28 HATS FOR LAMU is a Photographic series whose sales go to New Leaf Rehabilitation Center in Kenya. The series celebrates the transformative power of creativity – how the ordinary becomes extraordinary as the imagination works its magic.

The photographs in this exhibition were made on the sub-equatorial island of Lamu in Kenya, in February 2020, by South-African photographer Kristin-Lee Moolman and French-British stylist Louise Ford, who spent much of her childhood between Zimbabwe and Kenya. The portraits document the competitors in this year’s Shela Hat Contest, a biannual event in which Lamunians foster environmental empathy.

Entrants create hats from material that would otherwise be thrown away, in a celebration of recycling and repurposing. The results are playful, joyous and often reflect the Lamunian experience. The photographs are currently exhibited in partnership with Artskop3437 (artskop.com) until 31 January 2021. 95% of the sales will be donated to the New Leaf association which is a rehabilitation centre in Lamu, Kenya.

Louise Ford And Kristin-Lee Moolman what does this project mean to you?

Louise Ford: 28 Hats for Lamu is a project that means a great deal to me personally. I spent 10 years of my life between Zimbabwe and Kenya, so being presented with the opportunity to create a body of work that not only celebrates the places and people I love, but also supports them, was one I had to act on. The project is an emotional investment that tells an important story. The creativity of the Lamunians and their environmental activism sets a rare example I hope inspires others to follow. 28 Hats For Lamu also demonstrates a light-hearted, festive and collaborative way to make political statements and talk about protecting our planet through community initiatives.

Kristin-Lee Moolman: 28 Hats for Lamu is significant to me because as a south african, one is constantly presented with negative images and news portraying african as a place of poverty and violence. The wealth of culture, the beauty of the landscapes, and the creative vision of many who live here is overshadowed by these stereotypes. The goal is always to contradict these negative assumptions by capturing the positives that are often ignored.  This project is a celebration of creativity. It is about optimism, empowerment and paying homage to the artists of Lamu.

What was equally important to me in this instance was to be able to use images to give back and not just take from a community. This is a purely personal thought process, but I feel that creative’s have power through imagery to facilitate change. Now more than ever we have a responsibility to use the power we have to do good where we can.

Where and how did you find inspiration?

Louise Ford: About two years ago I came across a leaflet in Lamu town on a notice board for the Shela Hat Contest. I had never seen anything like it, the creativity was unprecedented especially since the participants are not necessarily artists. I then embarked on a year long search for the founder of the contest to see if shooting a series of portraits would be possible. He explained the contest’s guiding principles which were, of course, hat making but also conveying a message about conservation within their designs. I had been inspired by the hats and the contest for a while, so I immediately began work on the project to see how we could use the art as a resource to raise awareness as well as funds for a charity that would benefit the community directly. The New Leaf Rehabilitation Clinic was recommended by many locals as an organization with very high success rates but lacking funding to realize its full potential.

Kristin-Lee Moolman: My inspiration generally comes from the people I encounter, what inspires is personal empowerment, optimism, and creativity – so  when I received the email from Louise detailing the project and past creations I was immediately moved and motivated to make the project happen no matter what.

How you felt working with the Lamu community in relation to its culture and heritage? Would love to know how you intertwined references from the community and its multiculturalism to the final output.

Louise Ford: Lamu is a multi-cultural community and its history blends Bantu, Arabic, Indian and South-east Asian cultures with Kenyan cultures. I was so inspired by this multifaceted society and humbled by the warmth and openness the contestants afforded us.

Kristin-Lee Moolman: The community of Lamu is a multicultural society just like any other first world city, just on a much smaller scale. Culture and its effects is something universal. The intertwined references and the diversity of the island’s community affected the output of the work in much the same way as those same things affect work created in cities like London. The difference for me here was that the work felt less about the artist as a singular creator, and focussed more on the impact we humans have on the environment as a global community.

There is a sense of compassion for the natural world and its inhabitants, as well as an understanding of the consequences of not conserving as we should.

Major difficulties/challenges?

K: There were no difficulties or challenges on the island at any point, the landscape was beautiful and it was a pleasure to work with everyone.

Generally one of the challenges when shooting a portrait is to stop yourself from imposing your idea of what somebody else is onto them, in essence capturing a ‘false portrait’.  It may seem irrelevant but taking the time to develop a sort of ‘dialogue’ between yourself and your model is important, it allows that person to become comfortable enough to be captured as themselves.

The difficulties came after COVID-19 hit and we had no way to exhibit the images to raise funds. It took months of correspondence and research to reach a point where we could actually show the work, but in a virtual reality as opposed to a physical one. It was a decision which ended up benefiting the project as we are able to raise more funds for the foundation as well as reach more people globally, and enable the contestants themselves to view.

L: There weren’t many. Everyone without exception was a delight to work with; eager to get involved, help whenever they could and collaborate right up until the exhibition itself. Most contestants knew about and fully supported our goal to raise funds for the New Leaf Clinic, it was important that we shared a common drive and desired outcome.

What are the practicalities you had to follow? And of course, feel free to add as much as you wish about it (from a personal and cultural viewpoint).

K&L : In terms of practicalities and different cultures Lamu is no different from anywhere else you would visit as a foreign photographer. Shooting subjects who are not professional models in a country that is not yours means you have to adopt a heightened sense of self awareness, and take care to be respectful of people and of their customs. It’s always good to keep in mind that people being photographed are doing you a service, not the other way around. Being foreigners and not speaking the local languages poses small challenges but is ultimately something that’s easily overcome. We made sure we had someone who could translate correctly. What is important is making who you shoot feel comfortable enough to be themselves regardless of your cultural differences or what languages either of you speak.

We mostly just felt honored to have been welcomed so warmly, and with such a collaborative spirit.

The works in this photographic series are available for purchase here. 95% of the sales will be donated to the New Leaf association in Kenya. The online exhibition lasts until January 31, 2021. Artskop3437 delivers worldwide and shipping is free for any purchase of a photo from the series.

This interview was previously published on Vogue Italia.

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“I came to weaving through a process of elimination,” explains New York City-based artist Luam Melake. Architecture, which the artist studied at the University of California, Berkeley, was “too big”; the materially experimental furniture that makes up the second mainstay of her practice “requires a lot of downtime as things cure and dry”. Instead she found the loom allowed for “immediate experimentation”.

Ironically, hand weaving is not often celebrated for its immediacy, but like so many things the distinction is relative. In her work as a materials researcher for the built environment the time to construct a building, rather than a textile, is Melake’s norm. But she recognises that the material solutions she sources can often be overlooked by a hurried visitor. Instead, Melake’s attention to the possibilities of our material world find an outlet that enjoys the viewer’s full attention in her textiles and furniture.

During a residency at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City in 2017, Melake “wanted to find a way for others to look inside themselves”. She showed materials of undisclosed purpose to visitors who were then invited to share thoughts about what the materials evoked. A series of weavings were created in response. While surprised at the confessional nature many of the conversations revealed, Melake found the project confirmed her fascination with the communicative power of materials. “The things I make are related to objects that are recognisable and for daily use,” she offers. Related to, but far from identical.

Melake’s weavings often move against the ninety degree angle interlacing of warp and weft the loom was created to control. Earlier works such as Recovery (2016) use the techniques of lace and tapestry needle weaving to “dissolve the grid that is fundamental to the practice of weaving”. She combines materials such as cold-applied copper and cement with the porous structure of the textile, describing the work as a landscape of varying emotions which appear in “the consistent process of healing and mending oneself, as well as the relentless threat of despair and depression that threatens to engulf and to harden”.

Remains (2018) works with another unusual material composition, bringing together Acrylic and Lurex fibre with polymer clay and cellophane. Instead of the emotional earth of Recovery, here Melake refers to archaeological sediment of a “topographical section, revealing a history of clay, earth and pottery fragments, followed by layers of plastics and petroleum products”. Attention to evocative material compositions is also apparent in Outpouring (2019) where rubber tubes droop expressively. An alchemy of tar, rubber, steel wool and cement sit alongside imitation gold and silver leaf in Without Qualities (2018), while tabs of squishy polyurethane foam, nylon thread, urethane and flocking fibres suggest material litmus tests in Parts That Fell Away (2019). “I think it is easy to dismiss what is recognisable,” Melake offers of the line she seeks between the familiar and the hard-to-place.

In addition to weaving, Luam Melake has begun a new furniture series called Optimisd (a blending of the words “optimist” and “optimized”). Listening Chair (2019) and Better Together Table (2019) offer positions from which we can watch, cradle or hear another person – a response to the “alienation and a decline in empathy” common not only in America, but across the globe today. While she is quick to acknowledge that this is not work that claims to solve the world’s problems, it is “a desperate attempt to do something; an optimistic attempt.”

Recently, Port, Porte, Porter (2019) has taken Melake’s own hand weaving into a larger scale. As a special commission from Fondation Blachère, the work was handwoven at Manufacture Sénégalaise Des Arts Décoratifs, an organisation established by late poet, cultural theorist and former President Léopold Sédar Senghor in 1966. The project was managed by Versant Sud in Marseille, who are dedicated to the development of artistic and cultural projects in the south of France and capital cities on the African continent – geographic areas which share the challenge of limited local arts infrastructure.

Luam Melake drew her initial inspiration for the tapestry from Rahim Danto Barry’s book Portes d’Afrique, which charts the many material and symbolic thresholds of sub-Saharan Africa. In French, the title Port, Porte, Porter offers a linguistic pun, suggesting various versions of movement both by sea and through doorways – places of exchange which offer poignant references to the histories of colonialism and the trade of enslaved peoples westward from the African continent.

Despite the considerable experience of the weavers working at Manufacture Sénégalaise Des Arts Décoratifs, Melake’s selection of jute, raffia and synthetic fibres were unconventional, challenging materials to weave. After the textile was completed in Senegal, Melake applied clay and plaster paint to the woven surface and an aluminium structure was created in the workshops at Fondation Blachère. “I want to push tapestry to three dimensional forms” she offers. Luam Melake’s textiles and furniture are creations that no longer resemble one taxonomy. Instead they offer curious hybrids of materials and techniques that refuse to be limited by the expectations of a single category or definition.

Port, Porte, Porter (2019) will be exhibited in Sumegne/Ngaparou, opening at the Fondation Blachère in October 2020.

Luam Melake (American, born 1986) graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in Interdisciplinary Field Studies, majoring in Architecture and Art History in 2008. She has collaborated with public and private institutions on commissioned projects and has been artist in residence at leading institutions including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha and the Blachère Foundation in Apt, France. Melake lives and works in New York City.

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A representation of the plurality of human experiences

‘Another’s Tongue’ brings together works on paper that the Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage draws from life, his memory and other sources, including his video notes which form the epilogue of the exhibition. In fluid ink studies, Armitage paints the expanse of the Kenyan landscape and its wildlife, as well as life on the streets in urban East Africa. His vivid character sketches capture the energy of performers, prophets, musicians, the costumed crowds at Kenyan election rallies, and the illegal brewers in Nairobi’s slums.

The painter Walter Sickert said, ” I would like all of the works to be different, but also unified. Different in the sense that every day is different, different in that experiences are always different, I’d like the work to reflect that sort of change and the way a mind changes, the way an attitude shifts “. This is also exactly how Armitage would like its work to be perceived.

A political dimension

During the visit of Michael Armitage’s exhibition “the Accomplice” at the Norval Foundation the writer Imraan coovadia said ” Armitage is clearly more interested in the poetic or philosophical significance of his visual material than in its purely documentary value. And so he is typically drawn to what takes place away from the political stage: the moving human dramas or “sub- plots” that distract from and question the dominant political narrative, telling different, often competing, stories“.

Armitage has for example, during the 2017 Kenyan elections joined a local TV crew at an opposition rally in Uhuru Park in the centre of Nairobi. Caught up in the large crowds, Armitage recalled a tree full of perching observers, and carnivalesque revellers dressed up in wigs, masks and carrying slings. These characters were later caught on camera running from teargas and hurling stones at the police, who retaliated with gunfire. Many of the works on paper derive from film footage of these scenes, and later informed a series of paintings.

Michael Armitage

Michael Armitage was born in 1984 in Nairobi, Kenya. He works between Nairobi and London where, from 2007 until 2010, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools. Within the last year, Armitage has participated in the 58th Venice Biennale and had solo exhibitions at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Museum of Modern Art, New York in collaboration with the Studio Museum Harlem, and the Norval Foundation, Cape Town. 

Concerning the methods used, Armitage unifies his diverse subject matter by the use of the medium Prout’s brown ink. Traditionally used for architectural renderings, the burnt umber ink allows Armitage to layer and dilute his marks in a way analogous to the building-up and rubbing-down of his painting practice. Tonal brushwork with strong chiaroscuro brings to life expressive facial and physical features, capturing a fleeting expression or glimpsed moment with economy and sensitivity.

White’s cube Gallery

Contemporary Art Exhibition

From July 6 to August 16 of 2020

144-152, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, London SE1 3TQ

United Kingdom

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Ndunde’s drawings straddle the precarious lines between art historical formalism —making reference to rigidity and structure in form— as well as experimentation. This balance between a drawing out from art history and his own interpretation allows the work space to breathe, where each gesture becomes an emblem for full expression.  

The spine along which his practice is built is bound by two core principles; distillation and repetition where fracture, fragmentation and reconstruction result in totality. He succeeds in extracting the most essential aspects of form through a process of repetition and layering.

Ndunde notes; “In my creative process, I break things down with the intent of focusing on the most important aspect each piece conveys. The first break-down is decluttering the composition as a whole where I intentionally use negative space.” He elaborates; “I have to be repetitive with my line drawing technique. The process is purely layering strokes of lines until form is achieved. It is simple but labour intensive.”

Ndunde’s artistic practice can be read through medium, materials as well as technique, all of which make visible a sensibility that is drawn to clarity and compositional balance. Line and shadow are used to create fractured and disassembled figures with a suggestion towards cubism, particularly through the use of light, tone as well as a reduction of colour to a single hue at a time where reds, greens, blues and greys assert themselves against negative space.

The use of ballpoint pen ink adds to the reading of his work while also frustrating art historical readings of his work. This is particularly because the work lies within existing traditions of experimentation pioneered on by a long line and lineage of artists who continued to reject and complicate clear readings of art as purely painting and/or sculpture.

One such example is Korean-American artist Il Lee, who since the 1970s, has engaged in ballpoint inks to create large scale abstract work. Il Lee’s ballpoint ink drawings challenged and stretched both mediums of painting and drawing. Speaking on the ballpoint art of Il Lee, author Trent Morse points to him (alongside artists Alighiero Boetti and Jan Fabre) as the godfather of an intense study of new forms of art-making devices. In the same light, Ndunde’s art not only contributes to the medium of drawing but also challenges it. 

Ndunde’s drawings resist allegorical readings and empty out overt symbolism. This emptying out of symbols leaves behind interesting structural images—aerobic and acrobatic figures that emerge, leap, bend, reach and land. They seductively root themselves between edges; at once uniform and intelligible while also remaining complex, elusive and opaque. 

Viewed as deliberate sequences and arrangement of lines, Ndude’s figures are structured and controlled and yet they are still able to achieve a calming effect through musicality and rhythm. Perhaps this effect mirrors the artists own mental state when producing the work where regularity and reoccurrence result in mental ease.

Ndunde notes; “I get similar sentiments over time. Some presentations come naturally as I look at things such as how we take on fear subconsciously and consciously”. This is once again evident in how he chooses to title the works; Reach, Flight, Landing, Progression and Emergence—speaking to the psychological and physiological cycles of learning, achieving, moving, hoping, resting, dreaming and letting go. 

What is interesting and perhaps even exciting is when artists are able to create outside of existing constraints and expectations of what art is or should be—that is to say, the ability to draw on old traditions while also being able to innovate and offer a full expression. This kind of unrestrained and unconstrained back and forth is what creates a meaningful dialogue between history, heritage and modern notions of art and art-making. 

Peteros Ndunde’s works will be presented on June 24th at the PIASA auction dedicated to contemporary African art. In exclusivity and before this important auction Artskop3437 proposes you a selection of the artist’s drawings.

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In Back of the Moon, the artist presents large-scale, multi-panel works, extending his exploration of the collage technique both on and with the canvas. Following two years studying painting at Amsterdam’s De Ateliers, the artist attributes his gravitation towards a mixed-media approach to an affection for line drawing and materials with a connection to South Africa’s political past, as well as the conceptual undercurrent provided by rupturing, layering and forming hybridities.

The artist writes:

I thought about what it means to offer my practice from a social and aesthetic context and point of view. I made the conscious decision to continue making the interiors using a monochromatic palette, partially due to the fact that this use of colour makes the figures difficult to place in time – my characters appear in scenes from an alternative, personal existence.

With all figurative painting, the most important question asked is, who are the people in the painting? In my collage paintings, the figures refuse to solidify into simply drawn or painted material; there is a living presence there on the canvas that cannot be looked away from.

The scenes in this exhibition take place in bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, stoeps and studies, with figures depicted in ambiguous confrontations and embraces, interspersed with solitary moments. Matloga employs contradictory arrangements of posture and expression, offering a kaleidoscope of interiors and interiorities that question common understandings of social relations. The artist continues:

Although the scenes are socially confirmed, living with the work in studio made me realise that I’m creating situations that I know are not for me to understand, meaning I’m not able to decipher the expressions of these souls even though I highly connect with and to them.

The questions that arise about the people in the paintings are part and parcel of the concept. At the centre is an allegory that speaks to the importance of carrying on with life, living and existing in the midst of all the socio-politics.

In a review of the artist’s 2019 solo exhibition at the Fries Museum, Neo to Love, Machteld Leij observed, ‘Matloga’s work is political, personal and universal at the same time. Growing up in a deeply troubled, racist society does leave its traces. These are counterbalanced by family life, love, friendship and the joy of living.’ In Back of the Moon, the artist continues his observations on tenderness and trauma, stating:

I decided to name this exhibition Back of the Moon not because I’m illustrating this beautiful phenomenon but more because the creative process of these artworks happened at night in the light of the moon, from my studio in Limpopo.

One evening I watched The Suit which is about the moment when domestic happiness turns into domestic violence. Similar stories happen within my surroundings. It strengthened my belief of being against jealousy, harassment and marital strife, but perhaps the violence lies translated in the collage technique. Even though there’s no set formula in studio, by starting with collage, I’m simultaneously distorting and recreating the integrity of the face.

For me the collage element makes the coherence of the canvas even more difficult to grasp. It would be illogical of me to ignore the fact that portraying everyday black life is somewhat of a political act but I will not take on the title of an activist or politically explicit artist, based on my simple observation that people do not stop being moral agents.

Back of the Moon is Neo Matloga’s first solo exhibition with Stevenson Johannesburg – For any inquiries and information about the works in this exhibition please contact: info@stevenson.info

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“Mousganistan is a place I‘ve fantasised about since I was a kid. I never gave it a name back then, but it was a place where I felt I could be 100% myself.” 

Born in Morocco and raised in Belgium; a self-taught photographer-cum-artist – Lamrabat’s is a tale of multiple identities, of many boxes – and, in turn, of the subversion and breaking-out of these boxes. Today Lamrabat’s vision, his place of belonging, comes to exist – like Belgium and Morocco – in the physical world as photographic series. It is the development of an archive of images that represent the specific vision of Lamrabat, spotlighting the world he sees, the world he lives in. And it is here, as images fictionally located in Mousganistan, that we find his latest body of work, Sir Mix A Lot. 

Images with an accessible and axiomatic reference to art history, Sir Mix A Lot sees the deliberate interweaving of historically Eurocentric and globally contemporary aesthetics to playfully break with the traditions of the established, normative (art) world. Staying true to Lamrabat’s vision, the works featured in this exhibition discern the collision of multiple spheres – and we are presented with a body of photography that is only possible precisely because of its very unlikely – yet clearly coveted – intermingling of ambivalent iconography. Immerse yourself in Lamrabat’s subjects and their history, and you’ll quickly find that this is a body of work worth collecting. 

In the opening chapter to his seminal book, Ways of Seeing, John Berger writes briefly about the history and development of images – emphasising the important role of the image-maker in the visible: “…Later still the specific vision of the image-maker was also recognised as part of the record. An image became a record of how X had seen Y. This was the result of an increasing consciousness of individuality, accompanying an increasing awareness of history.

Berger continues: No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such a direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer than literature. To say this is not to deny the expressive or imaginative quality of art, treating it as mere documentary evidence; the more imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist’s experience of the visible. ” And it is in exactly this respect that we see the work in Sir Mix A Lot come to life.

Here, in the artwork titled Brozart, for example, we see a subject dressed in Adidas sports fashion – arguably the contemporary world’s admission of rank; in stark contrast to this, he wears a dyed-yellow judges wig – an ancient symbol of aristocracy reflecting one’s elevated social status. Whilst the symbols featured here may mean the same thing – a declaration of class and standing – they’re from vastly different times, places and societies, and Lamrabat has reworked them to suit his narrative: in Mousganistan we’re all of this class.  

Brozart’s subject is also seated upon a plinth draped in deep purple cloth; he bears a bouquet of flowers in one arm while the other rests lightly on his knee. The pose is symbolic of traditional portraiture; throughout art history we have seen powerful and upstanding individuals depicted in this manner – and it is perhaps here, too, that Lamrabat’s work finds its value. The limitless sky behind Lamrabat’s subject – which features in each portrait of Sir Mix A Lot – is a direct reference to the clouded sky in Belgian artist René Magritte’s The Son of Man (1964); yet here there is no skyline, these subjects will not be grounded. 

Following through with his reference and perhaps tribute to Magritte is Lamrabat’s Ceci n’est pas un Magritte (This is not a Magritte). An overt play on both Magritte’s The Son of Man and The Treachery of Images (1929) – Lamrabat’s subject stands facing the camera, his face distorted by an apple that has been taped over it – cheekily not unlike Maurizio Cattelan’s recent creation, Comedian (a  fresh banana taped to the wall of a gallery booth at Art Basel Miami in 2019 – you’ll know it when you see it).

Almost indiscernible from the original artwork, Ceci n’est un Magritte breaks from The Son of Man only with the slight, creeping presence of a tattoo on the figure’s neck, and with the silver strip of duct tape holding the apple in place. And, this time, the subject is black. 

“Museums were never places I went to – I just didn’t know this world. So I wanted to recreate this art form in a way that people, like me, would be more appealed to the artworks that hang inside galleries and museums. I just asked myself – why didn’t I enjoy these old paintings that cost a fortune? Why don’t they speak to me? What would speak to me? And then Sir Mix A Lot came to life.”

A sort of anti-art series in celebration of those who have historically lived on the fringe, Sir Mix A Lot charmingly mimics the images we have seen so often in the world of art and turns them into images that Lamrabat – as well as a whole generation of immigrant youth – wants to see.

In Ways of Seeing, Berger also writes that “the majority take it as axiomatic that the museums are full of holy relics which refer to a mystery which excludes them: the mystery of unaccountable wealth. Or, to put this another way, they believe that original masterpieces belong to the preserve (both materially and spiritually) of the rich.” Lamrabat is not of this majority, however; his works belong to the preserve of Mousganistan’s rich: “I love to bring people to one status. No one too rich for my art, no one too poor!”

In his work Fresh from the garden of Compton, Lamrabat has dressed his seemingly masculine subjects in a very dandyish collection from Dolce & Gabbana – a purple, feathered hat; a navy titfer decorated with cream lace – while each figure holds a large bouquet of assorted flowers. Here, through the very infinite variety Lamrabat has presented us in disregarding male from female, we are presented with an image that makes impossible the emergence of any single meaning and view.

Historically, in art, the representation of flora and foliage may refer to anything from religious symbolism, to reproduction, to decay – yet for Lamrabat, they are here simply because of the beautiful aesthetic they bring to an image. 

“I’m a big flower fan myself, because they always give you a beautiful aesthetic. So sometimes I included them as a reference to paintings, and sometimes I just really liked them.”

Natural Homies also sees two figures adorned with bouquets of flowers. Enmeshed in chainmail armour reminiscent of medieval armour, the flowers form a sort-of protective shield, a flower-mask, over Lamrabat’s subject’s faces while their chests and arms remain bare. They wear tracksuit pants pulled up to their waists. For Lamrabat, there is no specific reason for the iconography of this image, no particular agenda. 

“I remember thinking to make a flower mask. I never tried it to see how it would look, but on set we just tried it. I was so in love with it that I didn’t want any other garment in the picture. It was so pure and it became something poetic that I just made it about the flower-masks. I’m sure I can come up with something more sophisticated as an explanation, but if you want the truth, it was love at first sight. I had so much emotion… And emotion is something that I’m always looking for in my work.”

The transparency and openness of Lamrabat’s images is infectious, and lends to their playful and whimsical quality – not to mention their value as a photographic archive.

Throughout Sir Mix A Lot, in its presentation of multiple spheres and infinite variety, of ambivalent iconography and axiomatic reference to art history, we have seen how images continue to conjure up the appearances of something that was absent, and how the specific vision of the image-maker remains an important testimony about the (real and imagined) world – “Belgium – Morocco – Mousganistan”– which surrounds us. In Lamrabat’s work, we are reminded: The more imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist’s experience of the visible. 

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The work by its ability to tell the world and trigger the imagination without having to go through the spoken word moves more than a simple narrative.

Strongly anchored in the Caribbean universe, Arthur Francietta has started for a few years a research on the vernacular scriptures of this part of the world. Following his residency at the National Typographic Research Workshop (ANRT, Nancy) in 2018, Arthur Francietta wonders about the graphic phenomenon that precedes the invention of writing. Very quickly confronted with the omnipresence of the Latin alphabetic system, he focused his research on graphic systems: Anaforuana in Cuba, Vévé in Haiti, or the Native American petroglyphs still visible to this day.

It is through these writings that he notices the resurgence of glyphs (written representations of a word or a letter), myths and rites from several civilizations of West Africa and Central America. If Caribbean societies have felt the need to develop graphic systems, it’s above all to give shape to the expression of their beliefs. The belief system has shaped Caribbean society throughout its existence to alleviate the burden of its semi-dependent status and much more.

The artist’s movements, journeys, encounters and cultural interactions have led to the emergence of new beliefs, the invention of new graphic forms, the adoption of a complex contemporary culture: that of the Tout-Monde…

Through the aesthetics of sign and its visual form, Arthur Francietta generates personal pictorial writing at the cross-roads of language and medium. The creation process is based on so-called asemic writing (devoid of semantic content, of meaning). Aform of hybrid visual language that merges writing and image, while being detached from any linguistic justification. The ase-mic approach can be considered as a “creative-imitation” from the glyphs / writings that have existed in the Caribbean.

The artist often begins by writing frantically in order to awaken mental imagery and develop a ductus of his own. Then he goes through the pictorial phase. The material is applied by brush and then by hand directly on the paper surface. This last phase is essential, it is at this moment that the mental image emerges: by extraction of matter.

Like the Phantasme series produced in 2019, through Post•era the artist offers the viewer the opportunity to translate and explore the work. In this sense, the reader becomes co-creator of the image.

The key to deciphering the Post•era series is that even if it cannot be read, it still maintains a very appealing call to the eye and the collective imagination. Arthur Francietta shows us a series of complex and enigmatic symbols. A graphic and poetic divination, which according to the artist sums up Post•era.

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