Bubblegum Club

Tag: stylistic

  • Kamila Bassioni – The Illustrator and collage artist conveying feelings of suffering with her cardboard characters

    Kamila Bassioni – The Illustrator and collage artist conveying feelings of suffering with her cardboard characters

    Earthy colours. Muted tones. Abstract, stylistic characters cut, collaged and pasted together to form a whole. All to deliver emotion and critical thought.

    Cairo-based visual artist, Kamila Bassioni completed her B.A. in scenography at the Fine Arts College in Egypt. Her work’s focus for the last few years has been freelance illustration, such as the design of book covers and illustrating children’s picture books. Outside of her commissioned work Kamila works on personal projects and has taken part in multiple group shows.

    Kamila’s inspiration for personal work is often found in her commissioned projects, as well as from human emotion, thoughts and actions of suffering. With her art, she attempts to convey and share different ways of thinking, particularly with regards to concept. Her aim is to open up the eyes of her spectators and to facilitate a more critical view within her audience.

    Working predominantly in paper and cardboard, Kamila merges cut-out and collaging techniques to create her characters that vary in size from minute to enormous. Each character evokes its own feeling and mood.

    An example of this can be found in the project, Rags to Riches, an installation of large-scale standing dolls representing the hopelessness and pain of the 1930’s Great Depression and simultaneously paints the current state that Egyptian citizens find themselves in.

    Kamila’s work has a tendency to convey feelings of anguish and pain. Her work ranging on melancholy attempts to instil a critical stance from her viewer and touches on politically loaded subjects, reflecting on out past and present world.

  • Photographer and Film Maker Jarred Figgins uses imagery to see the beauty in peculiarity

    Photographer and Film Maker Jarred Figgins uses imagery to see the beauty in peculiarity

    Traditional framing broken and carefully pieced together. The cutting off of feet in a frame, blowing them up and lending them their own image – making them carry their own worth. Soft hazy, dreamlike images are painted. Jarred Figgins strikes the balance between careful contemplation and haphazard play with his photographic work. With images that often hiss oddities, it must be understood that they are thoughtfully constructed in a simple matter-of-fact way.

    The South African photographer has in recent times become increasingly involved in the art of the moving image. Spending his formative years in Johannesburg, he relocated to Cape Town at the age of 18. Theoretical knowledge in the field was built up during the years he spent studying. Reflecting on his craft and childhood, Jarred explains that his desire to create images that were non-conformist was aroused from a need to splinter conventionality.

    Questioning the label of fashion photographer that can easily be latched on to him, Jarred tells me that what sets you apart in a world of fast content consumption is the ability to approach the same subject matter in a slightly different way and a determination to stay ahead of the pack.

    Discussing his interest in film Jarred states, “I think that film really allows you to manoeuvre an idea in a specific direction that a still sometimes lacks. It’s like being able to grow an idea so much more which so quickly takes shape or exerts a feeling without much effort…” His short film pieces come across as an experimental, visual ode, keeping its refinement in its technicality and precision.

    He pinpoints his stylistic edge as something that often times takes place in post-production. “I’m not necessarily doing anything different with photography or composition, it’s just something I perhaps find fun or alarming whilst editing.”

    About his process and tendency to work on set, Jarred tells me that careful planning does not always play out the way it is anticipated on set. He emphasises that for him a fine balance needs to be struck between playing by the rule book and letting the shoot take its natural course.

    A great deal of his work for a shoot happens in pre and post production. The pre-production work could be seen as the most taxing, perhaps, as Jarred frequently builds his own sets and regards his curated playlists for shoots to be an integral part of his creative process. His photographic work is seen by him as a vehicle that allows him to express what he wants to the world.

    Jarred’s work both moving and still are trademarked by his stylistic choices that sets him apart. His play with lighting and colour that results in dreamlike painterly images elevates the concepts of his work. His unusual way of piecing together various images and fragments of images into wholly different layouts creates peculiarity and beauty – the beauty in peculiarity.

  • The Carnation zine // collating floral dreams

    As with most creative collaborations, The Carnation zine was birthed from stylistic play between Jade Paton and Cynthia Fan. Cynthia has been working as a florist at Lush Flowers since completing her Masters in plant molecular biology. “I started ikebana [Japanese flower arranging practice] classes about a year and a half ago with the Ohara Chapter in Cape Town and it has the strongest influence on my work,” she explains. Jade on the other hand is the founder of House of Grace, where she creates macramé home ware and furniture. Her parents were florists, and so her fascination with flowers has been around since her childhood. Introducing each other to their processes when it comes to still life compositions, the pair realised that they have a similar aesthetic. Considering this and their collective love for flowers, Jade and Cynthia decided that a zine would be the most appropriate way to collate and share the images they were creating together.

    Reflecting on the journey for The Carnation Jade explains that, “The process was very organic and through collaboration, one thing quickly led to another. Working with someone that totally gets your ideas is great, as we are able to enhance and clarify them. We worked on most aspects of the zine ourselves, with the help of the amazing designer Taariq Latiff of Chclt.”

    Hoping that each issue will take on a life of its own, their first issue is exclusively visual. However, they are already working on the next one with Ane Strydom. “Collaboration is important in an age where everyone’s work is easily accessed through social media. Instead of competing, we should utilize someone else’s unique perspective and aesthetic to challenge our own creativity. By collaborating with another artist, our work is able to evolve in unexpected ways.”

    The launch for the Carnation takes place on 2 February at AKJP Collective in Cape Town. As an interesting parallel to the images in the zine, Jade and Cynthia will be taking over the store window for 10 days. “For the window we will have a flower arrangement/sculpture that we change every day. We like the idea of it being an interactive and changing installation,” Jade explains. A limited number of zines will be available which can be purchased from AKJP or ordered through The Carnation on Instagram.

     

    Credits

    Flowers by Cynthia Fan & Jade Paton

    Japan Photographs by Jade Paton

    Layout by Chclt 

    Images of zine for feature by Chclt

    Special  thank you to Lush Flowers and AKJP Collective