FLAVIA SOUZA This is of course still not a work of her. I work for a long time and then something magical happens. If I try to repeat it it doesn't work so I have to go very tenuously and carefully finding my way again. It is a persistence and a sensitivity and also a kind of respect that makes it happen. Also I get images in my head that I then put down as closely as I can to the original in my head. This is much easier than to find my way as I am going. I still haven't found a formula - I fear there isn't one - just trying your ass off to match your inspiration or a feeling that the thing is right. Very hard work for me, not an easy thing but boy is it unbelievable when it happens.

It still stays a mystery how he always find a way to solve problems.

FLAVIA SOUZA This is of course not one of her works but it gives me the oportunity to break her text in little pieces.So it becomes easier to stay concentrated.AND DO YOU HAVE A KIND OF RITUAL TO COME TO THIS POINT? I'm working on it. I suspect keeping my mouth shut is part of it as is slowing down, not getting impatient and waiting to 'see' the next step... My favorite object was when I was 6 in Japan. My father gave me a pearl inside it's shell in a glass dome filled with water. It had a blue porcelain base and a thin golden trim between the base and the glass. I stared at that pearl and it was pure magic for me. Where it came from, how it was made by nature and I wrote magical words under the base that I believed would make my dreams come true.It broke when we left. It was a shock but I also thought the magic could now enter me. I was young and a little unusual.

FLAVIA SOUZA No. But once I had an artist from the building come into my studio on open studio night and we talked at length about a piece she liked that I said a lot of people liked. the following year I saw her making work that looked just like it - completely different from her previous work. I couldn't believe it. I didn't have an open studio for years and I almost didn't participate in this show for the same reason. Artists can be assholes. You can have an opening to a deeper place and be completely cut off in this one. A human being can make an artwork of himself. I think that is the best kind of art.

 

MIGUEL TRELLES This music is intimately related with the stories I grew up with and with the Spanish speaking Caribbean where I am from and which I keep up with. I think art is important in society because it is useless and out of this uselessness useful ideas can come forth effortlessly. Because utility is not aim, art allows for a broader scope than the typically utilitarian one, thus helping everybody relax AND often arrive at ideas, emotions, and even useful solutions they might not have thought available.

One for the road we would say in Belgium. Belongs also with 2 former photos. Can this be easier?

This???? Belongs to next picture with the big building.. Just to help you. Your little server.

What has this to do with" LOOKING INTO THE LIGHT " I hear you say? You are right nothing. But it came on my way. And that is reason enough to put it here. Can somebody tell me what this is? Is it still radio active? Thats why it's still there?? Please help me.

Culturefix before Mark magic hands start toughting the walls. I hoped and dreamed that my input was as big as his. Image!!!!

MIGUEL TRELLES I like Inka Essenhighs more linear style and Steve Mumfords war paintings as well as Mark Powers sculptures. Jonas Hidalgos photographs are both provocative and inspiring in their subltle nuances. Working in the building has influenced my work because it has allowed me to concentrate in my work in a lively environment where peers, art lovers and community folk often come in and check out what I do at the same time they show me what they are doing. This makes my work all the more worthwhile.

MIGUEL TRELLES I draw continuously and some drawings lead to prints or paintings. When I set out to paint, specifically, I tend start from the ground up and by building stretchers and stretching and preparing canvas I get ready to actually paint. FAVORITE OBJECT? Poporo Quimbay

MIGUEL TRELLES Yes my work is influence by my background because I grew up in an environment that addressed culture constantly and critically. That led me to expose myself to many painting styles. Over the years I have given themost attention to two specific styles, one can be associated with my Latino heritage (broadly understood to go from precolumbian antiquity to the Niuyorican mindset), and this modality is very close to my provenance and upbringing, and another that can be associated with dynastic art in China, and this other modality is very close to my aspirations and academic curiosity, privileging what I have learned along the way. I call it chinolatino

MIGUEL TRELLES Yes artists can work together. The best way to do this is to work privately in a facility that allows for such privacy but that also has common spaces. A city like NY is a good model and the Clemente is my specific example. The result is a creative process that is very private and precious individually but that allows for collective cross pollination and public attention.

FLAVIA SOUZA It is all for society, all to help people find themselves, find real meaning, tackle the big questions, who am I? and why?? DO YOU THINK ARTISTS CAN WORK TOGETHER? making movies great movies a lot of artists work together. visual artists tend to work alone. that works for me. solitude is like gold. Definitely. I travelled a lot as a child, the impressions of the different countries I lived in and the experiences there - the colors, the customs, the smell, landscape, the whole of the culture were enormously important in forming some kind of inner language and understanding of my reality, my being. I find myself drawn to certain parts of my childhood that were the most striking - Japan, Yugoslavia,Mexico, Brussels. What I make is like thin threads from these memories and my feelings and thoughts all woven together in images that carry a kind of understanding of being both inside and outside this. I was forced to find commonality in very disparaging environments and my life and maybe also my art has been about this invisible common reality.

 

FLAVIA SOUZA I am not sure I 'found' my medium... I started to draw because it was cheaper than photography and film and because I could draw... there is a lot that comes into choosing the medium you are trying to express an idea with. Usually the medium fits the idea in a way that other mediums cant - what you are communicating and how are part of the same language. I worked a long time ago with meat because I wanted to film it rotting... I use gouache because it is mat. Mediums have unique qualities that can help you, they create a limitation that helps the thing get made. my son is composing music at the moment. - he feels it deeply and sings his ass off - as the bass player in his first recording said. I love it right now and I love it because he is so completely natural with it and full on. It's inspiring. Freedom of expression is more important than technique. Being oneself unencumbered is a kind of art. Tarkovsky answered this so well in an interview. The purpose of Life is spiritual evolution. Art is the same. The purpose of Art is to help man in his spiritual evolution. I agree with him completely.

The opening yesterday at Culturefix. Inside and outside. Some of the artists are more than just an artist. And some dont need a restaurant like we did.

Here our big secret we have to carry for 24 hours. Mark copied his daily fridge and give it the place it deserved.

Important things first. After the opening Mark and I went to an restaurant just around the corner of Culturefix.. Mark's told me it was his favorit restaurant. I tought distance matters here. But who am I to doubt about his words? If it is 12pm after a long opening. Words are there to be used over and over. Sometimes I wish I had words just for my own. And dont have to taste that they are used over and over.

Like we both known between the photos below from Liza.There is one from Wayne we have shown it already. Just to keep you focused.

LIZA BUZYTSKY a artist that disappeared quietly.

FLAVIA SOUZA when I was four years old I remember seeing a Van Gogh painting while in my fathers arms. I had an overload sensory experience - it was marvelous, like being in heaven or having an orgasm. Later when I was about 8 I remember writing Picasso a letter after seeing his paintings. i think I told him I wanted to be an artist. My mother never sent the letter and I waited for a reply for a very long time. - I kept having the same experience of beauty, something I couldn't understand with my head but I felt in my whole being as a kind of fulfillment. Then again later at around 13 I copied the picture of a young amazonian indian girl in a hut holding her baby brother and I drew it so well in pencil, all the shadows and the foreign creature were so mysterious - I saw how this magical world could be created with a pencil. Becoming an artist was a natural progression of these experiences and an understanding of the value it had for me. It was like being a quiet magician, a hidden sorceress.

 

You can see FLAVIA SOUZA'S work hanging between this installation. It's only piece I got from her at this moment.Becoming an artist made me into the kind of person that valued above all things something that was hidden - not what people usually valued but something other. I came from a background where appearances were important and the accumulation of wealth and manners etc.. and I understood that there were other things that people couldn't necessarily see that were the most valuable in life. As an aritst I was to make this 'thing' visible. I guess it was a kind of truth, a Reality, a way to Selfhood. My thoughts leaned towards philosophy and the meaning of life and trying to understand human experience from a tender age. Life and death, magic and who I was and why I was... my thoughts were engaged in these themes as well as age appropriate themes like everyone else: Does he like me, do I look pretty, am I any good.... Mostly I try to be quiet and not give my thoughts too much credence.

JAWATTE

MIGUEL TRELLES answers to my questions.Even though I have been drawing incessantly since I can remember in 1991 I decided to concentrate most of my time in art. In 1995 I obtained an M.F.A. degree. I do not care to comment on what may the difference be with someone else but I can say that since 1991 I have been active as a working visual artist. To this day this choice makes me very happy, even if there have been very difficult moments in my career, and it has made me a more dynamic person who continuously strives for truth, beauty and criticallity in both life and art.

MIGUEL TRELLES works. One of this works is hanging in Culturefix now. Guess which one and you can go for free to Flushing Meadows this week. We take care for that. We promise. I have always been in love with marks on two dimensions. That is why I draw and print and paint. Obviously there are notable differences between those means and between media in general. When a work is content driven I feel the chosen medium influences that content but that regardless of the notable differences in conveyance methods, the intensity of the aim, the urgency to communicate and the joy of making can bring together works that appear formally disparate otherwise. My favortie music is the Cuban son. I like this music because it is an authentic expression of love for the Caribbean endroit and idiosyncracy. Perhaps what I find most exciting about it is that it has a sense of humor and that sense of humor helps to assimilate the more difficult aspects of our daily life.

This is a small art piece from Mark L Power. But at this moment he is working just in front of me at a big new piece of art specially made for this "LOOKING INTO THE LIGHT'" show. It gonna be huge and funny. Can't tell you what it is. Thank you Mark.

This are some more works from Wayne he showed me in his atelier.

This is a list of questions I have sent to the participating artists. SHALOOM. In dutch this word don't mean so much.

LIKE HOW DID YOU BECAME AN ARTIST OR WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU 
WERE ONE?

AND WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE WITH SOMEONE ELSE YOU THINK? AND 
DURING THE PERIOD THAT YOU WHERE ACTIVE LIKE AN ARTIST HOW DID 
IT CHANGE YOU LIKE A PERSON AND MAYBE ALSO YOUR THOUGHTS?

HOW DID YOU FIND YOUR MEDIUM? AND IS THERE A BIG DIFFERENCE 
BETWEEN THEM YOU THINK?

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC TUNES AND WHY DO YOU THINK YOU LIKE
THIS KIND OF MUSIC
IS IT RELATED WITH SOMETHING IN YOUR LIVE? OR WHAT BRINGS IT UP 
WITH YOU?............

DO YOU THINK ART IS IMPORTANT IN SOCIETY? AND WHY OR HOW? DOES 
THERE HAVE TO BE MORE POSSIBILITIES OR ATTENTION FOR ALSO IN 
SOCIETY? AND HOW

DO YOU THINK ARTISTS CAN WORK TOGETHER? AND WHAT WOULD BE THE 
BEST WAY TO DO THIS YOU THINK? AND WHAT WOULD BE THE RESULT OF IT 
YOU THINK?

DOES THE ART YOU MAKE IS INFLUENCED BY YOUR BACKGROUND? AND HOW?

HOW DO YOU COME TO THE POINT THAT YOU START REALISING YOUR 
ARTWORK? AND DO YOU HAVE A KIND OF RITUAL TO COME TO THIS POINT?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OBJECT? MAYBE YOU CAN SENT ME A PICTURE FROM 
IT?

DO YOU THINK I FORGET SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO ASK YOU? YOU CAN 
SENT ME MORE PHOTOS OR INFORMATION THAT YOU THINK IS INTERESTING 
TO KNOWN FOR ME AS CURATOR OR FOR THE VISITORS? OR IF YOU HAVE 
QUESTIONS OR IDEAS FOR ME OR THE VISITORS?

He knew a lot of the history of Clinton street. This is what he answered at the list of questions I sweat on for hours. Short but right to the point. the leonard cohen song that mentions clinton street http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aRKZFR5imM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_Blue_Raincoat#cite_note-0

Wayne helped us a lot.

One of the first artists I met was Wayne Liu. Here he is showing his piece of art that is part of the show.