A Word from the Kidney

Jamil: “Part as Part of the Whole” – teasers

I’ve been working hard to finish my images, and now I’m there. They’re here.

The titles of the three pieces are:

“Part as Part of the Whole I: Interior”
“Part as Part of the Whole II: Exterior”
“Part as Part of the Whole III: Interior”

Here are teasers from all three images:

What the teasers are part of – and what the pieces are about – you’ll find at the opening. It’s at Gallery Spegeln in Malmö on Friday Oct 30th from 18.00 to 21.00 hrs.

Welcome.

Jamil: Interiors

I’m working on my third Panorma image and studying furniture and interiors from the beginning of the 19th century.

This is what my drawing table looks like right now:

And this is how I left my flat this morning:

So messy.

Jamil: Ideas for the Poster

I had the idea early on to create a poster that visually represents seven different interpretations of the subject Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s novel is one of the world’s most, if not THE most, interpreted and re-interpreted stories.

In the  first Panorama exhibition we chose to work with the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood. These works are both stories that just about everybody is familiar with in some way. But do we know these stories from their original form or from one of the many interpretations out there? We in CBK are fascinated by the interpretation itself, the very process, and that fascination is one of the core ideas of these exhibitions.

This is what the first small sketch for the Frankenstein poster looked like:

At first, we were supposed to be six artists working on the project. Three of the current CBK crew, and three that have been working with us in the past. Each artist would get one body part: right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, torso and head.

But then we were happy to have Sofia Falkenhem join the CBK crew and we wanted her in on this project as well. We were now seven.

Since cutting the human body into seven parts wasn’t as convenient, I came up with the idea of just using the head. And this particular head is easy to recognize! So this is what the next sketch looked like:

I used an image of Boris Karlof’s Frankenstein – a film which we’ll be screening together with several shorts on nov 1st – and cut it into seven pieces. I numbered the pieces and had someone draw a number to assign the pieces to each and everyone of us. I scanned the pieces on a grid so it would be easy to see how they were shaped.

Then we all drew/painted/designed our separate pieces. What they look like pieced back together, is what you see below. Voilà.

Jamil: Tube It

At the beginning of this project I was surfing around for some inspiration. What I ended up with was a lot of pure entertainment. 

Check out some of my findings:

A nice piece of animation, “Red riding hood”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2QvhAC4cmM&feature=related

A crazy ad from Japan, just check out the balls… “Crazy Japan ad”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8xuVnB-Pk&feature=related

And here’s Monty Python’s Little Red Riding Hood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKbWdgW6sD8&feature=related

This presentation is amazing, “Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhhPemapM18&feature=related

And of course, the theme song, “The Animals-Little Red Riding Hood”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdVVLbe1rfY&NR=1

Jamil: The basic idea

Here’s an update on my progress. 

First things first: Ouch. Since drawing and cutting in linoleum all day isn’t exciting enough for me, I stabbed myself in my left hand. I don’t know if it really improved my work that much, and on top of that I almost fainted. Seriously. What can I say? I’m a wimp.

Getting pale faced at the sight of blood… If the wolf had seen me then, he would surely have swalloved me whole.

So, a few words on what I’m doing, besides cutting myself. I’m creating the art work for this exhibition using one of the most basic printing techniques, linoleum print. When I was a youngling roaming uncharted waters, I worked a period of time in a print shop in Göteborg. All day I hung around enormous japanese printing presses, and listened to (couldn’t avoid in fact) the merry melodies that automatically played every time there was a change of printing plates. That’s why I like the idea of taking it back to the basics with the crafty technique of linoleum cutting. 

The first step is thinking and sketching, and it might turn out something like this:

Then begins the life threatening cutting:

That’s all I have to say for the moment. More to come…

Jamil: First Print

This is a detail from the first print that I’ve made. It’s a test print, while trying to find the right paper and colors.

Because finding the right material for the job isn’t art, it’s science,. I’ve been deep down into the paper mines, looking for a paper, worthy and suitable for the task of carrying the interpretation of the story. I’ve also been digging deep wells, searching for the right colors to bring out the raucous red and beautiful black, for the same mission.

More on this soon…