focus magazine 8

Anna Tea ¿ Clinton Van Inman ¿ Cyriaco Lopes

Harrys Picot ¿ Christian Gastaldi ¿ Achraf Baznani

ISSUE 8

FOCUS FROM ARTIST TO ARTIST

ISSUE no. 8

Contributors: Anna Tea, Clinton Van Inman, Cyriaco Lopes, Harrys Picot, Christian Gastaldi

Cover photo: Achraf Baznani Face of Battle

FOCUS Independent & Readers-Supported Magazine of Photography and Art

Edited & Published by Achraf Baznani

baznani.com | [email protected]

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Call For Work, Next Issues

NO THEME

Subject matter is OPEN

Send up to 12 images for consideration

OIL- ACRYLIC - WATERCOLOR

MIXED MEDIA - PHOTOGRAPHY

DIGITAL ART - SCULPTURE - GLASS

All rights to art, words, photos, design and copyrights are the property of the Artist.

All work in this publication may not be used without the Artist’s consent.

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Clinton Van Inman

England

I am submitting some pictures of my newest

paintings that I hope you will like. These are

originals and hand painted by me. My

paintings have appeared in many magazines

and are often featured on magazine covers as

well as publications. This year I am having arts

shows in downtown Tampa and city hall in

Brooksville. My biggest accomplishment as an

artist is having a large watercolor painting

hanging in the new library of the Huntington

Library and Museum in San Marino albeit two

buildings away from my hero Gainsborough

but at least I’m close. As a realistic painter I try

to blend classical themes with modern.

I was born in Walton-on-Thames, England,

graduated from San Diego State University,

and have been an teacher all my life having

recently retired from the Tampa Bay area

where I live with my wife, Elba.

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Christian Gastaldi

france

Christian Gastaldi is a French artist born along

the shores of the Mediterranean. He started

travelling the world andliving abroad. In 2005,

art became an absolute necessity.He kept trav-

elling, moving his studios around (France, An-

gola, Azerbaijan, Spain, Canada…)

Gastaldi conceives his creation as a painter,

though he hardly use paints. His preferred ma-

terials arethosethat can be found in the streets,

having suffered the passing of timeor those,

whose mundane functions do not spontane-

ously elect them as arty material. He aims to

bring out the ‘humanity’ and the fragility per-

ceived in this simplematerial, worth for him of

an artistic redemption.

Through hand-made tears, involving deeply

the body in the creation process - he builds

rhythm, key element of his creations. Working

like a novelist focusing on the melody of the

sentences, his tears find a place in the canvas

space, to create the graphic equivalent of a

writer’s style.

Broken letters, faint color touches or dust cov-

ered elements, hang on along the tear gener-

ated cliffs, raising the awareness of the beauty

and the fragility of present.

He dreams to be a visual poet.

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Anna Tea

My name is Anna. I am a photographer based

between Ukraine and Poland.

I would describe my own work as an intensive

mixture or various elements such as psychol-

ogy, geography, environment, inter-cultural

aspects etc. which, I believe, make it quite di-

verse yet still ascribe it my own unique per-

spectives based on different backgrounds and

experiences I have gone through until today as

being a young, curious traveler who is in a con-

stant move catching glimpses of unusual mo-

ments, people and everything that is in connec-

tion with their inner and outer contents. Trav-

eling certainly plays an important role in de-

veloping my own style and characteristic and it

greatly contributes in reaching towards fulfill-

ment of my artistic ambitions. I enjoy myself

discovering the world because new places are

truly efficient sources of further inspiration

and they extend my capacities as they broaden

knowledge about oneself in influenced by vari-

ous environments, cultures, people, situations

and circumstances. In brief, in my photography

one can find broad spectrum of emotions

merged with functional/dysfunctional charac-

teristics emphasizing individual and his/her

various functions in the society and world.

However, I think intrapersonal issues are the

ones that attract me the most as I am particu-

larly interested in psychology. I like to explore

different characters and personalities, even the

ones who are considered to be „out of norm”. I

am curious about how body and mind connects

within an individual and also try to express this

through my photography as I believe that this

is a topic which can never be fully discovered

and hides great potentials within it.

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Cyriaco Lopes

Cyriaco Lopes is a New York based Brazilian

artist whose work has been seen in the United

States (at the Contemporary Art Museums in

Baltimore and Saint Louis and at El Museo del

Barrio, NYC, etc.); in Brazil (at the Museums of

Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, the

Museum of Art of São Paulo, the National Mu-

seum of Fine Arts, etc.); in Germany (at Artfo-

rum 3, Freiburg), in Belgium (at Art Cinema

OffOff, Gent), in France (at Mire/Lieu Unique,

Nantes, at Centre D’Art Contemporain Faux

Mouvement, Metz, and at Centre Wallonie

Bruxelles, Paris); and in Italy (at Casa Degli

Artist, Milan), among other countries and ven-

ues. His work has been curated by such artists

as Lygia Pape, Janine Antoni, Ryan Trecartin

and Luciano Fabro, as well as by art critics

such as Paulo Herkenhoff. In 2013 he exhib-

ited at Kabine Nadire, Istanbul, Turkey, and

the Armenian Centre for Contemporary and

Experimental Art in Yerevan.

Lopes won Stetson University Hand Award for

Faculty Achievement (2007), The Contempo-

rary Art Museum Saint Louis Project Award

(2003), the World Studio Foundation Award

(2001), the Phillips Prize of trip to Europe

(1997).

The artist holds two MFAs: one in Imaging and

Digital Arts, UMBC, Baltimore (2002), and the

other in Visual Languages, UFRJ, Rio de Ja-

neiro (1999). He also attended artist’s residen-

cies such as Skowhegan (2002), Parque Lage

(1995) and the London Project (1994).

He is a professor at John Jay College/City Uni-

versity of New York.

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HARRYS

HARRYS is a member of these contemporary

painters who are one foot in the current art

and an other one in the decadent pop art. And

although the subjects chosen in his representa-

tional painting are clearly recognizable, every-

thing seems to be only fragment, that immedi-

ate agrees you to enter the universe of the art-

ist.

The paint of HARRYS confides slowly, very

slowly it appears as a set of parts to look with

accuracy, offering then an iconography which

sparkles with fresh rudeness and seems to urge

you to come to share a game .

The tools of HARRYS sculpture flesh and shad-

ows, impertinent and free beings which look at

you, scrutinize you, grimace and sometimes

gesture up to the big-farcical caricature as if

they laughed at themselves.The characters go

out of their frames and enjoy parodying the

spectator.

The paint of HARRYS makes then bitter-sweet,

it concerns an ironic eye the existence, the

company and its mechanisms, on these cease-

less waves of collective frenzy in which our

contemporary world is self-mutilating .

Virtual decline of a blazing chromatic universe,

HARRYS‘s work, not deprived of humor, is an

invitation for a journey of flesh at the heart of

the human being!

Magnus Bilal TASHAAT

Art collector and critic

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Achraf Baznani

Moroccan artist photographer Achraf Baznani

(pronounced: Ashraf Baznani) carries on the

traditions of Surrealism with his wild,

imaginative, and wholly impractical imagery.

Among his inventive scenarios, small human

figures—often the artist himself—appear

trapped within glass jars or the size of a camera

lens; in other works, Baznani more or less

dissects his body, as for example, in one, he

cleanly removes his brain from his cranium, or

in another, twists off his hand, much as if it

were a light bulb. Imparted throughout such

works are strong senses of humor and wonder,

and as such, Baznani’s art offers a Surrealistic

take on life experience in the digital age.

A self-taught artist, Baznani has no formal

photography education.

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

If you have any questions, please

email us at [email protected]

Please read all requirements below

prior to making your submission.

You are the copyright holder to the

image(s) being submitted, or you have

permission from the copyright holder to

submit the image(s) on his/her behalf.

A 200-300 words biography describing

you as an artist, your field of work, your

process, and your style of work. Include

a professionally taken headshot.

Texts should be submitted as an attachment

in Microsoft Word or a file format we can

open with Word.

Image(s) should not contain any

watermark/text/graphic overlays.

Image(s) are provided as individual

high-qualify JPEG files in the RGB color

space.

10 Image(s) are at least 1200 pixels on

its longest side; resolution is set at 72dpi.

For more informations:

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Inside My Dreams

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Next Issue

CALL FOR WORK

NO THEME

Subject matter is OPEN

Send up to 12 images for consideration

PROMOTE YOUR PROJECT

Do you have a body of work or current project you

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page in our magazine. In exchange we ask for a

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focus magazine 8

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