passes onto the musicians, because they’re like, “Shit. Should I maybe just format my music for how people are consuming music nowadays?” Because people just listen to singles and [watch] music videos. People just want to see visuals with music, and singles. So that affects me, because my biggest dream is to tell a story in an album, in a 10-track album. A lot of people are like, “Don’t do that. Because you’re gonna end up self-releasing it again, and nobody’s gonna hear it.” So I have to work around the walls of the music industry, that’s for sure. It’s kind of limiting, at some points. Even if I’m an independent musician. But I also want to have a career in music, so I need to think of those things when I’m finalizing my project. Whether it’s an EP, an album, a single—I gotta have in mind the way people are consuming music nowadays.

LUAR Brooklyn Jacket, Willy Chavarria track pant, Mask Slick It Up

KYE “Rave Me” sleeveless tea, LUAR Origami belt, Reebok by Pyer Moss Vector Track Pants, Adidas shin guards, Nike Air VaporMax Flyknit 2, Mask by DESAMPA

You are working on a new album, correct? You posted on Facebook about losing most of your work for it. Can you tell me the story about losing your external hard drive?

I had 50% of my album done, or something…70%…I forget the percentage. But I had a large amount of my album. I started four years ago, and I had a lot of music that I was gonna put in it. Then I went to Brazil, and I just lost it. It was taken from me. I don’t know what happened. I put “Lost” signs on the streets and tried to find it at all costs and I learned my lesson. Because now I save all my projects in like seven different places, you know? I’m not losing this shit again. It broke my heart; it broke my trust in myself. Four years of work that I had done, and I’ll never find those tracks again. I don’t even know where to begin to make them again. I just don’t know. So I gave up on trying to find them, and I’m focusing on creating new material. That really forced me to make more stuff, and it’s more current. Because when I started writing it, I wasn’t an immigrant yet. So I had a different take. Now I have more to talk about, more life experience. More ugly, sad shit happened to me, and I have this anger to write about. So it helped in a sense. That EP came for me…I was like, “I don’t know if I’m gonna do an album again, so I’m just gonna start writing music and then I’ll figure it out.” I finish all my songs at Red Bull Studios in Chelsea, New York. They’re really great. I have an engineer there, and I have some people that are really interested in me and want to help. So they’re organizing, and giving me a bunch of dates on the schedule for me to finish this project. They were like, “I really think you should do an EP, because all these tracks that you have are really strong. They could be pushed into a successful EP.” So that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m finishing that. I’m not losing that for anything. Like I said, I saved it in seven different places. I plan on releasing it by the end of this year, with two videos as well. Both were shot in São Paulo.

Your new logo is being released in conjunction with your upcoming single “Still Here.” Can you explain the inspiration behind it?

Are you familiar with the website CAM4? It’s a website that people go to strip their clothes, but they get paid for it; they get tips. People are like, “I’ll pay you $25 and you take your clothes off ” You know? People testing out sex toys or fucking. It’s voyeuristic. It fascinates me, but it also scares me to think that relationships are turning virtual. It’s satisfying for them, just to watch another person around the world being naked or jerking off or fucking. That’s enough; they don’t want to meet people in person. It’s a combination of scary and fascinating. So my music video for “Still Here” is a play on that. It’s me in different rooms, with different fetish masks and fetish outfits. It doesn’t go directly with what I’m talking about in the song. It’s more of visual thing that I created and then decided to put the music, and bring the two of them together. In the song, “Still Here,” I’m talking about this Tinder date—the only one that I had. It was kind of successful, but then the person just vanished. In this short amount of time you give a lot of your secrets to this stranger, and the stranger just vanishes with all of your secrets. They’re expecting you to be hurt or something. I’m just saying that, “I’m still here.” Even though everything was taken from me, the fucked up things that happened, I’m still existing and still here. Also, at one point, it turns into me criticizing myself. Like, “How do I allow myself to continuously be in these shitty positions?”

You talked a little about this earlier—you often employ masks in your work. What’s the meaning behind them, and why are they so important to you?

So I never really liked showing my face, anywhere. This whole Kardashian era, [where] you have to put your face on everything all the time, doing everything possible—showering, brushing your teeth, eating, going down a slide, riding a bike—it’s too much. I’m not like that. My life is very private; I don’t share. So that mask is something that I can utilize to be creative, and create a new face for myself. That’s something I’m really interested in. At the same time, I can protect my identity. I was a kid that was obsessed with superheroes, so you can kind of see how that led into protecting my identity. That’s mainly it: I’m gonna hide my face everywhere. But also, my sci-fi obsession with different materials. Like plastic and silicone and fake robotic lenses. You know Alien, the movies? I really love that type of stuff. It’s something I can play with, “Oh, I’m gonna create this mask now. Oh, I’m gonna use this to illustrate my changed mood.” I can play with it, and it’s art that I’m producing. It’s art itself—my second face, second skin.

LUAR Brooklyn Jacket, Mask Slick It Up

Reebok x Pyer Moss Printed Turtleneck, Craig Green X Bjorn Borg Padded Trousers, Face Harness by Stian Louw

Do you create all of them yourself?

For the most part. Back in the day, when I started, no. I had someone doing them for me. I designed them, but someone else actually made them. I didn’t even touch them before they were made. But nowadays, I’m doing it myself with my boyfriend. We do it together. We find the material; we trick them out; we paint over it and put the straps. Right now, my inspirations are really the fetish masks. I’m not a fetish-y person; I don’t have a lot of fetishes. But the imagery of BDSM, the aesthetic of it, is really interesting to me. They’re made from really beautiful materials and employ symmetry. Deprive you of air, deprive you of vision. It’s really interesting. I’m leaning towards that,studying and experimenting with those materials… plastic and leather and metal, but I always have people helping me out. I really don’t like doing art by myself. I think it’s a time to bring people together—different backgrounds, different visions. Because otherwise it’s just 2-D. I want 3-D, 4-D. I want more dimensions than just my own.

As an artist, what has been one of your career highlights so far?

I think definitely the highlight was the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) in 2015, in Paris. Because a lot of musicians that do what I do—electronic and the more contemporary musicians—it’s their dream to go to this thing. It helps you out a lot, and you get to meet people. I got to meet Laurie Anderson. Sheila E., Prince’s drummer. The amount of people that they put you in contact with in the lectures and the studio space and the other musicians that they select; it’s such a good exchange, and they don’t ask for anything back. I got to play an amazing show in Paris and expand my fanbase and spread my music through Europe. That’s definitely a highlight. Then after that, I played SXSW the following year. But the highlight was definitely RBMA.

Are there any other artists that you are loving right now? Ones who inspire your work, or you admire?

There’s so many. Let’s see. The first that comes to mind: I’m really obsessed with Smerz. They’re from Oslo, and it’s this really cool, experimental House. It’s like ABRA, but more experimental, and very European. I really like serpentwithfeet. I think he’s insanely talented. I’ve never seen anyone that can sing like him. Kind of nerve-wracking to hear someone that good. Oneohtrix Point Never definitely. He’s an amazing producer. He also works closely with Red Bull, which hits close to heart. His music is really, really boundary-breaking. He’s worked with ANOHNI; he’s worked with FKA Twigs, and a bunch of female artists that I’m really into right now. ANOHNI is a really amazing artist that I get inspired by. Björk, Kelela…I don’t know. Every time people ask me that question I don’t know what to do. They shift.

What can we expect from you in the future? You’re going to be releasing music at the end of the year, but what else? What is your ultimate goal as an artist?

In the future, you can expect my EP. In the nearest future. I’m just gonna talk about the nearest future, because if I go on with my future, I’m just gonna be here all day because I have so many plans. But nearest future, an EP and music videos. A bunch of visuals—shoots, and hopefully an installation that I’m working on, with face casting and molds. What else? More collaborations. This next EP that I’m releasing, I’m not gonna have collaborations with different musicians, in the sense of “Oh, I’m getting a singer to sing with me on this.” I’m having collaborations in production, but not on the forefront. So I want to do more of that, and keep producing more and more. I really want to write a soundtrack for something, either a dance piece or a movie. I really like soundtracking things. I always have a soundtrack for things in my head, and I really want to get this out, and put it into a movie or dance piece or something.

Undercover Double Breasted Raincoat, DESAMPA’S Mask

Listen here:

Support Your Local Immigrants – DESAMPA

Ventre– DESAMPA

Red Bull Radio Alumni Mix– DESAMPA

 

 Photo Retoucher: Amanda Sperry  

STUDIO VISITS: ANA KHOURI

Sweater by Celine, All Jewelry by Ana Khouri

Photography by Dustin Mansyur | Hair and Makeup by Agata Helena | Interview by Benjamin Price

Ana Khouri spent her formative years between her native Brazil and the United States. First studying sculpture in Sao Paulo, Khouri later moved to New York attaining degrees from Parsons School of Design and the Gemological Institute of America. Upon completing her education in New York, Khouri traveled to London to attend Central Saint Martins, before ultimately returning to New York to set up her studio practice. For Khouri, designing jewelry is about the myriad of ways that a piece can take shape on its wearer, and the balance the work creates with the body. Ana’s designs accentuate the natural elegance and organic lines of the exquisite materials that she utilizes, and her work’s timeless quality transcends simple jewelry design into an ethereal world. Inspired by the magic of the earth and the cosmos, Khouri’s work evokes the vast majesty of nature as a whole.

What was your motivation to pursue a career in jewelry design?

While still in art school, I had a show where I presented sculptures hanging from bodies. After the show, I received an order for ten pieces to be adapted and worn as jewelry. From that moment, it triggered a significant interest in jewelry making and led me to begin studying jewelry right after I graduated in 2004.

How did your formative years in Brazil affect your life and your design ethos? Did your parents – one an engineer, and one a pianist and teacher – influence your work and your creative career path?

Yes, absolutely. I grew up between beauty and art shaping my sensibility but always having functionality in mind. Later on, after graduation, I created sculptures for many years, which is how my jewelry business first began—it was all about creating the personal connection between sculpture and body lines.

Who is the “Ana Khouri” woman and how has she evolved over time? Is there a particular person whom you feel embodies your brand identity?

The Ana Khouri woman has an interest in or comes from the art world and values self expression through accessories. My clients usually have a uniqueness about them, something that is inherently their own. They are artistic, intelligent, inspirational and strong women who connect to my world, ideas, and work.

How do you begin your creative process when designing each new collection?

My idea of jewelry goes beyond the intended purpose of ornamentation, entering more into the realms of art and sculpture. The designs are about the myriad of ways that a piece can take shape by wearing it, and the balance the work creates with the wearer’s body. I value simplicity above all else. Simplicity in composition and in motivation, as it is really the ultimate luxury. I focus on one-of- a-kind designs and limited edition pieces. My overall approach is born from the belief that jewelry has the ability to help create a deep connection with the wearer.

The history of jewelry goes back millenia and has been associated with love, war, class, magic and everything in between—how does your brand take this history into account in the process of design?

Our brand takes history into account through art in different forms. For instance, a lot of my inspiration in terms of art and sculpture come from artists like Louise Bourgeois, Calder, and Sera who have inspired me to look at shapes in relation to space and movement. But most of all, I think that jewelry should always be associated with one’s personal history. I don’t simply want these pieces to adorn, or to stand alone as beautiful objects; I want my designs to evoke their connection to space, its vastness, its majesty, yet also relate to one’s personal history.

Is technology presently shaping jewelry design (production, form or function) and how do you foresee its role affecting jewelry design in the future?

For me, the process has consistently stayed the same. The way I start every piece is still the same for both sculpture and jewelry. I start by molding them by hand; it is a very intuitive and intimate process for me. I work on making the overall piece and then find a way to add functionality. The process of design is as important as the result. I normally spend up to six months on each design.

What can you tell us of your upcoming projects and collections? What direction is your brand going into for 2018?

I focus 50% of my time on unique pieces for personal clients, which is what I love doing most. The rest of my time goes to designing the edition pieces that you can find on the “specialty/multi brand“ stores we choose to work with like Dover Street Market, Barneys, and Net-a-Porter to name a few. We have two special collaborations lined up for 2018 that I am very excited about. I feel very challenged in my work and that excites me more than anything.

 

For more information visit anakhouri.com

RAUL DE NIEVES

Among a menagerie of rainbow-hued, glittering, plastic beaded life-sized figures, standing like a proud father overlooking his artistic creations, the charmingly unique Raúl de Nieves shares his artistic rituals with us in his cathedral of creations.

Photography by Tiffany Nicholson | Interview by Mariana Valdes Debes

Blending the lines between the human and the artificial, Raúl de Nieves’ instantly recognizable shoes, masks, and humanoid figures are at once fantastical, desirous art pieces, yet remain relatable and human. Located in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY, de Nieves has created a studio filled with beads, fringe, ephemera, and anthropomorphized beings who appear to dance and interact with each other.and it is within that studio where we met the artist and sat down to discuss his art and unique perspective.

Born in Michoacan, Mexico, immigrating to the United States at the age of nine to California, and following the winding path to New York City, Raúl has made a name for himself and cut a swatch of color through the country. In our current state of political turmoil, climate change, and war, it is a breath of fresh air to see the talent that emanates from each piece of art that de Nieves creates as well as from the artist himself.

Here, Mariana Valdes Debes, an international art promoter of Mexican artists, sits in conversation with Raúl for Iris Covet Book.

Hello Raúl!

Hi Mariana, it’s nice to talk to you.

Nice to talk to you as well, I think your work is amazing! I want to start from the beginning and ask how growing up in Michoacan, Mexico influenced your decision to enter into the world of art?

Growing up in Mexico, especially in Michoacan, was really enriching through the different cultures, craftsmen, and artisans. My family was always really pushing for us to see what Mexico had to offer. I remember seeing artisans working in their community, and I came to the United States with that knowledge and those memories. I’m not trying to emulate what I saw, but I am creating these narratives through performances and storytelling, painting, installation, and at the end it’s about creating experiences for yourself and for others to be part of.

Your exhibition last summer “El Rio” was an analysis of the western cultural view of death and the antithetical idea of death as an “ecstatic mystery of life” – how did that concept come to fruition?

I’ve experienced a lot of death in my family, with my friends, and it’s something that we all have to face at one point. My father passed away when I was very young, and it helped me understand that it’s a part of life. Obviously we mourn when someone passes away, but how do we continue to celebrate their lives and what does that mean? To understand that they are not physically here, but emotionally they are closer to me now than ever. Having a really close family member pass away is one of the scariest things, yet it’s also like becoming closer to that person. It’s something that I had to experience and move past.

The majority of your body of work is comprised of fantastical humanoid creatures made of glued beads and other miscellaneous non-traditional material— how did the decision of using these materials come about?

The bead has been utilized by many cultures, but somehow we forget that it’s this beautiful little piece of material that can transform in so many different ways. I went to New Orleans during Mardi Gras and came back with a suitcase full of beads. From then on it just made a lot of sense. All of a sudden they just started to appear more and more in my life.

Well the beaded shoes you created in your earlier work are really just to die for. Every time I see them I just wonder what it feels like to wear them.

They are actually really uncomfortable. I think that’s the best part about it—they are beautiful objects of desire, but when you actually put them on they hurt. When I wear these objects in my performances, it becomes part of this struggle to portray myself as this specific character. I don’t know, it’s kind of magical. Sometimes we want these beautiful objects, but they are obviously not the most practical things we should long for, but we still do.

In an interview with MoMA, you stated that one sculpture, Day(Ves) of Wonder, took you seven years to complete but you never gave up on it. How does the process of creating each labor-intensive sculpture strengthen or teach you as an artist, and do you think that the number of years changed the idea behind the piece over time?

The work is made completely of beads and was a very complicated piece to build. I started to make these huge sculptures and was fantasizing about what it would be like to create a full, life-size figure out of beads. It took me so long because there was a lot of trial and error. The piece spoke back to me and taught me that every time I felt like I was failing, there was a possibility that it could continue to work as long as I had the ability to go forward. Till this day, it’s one of my favorite works. Day(Ves) of Wonder derives from my mom’s daycare called “Days of Wonder”, and I was thinking how interesting it is for my mom to have these small periods of time with these kids as they grow up. I think this piece had this same idea of learning from each experience. I don’t know when I’ll have another moment to work on something for that long, or if I need to, but it really gave me so much understanding to know that every time I went back and started working on the piece, it was teaching me something in return. Maybe that’s why that piece is so celebrated, because people feel that energy within its expression and within its movement.

You never gave up and you went through stages creating the piece, becoming a master of the process.

Yeah, exactly! There’s beauty in creating this object that doesn’t have a moving life or a soul. Through our emotions and the experiences that we project into these objects, the energy that resonates with the viewer creates the idea of a life behind it. To me, the sculpture is of a seven year-old child because of the time that I spent with it and how I saw myself growing. It was an ambitious task to take on and I don’t want to reproduce another one because this piece lives on to be a celebration of an experience and a time. I still question what that piece actually continues to mean to me. That’s the beauty of art, you can work on something forever. As humans we’re constantly doing that; we’re always working on who we are and trying to figure out what it means to be human.

That brings me to my other question. Surrounded by these figures every day, do they develop personalities and life stories of their own as you become attached to them?

Yeah, of course! It’s amazing to build each piece with its own identity, and this identity can be processed through the relationship of the other works next to one another. I like to believe that we live in a fantasy world and we should give ourselves some freedom; life doesn’t necessarily always have to be so concrete. As children, we get this beautiful time of our life to dream and imagine, and then we get to a certain age and give up on that. I constantly imagine myself to be this fantastical person, even if it’s just for a moment.

The performance aspect of my work allows me to tap into these roles that I can’t necessarily inhabit on an everyday  basis. It’s a great gift to be able to perform these silly experiences or cathartic moments through these characters, and there’s comfort in putting on a mask and allowing yourself to not really be seen as human, but to be something fantastical. Having this ability to tap out is really cool and I think that’s why a lot of cultures use costumes and perform these beautiful dances, plays, and fables to tap out.

I want to ask about your use of vibrant colors. How did your very maximal use of colors develop over time?

Colors can create very emotional experiences, and I guess that’s why I tend to use so many bright hues of colors. I’m trying to learn how to really control what the color can do, what it means, and what it can put out into the world. In a way, color is like language, it allows for people to feel a certain way. The simplicity of these tools that we already have and putting them into artwork is not necessarily about following rules but following common sense and what feels natural.

Like just going toward the aesthetic of it, the feeling and the emotion that comes through the first time.

Yeah, for awhile my least favorite color was red, so for a year I only wore red to understand why. I had so many different experiences with strangers asking me why I was wearing all red. People would come up to me and try to tell me what they felt red meant to them. It was really interesting to do this exercise for a year, but I’ll probably never do it again.

Well that must have felt like a performance. Yeah, exactly. I wasn’t really intentionally trying to make it a performance, but it was a very interesting exercise. As a Mexican-American artist, how do you feel about the political climate in both countries? Do the current political events inspire or influence your work?

The current President having these views towards Mexico is very archaic. But I realize it’s been happening since the beginning of time, as hard as it is to believe. I try not to be too political about it, because I know it’s not just the United States versus Mexico; it’s the world against one another. When will it end? Who knows? You would think by now we could unite and make this place even better than it is. We are made of the same matter; we need to understand that we will be stronger together. The idea of immigration is beautiful. It has allowed me to believe in acceptance for all. It is beautiful to know that you can somehow be who you are and be accepted and be part of a new nation. That idea has influenced a lot of my work. Everyone has a different experience with immigrating, and in the end I am thankful that I was accepted into a new culture, and that maybe I can influence more people to believe that this is a positive possibility.

A quick scroll through your Instagram reveals an interest in religion and historical references. Where does this interest come from?

Well, I’m a spiritual person. I have a lot of faith, and not just in history or the idea of religion. I like feeling that there is a higher power, or that perhaps believing is what creates a higher power. For me, spirituality is a way of life and it helps to ground myself and cope with all of these catastrophes happening around us.

What do you view as your biggest personal accomplishment to date and why?

Self-acceptance. I’ve been able to really accept myself, and not just myself, but also the people around me. In a way, that’s a huge accomplishment. I think it’s self-love and acceptance that’s made me as open as I am, and as a result I can be my true self.

What can we expect next from you?

I’d like to make art more accessible, to create more experiences that can be accessible not just inside the art world, but also outside. I don’t know whether that means creating public artworks, or if that even changes anything, but I just want to really feel like there is more openness to everything.

And in 10 years?

In 10 years? Maybe I’ll have a dog.

CIRCADIAN LANDSCAPE BY JESSICA ANTOLA

Jessica Antola’s debut monograph is set in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa and debuts with Damani Books. For the project, Antola traveled mostly by car to capture everyday life in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Senegal, and Ethiopia from 2011 to 2014. Each image reflects the astonishing variety of ways people create and define themselves daily through dress and ritual, work and play.
 
The photographs follow a nonlinear path and trace the variety of ways people live their lives. None of the images were posed; none of the backgrounds were created — there are two men dressed head-to-toe in elaborate African wax textiles who share a motorcycle; a gold jewelry-clad Kumasi king performs a warrior dance; and a girl in an oversized straw hat steers a boat affixed with a patchwork sail. 

Tofinu Girls, Benin 2014

“The Tofinu people of Ganvie built houses on stilts in Lake Nokoué during the 16th and 17th centuries to escape capture by Fon warriors and avoid being sold to European slave traders. This location provided a safe haven for the Tofinu people, who still live here and use boats for transport.”

Lundi and His Shoes, Burkina Faso 2014

“We drove deep into Burkina Faso to visit the Lobi people, ‘the children of the forest.’ Their strong ties to the spirit world were evident from the shrines around their clay homes. Lundi, who was born on a Monday, was wearing an oversized patterned shirt that had been carefully repaired several times. I felt his pride in his clothing and indestructible shoes.”

Brothers at the Mami Wata Festival, Benin 2014

“African and Dutch wax textiles are important to West African history, folklore, tradition, and identity. Numerous times I saw a mother with her children all dressed head to toe in the same print. Bridal dowries often include several symbolic wax fabrics to ensure desirable things for a marriage, such as fertility, prosperity, and love.”

 

 

 

Egungun Child Spirit, Benin 2014

“The Egungun masquerades represent the spirits of the departed Yoruba ancestors, but locals say that they actually are the deceased. During this Egungun ceremony in the Dassa region, spectators immediately collapsed as if they had died when spirits touched them. Moments later, they were resurrected to rejoin the celebration.”

 

African Soil, Ghana 2014

“This photograph was taken on a road in rural Ghana that was under construction by a Chinese company. The earth was being leveled and red dust blanketed the landscape. The first time I visited Kenya, the rich, red soil stained the white soles of my running shoes. I liked carrying this physical reminder of Africa with me once I returned home.”

 

 

 

 

Hamar Woman, Ethiopia 2013

“Around 430 BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of Libyan women in garments of goat leather with hair “fringed at the edges, and colored with vermilion.” I was reminded of this in the Omo Valley when I saw Hamar women with their hair covered in a mixture of red ocher and ghee wearing beaded goat skins.”

 

Khat Market, Ethiopia 2013

“Ethiopia has dangerous roads and thus sometimes apocalyptic scenery, like overturned cargo trucks with blood on the driver’s seat and bees swarming the crushed produce in the back. The faster the trucks move, the more money the drivers make. Khat, a legal narcotic and major cash crop in Ethiopia, is used heavily by truck drivers and contributes to the carnage.”

Circadian Landscape by Jessica Antola is available for purchase at Damiani Books