Chi L. Nguyễn (Nguyễn Linh Chi, b.1992) is a visual artist from Hanoi, Vietnam. Her works explore liminal space and states between contradictions, and how conflicting forces can co-exist, interact and negotiate with each other, especially between nature - human and more-than-human beings. Chi often works with drawing, mixed-media installation, cross-disciplinary as well as research-based projects. Chi graduated Illustration from Camberwell College of Arts - University of the Arts London in 2013. In 2019, Chi participated in ‘Citizen Earth’, a year-long project bringing together artists and curators with a focus on environmental issues in Vietnam. She chose to examine the issue of religious waste in water spaces and ecological paradoxes in relation to faith. With that, Chi began exploring translucent and reflective materials, in particular mirrors and glass, through learning from an artisan she met in Hanoi Old Quarter. This project also ignited her multidisciplinary approach in which her resulting work was a mirror installation with sound design by artist Nhung Nguyễn. The paradoxes stemming from both material and topic later led her to investigate on the way mirrors and glass create immersive environments, unsettling states of the in-between, of contradictions. During 2021-2022, she then brought mirrors to stage installation, expanding the possibilities of reflective materials in relation to space and audiences through a dance-theater project titled ‘The Room 1’ supported by Goethe-Institut Hanoi paying tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch. Later in 2022, Chi furthered her research on traditional religious mirror & glass painting in Southern Vietnam through her residency and public talk at Sàn Art. With this ‘Ecologies of Water’ programme, Chi wants to continue her exploration with reflective materials in relation to liminal and paradoxical spaces and subject.
LIA Portraits w/ Chi L. Nguyễn
Aida El-Oweidy (b. 1997) is a Cairo-based visual artist working through the mediums of text, drawing, installation, and performance. She employs speculative practices, experimentation and research-based methodologies to explore performance of the self online and the creation and demolition of spaces through conversation and collective imaginings. Collaboration also forms a large part of her practice. In 2022, Aida co-founded the Bakht collective, which focuses on the intersections between sound, visuals and movement through improvisation. She also co-created the ZayMaTeegy initiative, a series of live coding events in Cairo. By manipulating found footage, video synthesizers, text and generative design elements, she tries to construct spaces and systems that respond to sonic interventions. Fragmented Constructions is an improvised live coding performance that deconstructs and reimagines the relationship between the city and its inhabitants.
LIA Portraits w/ Aida El-Oweidy
“My work explores the connection between the women of my upbringing and myself’s evaluation. Growing up to all their stories, beliefs and insecurities impacted my personal journey as a little girl and still is until this day. While painting I dig deeper into my own emotions, explore my inner thoughts and express my authentic self without external influence. Being an artist is not merely a career or a job; it is a profound and continuous journey of self-expression, growth, and exploration. As an artist, my artistic journey has evolved and transformed over time, shaping me both personally and creatively. Each artwork becomes a reflection of my inner world, capturing the essence of my emotions and thoughts at that particular moment in my life. It’s characterized by continuous exploration and experimentation. It involves stepping out of my comfort zone, taking risks, and pushing the boundaries of creativity. Ultimately, the journey of an artist is a lifelong commitment to self-expression, growth, and the pursuit of artistic excellence. It is a constant evolution that transcends any single artwork or moment. As I continue along this journey, I am reminded of the transformative power of art and its ability to shape not only my artistic practice but also my perception of the world and my place within it.”
LIA Portraits w/ Mays AL Moosawi
Jeans O’Donnel represents spaces and how they shape our experiences in their work. Her latest series of work was based on the uncomfortable feeling of public transit and existing in the public space. It captures the feeling of being watched in public. The gaze of others can make one feel monstrous like their personhood is not valid to the general population. Truly the behavior of watching and judging others is inhuman behavior. When one doesn’t fit the mold, especially queer people, they feel these eyes more deeply than those who have been told that they were acceptable their whole lives.
LIA Portraits w/ Jeans O’Donnel
Mitja Fick graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Ljubljana (ALUO) in 1999. In 2002, he earned his master’s degree from the same academy with prof. Metka Krašovec. In 2003, he won the Golden Bird Award for his series of paintings titled ‚Stones‘. His paths with ALUO crossed again in 2018, when he started teaching there as an Assistant Professor. In 2023, this was followed by a promotion to Full Professor. In his works, Ficko explores the boundaries and coexistence of worlds, levels of existence and ways or styles of painting. More than the final static representation of an object or scene, this concerns a dialectic between their emergence - materialisation and disappearence - dematerialisation. To him, a painting is a process, the coexistence and intertwinement of the abstract and the figurative. Since 1997, Ficko has shown his work in solo and curated group exhibitions in Slovenia and worldwide. He lives and works between Ljubljana and Leipzig. The ‚collage principle‘ of Ficko’s painting relocated to the structure of a painting - to multi-layering, covering and placing elements alongside each other - where the image is composed via reconstructing its spatial and compositional framework. This image composition strategies are also a response to the effects of digitalisation and its interactive, intertextual and hypertextual form and content.
LIA Portraits w/ Mitja Ficko
Born and raised in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I did my degree in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for Graphic Communication Design, before I took short courses at Saint Martins in London. "After finishing my degree I was working as a full time graphic designer, but in 2020, after covid hit the world, I started painting for many days non-stop. I realized how fragile can be a human being, so many lives were taken on that time of period. And I decided to do art full time. I took part in many local and international exhibitions happening in my home town – Tashkent. Mostly I feel really comfortable doing paintings. I enjoy playing with bright colors and mixing acrylics with watercolor and charcoal, pencils and pastels. But sometimes when I have enough courage I do experiment with different medium. Like for example, I worked on a series of video installations. For my art residency program I came with a project which covers the topic of cotton textile industry through feminism. I would love to deep my research about the working environments for women at SPINNEREI when it was functioning as a cotton mill factory. "
LIA Portraits w/ Mohira Mullyadjanova
Jack Wotton is an artist and PhD candidate at Sydney College of the Arts, USYD. His practice explores the possibilities of communicating the experience of disaster through quiet approaches. Following this mode Jack works across multiple disciplines including sound, photography, film, and performance, drawing from his personal experience of the 2020 Australian Bushfires. His practice attempts to reveal the disquiet of an inner catastrophe and a fracturing of the self. The idea of multiple selves is explored through another side of Jack’s practice with his band The Wünderz. He has franchised the band into multiple groups who play the same songs and wear the same outfits during performances billed as The Wünderz. Jack looks to continue and expand his work at LIA.
LIA Portraits w/ Jack Wotton
“My work is very self-introspective, despite the fact that I am rarely the subject matter. I look for myself in others and try to piece together that which I am not with what I am. Although my inspiration is drawn from the external world, I want to highlight the importance of perception and expression when it comes to the manner in which external stimuli affect the internal mechanisms that define us as individuals. It is not the world that defines me, but how I know the world. The nuances in every interaction, the flow of a line on a paper or canvas, and the choices behind a seemingly instinctive gesture. The duality of existence: the good, the bad; the beautiful, the ugly; the spoken, the unspoken. These are concepts I define as an amalgamation of personal experiences- the expression of the proximal aspects of the self converging with the distal aspects of being. At the end of the day, we are a collection of dualities constantly shifting from one end of the spectrum to the other.”
LIA Portraits w/ Nkosinathi Tembe
Simone Albers (Nijmegen, 1990) makes paintings and installations reflecting on the natural world and the way we relate to her. Natural sciences like palaeontology, astronomy and microbiology play a key part in her research as tools to open up hidden realms beyond the directly visible. The second main field important in her work is philosophy. Weaving together insights and images produced by the natural sciences with philosophical reflections, she proposes alternative cosmologies that center the complexity of natural systems, dismissing objectification and reductionism of natural phenomena and ultimately challenging the anthropocentric worldview. Simone Albers studied Fine Art at ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem (NL). Her work has been shown throughout the Netherlands and abroad in solo and group presentations as well as on different art fairs. In 2019 her work got nominated for the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting and in 2022 she won the Sieger White Award, on the occasion of which her book Myriad Ways of Being ~ Being of Myriad Ways appeared at Jap Sam Books end of 2023. Her work can be found in the collections of the Province of Gelderland, Menzis health insurance and Delft University of Technology, among others.
LIA Portraits w/ Simone Albers
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