Jean David Nkot
Cameroon
Born in Douala (Cameroon) – where he currently lives and works – Jean-David Nkot is the laureate of several artistic distinctions (Best Sculptor, Best Installation and Best Painter).
“Captivated by the impact of the violence, of indifference and the passivity of the international community and governments on the circumstances of victims in the world, the human body and territories are key subject matters around which the artist centres his works and artistic approach.
Giant post stamps – which constitute a bulk of his creations – interrogate and raise awareness by exploring and exposing faces submerged by inscriptions of the names of weapons of war. Like these postal stamps, the artist’s works act as a vehicle to address victims marked by the violence of indifference which characterizes the complicit face of the world.
Leveraging cartographic techniques, the artist interrogates the representation of the body and its territories in his recent works, placing emphasis on how this intermingles with its surrounding but also questioned its place in society. Far from drawing the attention of the onlooker to the identity of the person represented, the artist highlights rather – in the ways of Zhang Dali, Francis Bacon and Jenny Saville – the expressions of the turmoil inhabiting "his" characters.”
Jean Podevin
1925 - 2011
The child who is already « crazy about textures» at six years of age in the manner in which he selects the sand pebbles to rearrange them better, immediately looks for the balance on the canvas when he begins to paint.
If he happens to try hastily to fix the profile of a table neighbor who caught his eye, he doesn’t hesitate to use a piece of the paper tablecloth on which he eats lunch. Elsewhere, amazed by the beauty of a landscape at noontime, he borrows from the restaurant owner, a felt pencil, to indicate, without losing one second, the essential lines of the view. He will tip a paper napkin in his black coffee to get the very beautiful earth tones that he integrates in the first idea for a canvas painting. The rest would come later in his studio…
...As for me, I felt a sensation of fullness, more or less the one that I often felt before a VERMEER of DELFT while discovering the imponderable light that detached itself from such a picture.
To reach this point, PODEVIN explains how in any case, he must fight to get a perfect understanding between space and volume. But, not more than anyone else, can he analyses with precision this mysterious power that we call « Light « and that pervades every instant of our visual existence…
René BAROTTE - Art Critic
I ignore if he believes « in something «, but I know that PODEVIN can see very far.
Roger BOUILLOT - Art Critic
Karine Degiorgis
France
Deep Narcisse
Narcissus - fascinated - loses himself in his image, which however always escapes in shining mirrors: infinite melancholy of the hero lost in the projective labyrinth, in pursuit of the Other...
It is therefore not a literal interpretation of the Narcissus myth: here is not the superficial "narcissism" of our time - emptied and prostrate to watch itself wither away (by dint of having abandoned its soul), but the deep Narcissus: A return journey between the "I" and the "Self" (image of the "I") that allows the psyche to extract itself from the unconscious night... Elsewhere, this same psyche - the spirit - crosses different spaces-time at full speed, launched like Uccello's dogs in a frantic quest for a figurative and original identity...
Julio Bittencourt
Brazil
Julio Bittencourt grew up between Sao Paulo and New York. His main interest is to, through different stories, investigate the relationship between man and his environment. His works have been exhibited in
museums and galleries in several countries and published in magazines such as Foam Magazine, GEO, Stern, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Courrier International, C Photo, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Esquire, French Photo, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, LFI and Leica World Magazine, among several others. Bittencourt is the author of three books - ‘In a window of Prestes Maia 911 building’, ‘Ramos’ and 'Dead Sea’.
Jaya Suberg
Germany
In 1980, I came to live in Berlin, the first 9 years surrounded by the wall… This certainly was the most inspiring time of my life, because of the incredible melting pot of people, who just wanted to live of freedom and independence, not this normal life of just being a family with nice kids and cool car… No, we all had another dream! Living Berlin (the wall time) was/is a blessing! Here we got/get so much inspiration!..
In the center of my artistic expression is the human being between his inner world and his outside world. In my works are melting imaginations, feelings, dreams and the “reality” to one impression. Most of my works shows an intensive human experience or situation. I am more interested in the feelings of mankind under the survive, feelings, which we don’t like to feel, but we carry with us deep inside… some more, some less!.. All is inside-out, all is outside-in.
I understand my work as a mirror of a social present. My works are quite emotional. Feeling all, transforming it and let it go again. Death is for me a very mysterious phenomenon, with all kind of scary feelings. But I want to face it, always aware that life is so precious and will end someday… This refers to my own process as an individual and at the same time to the development of cultural (grievances) processes of the world.
DDiArte
Portugal
When we set up DDiArte in 1999, at that time it was a painting workshop where we brought together the best of both of us for the purposes of creation, painting on canvas. In 2003, after several experiences in the field or digital photography, we discovered the ideal means to express our creativity – Digital Photography artistically touched up.
Within the context historiography of art, the use of photography, and more specifically, touching up photographs, is nothing new. We do however aim to innovate somewhat, in terms of the themes on which our work is based. Regardless of the fact that our main source of inspiration is mythology, up-to-date themes or others that are the simple fruit of our creativity, still remain full of details, of symbols, of images, an attempt to captivate, but mainly, as an attempt to stimulate critical thought in viewers.
While some of our work can be seen as satirical in a globalized world, yet still full of differences, other examples can be seen as purely scenic, to be contemplated at will. If some shout out against discrimination, at the same time they pay indelible homage to beauty.
