• IONNALEE – A SEARCHER WHO EXPLORES

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Ionnalee has been exploring her music artist path from Jonna Lee to Iamamiwhoami, creating a number of mystically fascinating audiovisuals, where Norse mythology and social issues turn into a video story with its own narrative and vocal character. Today, as ionnalee, she has gone back, where it all once started and created a new solo music album ‘Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten’. The Swedish female artist’s predilection for nature and music conceives a peculiar world of sustainability and creativity, where the audience, through the music, lyrics and visuals are invited to participate and help shaping the final ‘product’ by being a part of it.

    Ionnalee’s collaboration with the luxury brand Comme des Garçons with its urban aesthetics, enhanced with the authentic synthesis of Kabuki’s colourful drama and the koto’s pacific sounds, seems to be natural, making the artist and the clothes build a spiritual integrity.

    The existential belief of ionnalee is a philosophy, where no one is forgotten and everyone is included. The magic is here and you just have to open your eyes and see the nature, prick up your ears and hear the universe. Become like ionnalee, a searcher who explores!

    I have watched some chapters from Iamamiwhoami’s albums ‘Bounty’, ‘Kin’ and ‘Blue’ and I could see the nature as a least common multiple. There are beautiful landscapes with mountains and meadows in your visuals. Where have you filmed those?  How did you find/choose those places?
    These three series you mention were made under a period of 5 years. So there is a lot of different locations filmed in, depending on what scenes are filmed, they are chosen from what the idea is for the scene in particular. We have a clear image of it beforehand, it is drawn and storyboarded and then we find the best possible physical counterpart of the idea. Most of my/our releases are filmed in Scandinavia.

    Some videos have amazing underwater moments with you in them. Could you describe your experience of the underwater filmmaking? Have you received any special training prior to that?
    Thank you. For BLUE in particular that was made entirely around water, there was a lot of holding breath. And also for some of other series there have been challenging under water scenes, but BLUE took it to a whole new level. I love free swimming, snorkelling and moving under water, so the practise I have is from being comfortable in water since childhood. However, it still was a challenge, especially in HUNTING FOR PEARLS, where the underwater pressure was an issue in my ears weren’t doing so well. During the 1.5 years we spent on making BLUE we filmed underwater in different kinds of water environments. Tropical oceans, freezing lakes and it was all amazing.

    Your visuals are very metaphorical and mythological with a lot of black, white and grey hues. I understand that you use nature and its dwellers for the metaphorical part. Where does the mythological part come from? Are you referring to Celtic mythology or Scandinavian sagas?
    There are referrals to Norse folklore in my work. I was brought up with it and it is in my heritage.

    You represent a strong woman in your visuals, who is exposed to the power of nature and in a certain way is merged with the latter. Where does that image of strong woman come from?
    Taking control over my own work and life has been a big process throughout my career and that is the image I think you are referring to in my visuals.

    In one interview you mentioned that you never use real fur in your videos. Are you a sustainable artist? What does it mean for you to be a sustainable artist? Do you also try to organise your working process in a sustainable way?
    I feel part of nature and do not want to be separated from it like we are in the cities we build as protection and segregation from it. I try to be sustainable and responsible in what I wear, how I consume, what I eat. That humbleness before ones place in nature is important not to lose. Many see nature as pretty backdrop and that is scary.

    To know what prints we leave and aim to make the work stand with time and not encourage a lifestyle of quick consumption is a good start in being sustainable. My label TWIMC, which I use to produce and release my work, do our best to manufacture and release in an environmentally friendly way, like only producing unisex organic fairwear, offering ways to support great organisations like ‘Mission Blue’, ‘One Tree Planted’, and we have recently taken in two homeless dogs.

    Are you a boss or a chief in the process of creating your visuals? Is it the same for both the production of Iamamiwhoami and your first solo music album ‘Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten’?
    Well, I will always need to be the boss of my own work. For ‘Bounty’ and ‘Kin’ I was the executive producer and for BLUE and EABF I am also co-director and editor. For TWIMC I am the visual director for all releases.

    You consider “Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten” to be ‘rather its own separate organism, combining a dramatic plotline, music and art house cinematography with an avant-garde fashion slant.’ Is the album a creative and independent endeavour to look for your personal identity as ionnalee - outside iamamiwhoami - or is it more like an independent commercial product of your skills gained in the industry through the years?
    You could see it as: before iamamiwhoami I made two solo albums (Jonna Lee). Iamamiwhoami, which is a duo that includes my long-time collaborator Claes Björklund, began in 2009 and I then put all my solo work on hold for undecided time and went through a major creative metamorphosis. Now 10 years later, ionnalee is where I reconnect with my solo work and release that album that I began making many times since 2009 when iamamiwhoami was born.

    Quoting your text from the song ‘Goods’, ‘Change is always given to decide just who it’s for’, I would like to ask you about your first solo album - who is it for?
    It is ‘change is always given to the searchers who explore.’ Cannot trust them lyric pages.

    It is said that you’re reflecting on your own perspectives, leaving the audience a space for personal experience. Is it a monologue you have, while giving the audience their own space or are you establishing a dialogue by inviting into your world - the world of audio visual artist ionnalee?
    Yes. As an independent artist the dialogue with the audience is direct. There is room for raising questions and open up for interactions. They are invited in through communication through the music, lyrics and visuals and they help shape the work by being invested and vocal. It does not mean they shape it their direction. There are many layers to the online world and you can browse it on the surface or you can dive in and be part of it and many of my followers are.

    Who are you influenced by? Kate Bush? The Knife? Cocteau Twins? DAF? Front 242? Fever Ray?
    Kate Bush and Karin are both incredible artists in different ways. They are also both people I get compared to a lot because we are all women with strong vocal character but our music and visuals are not very similar- I heard Kate Bush very late in life for the first time and I loved ‘Running Up that Hill’ in particular. Voice and production together.

    As I see it, there are the conscience influences that you willingly consumed. For me that is Kraftwerk, Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode, Christopher Nolan, Air, Vangelis, Madonna, David Lynch, Portishead, Sigur Ros and many more. There are also newer creators I enjoy like Blood Orange, Arca, Denis Villeneuve, Chromatics, Four Tet, Björk, Todd Terje, Disasterpeace and Mozart.

    Then there are the influences that you were force-fed socially through your upbringing. My childhood offered my parents excellent-taste vinyl collection of Chaka Khan, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, Tom Petty. And then what was on radio at the time, Snap! Two Unlimited and Backstreet Boys. I really liked Marie Fredriksson’s voice as a kid. I wished for a NKOTB’s vinyl for my eleventh birthday but got Roxette’s ‘Tourism’ instead because the local record store did not have NKOTB. That ended up being a record I sang to for the next year because I learned to love it. ‘Queen of Rain’ is a classic.

    Have you in any way been engaged in the production of Fever Ray’s latest album “Plunge”? Have you inspired each other?
    I have not been part of it but I think it is great.

    You have collaborated with Comme des Garçons. Have you had any other collaborations with other fashion brands in your visuals? Any plans to do it in future?
    No plans beyond CDG. Adrian Joffe and I were introduced through the release of BLUE in 2014 and we did a photo series together for Vogue Italia. We began discussing how to collaborate and eventually created an alliance for EVERYONE AFRAID TO BE FORGOTTEN. COMME des GARÇONS (‘like boys’) is a daring, equal and strong voice in the world of fashion, much what I aim to be for the music scene.

    Starting from ‘Bounty’, you often wear different jumpsuits in your visuals. Could you explain the choice of garments? Is it an attempt to create a discourse about female body culture in the entertainment industry?
    There is always a reason for what I wear that is based in the story we are telling. As an example, for ‘John’ in Bounty I wear a wash cloth jumpsuit for protection in the bedroom where the video takes place in. However and whatever I wear, there is a purpose for it coming from the storytelling.

    There is a black cube appearing in a visual from ‘Blue’ and also in ‘Goods’ from ‘Kin’, what feels very Tarkovskij and his ‘no-go-zone’. What is the cube referring to?
    ‘Kin’ was the second audiovisual we released in 2012, and it was also the first release to receive a physical edition. The black cube in ‘Kin’ represents our ‘product’ that we released. And watching ‘Kin’ you get to come inside the process of our making.

    Please reveal the secret of your beautiful long lashes that have appeared in many videos, sometimes totally white and sometimes blonde. What do they symbolise? Are you wearing those outside the creative space?
    It is bringing me a step closer to the inner animal being.

    You believe in evolution talking abstraction in previous interviews. Do you see any parallels between what you do today and what the pioneer of abstraction Hilma af Klint did a century ago - translating music into visual forms?
    She grew up in a time when women had much less voice than now and where art schools had only just begun accepting female students. It is very inspiring how she managed to have such a clear artistic point of view. I can see she had a passion that I share, where the arena you work does not appreciate dissipations. That is not conductive to exploring, so you have to go your own way. She was a pioneer and made some incredible pieces of art that were not fully appreciated until after her passing.

    Do you consider yourself to be an art or a fashion influencer? Maybe both?
    It is hard to answer. I am not the receiver you know, but I can see that my work creates ripples that at least subconsciously makes an impact on people.

    You have lived in London for a while and your favourite street there is Portobello Road with its Victorian terrace houses. Could you say what you love about that street?
    It is a calm but a living street with such a mixed crowd of regulars, artists and tourists. I used to live close by. For some reason I am drawn to the places where there are lots of tourists. Just like with airports, people are on the way, often enjoying themselves with an open mind. The best thing about London is that it is so multicultural and alive.

  • ALEXANDER KLINGSPOR: FROM THE LANGUAGE OF ISOLATION TO THE MUSIC OF THE STAGE

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    With his heart in Stockholm and soul in New York, Alexander Klingspor once started his artistic path in the Stockholm night speaking its laconic language of isolation to him. Later, inspired by the American Realism and having the authenticity of Swedish heritage in his backbone, the artist set off on his journey to America, looking for his own artistic voice and identity. After travelling around the artistic jungle and learning how to behold, how to feel, how to participate and how to depict his own analyses on the canvas, Alexander Klingspor is back, united under the same roof with his idols such as Ernst Josephson and Anders Zorn at Prince Eugen’s Waldermarsudde. His exhibition “Traveller”, which started with a burlesque vernissage, staged in the Great Gatsby-mood, spiced with the René Magritte-inspired and thought-provoking Butterfly Face Man installation dressed by Swedish New York-based designer Stephen Ferber, appeared to the beholder as an artistic diary.

    The professional path of the artist could clearly be seen in his artworks filled with anxiety, longing, happiness, sarcasm, duality, sexuality, searching, isolation, victory, humour, success and fail. With all what it means to be a human. The central theme of the exhibition is the stage where our life is taking place in its often constructed reality. Thus, we are merely players with our exits and entrances. Nevertheless, Alexander Klingspor gives us an opportunity to realise and to feel it through the realism of his art filled with surrealistic metaphors and provoking allegories.

    I met the artist a few days after his show at the museum in order to talk about everything from art to Levi’s jeans and fashion collaborations. Looking for inspiration in his meetings with other people, Alexander himself is a great source of inspiration with his analytical approach to art and creative ability to view the philosophy of life.

    When you started painting in the 1990’s, American Realism inspired you and the greatest inspiration was Edward Hopper. What I have found interesting is the creative struggle you both went through. Hopper had years of struggle to define his own style before receiving a public recognition, while you had troubles to find your own voice. Have you ever thought about that similarity? How do you think Hopper helped you to outline your artistic path? Edward Hopper begun as an illustrator, as well as did I and I think that is the similarity. Apart from that we are very different, I think in many ways. However, I could relate to Hopper at a very early stage. I liked his beautiful compositions and also the way he reflected upon his time and his era. It kind of resonated with the Stockholm night that I found myself in after I came back from Kansas City, Missouri and started working as an illustrator. And in the Stockholm night, when I was searching for what I wanted to say as an artist, Edward Hopper’s imagery echoed back. His sense of isolation, whether it would be his own isolation towards other people in his time or if it is the isolation he experienced in the modern day of his time between other people. I think I cannot answer what kind of isolation he experienced but for me, I experienced isolation as an artist, painting figuratively in time where I did not know that many other artists in Sweden.

    Edward Hopper was one of the front figures of the Ashcan School (“The Eighth”) and together with the other seven members was called “the apostles of ugliness” for depicting a kind of uncensored reality. It reminds me a bit of the Russian movement called “Peredvizhniki” (The Wanderers) by being a step forward with their art. What do you think about that? It is funny but I never related to Hopper as a member of the Ashcan School because he seems to be so different from George Bellows for instance. George Bellows depicted very messy New York at that time with all those boxing matches and people living in slam-like areas very tough lives many times. Very much an inspiration. I think, George Bellows to me just looks like he lived in such an exciting and dirty time, where life was buzzling around him. It seems like Edward Hopper lived in extreme exile from social interaction and therefore, I think I could relate to Hopper more than Bellows, for instance.

    You take a certain reality from the upper classes and bring it into a kind of “apostles of ugliness”-mood in a different and very intelligent way, creating an interplay with gluttony and consumerism. Thanks, what goes on around the dinner table when things are financially all right and then you have those nice clothes, it becomes easily vulgar when you take things for granted and you start consuming very mindlessly. And when everything is presented to you in a way that you are supposed to forget to be thankful, it is a slippery slope.

    What have you taken with you from your time with Mark English that helps you even today? Mark English taught me a lot of things. He was illustrator when I met him but he was also shifting over to working towards galleries. He is an old cowboy, so he uses very few words and he said it very clearly, “When you are doing illustration, you are solving somebody else’s problems. When you are doing art, you are solving your own problems.” It was as clear as I could get, basically. And he also told me once… I came over to him I saw him in Sarasota, Florida just before I was going to New York to… with the head in my hand knocking on gallery doors asking if I could show my work, which is usually a complete waste of time but I was young and naïve and I was going to do it. And Mark English was down in Florida because his son was arranging a workshop there. So, I showed him my work and he said, “You are getting somewhere. These paintings have a mood and paintings need to have this kind of energy, a mood to them.” And I held on to those words.

    In the beginning stages Mark showed me very much, such as various ways of techniques of painting and also composition. He is a genius in composing his images and I compare him almost to some form of Zen Master when he paints. I have never seen anybody being so productive, yet so calm when he paints. He paints his landscapes that are simplified with geometric shapes. And he is very productive, yet he does not seem exhausted. It is very interesting.

    So, Mark English taught me also a sort of time discipline, as all the illustrators have to keep the deadlines. When you know how to keep deadlines, you can work very easily with painting for exhibitions and that is very helpful. Thus, the most important thing Mark English did for you is that he believed in you, isn't it? Oh, yes. I remember when I was done in Kansas City and John English, Mark’s son, drove me to I think the airport or something and he said, “Look, you have the gift and you just get it cultivated.” And I took it with me. It meant a lot.

    City seems to be a significant part of your subconscious artistic mind. Are you a flâneur, strolling around, observing and sharing “the gastronomy of the eye” with your art audience or a participator of the scenes you depict in your artworks? It is not complete voyeurism, it is of course a participation. But I feel very at ease in the environment that is kind of crazy, where people are very eccentric because it gives so much and I do not have to anything really in the sense of to contribute to the mood if people themselves are as artworks and works of art. It is so inspiring to be around. So I definitely love the energy of various cities and understanding of how it works. And I think when you first move to a city or if you just visit a city, you definitely a voyeur.

    You cannot really participate, you are not allowed to enter. And then you have to work actively to get into groups.You have said that you are “obsessed with a curiosity of what it means to be human and the various colourful ways people in a melting pot like NYC express themselves”. What would you say about differences in style between NYC and Stockholm? We can take two subject matters, such as clothing and lifestyle. In general, I think that to me the city of Stockholm whispers its secrets and you have to really listen. You have to walk around. It is many times of the year and many times of the hour as it is very empty. People are hibernating in the winter time. So you get a lot of time for yourself. And the city whispers its history and it whispers its secrets to you. Anywhere you turn in Stockholm, at least in the inner city, it is like a new painting emerges with its beautiful gateways and doorways and architecture and so on.

    When I moved to New York, it was a completely different feeling. That city screams at you, “Look at me! Look at me!” So you just have to pick and choose what you want to see. It is also very unsentimental, it is non-sentimental. It just tears down its own history in order to make profit in a way that city like Stockholm would never do. Therefore, I see also in lifestyle there is much less of a safety net in New York City. People are much more aggressive and protective of themselves in a way of making sure that their own well-being is insured, whereas here we have a safety net and I do feel that if I get sick or something happens to me, the system backs me up somehow.

    When it comes to clothing, I think Sweden is very fashionable many times in the urban areas and there are a lot of fashion makers are in the New York City. So it is kind of the same. In many ways Sweden can be very avant-garde, when it comes to life style and fashion, something that New Yorkers and Americans look to. I had some people who came from New York for the show and they all love of course this quality of life.

    New York has always been diversified with different cultures and they also expressed themselves differently. And that I think is the strength of the NYC with all these cultures living together and you also get different variations. The fact that you can express yourself the way you dress and so on, more or less how you want and it is the general feeling that you are allowed and you should do this. While in Stockholm it is more homogenous society and you have to not stand out so much. And I think also that is why a lot of Swedes really like place like the NYC, because it is so diverse. The New Yorkers may like Sweden because it is so functional.

    The burlesque and “vaudeville-inspired” scenes eternalizing the image of The Box in Manhattan remind a lot of the scenes described in “Great Gatsby” and also the scene of Satan’s Ball in Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” and this impression is strengthened by you mentioning abundance, gluttony and consumerism. Do you think your own figure in your paintings could be considered as impersonation of the young and mysterious figure of Jay Gatsby or the mysterious green-eyed stranger in black called Woland? I love Satan’s Ball in “The Master and Margarita”. I think it is fantastic, it is a visual feast and as a painter I would love to depict it and at the same time I would dread it because it is such a masterpiece and I would not be able to live up to it. The book is fantastic. Definitely, there are certain characters that are been portrayed as devils or this kind of very extreme dandies. Mostly, I think it is a kind of mindlessness that is portrayed in my paintings in certain of the characters. They can be greedy, they can be hungry for food, and power, and wealth, and sexuality. Many times also they have a restlessness to them, the quick fixes of the stimulation of the cabaret. This is of course a restlessness within me and if you botanize too long, to the spectrum of humanity or a decadence and a party scene, it will not satisfy you anymore. As you see in my later paintings, I think there is a more peaceful way of life that is more preferable in the end, even though this is exciting. I would not want to not have lived it.

    The show is called “Traveller” and it is because life is a journey and you do these dives. Life takes you to all those crazy places and you can get stuck at certain places and then it is good to linger for a while and sometimes it is not so good. So, in a way I think, change is always a victory and positive change is a victory, definitely. Whether or not it relates to the character of Great Gatsby, I am not so sure.

    The club scenes filled with opulence, eroticism and decadence bring out the reality of that environment by means of surrealism noir, what I think, makes the emotional effect of your artworks strong and substantial. How would you describe the role of your artworks in the hyperreality we live in today? Social, political or maybe philosophical? By hyperreality I mean that artificial reality consisted of social media, reality shows and other types of counterfeited reality. I think the stage has always amazed me, as there is something very positive to be said about the stage and the illusion of beauty. It has been going on since we have been able to construct a theatre stage. Even the old operas or something, it takes people away into another dimension and we create this illusion of the real world but it is our man-made world. And I think we as creatures with great imagination are depending on this to survive reality. This is what makes us stand out. We have great imagination, as anything we can imagine, we can do, from walking on the moon to looking at bacteria in the microscope. We imagine that this is possible and we find our ways of making it happen. So, when it comes to creating our own reality, this is where it gets really interesting and perhaps scary that the hyperreality today goes into a virtual world and it creates another stage. There is a saying by some Zen Master, I think, but I am calling him Alan Watts, saying that “Ultimate reality is beyond all concepts.” This is very interesting to me, because if you can name it, if you can define it, it is not ultimate reality. It goes beyond words and, I think, as you will see in some of my pieces, the stage is crumbling and the wallpaper is coming down. This necessity to create this illusion of beauty all of a sudden crumbles, has something to do with the hyperreality that perhaps the more you try to create it, the easier it will crumble. And you try so desperately to keep it. Yes, exactly! In the world where we want to cover up with beauty, something else might take place.

    What inspires you as an artist and what might kill your inspiration? What inspires me as an artist first and foremost is other art, the inexhaustible amount of visual art that has been created throughout our history. To me anyone from Titian up to Edward Hopper and even later artists leaving today are inspirations. Then it is, of course, people I meet and the environments I am in. If I am in New York City, I am inspired by that place and those people I meet there.

    I would say environment and people I meet, who lack or rather are not using their imagination, who do not feel happy within themselves in the sense of their starve for creativity, could kill my inspiration. Thus, it is important for me to be around people who are creative and who inspire me. And that does not necessarily need to be just other artists as it is very much scientists and entrepreneurs of various kinds; all walks of life are very interesting to talk to. And other art forms and other disciplines such as the Midnight’s Children project, which I did together with writer Salman Rushdie and violinist-composer Ittai Shapira. They really fuel my imagination in a way that visual art cannot. It is another art form, another discipline. So, if you find the bridges there, you will find so much information. So many images come to me, when I read Salman Rushdie’s works and I see so much when I listen to Ittai Shapira’s music.

    Does fashion inspire you in your art? If yes, could you give an example? Do you consider your art to be fashion? Yes, definitely. And I have even collaborated with a fashion magazine to create three paintings. They are hanging here, “The Trilogy”, “The Self” and “The Other” about the woman who is seeing herself with somebody. They were published in VS magazine New York in collaboration with Cartier, who provided jewellery and also the model, Bianca Brandolini. I was looking at that time for ways of art to be seeing more in media and I found it was an interesting experiment. I was totally free to do whatever I wanted, what is kind of a must, because otherwise it becomes too much of an illustration and it won’t work. However, fashion is an art for me itself. Beautifully made clothes are definitely inspiring.

    There is also a collaboration between me and Stephen Ferber, who is a Swedish designer operating in America. Stephen has dressed the Butterfly Face Man – the doll which is part of the installation at my exhibition here. When you make an installation all of a sudden of your paintings, you really need a craft of the tailor in order to live up to the images in the paintings. This is another example of collaborating with fashion. Do you follow any fashion trends? I would not say I have followed any. Whenever I see something that is nice and of course I can be inspired by that. But living in the NYC, I walk down the street, where there is a lot of fashion going on and I get to see it. My focus is mainly on my art. So I do look into fashion, whenever I need to.

    What do you think of the Blade-Runner-fashion of today with its dystopian aesthetics? Isn’t that a bit like kind of a back side of your paintings, a hidden message? I think fashion echoes pretty much how the parts of the population feel. And maybe there is a dystopic world view by many now. This is always being there, I think, and in the past as well.

    Did you have a pair of Gul & Blå jeans when you were young or were you more of the Levi’s generation? I think I had a pair of Gul & Blå but I was more of the Levi’s generation.

    We have previously mentioned the city as a part of your artistic soul, but now I would like to ask you about the integral part of it – dandy. What is dandy for you? Do you consider yourself to be one? Do you think there is a big difference between a dandy from NYC and one from Stockholm? Yes, I think there is a difference but it also depends on what you mean by a dandy. I usually do not use this word that often. But if you go with the English word “dandy”, which means kind of jolly, happy and elegant, then, yes, my characters are definitely this kind of dandies many times or they are dressing up as one. Behind the stage they are probably not as powerful and elegant as they want to portray themselves. We are now coming back to the stage again with the illusion of that around the dinner table, where everything for this moment is very nice and elegant and then, behind the scenes, it may not be. However, I do not see myself as a dandy, because when I paint, when I am painting for shows, I cannot wear clothes like this. I stand in paint-covered jeans and a t-shirt, feeling more like some form of crafts. It is not as glamorous as the dinner suits.

    In Stockholm, there are different part of the city, where you see more dandies, while in New York many times you can see quite extreme dandies. In Stockholm it is more moderate. It also has to do with the character of the city, New York is always much more extreme and you would be able to see retro dandies or outrageous dandies. Meanwhile, in Stockholm it is more controlled.

    I associate your painting “Man in Thoughts I” with Nils Dardel’s artwork “Dying Dandy”, as I could feel the imminence of death in both. Have you thought about it while painting it? Well, I have not been directly inspired by his work but it is about an iconic image in Swedish art and I think it has, subconsciously, affected me very much. The colours are interesting and similar. When I was looking at Rubens’ “The Tiger Hunt”, I think I grew up with this image and it kind of intruded my mind. I think, that is how we operate. Now, the imminence of death is definitely in my image “Man in Thoughts I” and it is the rider in the background and he is always there. The fact is that Nils Dardel and me are both Swedish and we share that kind of death anxiety, a heritage.

    You mentioned Rubens and his painting with tigers. What do animals symbolize in you paintings? Symbolism in the artistry is always super interesting and very powerful, I think. I have played a lot with that. Of course, a tiger or a crocodile are very powerful animals with a lot of danger. For me it becomes interesting to put a crocodile under an elegant dinner table, where it is about almost to bite somebody’s hand off. It may just be a symbol of the conversation which is going on between the people at the dinner table. I also have the symbolism of fish, for instance, which has been very interesting and very important in Christianity. To play with that in my paintings, I find it very interesting that this symbol, being so important for our civilization and Europe, has now been pulled out of the ocean. It has an interesting paradox to it.

    You have kind of anticipated my next question. I just wanted to ask you about the symbol of fish in your art, thinking of Max Beckmann and his “Journey on the Fish” (1933). In Beckmann’s works fish symbolizes phallus, fertility and animal nature. I find that aquatic animal to look so weird on plate on land, just like a boiled lobster looks very beautiful but with strange. And boiled lobster has an excel skeleton – it is hard on the outside and soft in the inside and it can relate to some of the characters in my paintings as well. It can also be something very erotic about fish, like in one of my last paintings where a fisherman is slapping his fish on the table, almost like a phallic symbol. Thus, there is a Freudian level to it too, that I am more or less aware of, but I think sexuality is something that is in everything we do and everywhere in nature; everything is about reproduction, so it becomes a kind of interesting layer as well. When I did my “Fish Studies”, I was more looking at Flemish painters than Max Beckmann, as many of them depicted fish in various ways such as dinner scenes etc. I think, their way of painting has been very inspiring.

    The interaction with still life always brings existential questions, unless you completely numb. I had a pig head in my big freezer at one point. I took it out to study it and I had to defrost it using a hair blow dryer to get the frost off. Once it started to thaw and juices started to run, things start to move, the ears started sinking a little bit and eyes started getting a certain kind of wetness to them, I realised that is something that had been alive. I think it is important if you depict it and there the painting has an advantage of the photography, because you are forced to stay in it. You cannot just take a photo and leave but you have to stay and really get to know the death of it. It also brings a certain energy to the painting.

    Which Swedish Artists are you inspired by? Many of the artists here at Waldemarsudde are my heroes if not all of them, Ernst Josephson, Anders Zorn, Carl Larsson, Richard Bergh and so on. They are all here at this museum and that is why I feel so excited to exhibit here. What about August Strindberg’s artworks? Absolutely, I can definitely like his work and I love the mood he was looking for, especially in Stockholm.

    Does anything in particular from the Swedish heritage, part of which you also are, inspire you the most? Definitely, Swedish angst is a certain kind of angst. We are very correct and we keep what we promise, we show up on time. These values I learned that I really had when I lived in New York. I think that correctness stands from the Swedish Lutheran, where you have to earn your way somehow. Then I also think, that the Swedish aesthetic, sense of beauty and the light from this place is very interesting and it is in my backbone. The long dark nights, the artificial light of Stockholm, for instance but also the Scandinavian lights with their sunsets and summertime.

    In your artworks, I think I could see references to Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal”. Does he inspire you? I do not really refer to him but I have seen the movie and I love that death scene. And I think it is such a great portrayal of death. Definitely, I love that kind of character. When I was young and saw Pieter Bruegel’s “The Triumph of Death” at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, it affected me deeply and I was terrified as a child.

    Could you tell us about religion/religious scenes in your art? Christianity, which is a part of European history, has a difficult view on sexuality and has been very forbidding and very punishing towards a side of human nature that has been accepted in another cultures. Therefore, I put Adam and Eve running, where Adam chasing Eve naked in the background of one of my paintings that we discussed earlier, “Man in Thoughts I”. You cannot escape the fact that it has affected you and therefore I am trying to study and analyse how it has affected me and how I can incorporate it into my art.

    Your favourite place in NYC respectively Stockholm and why? In New York it is the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hispanic Society due to their incredible art collections. In Stockholm I prefer Djurgården for its nature and Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde for its environment and art collection. 

    What advice would you give to creative people today, who are looking for their purpose in life? I will use the words I was once told, “You have to put yourself in a situation where you have no other option but to succeed.”

  • VICKY LAWTON: 360 APPROACH WITH ACTION, ENERGY AND EXPERIMENTING

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Behind every fashion and music video or any TV commercial there is always a significant extent of creativity. Vicky Lawton is a ‘visual fanatic’, who has directed a number of those boldly intriguing photo and video stories for such brands as Chanel, Elie Saab, Jil Sander and a few others. Belonging to a new wave of female directors, Vicky was already prestigiously nominated for Best New Director at the 2015 Shots Awards and also won a Silver at the 2016 Young Director Award in Cannes. However, the award list is long and Vicky was also praised with the Creative Circle award for Best Up and Coming Female Commercial Film Director 2017 and appeared on the cover of Pitch Magazine's 'Winners' Issue. Thus, she is one of the ‘architects’ of the magnificent and faceted world, consisting of directors, photographers, strategists, producers and editors, which is known to us under the name FASHION. Odalisque Magazine together with Vicky Lawton has made an attempt to give our readers a peak into that magnificent and demanding reality of Vicky’s professional life.

    Please tell us about your recent film project and your next exciting project in photography.
    Recently I shot an Agent Provocateur campaign - film and stills, which was a really amazing experience working with Creative Director Sarah Shotton and featuring the incredible Eliza Cummings. A first person perspective film which delved into little moments between Eliza and her lover - some quite adventurous, some very naughty.

    Now I am working on a personal project at the moment called ‘Self Love’ which is an exploration into learning to accept and love yourself and the skin you are in. It is both stills and film and the casting is all about inclusivity - collaborating with those in the fashion industry as well as friends, family and a call out to anyone who wants to be involved.

    What came first, passion for film or love for photography?
    Tricky question… I fell in love with cinema first, music videos and then I became obsessed with fashion magazines: Vogue, Elle, The Face. I would rip out the pages and tape them up on my walls like wallpaper.

    What fashion brand (you have not worked with) would you love to work with in photography and/or in film and why?
    I would love to work on projects that I can really sink my teeth in from start to finish - collaborate creatively, create the photography campaign alongside the TV Commercial. To bring a new 360 approach to everything. I LOVE action, energy and experimenting with different camera rigs. Working with brands who are on the same wavelength would be incredible.

    Which male politician and female politician would you like to photograph? How could we expect to see them portrayed in your photographs? (I mean if you would like to create a certain image for the person or put him/her in a special environment)?
    I would love to photograph women who are actually making a difference. Women who are starting conversations, standing up to put important message out there and putting actions in place to encourage the next wave. When I get the chance to work with Reese Witherspoon, Emma Watson, Katherine Bigelow, Patty Jenkins, Reed Morano I’ll make sure they are portrayed as the bad-ass, awesome individuals that they are.

    Do you have any female photographer/-s whose works have been a great inspiration for you?
    I have always been a big fan of Annie Leibovitz and Ellen von Unwerth. Leibovitz has a portfolio of incredible portraits and really seems to understand her subjects. Ellen von Unwerth has such a distinct style and I really admire how playful her images are.

    How does artificial intelligence (AI) affect/improve your work in film and photography? Does it become easier or you have to learn more and adapt yourself to new digital conditions?
    Robots are going to become photographers and directors…and then I will be out of a job!

    When you create a fashion video, who usually decides what the plot/theme should be, you or the fashion brand?
    The creative concept comes from the agency on TV Commercials - but on fashion films I have created through Hunger Magazine, I usually have created the concepts alongside my team at The Full Service.

    What media do you think fashion will use in 20 years? Will Instagram survive taking new AI-forms?
    I think we will have a new incarnation of Instagram, it will involve into something new - not sure what yet! Film is dominating the platforms, with digital taking precedent over stills in some cases clients are asking for moving image more often.

    How do you, working with soft intelligence called creativity, where you constantly judged by audience, defeat you fear or insecurities connected to that?
    You cannot be precious about your ideas. They have to be shared, and that is the way they grow! There is always a bit of nervousness when you put out a piece of work, but good or bad feedback it is all a learning curve.

    Do you think we ever will be able to see a new sustainable era of fashion, where sustainability is not just merely used as a marketing strategy?
    I hope so, I think big companies are realising that it is a necessity to have strong solutions in place to enable better sustainability. There’s no time to waste…no pun intended.

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