Untitled - theOMENmag

02
Omen Magazine
is a showcase for multi-medium International
creativity. It is a visual online magazine that is
a homage to Art and Fashion that may not be
necessarily mainstream. It will be a hybrid of
talent from up and coming to famous.The focus
is on the image, not the buzz.
Omen wants to explore and expose to the
cyber world, all the amazing work that is off
the commercial radar.
www.theomenmag.com
Cover
Light mask and Concept by
Andrea Splisgar in collaboration with Jorge Serio
Portrait of Andrea Splisgar by Pedro Matos
02
Mário Correia - Graphic editor
Marcus Leatherdale - Art Director / Art Editor
Pedro Matos - Photo editor
Jorge Serio - Fashion editor
Frederica Santos - Production editor
+
Art Correspondents:
Paul Bridgewater – NYC
Amabel Barraclough – London
Martin Belk – Glasgow
Baptist Coelho - Mumbai
Patric Lehmann - Toronto
Jennifer Leskiw – Antwerp
Muga Miyahara – Tokyo
Hector Ramsay - Florence
Elizabeth Rogers – New Delhi
Andrea Splisgar – Berlin
Jorge Soccaras – Barcelona
+
Fashion Corrspondents:
Rebecca Weinberg – NYC
Zuleika Ponsen - Paris
Chapter 13
A passing Glance
By
Andrea splisgar
Idea and performance andrea splisgar
Photo and postproduction pedro matos
Realized in lisbon, portugal, november 2009
With the precious cooperation of jorge serio
Copyright der mondäne tiger
www.dermondaenetiger.com
A Passing Glance
IN the midst of a deafening roar, svelte
and tall, and dressed in black from
head to toe, She passed me, wreathed in
majestic sorrow, Jewelled hand lifted
the hem of her skirt.
Ladylike, and graceful, and statuesque,
I shook like a fool, drinking from
those eyes, Tempestuous as ashen,angry
skies. A deadly joy, a sweetness full
of risk.
Lightening - gone dark! Slipping away
from me, Beauty that offered life in
one quick glance - Life seen no more, before Eternity? Elsewhere...to far! too
late! Never, perchance... For you ignored
me - or pretend to - Who could have won
your love, as you well know...
Charles Baudelaire
Michael Maier Barcelona
www.m-a-i-e-r.com
By Jorge Socarras
Barcelona has a long history as an avant-garde artistic center, and continues attracting artists from the world
over, as well as cultivating its own. Michael Maier came to Barcelona 10 years ago from Germany and made it his
home, though he does not consider himself a “Barcelona artist” per se. His work itself would be hard to place, as it
embodies so many stylistic elements, arguably making it all the more “Barcelonan.” Taken outside of geographical
context, Maier’s digital paintings perhaps find their most apt locus on the Internet, where he has found a broad
international following.
I myself was first captivated by his images long-distance via facebook, their sensorial colorfulness and playful
primitivism quite striking even on a pocket screen. Zooming in closer reveals a sophisticated harmony of figurative
and abstract elements, the effect at once visceral and cerebral. Initial comparison to Jean-Michel Basquiat seems
inevitable, but further contemplation conjures up aspects of Paul Klee, Wifredo Lam, Matta, or even Barcelona’s
own Antoni Tàpies—all re-imagined for the digital age.
Often wry and provocative as their titles suggest, Maier’s images nonetheless maintain an organic beauty and
formalism. In “Green Boy” the pictorial space seems roughly split into four areas, all monochrome green with black
overlines, each depicting an aspect of a male subject, and vacillating between eroticizing and deconstructing him.
In the upper right quadrant, tense, nervous lines highlight the mans chest in bra-like fashion, verging on becoming
a pair of voyeuristic eyes, while from the upper left, a young Adonis looks on as if dissecting his own beauty and
maleness. It would seem Maier is updating the pagan fertility symbol of the green man, at the same time scrutinizing
it under the homoerotic gaze.
“Her Lipstick Will Kill You” presents the viewer with a more abstracted, less literal mélange of colliding and overlapping
fragments, planes and layers, colors and scrawls. The effect is one of images on the verge of appearing or possibly
having already decayed. The word “she” may be the only decipherable scrawl, and it lends the rest of the imagery
the implication of a third-person-feminine – unseen, like the lipstick - a presence that defies the objectifying male
eye/I. Has objective imagery been rendered subjective experience?
Despite these psychosexual connotations, Maier insists that his work has no meaning, and that mentally interpreting
it is useless. Rather than interpreting any external reality, he says that “he is obsessed with deconstructing the
images and language of his fragmented inner world,” and that his work refers to “his own hermetic universe of
symbols.” While perhaps its resonance could be partly attributable to the collective unconscious, Maier himself
avoids placing his work in any theoretical context. Unabashedly open about his own sexual identity as a gay man,
he denies this being a paramount factor in his work, but concedes there being gay elements in it.
I finally met the artist, and his husband Ximo, in one of their favorite spots in the neighborhood of Raval. Maier
revealed himself to be warm, whimsically forthright, and quite at ease with Catalan ways. In fact I had too much
fun with them for serious art talk. Thus I resorted to the Internet to ask him a few questions about his art. Even
there he seems to keep his tongue strategically close to his bearded cheek.
JS Did you always paint?
MM Yes I always painted....As a baby I was painting with my one shit!
Do you have a way you typically begin a new piece, or is it always a new process?
It is always fresh and new!
What informs your work?
Nothing intellectual...it is more on a-non verbal basis.
Your work gives the effect of being both controlled and free-flowing – is this any indication of the way you work?
My work becomes only good when I am in the flow…control is hindering!
When you are creating an image do you consider a viewer other than yourself, or are you simply concentrating
on your own perception?
There is no other viewer than me!
At different points in art history, claims have been made that painting is dead – do you think there will always be
new cycles in painting? (E.G., digital painting)
Yes... Nothing is Dead!
BCN continues to become more popular and international – as an artist do you have any positive or negative
response to this?
Barcelona is a wonderful city to live…I really love it here! Art you can make everywhere—sometimes better in
the worst places!
I didn’t ask what those worst places might be. I did, however, learn that for a long time Maier never thought of
selling his works or having them hang on walls. “I never saw myself as an Artist. (What really is an Artist...?...
strange word!)” Having painted since he was seventeen, he says that for many years he destroyed his paintings.
“I love changes and destruction. (Because it is always a new, surprising, wonderful beginning!)”
Perhaps Maier’s attitudes reveals a more fundamental aspect of himself as a Barcelona artist than he cares to
admit - qualities of defiance, intellectual playfulness and willful mutability that are ultimately very much in tune
with the city and its artistic history. In any case, his work speaks for itself.
MASQUERADE
Phyllis Galembo NYC
www.galembo.com
Every child has their favorite holiday. For many it’s Christmas or Hannukah, because of the
exchanging of gifts and treats; for others it’s the 4th of July, thanks to the fireworks and
barbecues.
For Phyllis Galembo, the honor was shared but both involved costumes and transformation. In
the Jewish holiday, Purim, wearing a skirt covered in golden bric a brac and a veil changed you
into a Biblical heroine; and at Halloween, you could throw a sheet thrown over your head and
you became a menacing spirit.
In Galembo’s elaborately staged earliest photographs, crepe paper streamers or cellophane
grass and plastic eggs, transformed friends into birds of prey or a topsy turvy Easter basket.
Cheap and found materials were reworked to create magical results.
In 1985 Phyllis traveled to Nigeria on the advise of a friend. There she had the rare
opportunity to photograph Preists and Preistesses in ceremonial regalia, in their ritual shrines.
Here she witnessed the power of ritual clothing, objects and the related ceremonies.
In the the ‘90’s Ms. Galembo collected hundreds of American Halloween costumes. This
material became the book Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and
Masquerade.
In 2004 Galembo returned to Nigeria to Cross River where she photographed masquerades at
funerals, purification rituals, and harvest festivals.
In Africa, masking, or masquerade, fulfills numerous purposes. Some are initiations into
adulthood, others ensure fertility for the land and the community, while still others settle scores
and disputes.
Her continued interest in masquerade led her to return to photograph the Devils of Sierra
Leone, the Makishi of Zambia and the greased bodies of the Ekpo masquerade of Calabar.
From 1994-2009, Galembo photographed Karnaval in Jacmal, Haiti, examining the influences
created by the diaspora of the African people through slavery.
Phyllis’ next adventure - China.
by Paul Bridgewater-NYC
In her upcoming book, Maske (due to be released in October
by Boot Publishing), Phyllis has photographed in Haiti, Nigeria
and Zambia. The images are beautiful, startling and sometimes
frightening.
Phyllis Galembo’s other books are Divine Inspiration from Benin
to Bahia (1993), Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti (1998)
and Dressed for Thrills, 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and
Masquerade (2003).
We’ve included two images from Dressed for Thrills, Topsy and
Jester Mask, to further illustrate how the African influence has
been disseminated, even into American Halloween. PB
StoryTailors www.storytailors.pt / Fotografia_By Pedro Matos
Conceito,Styling,realização e Make up Jorge Serio
In colaboration With Mirage www.mirageimageproductions.com
Model Roxana Avram / Karacter www.karacter.pt / special guest Custodio
Post Produção by Ginger Candy www.gingercandy.pt Pedro Filipe
Hair by www.griffehairstyle.com Helena Vaz Pereira
StoryTailors
Shoes - “Mango” and “El Cavallo”
Stockings - “o rei das meias” - Lisboa
Walking cains - “Chapelarias Azevedo Rua Lda.” - Lisboa
JOSE MARIA BUSTOS
aka DJ Bosco
SINGAPORE
www.visualmerchandisingasia.com
As an artist it is my obligation and responsibility to comment on and reinterpret
today’s social and political events from a spiritual and even a moral point of
view, albeit metaphorically, thus allowing the viewing public to question, ponder,
interpret and discuss the artwork and come to terms with whatever emotional
experience the works might evoke in them.
While each individual will experience these works differently, I have tried to remain
true to the same artistic concerns – superstition, prejudice, disenfranchisement,
suffering, exclusion, religion and spirituality – that have permeated my work
since the early 60’s and it is my hope that through these works perhaps an
element of any of these concerns might be transmitted to the viewer in some
sense or another.
With this group of large-format paintings my intent was to deliberately move
away from the more decorative concerns of art and into my own world of
dialogue and imagery.
ENCHANTED
EAST
VILLAGE
SALLY DAVIES – NYC
www.sallydaviesphoto.com
The Lower East Side exists in a parallel universe in Sally
Davies’ photographic series, My New York. A native of
Canada, Ms. Davies has called New York home for 28 years;
her interpretation of it is at once seductive and fresh. Building
facades are secretive and beckoning. Brick walls and metal
burglar bars form staccato patterns against glowing colors.
Cars are stationary, hulking monuments. Graffiti constitute
latter-day cave paintings. Doors have faces. Once-solid
sidewalks are made of liquid or foam. Tethered to one of the
ubiquitous parking signs, a bicycle is a fairytale steed awaiting
its rider. My New York is a sublime expression of urban life
where gaiety veils dereliction, artistic expression stands in
for humanity, and one’s imagination takes a surreal stroll on
Avenue A. - Wendy McDaris, Independent Curator, NYC
AFRO
DIVA
Mirage
by
www.mirageimageproductions.com
Fotografia e Pos produção_By Pedro Matos assistido por Frederica Santos
Conceito,Styling,realização e Make up _Jorge Serio
AFRO
DIVA
Model Elizabeth Light Models www.lightmodels.pt
Sweaming suit : “ Agua Doce” / Bracelets : “Nuno Baltazar”
Sunglasses : “Dior”
02
Andrea Splisgar
Michael Maier
Phyllis Galembo
Jose Maria Bustos
Sally Davies
Storytailors
Pedro Matos / Jorge Serio
www.dermondaenetiger.com
www.m-a-i-e-r.com
www.galembo.com
www.visualmerchandisingasia.com
www.sallydaviesphoto.com
www.storytailors.pt
www.mirageimageproductions.com