What a crazy November so far, back to working, writing a small article for UPPERCASE magazine, and my little Leo man have all kept me busy!

Here are two inspiring artists ...

I recently stumbled across Catherine Campbell's work ... her illustrations are so cute and charming ... I especially like these ...






I also love Ana Serrano's Cartonlandia. Here's what it looks like ...

This entry is dedicated to Scandinavian designers I admire...

Finnish designer Akira Minagawa designs fabrics and clothing among other projects under the brand name minä perhonen. "Minä" means "I" and "perhonen" means "butterfly" in Finnish. In her profile she says she choose this name "with a hope of creating many beautiful designs as butterfly wings fluttering lightly in the sky". Her designs are reminiscent of fashion from the thirties with added femininity, and I especially love the hair pieces she designs.

Pictured below is a sample from her 2007 spring/summer collection.



Designers Mari Relander and Anna Katriina have a design company called Perhonen . They have collaborated on a wide variety of projects and competitions. They have exhibited abroad both with Imu design and on their own. Their designs were selected for the annual Sotheby´s contemporary art and design exhibition held in London in 2003. Recently their work was exhibited in Tokyo in an exhibition of new Scandinavian design. The exhibition was curated by designer Harri Koskinen and held at the Issey Miyake Design Studio Gallery (MDSG).

Their Anemone lamp is pictured below.




Designer Tord Boontje was born in the Netherlands, but currently resides in France. He designs for many different projects, but maintains a very unique and distinct style. His philosophy is the marriage between emotion and design. His textile work reminds me of Chinese papercutting.

I especially love his installations, and particularly his Winter Wonderland installation at the Swarvoski Crystal Gallery in Innsbruck.

Boontje says this of his Winter Wonderland installation, "In a demonstration of the emotional quality of crystal, we created a landscape in which the visitors are taken on a fantasy journey. References to fairytales, storytelling, history and adventures invite personal interpretation and dreams."

Shown below is a fraction of the work from Boontje's Winter Wonderland Installation.

Imaginary Landscapes
BFA Exhibition- Rachelle Soucy
Video/Sculpture/Instillation

Do you remember a place like a photograph in your mind? How do you remember a specific place? Do certain sensations remind you of a place or time?



For the last few years the majority of my concentration has been to incorporate cityscape themes into my artwork. These images have taken shape from fanciful chaotic images inspired from the larger cityscape to more of a tranquil quality inspired by my new surroundings. I commenced my work on a two-dimensional plane, but I wanted more of an interactive feel, as our everyday environments have. I questioned whether a two-dimensional image was actually a realistic or natural representation. The time of day or human interaction can change a landscape’s shape dramatically. Both human and natural elements play off each other creating a mutating landscape.

This constant changing of aesthetics in real time gives the landscape a dynamic quality. I incorporated this notion into the formation of my interactive sculpture. There are geometric and organic shapes coming out from the wall creating an interactive backdrop for the projected video. The video images act as both kinetically and as visual sensations. As a visual artist, I choose the sense of sight to invoke memories of time and place, through the use of texture, motion and colour. Memories of a place are not necessarily like a photograph in your mind, but you are often reminded through sensations:

“The sense of place…does indeed emerge from the senses. The land and even the spirit of the place, can be experienced kinetically, or kinesthetically, as well as visually. If one has been raised in a place its textures and sensations, its smells and sounds, are recalled as they to a child’s, adolescent’s, adult’s body. Even if one’s history there is short, a place can still be felt as an extension of the body, especially the walking body, passing through and becoming part of the landscape.”

I have intended both geometric and organic forms to represent more than what they are. They form a sort of map making, similar to topography, representing three-dimensional natural and built formations. They can also represent other technological and organic elements that the viewer is familiar with.

This is an interactive landscape of the physical and visual attributes of places that I am familiar with and pass through daily, but this is not a representational landscape. It is a means to invoke personal memories of place for both myself and for others, through feelings and ideas people attach to certain sensations.



Lucy R. Lippard. Being in Place. New York: The New Press, 1997. p. [34]