Sara Hausenkamp is a Swedish illustrator who is currently spending her days in Berlin. I love her drawings, comics, collages, everything she does is really great. This girl has a real gift for combining colours and textures to create a these parallel universes she refers to. Get inspired!

KALTBLUT: Your artwork is genius.. what differences do you see in collages and illustrations?

Sara: Thank you! I started to make collages during a period when I was really tired of drawing and didn´t feel inspired. When I make collages it´s a faster process. I don´t have to sit and think and make sketches before. Less planning and more just expressing what I feel at the moment or just a collection of images that inspires me. When I draw it´s not as spontaneous because I always have a really clear picture of what I want the end result to look like. So basically I´m making collages to mix things up. To not get bored and to expand my ways of expressing myself.

KALTBLUT: What do your little figures say! It is in swedish so not everyone gets them, but they look like they might be saying awesome stuff! Why Swedish and not English?

Sara: I have just started the process of translating my things into English actually. It wasn´t an active choice, writing in Swedish. Swedish is the language I know the best so it was the most natural choice when I started to make illustrations and comics with text. I´m kind of a minimalist when it comes to writing. I like short sentences that has a lot to say, are kind of poetic and can be interpret in a wide variety of ways. To be able to do this in english I think I need a lot more practice. But I´m working on it! After living in Berlin for two months I have now realised the limitations of just writing in swedish. I´m working on a blog in english as we speak, where I will have translations of my earlier works and where I´m in the future will write in english from the beginning. Here is the english version of my blog: http://nowyouseewhatisee.blogspot.de/

KALTBLUT: Such crazy illustrations and colours. What does your ordinary day look like though? Similar to this?

Sara: I wish my life was as crazy and colourful as my illustrations! My illustrations have always been a way for me to escape the real world. You know when it´s boring and grey and it feels like nothing won´t ever change, it´s really comforting to come up with your own parallell universe where everything sparkles and feels magical. A place where everything is possible. I always like to surround myself with colours, patterns and glitter. So even if my ordinary life isn´t the most exiting at all times I always have something to look at and get inspired by. But at the moment I´m in Berlin and have a lot of free time. So right now my ordinary day feels less ordinary than usual. Everything is actually kind of sparkly, colourful and very inspiring right now.

KALTBLUT: What are your major influences? 

Sara: Comic artists like Emelie Östergren och Joanna Hellgren are great influences. And if I should mention a comic artist that´s not swedish I would say Jeff Lemire. Emelie Östergren for her surrealistic stories and fantastic use of colours and different techniques. Joanna Hellgren for her ability to convey really strong feelings through really simple drawings. And then Jeff Lemire for his way of making his characters, in for example ”Sweet tooth”, seem vulnerable and sensitive combining with a rawness and brutality that makes them interesting and complex.  Music is another major influence. I always listen to music when I draw and when I write. It helps me create the mood and state I need to be in to be able to concentrate. Sometimes I need something more upbeat and for the moment I would then listen to something like the Knife´s new album or songs like Arthur Russells ”Make 1, 2”. And to calm myself down and find a more peaceful state of mind I would probably listen to José González, inc, Linda Cohen or the soundtrack to ”Falkenberg Farewell” by Erik Enocksson.  My use of colours is often influenced by rock posters from the 60s and 70s. I like the bold colours and colour combinations they used. And there´s something organic to their typefaces that I really appreciate and that inpires me when I choose how the text in a certain picture will look like. I also like to go to fleamarkets and thrift shops to look for books that can inpspire me in some way. I have a small collection of books about space that were all printed before the moon landing. But mostly it´s  nature photography books that will catch my attention.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

sarahausenkamp.blogspot.com

nowyouseewhatisee.blogspot.de

www.facebook.com/sara.hausenkamp

Francis Triches and Bruno Tadiello are two really interesting Brazil based photographers who sent me this series of incredible clarity, minimalism and geometry that just had to be published. The series speaks for itself but I asked them to write me something about it anyway:

“Brasilia is a city planed during the 50s to take over as Brazil’s capital from Rio de Janeiro. On April 21, 1960, it became Brazil’s national capital. Being a planned city with Oscar Niemeyer as the principal architect the city has a very specific look to its structures. Even though our focus is on fashion photography we also love architecture and design, so being Brazilians we always wanted to visit the city. With this project we explored the lines and curves of the city’s buildings and monuments, from different angles and perspectives to show a different and more abstract look into the architectural landmarks instead of making them recognizable at first sight.”

Contact:

www.trichestadiello.com/trichestadiello_photography/Home.html

www.facebook.com/trichestadiello

Dara Scully is a young photographer from Spain. In her poetic photographic work she often explores the nature/human relationship. I love how she puts it in her own words so I’m just quoting here about what makes her create: “There’s a bird in my left lung, small and fragile, and he always speaks to me about beautiful things. I try to translate all these things to my pictures, his voice, mine.”

Here’s what she says about this series:

“Your branches/My bones is a love story, a poem, a tale. The project uses the language of poetry to speak about the relationship between the girl and the forest, body and tree, bone and branch. It’s an intimate travel to the emotions and connections between humans and nature, as equal individuals.”

Contact:

www.flickr.com/photos/darascully

cargocollective.com/darascully

bosqueabedules.blogspot.com

@Facebook

Justyna Maluchnik is a photographer and graphic designer from Poland, currently based in London. She loves to experiment and change locations a lot. With it comes a change of ideas and colours. Her dreamlike work is inspired by the people around her and the dream images she gets in her sleep!

KALTBLUT: Where do you live now and how do your surroundings inspire you?

Justyna: Since 2011 I have been living in London. It is the biggest and busiest place I have ever lived in. The city and people that I meet everyday give me new ideas. It is a strong source of inspiration for me. Before I moved here I lived in different countries so I would say that it is the change of residence that inspires me the most. Moreover my photographic series differ from each other just by this fact. Also my partner is a big inspiration, he appears in most of my series.

KALTBLUT: You are really into colours! Which colour would you say represents you?

Justyna: I can’t really say which color represents me, for me a change of residence is a change of colors. If you look at my series from 2009 taken in Iceland, where I lived for 4 months, they are all black and white. There was an unbelievable suspension in time and a very dramatic mood. Here in London it’s so different, so multicultural. I love to observe people. Since I have been here, I’ve also noticed that fashion inspires me a lot. You can notice different uses of colour in my photographs, and moreover clothes that I made for particular shoots!

KALTBLUT: Nature or studio? What do you prefer and why? 

Justyna: Well, it really depends on my idea. But I would say I prefer nature. I am always curious how it will work in the outdoors. I am looking for relationships between models and nature. I really like the contrasts between them and this creates a very strong image. On the other hand when I have simple ideas I prefer the studio. For example, some easy shoots when I don’t want to draw attention away from my models. At the moment my studio is one of the white walls in my flat in London, and the abundant natural daylight that penetrates through my windows.

Contact:

justynamaluchnik.tumblr.com/

This is a photographer I ran into on flickr. Leighton lives in the harbor side suburb of Kirribilli in Sydney, Australia. Photography is an important creative outlet and provides balance to his technical and highly regulated day job in a transplant unit of a Sydney Hospital. He spent more than ten years at university studying the biological sciences but wishes he had pursued something creative earlier in life. All his images are captured with a relatively simple compact camera, the Sigma DP2. 

KALTBLUT:  You have been to a lot of places. Is there one that has impressed you most?

Leighton: Visiting Iceland in 2009 left an indelible impression on me. The colourful rhyolite mountains and glacial valleys were like nothing I had seen before. But there was something more, maybe it was just being 16,000km from home free of the noise of everyday life but I still think of Iceland everyday. I went back in 2011 and were it not for changes in life circumstance I would have gone again this summer. 

KALTBLUT:  Your photographs are awe inspiring and dramatic. How did you develop your personal style in photography?

Leighton: Working in monochrome helps me to break down the constraints of realism inherent in colour landscape photography leaving me free to create the images I want. I unashamedly post process to achieve the result I am after. My influences include the atmospheric panoramic landscapes depicted in traditional chinese ink brush painting and water colours of painters such as Thomas Girtin. When I learnt that multiple exposures could be stitched together to provide an extremely wide angle view I realized I finally had the tools to create the images I wanted. 

KALTBLUT: How did you start photographing landscapes?

Leighton: Photography for me has been limited to periods of holiday travel. It started as a means of documenting the places I visited but has evolved to hopefully convey my experience of discovering these special places.

KALTBLUT: Usually you shoot mountains. What do mountains mean to you as a person?

Leighton: I don’t really understand why I am so drawn to mountains. I have an irrational appreciation of their grandeur and beauty but for me mountains are a place of solitude, respite and rejuvenation.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

www.flickr.com/photos/encephalitis/

Tristan Roesler is a German fashion photographer, based in Stuttgart. He sent us his little polaroid series of a model and fast food. It is not a story he shot in order to judge but to make people think. Here is what he says:

Credits:

Photographer: Tristan Rösler
tristanroesler.com
tristanroesler.tumblr.com

Model: Lisa Marie Dahlke

Hair&Make up: Marion Heinzelmann 

Assistent: Kevin Lukschal

Jaka Babnik is an artist I should have interviewed a long time ago. His work is deeply social and touching in a most raw and honest way. Born in 1979 and a graduate of the Philosophical Faculty of Ljubljana (degree in social studies and also in history) he has been working as a photographer and a cinematographer for nearly 20 years now.Jaka Babnik is an artist I should have interviewed a long time ago. His work is deeply social and touching in a most raw and honest way. Born in 1979 and a graduate of the Philosophical Faculty of Ljubljana (degree in social studies and also in history) he has been working as a photographer and a cinematographer for nearly 20 years now.

KALTBLUT: What has made you start photographing?

Jaka: Skateboarding. I started skateboarding when I was 12 years old. And since skateboarding is tightly linked with photography and video, one thing led to another. And for many years that was the only thing I photographed.

KALTBLUT: Why black and white? What makes black and white special to you?

Jaka: I really don’t have a straight forward answer to this one. It is not that I only see BW photographs, but it has to do a lot with the actual photographed subject. Before I start, I always ask myself: “is this something that has to be photographed in color or in BW”. I apply the same rule when I decide with what camera I want to photograph a certain subject. But as far as being special, BW strips away many elements. Some people say that it is easier to photograph in BW, I just think that some things work better when they are in BW.

KALTBLUT: What social role should art play? Is your work also social?

Jaka: I hope it is. Beside the degree in history I have a degree in sociology of culture, so you can say I am interested in social aspects of our societies. I am now finishing 3 different photographic series, all in color and all stripped away of people, but all 3 topics are very much a result of people’s behaviour.

KALTBLUT: Why did you decide to make a book against dogfights?

Jaka: In 2007 I was on the skateboard tour through the Balkans where through a friend I was granted a permission to photograph dogs trained to fight. I just had to obey the ground rules. I shouldn’t photography people’s faces and should not disclose where these photographs were taken. I think I shot a total of 15 rolls of 120 BW films in those 3 visits, but when I developed them I didn’t really know what to do with them since I knew that it will be judged and misunderstood by some. I put them on display almost 3 years later, but the timing was bad as it could be. We opened the show just a few days after a dog related incident in my hometown when 3 bullmastiffs turned on their owner and killed him. And since the owner was a well respected doctor with friends in high places, our country was caught in a moral, political and pet loving frenzy. My show included. Things escalated from open letters in daily newspapers where the gallery and myself were condemned that we are no better than the people organizing dogfights, to invitation to the hearing first to the veterinarian inspection and later even to the police as a witness in a case against an unknown perpetrator.

And as far as the actual book goes, for the show I made 100 copies of it. More like a catalogue, but in 2012 together with a friend we started a publishing house (Rostfrei Publishing) and decided to make a redesign, added a few photographs and all in all decided to learn the ropes on my material, before putting out any other artist. Now we are in the “dummy of the book” stage for Bosnian artist Emir Sehanovic and Serbian crew of photographers “Belgrade Raw” with the edit done by Donald Weber.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

www.jakababnik.com and @Facebook

We have 1 book to giveaway.. want one? send an email to info@kaltblut-magazine.com

Margaret Durow is a very talented American photographer. In her work she captures feelings, emotions, moments, memories, like no other. She has a real gift for creating dreamlike haunting images that could represent the actual way our mind works. Magical light comes together with intimate places and faces that surely mean something to the photographer but that speak to the viewer just as much.

KALTBLUT:  You’ve been shooting for some years now. How do you see your work evolving and changing with time?

Margaret: Photography has always been a way for me to express and remember my feelings. I still photograph that way, so I think my photos are always changing based on how I feel. I’m always looking for things to inspire me. I try to photograph the things that make me feel something.

KALTBLUT: If  you had to choose between portraits or still life what would you choose?

Margaret: Portraits, I like photographing people.

KALTBLUT:  You are studying something unusual! Biological Conservation and Environmental Studies! Does it have an impact on your art? Or how did you come to choose that?

Margaret: My studies have given me an ecological perspective. I’m always trying to be aware of the connections and interactions between living things, energy /light, and nutrients. I’m always reminded of my personal connections and dependence on the natural cycles and ecosystems on earth. I try to explore these things with photography. I started studying this because I was looking for something real.

KALTBLUT:  What are the differences between black&white and colour to you?

Margaret: I want my photos to look visually how something felt. When I’m going through my photos I look for the ones that make create the feeling again by looking at it. Sometimes black and white will create/ express the feeling better, sometimes color will.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

www.flickr.com/photos/margaretdurow/

www.facebook.com/margaretdurowphoto

www.etsy.com/shop/margaretdurow

Steph Wilson is a young Liverpool based artist who works with paintings as well as with photography. Her creations are dreamlike and elegant with a decisive strength to them, and her photographic work sometimes really looks like a paintings to me, because of the powerful compositions and the colours she skillfully uses.

KALTBLUT: You used to paint. How did you decide to start photographing?

Steph: I still paint! I couldn’t function if I didn’t. Photography is actually the first vital step to a painting, so they come hand in hand, it’s never one or the other. Creating artwork, be it photography or painting, is not work, nor a past time, but a right of passage that marks each stage of my life. It’s the one thing that has remained constant in my life since I was about 11 years old. I began  particular photographic projects (such as those on my site) in the search of a body of images to base a series of paintings on for a show in London. I finally think I’ve got some material I’d like to work from; my favourite images taken in the stunning mountainous region of Wales. The album is called “Elfennau”, ‘elements’ in Welsh.

KALTBLUT: How different or similar are these 2 media to you?

Steph: Obviously there are the different processes of production, which alters the vital experience of constructing the image, impacting its outcome. Taking a photograph, for me anyway, is a more disconnected experience than painting. Not so much in a negative way, either. The lens acts as a type of shield, especially when shooting strangers or nudes. It enables you to be so invasive. Not only that, but there’s less pressure to create a ‘successful’ outcome as you can take a number of images; it free’s you up and allows spontaneity, which is never a bad thing.

Painting is a far more immediate and intimate process, it’s a physical extension of the painter’s ‘self’, so involves a lot of self loathing when it doesn’t go right… You take a bad photo, you throw away the negative, whereas a failed painting is like a failing of yourself. You spend so much time absorbed within yourself it’s exhausting. It’s kind of like becoming pregnant with an idea and miscarrying at the end when it fucks up, or it’s potential just isn’t met. It’s pretty awful. Especially when the money you spent on wasted paint means no dinner.

Painting’s a projection of whatever your mind can muster, directly onto a canvas, whereas a photo’s more a flicker of your mind’s eye paired with the world we can all relate to. It’s a nice marriage of the two. A lot more people can relate to a photograph over a painting. People like similarity, deep down, and I find photography a little limiting because of this. A painting is your world only, it’s harder to fall in love with someone else’s world, but I guess when you do it’s more powerful than a photograph. Saying that, it makes a painting a hell of a lot more daunting. I think I enjoy creating photographic projects more, like the work on my site, due to the fact it’s less intimidating. Painting, however, isn’t really a choice. Just something I’ve got to do to keep a lid on my long term anxiety disorder. Like a vent of built up angst. I’d go a little nuts if I stopped!

KALTBLUT: How has photography changed your daily life but also your general view of life?

Steph: Taking a photograph often doesn’t involve a camera at all. Storing an image in my minds eye is very useful for creating paintings or photographic projects later on. It often scares me how limited we are in viewing the world from such tiny holes in our heads, two tiny fucking holes! I guess it’s reassuring to know that we have means of capturing the beautiful things we see. There’s nothing worse in the whole world than coming across a wonderfully perfect, visually rich moment without a camera. It makes it bittersweet; all the more special in it’s fleetingness, but desperately sad that it can never be revisited or shared through a photograph.

KALTBLUT: What project are you working on right now? Are you shooting something?

Steph: After shooting ”Elfennau” I’ve been massively charged up to do a collection of paintings. I’m in the process of buying new tubes of oil paints right now. It takes time, they’re fucking expensive. Nevertheless, I’ve always got a roll of film on the go in all my cameras. My parrot, Tomato, is often the subject for a lot of photographs at home. He likes to pose with the two-headed taxidermy ducking I have on my mantelpiece. I’m also planning more shoots with my friends who I’m lucky enough to have many of that enjoy being naked. I love the female form, so, any excuse for a nude shoot… Another idea I’d like to carry out is with my boyfriend’s step brother’s kids. The purity of their skin at their young age, around 6, and the fact they’re twins, boy and girl, is yearning for a shoot – especially as they have a massive bright red pet snake to shoot with! I’m also going to Paris in May, and renting an apartment, so I’m pretty tempted to do as they did in the 20s and hire a prostitute to paint or photograph nude. It’d be interesting to see how they she’d react to an entirely different form of intimacy.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

s-j-wilson.com/

Jonny Burt is a fine artist/ illustrator who lives in London. He is also currently contributing artworks to contemporary menswear label Sons of Heroes, and was recently commissioned by the BBC to design the poster for new film “Rose, Mary & Time”. His work is usually a satirical examination of the dehumanization of modern life and a reaction to the exploitation of humanity.

KALTBLUT: You are a designer and an artist. How different or similar is your work in both fields?

Jonny: They are both quite different so I have recently tried to blend the two pursuits into one: fine art, particularly urban art, is now becoming hugely popular in fashion and you only need to look to the likes of Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Commes Des Garcons etc to see that collaborations between fashion designers and artists are becoming incredibly popular. When I’m working for fashion, I find I have to place boundaries around my ideas in order to make the design commercially viable. That can be quite restricting as an artist, and so I feel more liberated when I’m working on my own project and have the license to express whatever I want, be as controversial as I want.

KALTBLUT: Where do you draw inspiration from when you are drawing/painting?

Jonny: Anywhere and everywhere. But usually it’s an impulsive reaction to something I’ve seen in the press or the media. It’s typically rooted in frustration, something is usually pissing me off, and then I’ll try and think about how to arrange the composition in a satirical but intelligent way.

KALTBLUT: How did you develop your personal style?

Jonny: I’ve been an actor from a young age as well and have always been acutely aware of the pressures of image – particularly in the film business – in an industry that tends to value your physical quality over skill or talent. It worked topically because it kind of serves as a microcosm for the relentless pursuit of beauty in the superficial society in which we now live. I suppose paranoia and insecurity turned into frustration, which turned into resentment, and I just tried to channel those feelings into the art by putting a satirical or parodic spin on those harsh realities of modern society. I love juxtaposing the darkness of those realities with the innocence and playfulness and vibrancy of more pop colours. It creates this jarring seductiveness to the tragedy which I carry through all my work and I do it to try and capture that deceptiveness transmitted through our commodified and mediatized culture to which we all fall victim.

KALTBLUT: Why so many young children? What do they represent to you?

Jonny: I use children both literally and symbolically. On the surface, I use them as my subjects because I believe they are the true victims of everything that’s wrong with society today. The total devaluing of ‘Celebrity’ has led to the gross sexualisation of our youth, a perversion of aspirations and ambitions and a complete corruption of innocence. It’s probably more poignant for me because I have a nine year old sister who is on the cusp of becoming exposed to all this bullshit now – Kim Kardashian is the role model in her friendship group at school, and there is no censoring of what she sees thanks to the terrifyingly easy accessibility of Instagram and Twitter and the readiness of parents to let their kids have iPhones at 10 years of age (my sister does not have an iPhone). Beneath the surface, I use children to touch on our own regressive and dependent condition in modern society. As our identity continues to become splintered into iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, and God knows what else awaits us, we lose our autonomy as human beings. We become less independent and more ‘childish’ in the sense of our addictive and schizophrenic demand for the immediacy of information and the constant need for social affirmation through technology.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson

Contact:

jonnyburtart.com

jonnyburtart.tumblr.com/

www.sonsofheroes.com/

www.facebook.com/jonnyburtart