Artists’ Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by the founder & curator, Mohamed Benhadj, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.
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Sofia Malemina is a multimedia artist working with timed-based mediums such as video, sound, light, and immersive installations. She established her artistic career in London by blending digital technologies with traditional techniques to explore themes such as identity, perception, and the interplay between physical and virtual spaces. Sofia Malemina
Yi-Han (Audrey) Chou is a Dancer, Researcher, and Multimedia Artist originally from Taipei and based in New York. With a focus on storytelling through bodily movement, her work is a testament to the intricate interplay of embodiment, cultural identity, and diversity.
Weina Li lives and works in Beacon, New York. She uses science theory and technology to create immersive, interactive installations, sculptures and video. Li’s work starts with her exploration of nature, expressing her understanding of the world as well as her state of being.
Matteo Cervone is an Italian photographer, based in Milan. After working for 25 years in multinational service companies as a behavioral trainer, he approached photography later in life, establishing himself as an artist. His series Other Worlds is a visual journey in time and space, where traffic lights become the main character of an urban stage.
Timothée Mahuzier is a French artist, based between Paris and Normandy. In his work he pays particular attention is given to using environmentally friendly and local materials. In his series Verdures, environment is presented rather than imitated, generating rich density through the plants' proximity to the canvas. These open-ended works serve as catalysts for individual experiences.
Edward L. Rubin is an award-winning fine art photographer, production designer, and painter based in Los Angeles. In his series My Mannequin Moment, he depicts the transcendent moment when we realize we are no longer aligned with the roles, beliefs, or relationships we've accepted and where the veil is lifted and we confront the false ideals imposed on us.
Yeejae Kim is an artist whose interdisciplinary work spans performance, sculpture, video, and installation, using vulnerability to challenge the expectations and ideals imposed by beauty standards. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she draws from her cultural background and personal experiences to engage with societal norms. She is currently based in Long Island City, NY.
Bîstyek is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in painting, sculpture, and drawing. Renowned for his bold use of color and expressive lines, he blends elements of graffiti, street art, and abstraction while also creating figurative paintings on various surfaces and 3D wood sculptures. His work primarily reflects on his personal journey, from his marginalized upbringing in Syria to Canada.
Ruslana Nosak's work reflects a lifelong journey through different places, each of which has shaped and expanded her artistic vision. Over the years, she's explored a range of mediums, embracing each for its unique, expressive qualities. Her work depicts the psychological and cultural complexities faced by individuals adapting to new countries and identities.
Dutch-born Hannah Kori is a conceptual artist known for her unconventional mixing of traditional painting with digital art forms. Her artistic practice blends abstract painting, AI diffusion tools, and audience-interactive installations to explore and challenge societal perceptions. Using multiple media, she blurs the lines between the real and the unreal.
Peyton Sachs is a new face in the art scene, emerging in the summer of 2022 with his first-ever painting. His approach to painting is raw, intuitive, and unrefined. Art, to him, isn't about technique or pedigree but about feeling, exploration, and connection, which is why he goes into each painting with no direction, just himself and a blank canvas.
Harini Rajeev’s work mostly portrays experimenting with different mediums, such as charcoal and watercolor, as well as the relationships between them. A couple of her pieces also explore her feelings as she battles through the many road bumps of adolescence.
Yilin Xu works as an interior designer in New York after graduating from Pratt Institute while also pursuing a passion for freelance illustration. Influenced by her architectural background, the illustrations are intricately inspired by spatial dynamics, architectural elements, and detailed mechanical designs.
Sumio Kobayashi is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He won several prices and has made appearances at festivals such as Takefu International Music Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival, and Weimarer Frühjahrstage für zeitgenössische Musik. He is currently a Professor of Composition and Musicology at Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan.
Sophie Dezhao Jin is a multimedia visual artist originally from Beijing, China, who explores the intricate dynamics of human relationships through her diverse practice. Working across various mediums, she delves into themes of connection—whether with others, with nature, or with the resonances of the past. Her work focuses on identity, memory, and the human experience.
Helena Eribenne, a London-born multimedia artist of Nigerian descent, works across film, photography, performance art, theatre, installation, and music. Her work critiques post-colonialism, using 19th-century tools like the magic lantern and panorama to challenge colonial narratives embedded in the collective unconscious.
Xinyi Qin is a Chinese artist currently based in Hong Kong. In Xinyi's paintings, she relies on her intuition to select different types of plants as her subjects - they are tiny, peculiar, faded, blooming, or rotten. She focuses more on their temperament, allowing the diversity of plants to unfold naturally without limitations or definitions.
Ellen De is a visual artist who uses photography as her primary medium to explore the intersections of architecture, abstraction, and social critique. Her work reimagines brutalist structures as sculptural forms, detaching them from their historical and ideological contexts. By emphasizing form over function, Ellen's photographs transform iconic architectural symbols into evocative remnants of unrealized utopias.
Giulia Guasta Guarnaccia is a digital artist and an intersectional activist; she also considers herself an interdisciplinary researcher and a data archaeologist. In her work, she mixes social engagement with varied artistic practices, always linked to ethical issues; in her opinion, there's a strong need to deconstruct ourselves going through privileges and marginalities.
Keight is a multidisciplinary artist who explores a variety of experiments and mediums, ranging from “traditional” art to immersive installations and digital works. Equal parts artist and designer, and both conceptual and expressionist, Keight takes the viewer on a visual journey through his unique language, peppered with references and symbolic pictograms that circumscribe his abundant universe.
Julia Lehmann is a philosopher, writer, translator, and artist whose practice is deeply intertwined with her explorations of language, humanity, and the natural world. Exploring the boundary between text and image, the parts then form a new whole, fragments of a female voice. The typewriter is the tool to hide, to love, to seek, to find, to hope, to think.
Weizhi Cao, a Chinese artist, has made a name for himself in digital art, specializing in AI-generated content (AIGC). By merging traditional techniques with cutting-edge AI technology, he creates a unique artistic style that has gained international recognition. His works have been showcased in various exhibitions and have won multiple awards in international art competitions and film festivals.
Yulun Liu is an architect and digital artist based in Chicago whose work explores the intricate relationship between nature, architecture, and human well-being. Inspired by the resilience of abandoned landscapes and the therapeutic potential of natural environments, her practice focuses on creating immersive experiences that blur the boundaries between art and architecture.
Klara is a German filmmaker and graphic designer now based in Berlin. She works in mixed media, including video and sound design, photography, and inclusive design. Klara also engages in experimental arts with the focus on conceptual emotional design. She has been curiously exploring how art makes disconnections tangible.
Pei-Yao Chang is a Taiwan-born media artist and researcher currently working between London and Taiwan. Her practice explores space(s) and the implications of embodied experiences, drawing from both the gravitational pull of the land and the weightless journey of freediving. Fascinated by sensation, movement, and perception, she investigates the concept of embodied cognition.
Boris is a self-taught photographer originally from Minsk, Belarus, now based in Philadelphia. He combines his technical knowledge and creative vision to produce compelling images that resonate emotionally. His project, Fierce, examines the paradox of cuteness aggression, a psychological phenomenon where overwhelming feelings of adoration for something provoke an intense response.
Kang Mingu is a filmmaker, media artist, and writer based in South Korea. His works often depict vulnerable figures within society, exploring themes such as redevelopment, technological transformation, and mythology while emphasizing a warm perspective and hope for the marginalized. Through these narratives, he reflects his desire for comfort and warmth in both his own life and the society.
Wenqing Gu is a Baltimore-based digital illustrator originally from Huai’an, China. Her art serves as a bridge between cultures, drawing from her experiences in both China and the United States to explore universal emotions. Her illustrations are imbued with a sense of simplicity and childlike wonder, reflecting her belief in the power of art to bring joy and healing.
Aylal Heydarova is an emerging Azerbaijani painter whose works span a variety of artistic styles and creative techniques, including pointillism, modernism, and abstract. Launched in April 2024, the #SAVINGBUTTERFLIES project celebrates transformation and resilience, reflecting the journeys of both butterflies and migrants.
Neryhs Wo is an emerging independent artist from Hong Kong. Her practice explores the contradiction of hoping to be found and understood but doubting the existence of total understanding between minds. She expresses this through various media such as poetry, paintings, illustrations, public installations, and performances. Neryhs sees her art practice to be a form of unconditional love she gives to life.
Pavel Bulva, born in 1991 and currently based in Minsk, is an artist whose work serves as a profound exploration of religious and philosophical themes, offering reflection on the vices and societal challenges prevalent in an era of mass consumption and archetypal narratives. His art delves into the depths of existential loneliness and immortality, provoking thought and contemplation on the human condition.
Evelyne Chevallier's photo collages started with graffiti. As the amount of graffiti in the collages was reduced, more and more photos of exceptional Argentinian and Chilean landscapes appeared, and most of the time, they were also manipulated. A resume of this work could be described as a permanent juxtaposition of two extremes: full and empty, talkative and silent, urban and nature.
Ramón González Palazón is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, video creation, installation, and filmmaking. His practice seeks to transform real spaces, merging the human and the material, using interactive devices to generate new interpretations of physical environments. In his latest compositions, he reflects on the natural process of atmospheric elements.
Alexandra Taoukidou is a Greek artist based in Zurich, Switzerland. Space and its mutations are the main themes of her visual practice, as in the BOXES SERIES. Here the artist translates the spaces into the third dimension through scale models enclosed in wooden boxes. The viewer takes the role of an explorer, as he is invited to observe their interior through various distorting (and non) lenses.
Diego Fabro is a Brazilian fine art photographer based in Dublin, Ireland. His photographic practice explores the notions of "home" and the "passage of time". Fabro is captivated by the potential of light and color to transform ordinary scenes into moments of heightened theatricality, infusing his images with a sense of tension drawn from daily life.
Yuwen Huang is a Chinese media artist based in San Francisco, USA. Yuwen works across video, internet, installation, GAN-generated images and videos, blockchain, and creative writing. Through the lens of technology, her art investigates the human relationship with society, the environment, and culture, exploring how these connections have been shaped by technology over time.
Max Yang is a photographer based in Los Angeles and Beijing. Through her graduate studies, Max applies a cross-disciplinary approach to researching East Asian performance genres, such as film, dance, and visual arts. Her work examines how East Asian artists challenge traditional gender roles and advocate for social equity.
Leon Phillips is a contemporary painter currently based in Vancouver, Canada. He employs the materiality of color to evoke a visceral response in viewers, infusing color with structural significance rather than mere decoration. Phillips’ gestural work explores perception and embodiment through the materiality of color, aiming to immerse viewers in a corporeal experience.
Karolina Zgłobicka, a Polish artist based in Valencia, Spain, explores themes of relocation, memory, and the everyday objects that anchor us to our personal histories. Karolina Zgłobicka's art reflects on the intricate relationship between cherished objects and the memories they evoke, prompting the viewer to reconsider their connection with the material world and the passage of time.
Bonan Li is an artist and designer whose work transcends conventional fashion, exploring the profound connections between nature, human consciousness, and the fleeting beauty of existence. Viewing clothing as a contemplative and immersive experience, she creates wearable art that bridges the natural world and the human body, delving into themes of transience, emptiness, and unseen patterns of life.
Charles Chao Wang is a London-based photographer and artist. His work draws from his own experiences and memories and is influenced by a variety of fields, including sociology, philosophy, and psychology. He offers a powerful social commentary, as well as an opportunity for spiritual healing, enabling both the viewer and the artist to reflect on and respond to societal challenges.
Shouhui Lu is a Chinese self-taught artist. He believes that the best teacher is nature. He has been committed to the exploration and innovation of paper painting language, creating works with a contemporary spirit on traditional rice paper. He tries to express the problems that tiny individuals are experiencing and encountering in the current society through his works.
Theo Lopez draws inspiration from movements like Musicalism, Russian Constructivism, and the Blaue Reiter, cultivating a poetic relationship with material, line, and color. His creative process harmonizes reflection and spontaneity, awakening hidden melodies within his work. He employs full-body gestures to infuse energy into his non-figurative art, echoing the dynamism of historical avant-gardes.
Eagan Hsu is an emerging photographic artist based in Taipei. His work explores the complex web of human emotions, mental health, identity, and the often-overlooked moments of daily life. Eagan's photography spans from candid street portraits to conceptual series, delving into themes like imperfection, memory, and anonymity.
David Thomas Smith is a visual artist who specializes in Post- Photographic Processes. His work interrogates the evolving relationship between technology, imagery, and the human experience. Engaging with Post-Photographic Processes, his practice explores how the digital realm reshapes our perception of reality, history, and memory.
Maxime Déria, a passionate French artist, explores the intricacies of his life through spontaneous and captivating art. Completely self-taught, he instinctively grasped the rigor of collage in the manner of Jacques Villeglé or Raymond Hains, appropriating the medium to tell fragments of personal history. Painting completes and contributes to the overall dynamism of the images.
Elsa Faudé is a French photographer-author based between Barcelona (Spain) and Toulouse (France). Her production combines photography with video, installation, and literature at the borders of documentary and poetical approaches. In the Kozmic Blues series, the journey of Ronn, a Cherokee-origin blues(wo)man, embodies both the promises and disillusionments of the American Dream.
Australian-based creative Carlotta Hey has had a long and extensive career in the fashion industry. Currently, she is focusing primarily on fashion illustrations, where she views clothing as a deeply personal form of self-expression. In her work, the human body adorned in garments becomes a powerful vehicle for communication.
William Josephs Radford, a Spanish-born fine art photographer, challenges conventional thought processes through his striking compositions and thought-provoking subject matters. His photography delves into controversial themes such as sex, religion, gender, and identity to convey complex emotions and altered perceptions.
Born in the Netherlands and based in Portugal, Gís Marí paints large-scale, abstract, expressionistic oil paintings. Gís Marí believes in old-world values. He works on a painting for many months and up to years. After constant conversation with the painting, he only puts his signature under his best work and destroys the rest.
Goran Tomic is a Collisionist Autodidactic Artist from Sydney, Australia. His collages are a manifestation of the chaotic mayhem of modern life in a big city. The collages were started and conceived while in transit, either in cafes, pubs, libraries or even on public transport. The initial energy is his surroundings, and then the finishing touches are fine-tuned at home.
Haidar Ali Tipu Zinan is a Colombian artist. His work focuses on exploring and producing pieces that revolve around the archetypes present in art history and the concept of time. Each of his creations responds to a unique quest and his research often leads him to large-scale projects where the bodily experience with the piece becomes significant within a spatial, material, and symbolic context.
Xingyu Huang is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, known for her innovative work in sculpture, installation, and video. Her practice explores spatial dynamics and sensory perception, using these elements to delve into themes of human connection, isolation, and environmental impact. Huang creates immersive environments that reflect on the relationships between humans and non-humans.
Cassandra McCoy is an American photographer, currently enrolled in a communications/photojournalism degree at Kent State University. Working primarily with analog photography, she takes the simple yet heartwarming scenes, completely blowing them out of proportion. If one were to describe her art in three words, it would be invasive, vivid, and lomographic.
Mei-Ju Shen, an innovative fashion designer with roots in New York and Taipei, channels a strong sense of social responsibility shaped by her upbringing in an influential Taiwanese family. Shen's creations challenge the dichotomy between beauty and sustainability, offering an eco-conscious aesthetic that redefines fashion and art.
Qianying Zhu is a Chinese jewelry designer. Qianying studied and trained herself as a jewelry designer and focuses on artistic jewelry and self-express. She enjoys observing the characteristics of different things and then expressing them through painting, jewelry, and other forms of artwork. She likes combining different materials together to achieve a sense of harmony and balance.
Tangyu Zhang is a photographer and freelance photojournalist based in Washington, DC, and she is celebrated for her evocative storytelling through the lens. Tangyu’s artistic vision centers on the belief that every individual has a story worth sharing. Her photographs aim to bridge the gap between the seen and the unseen, delving into themes of identity, resilience, and belonging.
Thomas C. Chung is a Chinese-Australian contemporary artist based in Helsinki & Sydney. His latest project, the exhibition The Sea That Stands Before Me…, contemplates the notion of one's devotion to living as a form of armament. Chung's conceptual practice continues its inquiries into psychology, folklore, mythology, and philosophy, binding them as a cohesive tale.
Yang Yang's journey began in Japan, followed by a move to China as a teenager. She now divides her time between the UK, US, Japan, and China. This diverse cultural perspective serves as the foundation of her work, enabling her to draw from the architectural traditions of each region. This cross-cultural approach is embedded in her designs and captivates audiences with their global sensibilities.
Supatida Sutiratana is a talented Thai graphic designer based in New York City. Her expertise encompasses branding, packaging, print, and typography. She is a co-founder of Midnight Project, LLC, committed to crafting designs that are both visually striking and deeply meaningful. Through Midnight Project, she channels her passion for design into producing work that resonates with clients and audiences alike.
Michel Bragança is a Portuguese painter and artist with a degree in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto. In their artistic practice, there is a need to define who they are as they exist, which has been a constant research theme and a reason for their ontological questioning and introspective process, which in turn are connected to their artistic practice.
Tanapol Suriyachottakul is a Thai artist born in 2001 in Bangkok. He approaches his art with a methodical, almost analytical mindset, likening his process to solving equations. Central to his work is the concept of Nihilism, which he portrays through calculated compositions and symbolic objects like mannequins and metallic forms. His paintings construct a world of distorted realities.
Haige Wu is a Chinese artist and illustrator with a practice spanning London and China. Her work blends traditional techniques such as lacquer painting and woodworking with contemporary methods, exploring themes of regional culture, feminism, and identity. Currently experimenting with felt for its dual qualities of softness and strength, Haige’s innovative approach has garnered international recognition.
Andrei Ruzov is a Russian artist. He finds his main goal in talking to people who feel bad, who are not heard or do not want to be heard, who are in a state of instability, who feel lonely and anxious, or who are going through difficult therapy. He wants to convey to them the idea that they are not alone, and they are heard and understood, and their experience and pain are shared.
Natalia Titova is a digital artist born in 1992 in Omsk, Russia, and currently based in Belgrade, Serbia. Specializing in concept art and digital collages, Natalia Titova blends diverse techniques to create captivating, minimalist compositions. Her work explores the impact of literature, crafting digital collages that capture the essence of her favourite authors.
Chu Ling-Jung, born in Taiwan in 2000, is an artist focused on feminism and consciousness. Her works often explore the unease in women's body shaping and gender perception under a patriarchal society and present these themes through deliberate bodily transformations. Chu Ling-Jung 's creative forms are diverse, including performance art, video, and found objects.
Maja Malmcrona is a visual artist born in 1993 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and currently based in Zurich, Switzerland. Her work relates primarily to an examination of space and our experience of it, placing particular emphasis on the mediation between our natural and built environment. Her work takes the form of abstract landscapes, conceptual cartography, and imaginary structures.
Originally from Shanghai and now based in London, Flo Yuting Zhu navigates the shifting boundaries between the 'witnessing' and the 'witnessed'. Her works challenge the audience's perception by recontextualising everyday digital forms such as vlogs, livestreams, and horror trail cams. She creates a language that both appropriates and reinterprets the conventions of mass media.
Yuliia Chaika was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and as an artist, she fully found herself and her style in Spain. In most of her works, the main theme is devoted to women. Through the female image, she expresses her emotions and concerns, offering a personal lens through which she views the world. She draws inspiration from the folk art of Ukraine.
Emi Avora is a Greek-born, UK-trained, and Singapore-based artist. She subject matter from her everyday life in Asia as well as her Greek ancestry with a focus on a combination of interior spaces, still life, and landscape. Often, her paintings present encounters or ‘conversations’ between seemingly disparate objects or symbols.
Patrick Walsh is an American artist. He lives in Portland, Maine, and works out of his studio in the old textile mill in Biddeford, Maine. His paintings seek to explore the subtle yet profound differences within natural environments, reflecting how these variations mirror the individuality of human beings. The work aims to challenge viewers to appreciate the nuances of the natural world.
Yulin Yuan is an interdisciplinary artist and dedicated art educator, born in China and raised in South Africa. Her practice spans photography, video, and assemblage, focusing on themes of identity, mythology, and displacement. Her work bridges the space of "in-between," exploring the ephemeral nature of identity while questioning the very foundation of the self.
Zihan Zhou is an artist who creates visual art and explores a variety of media while also writing, educating, and working in the media. Zhou draws deeply from historical iconography, searching for their connection to contemporary contexts. Shifting from traditional painting to collaged images to installations and performances, Zhou’s art strives to produce a more open resonance.
Alice Zakharenko is a London-based interdisciplinary artist, who works in print media, papermaking, painting and drawing. Exploring the temporal qualities of repetition and difference, Zakharenko’s bodies of work explore memory, movement, rhythm, time and identity. She investigates how individuals measure time through their bodies and in the environment without relying on technologies.
Zengyi Zhao is an artist who primarily uses photography and video as his creative method. His photography revolves around the critique of inauthenticity and alienation brought by capitalism and consumerism. In his work, he visualizes the connections between individual life and grand narratives, discussing the presentation and impact of different sociocultural phenomena such as modernity and spectacle.