/ February 22, 2016 by ADWENA SHEMON

JULIA deVILLE | …

YOU ARE A TAXIDERMIST, AS WELL AS A JEWELLER. TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU BECAME ATTRACTED TO BOTH THESE MEDIUMS.

I wanted to learn Taxidermy since I was 16, but couldn't find a teacher. I moved to 
Melbourne (from Wellington) when I was 18 and studied shoe-making for a year. The 
course fell apart, and I happened to start studying jewellery at the same time I met my taxidermy mentor, Rudi.

WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR INSPIRATION.? IS IT SOMETHING YOU SEEK, OR SOMETHING THAT FINDS YOU?

It finds me, I think. I am very inspired by life, death, nature and history. The right inspiration always comes to me at the right time (often at the weirdest times, like in the shower or in the middle of the night). I just have faith now that it is always there.

MEMENTO MORI SEEMS TO PLAY A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN BOTH YOUR JEWELLERY AND TAXIDERMY PRACTICE. WHAT IS MOST STRIKING ABOUT THIS CONCEPT TO YOU?

I recycle the concepts, motifs and mottos found in Memento Mori in my own modern way. I like the idea of "remembering one's own mortality," but not in a god-fearing, prepare for your day of judgement kind of way. I think if we accept our mortality, we can then appreciate the significance of life. Although, I only believe in physical death. I think ultimately as consciousness we are eternal - so why fear death, or god?

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT ANY NEW PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON?

I have a rather large exhibition coming up at the Linden Gallery in St Kilda, early 2018. I am working on a baby giraffe, a foal and some exciting new technology based works. That is all I will say for now!

IS THERE A HIGHLIGHT IN YOUR CAREER WHICH YOU CAN ISOLATE AS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT?

My exhibition, Degustation at the NGV in 2013 and Phantasmagoria for the 2014 Adelaide Biennal: Dark Heart at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA)

ARE YOU READING ANYTHING OF INTEREST AT THE MOMENT?

I am reading "My Big Toe," by Thomas Campbell. It is his unified theory or Theory of Everything (TOE). It ties Newtonian physics in with quantum physics, metaphysics, religion and spirituality. He is a NASA physicist and out of body/consciousness researcher. It is blowing my mind apart in the best possible way!

YOU ARE VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT ANIMALS AND ETHICS. WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOUR TAXIDERMY PRACTICE, REFLECTS THIS TO AN EXTENT?

Yes, all of my taxidermy works are about celebrating the life and beauty of the animals I am presenting. I often do works with very strong animal rights themes, such as lambs presented on platters with ruby wounds.

THERE IS A VICTORIAN ROMANTICISM TO THE AESTHETIC OF YOUR JEWELLERY, WHICH I LOVE. DO YOU OWN MANY ANTIQUE PIECES OF JEWELLERY YOURSELF?

Yes, I collect Victorian jet pieces and hair-work. The Victorian era is my biggest aesthetic influence.

SUBMIT AN IMAGE YOU'VE RECENTLY CONNECTED WITH, AND EXPLAIN WHAT DREW YOU TO IT.

I couldn't decide between the two. One is a photo from NASA's instagram - Isn't creation beautiful beyond words! The other is a photo by Phoebe Rudomino. This took my breath away.

JESSEE EGAN | ... / January 10, 2016 by ADWENA SHEMON

JESSEE EGAN is a New York-based electronic musician, sound designer, and visual artist. She released her first EP in 2011 on the Japanese ambient/techno label AY. In spring of 2015, she released her first full length album, Birth OF VENUS, under Blue Nile. Her latest alias, XGLARE, is an experimental project merging visual art and sound.

FIVE THINGS THAT DESCRIBE YOU BEST?

I think the prevailing characteristic that I really identify with is my introversion. I really enjoy being alone in a quiet space, especially while reading or drawing. Some people are surprised by that, especially since I'm not particularly shy. I like to be creative as much as I can. I don't often like to go out and socialise, but I make sure that I do so once in a while. I'm sensitive to loud noises, bright lights. I do, however, feel pretty comfortable in clubs/venues because they're dark and (hopefully) I like the music. I feel like I am a "dark person," but not in a melancholic way. I'm drawn to macabre themes and curiosities. I collect eerie objects, strange antiques, specimens, fossils and minerals. I'm also naturally inquisitive, and I enjoy researching and learning.

HOW WOULD YOU PERSONALLY DEFINE MUSIC?

I automatically think something like "the art of sound" or the configuration of tones/noises/sounds in efforts to embody emotion, expression etc. Maybe the way I make music speaks to how I personally define it. I find a lot of beauty in lone sounds. When I make music, I pick a handful of recorded bits that I'm inspired by and combine them. I'm not usually interested in approaching music in a kind of foundational way. I also get a lot of inspiration from examining images and objects. I make it work somehow and welcome dissonance.

HOW WAS BLUE NILE BORN?

I would say a good amount of the tracks from Birth of Venus were originally created a few years ago. My production skills weren't as refined back then, but I really liked the theme I was on and wanted to release the tracks. I really just drew from sounds that have stayed with me since my childhood. I got a lot of my inspiration from one of my favourite films, "The Neverending Story," as well as childhood picture books. I was interested in creating an imagined ambience, the kind of music that would accompany a dream about an ancient, esoteric culture.

WOULD YOU DEFINE YOURSELF AS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST?

I've dabbled into various realms of visual art and continue to work in a variety of mediums. I graduated from Parsons School of Design in 2010 and originally majored in fashion design. I had some success with it, but I eventually figured out that fashion wasn't for me. I switched to Fine Arts my third year and felt more at ease. As a kid, I enjoyed drawing and became fascinated with hyperrealism. I'm attracted to visually evocative and highly intricate art, especially paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian Neoclassicists. After I graduated, I had my first solo show and continued to exhibit in group shows, but focused primarily on making and recording sounds. Whenever I've neglected either art or music, I've felt incomplete and unfulfilled. 

I'm profoundly interested in natural sciences, especially phylogenetics, taxonomy, and evolutionary biology. At the moment, I'm working on a series of drawings that explore the genetic relationships of organisms by examining their origins and distinct morphological characteristics. 

I created XGLARE to make music and art simultaneously. I've recently delved into motion graphics to toy with movement. My recordings are mostly modular experiments that I've been combining together with other sounds and sequences. I see darkened forms, phosphene-like membranous entities. I see textures from organisms, a fly's eye, cnidarian translucence, chameleon skin.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT ANY NEW, UPCOMING PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON?

My main focus right now is finishing my XGLARE release for Blueberry Records. I'm also wrapping up a collaborative EP with another Brooklyn-based electronic musician. Our project, Vivia, should be released early this year. I've started a monthly event series Abstract Conditions with some other musicians who I adore and respect. It's focused on experimental electronic performance, genre misfits and unconventional sound/visuals. I'm also hoping to finish up some personal artwork this year.

FIVE OF YOUR MOST FAVOURITE/INSPIRING ARTISTS.

Aphex Twin, Burial, Biosphere, Bvdub, Andy Stott. Aphex has been with me since my late childhood. I remember the day I bought Selected Ambient Works 85-92. There was only one copy, and I remember being very attracted by the logo. Bvdub's music is intensely beautiful and his songs are made entirely out of raw emotion. It's a deeply unique and profound experience to listen to his music.

SUBMIT AN IMAGE YOU'VE RECENTLY CONNECTED WITH, AND EXPLAIN WHAT DREW YOU TO IT.

These are Chrysaora fuscescens, aka Pacific Sea Nettle which were photographed at the Georgia Aquarium. They are jellyfish (or, more appropriately, "jellies," because they're not fish) belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. I've always been fascinated by both cnidarians and ctenophores (comb jellies), most notably for their alien-like appearance and curious reputation as one of our most distant animal cousins. They've been a constant theme in my visual work, and my first XGLARE record will be dedicated to them.

LEXI LAND | ... / January 10, 2016 by ADWENA SHEMON

YOU ARE THE DEFINITION OF A MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST - HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO CATER TO ALL YOUR CREATIVE OUTLETS EQUALLY?

It’s a natural process. Like the body being composed of organs that are part of 
different body systems, every part has a purpose that supports the body to function 
as a whole. One form of expression leads to another, each part has its rhythm, it’s 
place and task to perform and they all keep me breathing in their own special way.

DO YOU HAVE A MEDIUM WHICH YOU ARE DRAWN TO MORE FREQUENTLY? IF SO, WHICH ONE?

Drawing and writing (both daily rituals)

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT ANY UPCOMING PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?

I’m working on a series of large-scale, surreal drawings. They are life and death 
figures full of sex and organic matter, breaking the flesh open to explore beyond the 
physical, they will be intricate and beautifully grotesque… almost like 
psychic-symbolic, mummy bundles. 

I’ll develop a performance piece to accompany the drawings too. Flesh the series out - so it’s multifaceted and alive. 

I also hope to sink my teeth into the ‘Electric Lexi Land Motel’ a series I’ve been 
developing over the past few years, it needs funding though… the it’s set in LA so I 
have to get over there to make it happen... I want to play with new media, film, 
sound, neon light and text. It’s a conceptual project –an intimate, confronting 
personal experiment that looks at the demented psyche of my lost dreams.

FIVE OF YOUR FAVOURITE/MOST INSPIRING FILMS?

I don’t really have favourite films but here are some things off the top of my head 
that are in films - that have inspired me: 

1 Christopher Walkens face
2 Club Silencio, Mulholland drive
3 Marla smoking in Fight club
4 The knife-throwing scene in girl on the bridge
5 Ritual Scene in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and the way the nude masked women walk

SOMETHING UNIQUE THAT PEOPLE MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU?

I used to be an old man.

SO WHAT IS A DAY IN THE CREATIVE WORLD OF LEXI LAND LIKE TYPICALLY? CAN YOU TAKE ME THROUGH THE RITUAL IF YOU HAVE ONE?

I get stirred around 9am, I get a kiss, I go back to dreaming till midday, write down dreams if poignant, shower, dress, sit in front of ocean sketch and write, document 
observation/philosophical thought with a large coffee – usually smoke 5 cigarettes, 
put butts in coffee cup and chuck in bin - go inside, turn music and light-box on, 
light candles, draw for a few hours (intermittent breaks for coffee, cigarettes, 
sketching and writing. Location: front step. Note: annoys neighbors) Back to drawing
till around 7-8pm cook dinner, sit and eat usually watching a movie or something, 
then either back to drawing for a few more hours with (smoke words/sketch breaks on front step every 1 hour… or so) bed to read by candlelight, about 2 hours of flashing images in my minds eye then finally… gone – asleep, I return to dreaming.

IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ANY ARTIST TO BE COMPARED TO, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

I prefer not to compare or be compared.

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR INFLUENCES?

There isn’t one person I completely feel influenced by- I like elements of people 
though… 

Like Dali and Hans Bellmer’s figures, the scrunched up face and madness of Artaud, 
the dirty sight of Bukowski, the inner world’s of Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, Tom Waits,slouched over smoking and spitting out words like beats, a gentle glance caught on 
film from the fiery spirit of Freda, Max Ernst’s nature, The hum of Alan Watts, 
Herman Hesse when he visited me in a dream and handed me ‘words’ in the symbol of a blooming rose across the electricity of a thunderous storm. Leonard Cohen reading his own poetry, the face of David Bowie –especially his eye, ‘Ullalum’ by Edgar Allan Poe, David Lynch’s energy, Laurie Anderson's brain, Francis Bacon's space, David Foster 
Wallace’s mind, Bruce Lees philosophy, Picasso's name and eyes, my dead cosmopolitan 
grandparents, an old wise man that is made of a silver line and looks at me from the backs of my lids, an ancient pair of primitive beings walking with my hand in theirs toward the sunlight.

For some, art is a gateway to one’s own conscious expression. What would you say art means to you?

Art allows me to uncover, to discover, to recover. Art is an invisible force 
desperate to appear. Art is the sky, body and star, sex and breath. Art is a deeper 
connection to existence, a beautiful, dangerous, gentle, vibrating figure, waiting toget fucked, to live to die to dream.

Art is a way of life, a way to see life, a truly special and personal experience thatgives me immense comfort and satisfaction and helps me flesh out my days with endlessamounts of fun.

SUBMIT AN IMAGE YOU'VE RECENTLY CONNECTED WITH AND EXPLAIN WHAT DREW YOU TO IT.

I found this image when I was cleaning my dad’s office; it was amongst his books 
and words, it is an x-ray of his spine when he had one, he doesn’t have one anymore

When I found the big envelope and pulled out the hard plastic, holding the image tothe light to decipher exactly what it was, it almost tore my heart out… to see the spine all together in one piece, the structure of his bones glowing beneath the 
skin, it’s a snap shot of a time when he was solid. The day after I found this 
image I said goodbye to his body for the last time, it was weird to think this bodythat grew him and held him together since birth, this body I’ve known and touched, this body that created my body, was soon to be dust.

Once upon a time he walked into the doctor and was there under the machine, he 
probably told a joke that made the nurse blush or knew some random information 
about x-rays that impressed the doctor. Here’s a document of his existence, proof 
of his physical being, it reminds me of a mirage in the desert, a face morphing 
from watching it for too long, the visual distortion from a candle, a dream slowly 
coming back to me in small fragments throughout the day, its my body disappearing, its letting go, it’s a ghost, a memory, a whisper.

I connect to this image because it helps me let go of the ‘image’ of my father and to hold instead what truly shines through, a deeper connection to something which 
cannot be seen… we are transient beings and facing the death of my father, althoughit's been one of the hardest times I’ve experienced, it has given me an 
unforgettably beautiful insight into the wondrous expansion of life.