Interviewed by Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art

In February 2017 I collaborated with and was interviewed by André Meyerhans of Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art. What follows is the interview which at the time was published on various social media platforms.

(Artwork photographed: Yellow Notice

Featured jewelry: Mashrabiya Collar)

What inspired you to create these artworks?

Shortly after I arrived in the Middle East I started a website “here2here” which promotes mindfulness as well as investigates cyberspace - the mindspace we find ourselves in when using technology to communicate.  “here2here” hints at mobility but also suggests that there is actually nowhere to go and that all is already as it should be. 

At about the same time, Downtown Dubai, where we were living at the time, launched a campaign entitled “The Centre of Now” to highlight the area as a hub of a global cultural movement. 

I have always been inspired by stories of bedouins, nomads who lived in the deserts. They embodied wandering and mobility and an awareness of the interconnectedness of life. For them immediate movement was always a probability and they knew what it was to have a centre which was always changing as they wandered through the borderless desert.

This is a century of mobility.  Many people today are global citizens on the move with means of connectivity and communication that boggle the mind.

Believing that we need to seek in newfound ways, as global nomads, the centre of now - the heart of the present moment - that the Bedouins were very aware of, I began to explore the concept of rootedness and movement occurring simultaneously and was inspired to depict this using the modern technology at hand; in my case, my iPhone. My love of photography and art had merged with my interest in technology.  

At first, I began to edit photos I had taken of architecture in Dubai. 

Shortly after I began experimenting with the app Slowshutter, I visited Istanbul and attended a Whirling Dervishes Sema Ceremony. This inspired me to try to figure out new ways of portraying the whole concept of rootedness and movement occurring simultaneously, through my artworks. 

I began to photograph people, focusing on the energy I sensed around them. The individuals in my artworks appear to be rooted in a moment but at the same time appear to be moving in an other-worldly realm which is beyond space and time.

 

(Artwork photographed: Mystery

Featured jewelry: Dot Bracelet)

What message would you like to give to the viewer / What feeling would you like to evoke in the observer?

I am of the opinion that true art takes the viewer beyond themselves and is so much more than mere technique. 

I find that most people are emotionally drawn to my artworks.  Perhaps this is because the thinking brain is initially confused, as viewers often find it hard to believe that the piece they are looking at has been created on an iPhone.

The artworks depict a space filled with mystery and potential and the viewer is invited to enter this space to discover the story waiting to unfold. This story differs from individual to individual.

 

(Artwork photographed: Trinity

Featured jewelry: Dot Bracelet)

You have a unique technique, please explain?

Using my iPhone, I intuitively capture images using slow-shutter photography.  I then transform these, blending and painting on my iPhone screen, achieving this with the aid of various apps. Much of my work is printed onto recycled wood which adds further texture, thereby making each piece unique.  The combination of iPhone artistry and recycled wood is a gentle reminder of the importance of remaining grounded even while enjoying the benefits of modern technology.  

 

(Artwork photographed: Releasing

Featured jewelry: Goldflake Collier)

Your logo is Arabic, your nationality is South African - please explain your motivation behind this and what impact it has on your audience?

As I explore many aspects of here2here on my website - both through the written word and through my artworks - my intention is to promote a shared vision of diversity within unity. 

A lover of culture, I find myself at this point in time in a region inhabited by so many different cultures, and this excites me.  I am born South African but am currently living in the Middle East.  My logo, which has my name written in English and Arabic, is I believe, a witness to both this and to my vision of diversity within unity. It fascinates viewers and evokes discussion. It raises the question “where is home?”, links back to the ideas surrounding ‘the centre of now”, and helps us all remember that we have more similarities than we have differences. 

 

(Artwork photographed: Direction)

You seem to have a mystic feel to your work - these here but also your earlier, more abstract and architectural ones - can you say something about it?

I grew up an avid reader and am curious by nature. My reading included much spiritual writing in many traditions. 

When I am out photographing I need to be very much in the moment. My photography flows out of my mindfulness practice but in a sense has become a practice itself. 

I am honored that you say my works have a mystic feel to them.

 

(Artwork photographed: Heart)

As mentioned, your earlier work goes more abstract with creating spaces - can you share your journey - why you went there?

I am a lover of architecture. When I first arrived in the Middle East I began photographing and posting on Instagram the architecture found in Dubai. 

Interested in exploring the architecture of cyberspace, I began experimenting with various apps to create a series I called “Digital Archways”.   Later, in an attempt to express visually the experience of cyberspace using the very tools found there, I edited photos of mainly Dubai architecture to create the series entitled “Corridors of Cyberspace”.  Some of these earlier works are currently being exhibited in Venice in an exhibition called “Future Landscapes”.  

When creating them, it was also my wish that they would be a reminder of the importance of our own inner landscapes and encourage exploration of them.  

 

(Artwork photographed: Trinity)

…. and where are you heading from here … can you share your intentions- even if they are very vague?

My #interact2connect series printed onto Ethiopian prayer shawls is bringing interesting connections. 

At home and on my travels, I have been meeting many interesting artists. Further collaborations are certainly possible. 

I have recently incorporated augmented reality into some of my artworks and am eager to explore 3D printing.

I continue to be open to what wants to flow into being.   

(Artwork photographed: Noor)

Why did you look for a collaboration like this …. and why jewelry?

I have wanted to be part of a collaborative project for some time now.  There was no special reason I chose jewelry. While away in Thailand on a fasting retreat I woke up one morning with the thought “Ask André if his jewelry could be photographed with your art”.  Before I could think too much about it and perhaps hesitate, I acted upon it. André said yes and this collaboration was set into motion. 

 

You have deformed photos that depict jewelry integrated into your paintings - please share your thoughts on this intervention.

In Japanese calligraphy there is a symbol called an ensō. It means circle and is often referred to as an “expression of the moment”. As a form of spiritual practice, many artists practice drawing an ensō daily.  I often wondered if it is possible to practice this in photographic form, and for a period of time began incorporating the circle in my edits with this in mind. 

André photographed the jewelry on my artworks but thought the resulting images needed more depth and a stronger story line. When I intuitively worked with his photographs, the circle returned.

His jewelry is certainly an expression of the culture and surroundings he finds himself in and I believe this very fact adds to its beauty.  

 

Great collaboration with artist Linda Hollier where stories are told and retold - like in “Chinese Whisper” - and new things evolve. Enjoy!

(Featured jewelry: Mashrabiya ring)

A famous Swiss Author, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, wrote a book called: The Assignment - or - On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers. Similar to what is suggested in the subtitle, artist Linda Hollier and our team present to you the above work which is a creation of a creation of a creation. This alternating, overwriting approach frees unseen elements and bring them to attention - similar to in the book by Dürrenmatt. Enjoy!

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Collaboration with Mario Uboldi Jewellery

Marroni Caldi (Roasted Chestnuts)

As I posted my artwork "Interconnected" on Instagram, the thought crossed my mind to contact @verbonnet and ask him to write an accompanying story. Stephen Paré and I have been friends on Instagram for many years now, and our discussions have, I believe, been mutually inspiring.  Mobile art is only one of Stephen's many talents, and I am delighted that he agreed to my request. What follows is the result of our collaboration.   

Marroni Caldi

(Roasted Chestnuts)

I’ve had I guess two mystical experiences in my life. I am not going to try to explain to you what I mean by that - anyway, I’m pretty sure that I can’t. Neither of them lasted more than a couple of minutes, although I’m really not too sure – otherwise, they were completely different. The first one took place in 2009. If I ever figure out how to talk about it, I will. 

The second one happened the day before Christmas, about a month ago. 

We’re not particularly rich but we’ve got a talent (by which I mean my wife has) for being invited into beautiful homes as guests. Christine does trading online and I’m writing a novel so we might as well be anywhere; we took an extended vacation last year, working our way from the Arctic Circle in Norway at Summer Solstice south to Italy and finally Athens, where I’m writing this.

We had Thanksgiving in Lyon (duck instead of turkey, petits pois instead of green beans) and then three weeks of grey weather in Geneva with an affectionate elderly couple who were early to bed; I finished a chapter and then some, gazing out at the lake, feeling excitement and accomplishment despite a head cold that had me sleep a lot. 

And then on to Rome for Christmas, to see the Pope in the basilica, the shepherds at Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and this year’s weird and controversial crêche, which I find ugly but which I’m defending anyway because it’s under attack by the right-wing self-appointed guardians of our culture.  

Christine’s uncle has an apartment in the San Saba district, and he was lending it to us for twelve days while he was ‘in Italy’, by which he means literally anywhere away from Mamma Roma, including New York. For me, too, Rome is the center of something both momentous and familiar; but it is as though I’d discovered I had a different birth mother at age 31 - there’s no regret and no rewinding, not even the wish to rewind - only wonder and whatever heightened moments you can find to spend together while your lives continue on in their settled course. 

The first night I was in bed early and slept immediately, only waking at 9, bedsheets soaked with sweat, the way you do when the illness leaves you. I felt good again. Christine was long gone so I set off walking toward the Pantheon, thinking of cappuccino. 

There’s a piazza in front of Santa Sabina, and as I approached it I could see a street vendor with a chestnut roaster (why are they always men?). After a few steps I could smell the sweet aroma and decided to get some.

That's when it happened.  

"Interconnected" ©Linda Hollier

As I looked toward him I saw another figure, also walking toward him from my direction. It was a bearded man, young, congenitally deformed, with an odd spiraling, laborious, start-and-stop sort of walk, supported by two sticks. The chestnut vendor was turned the other way, talking vividly with someone, a customer, gesticulating as he did with that tool they use to pierce the shells.

I’ve always been interested in the ways that people match their postures and gestures as they talk; there’s a dance that goes on. I was watching the chestnut vendor ‘leading’ as his customer nodded and tilted his head and turned slightly in response to each of the extravagant gestures. Then I noticed something else: the bearded man with the sticks was ‘leading’ the vendor. It was unmistakable. He would pause, and the vendor would pause; he would start up his exaggerated spiraling movement, and then the vendor would gesticulate. But the vendor couldn’t see him! His back was turned.

I was looking, observing, trying to sort all of this out, when I saw something impossible. That crippled fellow, with his stopping and effortful starting, was leading the wind that moved the trees in the little park behind him. The trees were following him, starting and stopping with him. 

An old Fiat came along, and stopped in the street when the man stopped, moving along again when he did, its clutch jerking with his laboring walk.

He stopped, and I sneezed. He moved, and stopped again, and I sneezed again.

I must have come to a halt as I watched all of this, for it was only after the crippled man had disappeared into the park that I realized I was just standing there. The chestnut vendor was looking at me curiously. I sneezed again, roused myself, walked up and got some chestnuts from him. I will never forget the deep compassion I felt for him - well, it was love. That’s the real word, isn’t it. We had taken part in an extraordinary moment together, however unconscious of it he might have been, however ordinary it might have seemed. 

As he handed me the paper cornetto of nuts, time was slowed, the elegant turn of his hand and the crinkle of paper and his mischievous amused eyebrows arching as I grasped the bag - all a slow inevitable unfolding, an orchestral music whose every sound of every instrument I could hear.

I was about to start crying so I hurried off with my nuts and turned down the pedestrian street, tears streaming down my face in the Roman sun and north wind, appetite gone, but every twenty feet stopping, smelling the chestnuts, filling myself with the odor over and over, receiving a blessing, the grace of an ordinary day. I left them on the fountain in front of the Pantheon as a kind of offering.

---oOo---

After writing the story, Stephen let me know that he was writing music for it as well. Listen to Stephen's reading of "Marroni Caldi" set to the music he has composed to accompany it.

lindahollier · Marroni Caldi

Collaboration with Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art

André Meyerhans, the founder and designer of MARIO UBOLDI Jewellery Art, is an award-winning architect who has been named as one of the most influential architects in the MENA region by Middle Eastern Architect magazine.  He is also an artist whose work and installations are part of public and private collections in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. André’s creations blur traditional boundaries between art, architecture and design. 

I have recently had the privilege to work on a collaboration with André which has allowed his jewellery and my iPhoneart on recycled wood collected from building sites, to enter into a dialogue with each other.

 

Our collaboration is currently being shared via social media where you can view both images and an interview André conducted with me. 

The collaboration is evolving and you are invited to be part of it by checking into its story on a regular basis. 

You can follow the collaboration via any of the following links:

Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art on Facebook

Linda Hollier on Facebook

Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art on Instagram

Linda Hollier on Instagram

The dialogue between our two art forms is opening new vistas and I suspect that there is still much more waiting to be visually spoken.

In a previous blog I wrote about the type of listening I believe we need to cultivate in cyberspace, whether it be to visual, aural or textual images. 

My eyes and ears are listening! 

Related article:

Interviewed by Mario Uboldi Jewellery Art

Tokyo2Dubai Collab

The concept here2here has taken another leap in meaning. I was recently asked on Instagram to participate in a collaboration project with someone from Tokyo, Japan. 

When I joined Instagram just over one and a half years ago, @takiti or Tera as we all know him, was one of the first igers whose work I greatly admired. When after some time I asked him how he achieved a specific effect, he gladly shared the name of a favorite app he was using. Tera, who has an amazing gallery, kindly leaves comments on numerous photos and despite his huge following, always thanks those who leave a comment on any of his shots. 

I believe that we connect to others on an energetic level in cyberspace and that energy is conveyed on a subtle level by online presence tied to our avatars, content produced or shared, quantity, quality and online conversation.

Needless to say, I was very excited when Tera asked if he could edit one of my pics. The process was set in motion by me sending him the four photos that he requested. He then chose one to edit. The resulting image was published in his gallery. 

Tera has various shots of the Tokyo International Forum and I requested the original of one of these to edit. I chose it because it contained a lit up pathway in the Forum. The resulting edit is now part of my Corridors of Cyberspace series

In Japanese calligraphy there is a symbol called an ensō. It means circle and is often referred to as an “expression of the moment”. Many artists, as a form of spiritual practice, practice drawing an ensō daily.  I have often wondered if it is possible to practice this in photographic form, and for some time now, have been incorporating the circle in my edits with this in mind. To be invited to collaborate with someone from Japan on an image appeared to me to be a form of answer to my question. 

In my art, the circle, for me, represents not only the moment, but all form, and that which is without form. At the same time, it is an attempt to represent the experience of whirling in cyberspace; a space which is not localized but experiential. 

The outcome of a piece I am working on is not known to me at the onset.  As I attempt to express the experience of cyberspace, the very creation of a piece is itself an experience in cyberspace, as I work hand in hand with technology.  Working with various apps which often produce surprising results, I go through countless resulting images until I find one that fully resonates with what I am attempting to express. The result is therefore a collaboration of a human and technology. 

In this particular edit, you will notice within the circle, lines and sections meeting. This represents collaboration. There is also a darker space, symbolizing the unknown when the photo is handed over for editing.  It is also the space in which creativity takes place and from it something beautiful appears to be emerging. 

The speeding circles on the left remind me of all the data exchange going on in the collaboration.  Living in Dubai, I was also reminded by them, of the Burj Khalifa standing proud and tall.  Japan is one of the first countries daily to see the rising sun and this is depicted by the small moving circle on the right of the image. The shades of grey suggest timelessness in their neutrality. 

It is my wish to exhibit the corridors of cyberspace series, perhaps at first in frames on paper, but ideally on special screens which allow the light to shine through them electronically from behind. 

This month Emirates Airlines launched daily direct flights between Dubai and Tokyo.  Both the UAE and Japan are considered to be global hubs of development and growth. It is my wish that the two have also been brought closer to each other on a more personal level in this photographic act of here2here online collaboration.

The image had one further message for me. As I contemplated it, I suddenly started recalling the music for “The Windmills of Your Mind”. As the circular melody went round and round in my head, I thought how appropriate it was for someone who attempts to practice watching her mind with all its thoughts.  Often there are so many different thoughts going round and round like a windmill and it is only by becoming mindful and observing them that we are gradually able to loosen our attachment to them. 

When I researched the song I discovered that it was the song which won the Oscar in 1969 for Best Song from a Film (in this case, the original Thomas Crown Affair). Dusty Springfield also recorded a version of the song in 1969.

Amidst its lyrics were these words which I immediately linked to my edit : 

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind! 

It was as I read this, that my photographic ensō became the expressed moment!

Thank you Tera-san for the invite and the collaboration.