Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art the Sun As Personal Vision

O Sole Mio ISSUE 12 01 July 2020 Jerónimo Elespe Paul Kneale Dominic Palfreyman and Shiva Lynn Burgos Ismini Samanidou Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art The Sun as Personal Vision As the tip of my pencil touches the graduates, Covid-19 should at least have paper to write the first sentence of this taught us humility. During the weeks introductory text for Issue 12 of O Sole of lockdown, we have perhaps also Mio, which also happens to be the final reflected on various issues. Incidentally, instalment of our online magazine and as I write I am unconsciously listening digital exhibition, I certainly feel the to Nisi Dominus | Without God, all is in meaning of coming to the end of a story. vain, set to the heavenly baroque music Let me, though, start by saying that this of Antonio Vivaldi. How ironic and in meaningful project has considerably some ways beautiful. brightened As part of my own my own vision of learning the world experience during the during the lockdown O Sole Mio period of project, I the Covid-19 have hugely pandemic. appreciated Yet and the efforts although of numerous I remain artists upbeat after and art four months professionals of limitation, who, at a I also moment of realise that by writing these lines, I am shock and desperation, spontaneously brushing on something that will never accepted my invitation to be part of come back. this special undertaking. Their solidarity verged on the heroic in several ways, Meanwhile, in a matter of only three to including having to remain innovative four months of lockdown we have all and create from the inside while learned a great deal. We have learned to being challenged and overwhelmed by appreciate our freedoms, to appreciate outside events. I am still in awe of their how it really feels to be human and admirable commitment, our unity and vulnerable, to appreciate having time for our sense of mission, all of which proves one another, to appreciate listening to that creativity, if used properly, can and learning from others and, finally, as provide a route through many challenges the US Chief Justice John Roberts noted in life. Since creativity comes from in his address to a class of high-school within, it follows that enlightenment 2 must be immaterial and a deeply change profession from science to art. personal vision. I am tremendously Today, more than ever, I understand why grateful for the numerous thoughtful I needed to change direction, to feel contributions that landed on my desk and to grasp every fibre of ingenuity, and made the curating and editing because one’s own creativity and inner of each issue of O Sole Mio such a being must travel together, inseparably. privilege and, ultimately, a labour of Samanidou, a textile artist, is both love. I felt energised that together we passionate about her work and idolises could achieve wonders for our souls, her native country, Greece, which our mental well-being and freedom. It with its rich history and somewhat is only fitting, therefore, that I offer glorious and tumulus past, along with here my deepest gratitude to everyone its natural beauty, has inspired her who participated in this project – those work. Her sensitive and touching text, who contributed works and text, and the which accompanies the images and Parasol unit team, particularly Kirsteen references for some potential works, Cairns, who worked very hard to ensure bear testimony to what inspires her, to that a fresh issue would appear on her way of seeing the world and to her your screen every Wednesday morning. work process. In her works, every fibre It is equally fitting to express my clearly tells a different story, while gratefulness to Helen Wire, our fabulous the meditative nature of her holding and tireless copy editor. Our texts land and feeling every thread between her on her desk anytime during the day, fingers and remembering or imagining night and weekend and we surely receive their stories, their past and ultimately them back shortly after and in perfect following their journey through time, style. It was a joy to work with Helen makes her devotion to the art of textile during Parasol unit’s London chapter and all the more worthwhile. Being totally it remains a privilege to have her on absorbed by her work, Samanidou board as our activities are repositioned. questions again and again, what is time? Is it the time lapsed, the time we live in Now, to Issue 12. I was intrigued to see now or the time that has yet to come? that the contributed works have each How could her activity be otherwise arisen somehow directly ‘from the gut’, than meditative and self-absorbing, which means that each artist would when she herself opened her eyes in have had to have sensed them in every a land where the echo of mythology tiny detail, otherwise the works could around those wondrous islands and the never have been completed. I have no depths of alternately churning and calm doubt that in doing so, each of the waters are so prominent. How could she artists will have journeyed far within be influenced by any other colour than their own thoughts and universe. blue indigo – the pure reflection of sun- saturated air and blue skies into the sea Ismini Samanidou’s presentation and below. text in this issue remind me of my own decision some forty years ago to 3 Captivated by the creative power of but somehow stop short. While drawing the sun within his working environment these lines, could the artist’s train of in a large city, Paul Kneale creates thought have been interrupted in favour seemingly sun-drenched paintings, such of other ideas? Several years ago, Elena as Smoking Ozone. Historically, the Foster introduced me to Jerónimo Elespe, medium of painting has been seen to a Madrid-based artist who often works produce an illusion of the real world, on a miniature scale, making enticing but in Kneale’s hands the world created and enigmatic pieces that reward our possesses its own independence without time and close attention. Despite their being all together disconnected from the tiny size and private nature, these works real world. Indeed, the rays of sunlight are not wholly impenetrable. Indeed, the reflecting into his studio space are viewer’s participation and interpretation an important influence and generate seem to be necessary elements for the a whole new and constructed world completion of these works. on the canvas that emulates potential realities. In some ways, this confirms the For the reflection section of this issue importance of the natural environment to we have the unique and immense us human beings. Whether we dwell in pleasure of being given a glimpse of a large metropolis or are fully sheltered what Dominic Palfreyman and Shiva Lynn in nature, the sun is a stimulator of Burgos have experienced in a remote personal and private vision. Kwoma village in Papua New Guinea. This ongoing artistic partnership/collaboration Lumina by Jerónimo Elespe, is a small, built there by them both since 2013 is 11.5 x 9 cm, work on paper in vibrant noteworthy and described in the text red, on which countless intriguing that accompanies the various images patterns and details are drawn. The they have kindly contributed. Their, or medium is given as ‘ink and pencil on rather Shiva’s 2018 collaboration entitled paper’, yet the most puzzling part of Mariwai has harnessed the effort of the work consists of a multitude of local painters, sculptors, weavers and details and annotations, which lead us musicians from the region to build and to wonder if they are lines of tightly paint an incredibly beautiful canoe handwritten words or perhaps some which reflects traditional art and their sort of secret diary. The imagery could ownership of it. For those of us, who are be considered abstract with some hint not familiar with the art of the region, of geometric patterns, but this becomes these intriguing images must at the very less certain as we observe some black least reflect the primordial and inner bands or thick lines running throughout feelings of the artists, set within the most of the work’s surface, here and animist cosmology of the culture. there punctuated by tiny yellow marks. We ask ourselves whether they are part From the collective culture of ancient of a maze or some labyrinthian structure Greek mythology expressed in the work – lines which ought to lead somewhere of artist Ismini Samanidou, to the art 4 and beliefs of people in remote Papua – the creativity, innovation and resources New Guinea as introduced by Dominic bestowed upon each of us and the use Palfreyman and Shiva Lynn Burgos and, we make of them – that differentiates finally, to the private and personal one human from another. It is therefore visions of the artists Jerónimo Elespe once more with O Sole Mio (my own and Paul Kneale, we have certainly sun) that I would like to end this covered much ground and distance. digital exhibition/publication, because Even so, the true reality is that no eventually the sun and light inside each matter where we come from, what is of us will carry us forward. most important are the values and vision we each carry within us, for no Ziba Ardalan single culture can ever be superior to Founder, Artistic and Executive Director another. All cultures live through highs and lows, as the rise and fall of various empires have proven time and again. Essentially, it is what each one of us carries deep within our soul and person Photograph by Ziba Ardalan.

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