Ocula Conversation Bani Abidi: ‘What you see in my films is what I know’ A group of voices accompanies me in the exhibition. They are singing words I cannot comprehend, yet the warm tunes are familiar: folk songs, love songs, songs of longing. There are letters, too. They speak of the quotidian details of a soldier's life: the hardness of the war, sending money to the family, and longing for familiar landscapes, food,...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Charlotte Colbert is a Franco/British artist and filmmaker who lives and works in London. She is best known for her surreal and dark imagery. Her work has been likened to the surreal work of Toomer, Breton and Dali (Phaeton), described as 'surreal and delicate' and 'a gateway into dreams' (Huffington Post), an 'exploration of the human mind' (Vogue) and as 'existing in that space between dreams and nightmares' (Las Ultimas Notices).
Colbert’s artistic work is strongly anchored within the language of film and storytelling. Her pictures are mostly conceived as a series, a sequence developed in script format before being shot. More recently she has developed large-scale cortene metal sculptures displaying moving image. Her work has strong philosophical undertones, and often plays on questions of time, space and identity. Richly evocative and cinematic, her black-and-white work delves into interior experiences of the mind.
She explores the inner and outer spaces our minds occupy and transform, either by fear or fantasy. The subjects of isolation, the self and gender also drive her imagination.
Related Press Charlotte Colbert: 'Ordinary Madness,' Gazelli Art House Aesthetica : 23 June 2016 Charlotte Colbert’s works come to Gazelli Art House, London, this July. With an interest in the surreal and the temporality of contemporary culture, Colbert creates visual narratives using the familiar icons and emojis of instant communication.
