Larroque Arts Festival
LAF 2019
LAF 2019 – Surface/Support
When setting the theme for this year’s festival, I was thinking about the French group of artists
“Supports/Surfaces” (Louis Cane, Marc Devade, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Valensi and Daniel Dezeuze
from Paris, and André-Pierre Arnal, Vincent Bioules, Noël Dolla, Toni Grand, Bernard Pages, Patrick
Saytour, and Viallat, from the South of France), who in the 1960s were trying to find a way to continue
to make painting in the aftermath of the May 1968 events. The questions they asked about what kind
of painting was possible and relevant in the contemporary world are still with us and some of the
artists included in the show are still working through possible answers. This year, in partnership with
our fellow artist-led initiative, the Lacuna Studios in Lanzarote, Spain, we have had entries from as far
afield as Angola and Brasil, Canada and Korea – 93 artists from 30 countries in Larroque and about
150 artists from 50 countries in Lanzarote. What I was not expecting, at least when the images started
to arrive from all over the world, was the number of artists and images that interpreted the theme by
reflecting on the pollution of the ocean and the surface of the planet. The surface of the skin also
appears in a few artist’s works: close up and under the microscope. It is true that the skin is our
biggest organ, and if it is badly damaged the other organs cannot survive. It is also our interface with
the world: the way we feel it, sense it, touch it. And if the surface of the world is severely damaged,
how are we going to feed ourselves, and make our homes here? It is of course, not surprising that
artists respond deeply to this crisis- they are our antennae, sensing and finding ways to articulate the
impending disaster, and mobilise against its inevitability.
Images of the Amazonian rainforest, ‘the lungs of the world’, currently more under threat than ever by
the current reversing of deforestation regulations, appear in several works. It is said that every fifth
breath we take is produced by the Amazonian rain forest. As it diminishes daily, so too does our breath.
Images of the sea, the beach, shipping, borders and exploration - from Ulysses voyage to Mars probes also
reflect concerns about migration, rootlessness, the destruction of safe habitat and the political
mismanagement which seems to be a feature of the global present.
Some work reflects on or utilises science as a positive option, offering hope of resolutions or as an
inspiration for engendering creative new collaborations.
A notable feature of this year’s contributions is the quantity of films submitted, and perhaps it is worth
saying something about the nature of artists’ films. Firstly, they are not the same as films for
entertainment: rather they should be thought of like Haiku – short (usually) constructions centering
around an idea, and hyper-conscious of their form. The Greek word ‘poema’ (a thing-made) also helps to
give us a clue as to how to ‘read’ them. They do not necessarily have a plot or story-line, they may or
may not have actors/performers, and usually, if they do, their actions are either mundane or
extravagantly unusual; they may verge on documentary, or be playfully abstract like a kaleidoscope.
There may be an element of randomness and hazard about them, or they may be tightly controlled,
frame by frame. Artists use film to speak about an issue, to play with perceptions and pre-conceptions
of reality; to offer us a beautiful spectacle of something unseen before. They document social events,
from children’s games to the voyages of cargo ships, they can be a way of recording ephemeral things
such as dance or performance, or projections onto buildings, or they can create mini-narratives of
science fiction, mock-horror or social history. Generally speaking, artists films tend to be short, because
they are usually shown in a gallery context with other visual or sonic work – paintings, installations,
sculpture or sound – but some included here are about 20 minutes long, because they move towards the
documentary, or because the extended time span – their slowness - is actually part of their content.
The unusually high number of films (53 to be screened at Larroque) has provided the structure for this
year’s event. The opening of the exhibition on Friday 26th July will be followed by two, one-hour
screenings on the big screen of the first selection of artists’ films, to be followed on Sunday and Tuesday
with other screenings, comprising about 5 hours in total. The festival programme gives brief
descriptions of the films so that the audience can pre-select those films of particular interest to them,
and all the films will also be screened on a continuous loop on the two TV screens in the two gallery
spaces throughout the festival to increase their visibility.
There are also a number of digitally produced works (sound and digital imagery) which will be displayed
on digital screens as a continuous loop, or from CD with headphones in the case of sound, and some will
be printed out as digital print.
The Festival is now in its ninth year and has, I think, become embedded in the annual activities of the
village. It is perhaps surprising that an international festival of contemporary art, which has seen the
participation of over 450 artists from around 30 countries, should occur in a small rural hamlet in SW
France, but that was always the intention from the beginning. The artworld is notoriously pyramidal,
and centripetal, with all the ‘quality’ events being focused in the capitals, London, Paris, New York.
Whilst this is perhaps an inevitable result of modern specialisation, it does not reflect the reality of
artistic production, distribution or demographics. Artists often live elsewhere, because it is cheaper,
and they need space and time to make work and think – in fact there is good documentation of the ways
artists engender development by stimulating neighbourhoods, creating interest and social activity, and
rendering previously neglected spaces ‘developable’ (in Richard Florida’s work, for example).
I have written elsewhere about the phenomenon of artist-led initiatives (“Artist-led initiatives” (1) and
“Artistic Potential of Post-industrial space (2)), but briefly, they are one logical solution to the hyper
specialisation of the artworld, which produces tens of thousands of artists but only requires a few
hundred for its financial/speculative base. Artists can make something happen in the spaces in which
they live rather than wait (for ever) for the artworld to take note of them. In fact the majority of art now
happening in the world (and maybe the majority of interesting art too) is precisely not occurring in the
hallowed white cube spaces of the gallery, but is popping up, for a limited time, in different and
sometimes surprising spaces, independent of the big financial concerns which determine, and limit, the
centralised art-world. Artists have found myriad ways to survive: starting residency centres, offering
workshops and classes, open studios, forming collectives, working in collaborative partnerships,
designing and running artistic festivals, project spaces and galleries. Across the globe this is an exciting
and invigorating development which has given rise to new trans-national and trans-local collaborations.
The twin festivals of Larroque and Lanzarote, enabling around 200 artists from around the globe to
show their work to new audiences, is one such event.
Kenneth G. Hay
1: https://www.academia.edu/34915115/Artist_Run_Initiatives_
2: https://www.academia.edu/35086754/Artistic_Potentials_of_Post-industrial_space
25/5000 don’t live for life (4:34) Second Chance (9:08)
Two short films which explore their themes through shot and
abstractly manipulated footage.
Soran Ahmed (DEU)
“Instructions for Use” uses photographs of old machine parts and factory instructions from a
disused factory, combined with hand drawn animation and an electronic soundtrack by
Irish composer Bernard O’Neill to evoke the futuristic dream of technology from the 1950’s
and ‘60s. The surfaces of cracked paintwork are reanimated in the process.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
Alem Alquier (FRA)
THE ROPE MEETS NOISE ENSEMBLE (7:00)
Regarding the rope meets noise video it is a performance where everything is
improvised and we make music using rope (no other way) and the music is made
with DIY oscillators recycled from trash etc. The message is very connected to this
methodology and is inseparable from the materials we use.
Ann Antidote (DEU)
My Cyprus.
Yulia Belan works in painting,
sculpture and a variety of
media, exploring the human
figure and aspects of her
adopted country, Cyprus.
Yulia Belan (BLR)
Abstract with Blue, Pink, Brown & Grey Abstract with Green Shape Abstract with Turquoise
Lara Sophie Benjamin is a painter who was born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1987 to a British mother and
Cypriot father. She studied Art at Camberwell College of Arts (University of the Arts London), the
Cyprus College of Art and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Arts Practice at UCS
(University Campus Suffolk) Benjamin sees the creative process as an intimate reaction to the
surrounding world based on one’s own apperceptions. For her the outer world and the inner world come
together on the canvas through her connection to her materials and the painting process.
 
Lara Sophie Benjamin (CYP)
“Spaces of Flow”
Spaces of flow is a photographic and video art
project that wants to explore the
protagonists of non-places, as frictionless
passengers of a multitude without a name
and without a face.
They are unconscious protagonists and
strangers to each other, but with their living
temporarily, with their habits, voices and
presences, they make the noise of the
identity void of these "places" echo even more.
The photographic project and video Spaces of
Flow is therefore a subtle search for
these presences in non-places, never
photographed or taken directly.
Sara Bianchi (ITA)
Following the idea of
palimpsest, a term used to
designate a parchment or
vellum on which several
inscriptions had been made
after earlier ones had been
erased, my work emphasizes
the process of creation. The
surface and materials involved
form the painting, they are
overwritten inscriptions that
can be perceived by the
spectator: like a palimpsest,
the traces of earlier
inscriptions remain as a
continual feature of the text,
giving it its essence.
Victor Bobadilla (MEX)
“Rice Harvester” is a story of an owner of rice fields residing in China, which today are managed by
unmanned combine harvesters. What is cultural good and knowledge passed through generations in
the context of a modern world where each human move is replaced by machines?
Do machines have dreams and can they interpret dreams? Charmed by the newest technology we
ourselves become part of it. Legends of Gods and spirits are replaced with advertisement of yet newer
gadgets which become our heroes.
Katarzyna Borelowska (POL)
“Restless Colouring” (0:46)
Having the Amazon Rainforest as a visual reference is the pinnacle of an idyllic natural space, at least the notion. In
reality, the higher viewpoint is a very rare perspective, as the Amazon is an extremely dense forest that stretches over
a large area making it hard to observe the totality of the landscape. In a human-built tower, I have recorded this
imagery and consequently intervened on it. In an act of care and time-consuming attention, I have colorized specific
points that stayed in my memory, frame-by-frame. This action has assumed an experimental character that considers
the aesthetic and material experimentation of the videographic support, in an attempt to play with the different
qualities of surfaces. In this sense, I believe this work strongly fits the intended thematics of the festival, as an
experimental exercise of materialities, colour and texture in order to find new possible formats.
Ana Brotas (POR)
The code of all is captured in a crystal, the crystal is a basic element of the
world. And the brightness of emerald is a vision. Clear, pure and harmonic. The
principle of my pictures is a resonation - the space resonates, the material
resonates, our ideas - words resonate too. This all flows in a harmony.
Josef Bubenik (CZE)
Câncer Classe (4:37) Kwansas (4:14)
The work seeks to talk about urban issues and the exclusion complex determined by urban relations.
As a certain lack of social mobility is put out of the marginalized and unassisted, this is because a task
of finance and furniture, repeals the minimum rights for human coexistence. Thus, the exclusion of a
political instrument from one group over another. This question I think is a surface of power relations.
Lubanzadyo Mpemba Bula (AGO)
The interplay of light, shadow, sharpness and blur changes constantly the close-ups of the grasping hand in the video work "Fingercam". The
details range from concrete skin textures to denaturalized colour surfaces. The finest sound of the rotary movements from the focus and
aperture regulator can be heard in the exhibition. The large projected hand in the video loop “fingercam” covers the audience in the darkened
room and massages their auditory and visual senses. "So close that it gets deeply under your skin." The simplicity and self-reference of the
initial setting (one hand holding a filming finger camera, the other randomly adjusting the settings) are disrupted by endoscopic shots of the
interior of a body. The transitions between the images of the hand and the inside of the body are fluid. Crossing the skin as a border to the
outside world is also an intrusion into intimacy. The inside of the filmed subject throws the receivers back on themselves. The suggested
proximity is so close that it becomes incomprehensible and abstract and this creates distance again. The video installation "Objektiv" shows
how nails drive into a camera lens until all the layers of lenses are broken. The hits and the broken glass can be heard. The installation brings
the convex curvature of the CRT together with the curvature of the shown camera lens. On the opposite of the monitor stands the equal convex
lenses of the viewer's eye. "During the observation of a performed action by others, mirror neurones are triggering the same potential in the
brain as if the action would be performed actively." The pretended physical proximity between the video installation Objektiv and the viewer
tries to overcome the boundaries of the monitor. The video work “Auftakt” gives the viewer intimate insights into the transformation processes
of two drag queens. The expected linear development from 'natural' to 'artificial' is broken by reflections, shifts and leaps in time. The
protagonists are mirroring each other and playing with attributes of masculinity and femininity. Exposed to their vulnerability, they hide their
bodies behind masks and clothing.
Nicolle Bussien (CHE)
Auftakt / Ouverture (7:05)
Untitled (Still) Beyond being a short representation of a rare rainy day in the Palestinian
desert, the video investigates itself as a support: can a video be composed of slow images
where 'almost nothing' happens, in a such frenetic and spectacular current media
production? Can it still be considered a video without any audio and being so short? Is it
a portrait? Is it a visual poetry? I think these questions resemble what you are searching
for. Embracing the unexpected, wandering I sometime think of photography as a game
that I play with reality. I try to capture its shapes, its accidental compositions. And I try
to do it playing with the support itself: and here are photos captured in motion,
reflections or compositional games sometimes out of the ordinary.
Miriana Calabrese (ITA)
Relativity of the statutes.
From the meeting of a lot of
small picture frames and
scattered pieces of workshop
were born these assemblages.
Branches, small pieces of wood,
paper cut, peeled, waiting.
Their unexpected
rapprochement has taken
place. It is not a question of
determining which is surface
and support, but of considering
the interchangeability and
relativity of the statutes of
these assemblages, players and
sometimes irresolute ..
evolutionary propositions
Corinne Cardot (FRA)
The trinomial photography, planets and bacteria and the binomials heaven and earth, finite and infinite, known and
unknown, give shape to the emotions and reflections that Marco Castelli’s work wants to convey and inspire.
Opposites vie for our moods and our feelings: dark and light, fantasy and reality, truth and abstraction.
Most of the photographs of microbes and bacteria have a scientific nature, adapted to detect and to emphasize the
unique geometries that these are able to form. This time, however, the interest is not to show the invisible or what is
hardly visible to the naked eye, but to use the natural geometry of bacterial colonies to enlarge and project them into
another dimension, reversing all logic and report between big and small, thus loading the planets, the universe and all
the work of symbolic values. This gives them charm and mystery, makes them sublime images and ironic too (planets
names directly refer to the sampled surfaces), which in their relationship with science recall the themes, the spirit and
the philosophy of a lot of artistic production from the last century. [Caterina Pacenti]
Marco Castelli (ITA)
After documenting a photographic
series of birds trapped in reed cages in
the Philippines, Jamie Chi began
relating these images to the communal
“cages” that affect LGBTQ+ societies in
Asia. The 3 minutes stop-motion
animation is made from more than 1000
film stills and depicts Maya. Maya used
to be the national bird of the
Philippines and is 1 of more than 130
bird species that are known to engage in
homosexual behaviour. Maya is equated
to a bird trapped in a cage, as well as
within a larger social system. The film
explores Maya’s strength to fight for
their right and claim their space.
The film attempts to raise awareness of
social repression faced by the queer
community. It is also designed for
expanded cinema.
Jamie Chi (HK)
The body of the performer like a surface/support for new visual
narratives by the Other and with his/her plastic languages.
José Crúzio (POR)
[SELF] Insertions - ST ( Bruno Carnide +
José Crúzio) (3:00)
[SELF] Insertions - Alteridad ( Isabel
Perez Del Pulgar + José Crúzio) (3:20)
My preferred medium is paper. Its
material, its texture, its thickness
awaken the senses. The touch, the
sight, but also the smell and the sound.
Glued, it stretches, shaken, it trembles
like thunder, wet, it smells. Each paper
requires special attention and a
different technique, depending on its
weight, composition and shape.
This year I discovered linocut, or
intaglio engraving, and the opportunity
to revive a forgotten art craft: block
printing. Starting from engraved motifs,
hand-printed as repeat patterns, the
block printed papers were formerly used
to embellish the endpapers of bound
books. It is the precursor of wallpaper,
which, hung with taste as interior
decoration, adorns the surface of walls.
For this edition of LAF, I explored the
possibility of making wallpaper using
this technique.
Adeline Delagrange (FR)
At first glance, the colours in
these watercolour paintings
might seem to be flat and
uniform. Actually, they are
surfaces that take time to
enter in and enjoy.
Sarah Eliott (USA)
Pollo della Francesca, “Van Cok” and “To Home”62 x 89 cm
Francsca Falli (ITA)
Hebron, (2019) Photo Intaglio.
Rich surface and colour woven like tapestry
inviting the viewer to a Palestinian
conversation.
Eileen Ferguson (IRL)
Arete’s Question (3:03)
On Scheria Island, at Alcino’s court, Ulysses is asked by queen Arete to recall his travels.
In a single leap from myth to reality, the dreamlike tale of a man lost at sea in Franco
Rossi’s cult series merges with images and sound recordings of migrants’ rescue missions
in the Mediterranean Sea. The sea surface is depicted as an 3D, algorithmic wave
overlapping a stretch of water between Kos Island and Turkey. The tension between dream
and reality turns CGI mixed into unsettling documentary material.
Valentina Ferrandes (GBR)
Le coffret à jouets de Jacques Foloppe My name was elisa
In all my videos I use paint, acrylic or gouache, and for some time now, to
write on a surface, words, and popular expressions.
Virginie Foloppe (FRA)
The challenge is to capture a particular light and shade, exploring the surface
textures of things, and studying reflections in rivers, pools and streams as well
as by the sea, seeking the wonderfully uplifting experience when it works well..
Paul Foster (GBR)
Following a - too short - stay in the West of the United States, I
discovered the Movement "Supports / Surfaces" in 2014. I wanted to
convey my astonishment at these landscapes, their strength and their ability
to offer escape, to rebuild another landscape.
"CALDERA" ACRYLIQUE SUR TOILE, 106 SUR 55 CM
Annick Gaudefroy (FRA)
The things that hide under our surface. But we support our thoughts, we behave and
who we are. Dark - shadows, times, secrets, hearts, minds, internal conflicts, days,
ghosts, past, present, future. A body of the same person in two different states.
Reflecting in a metaphorical way, escape, secret, internal struggle, the ghosts of the past,
present and future. The issues and issues that pursue us and continue. We can not see
them but they get excited. Covered and hidden inside our bodies and thoughts. There is no
real visible, non-verbal, non-physical communication between them. Different approaches
to life. Leaving, moving, staying, going as never before where they are here.
 Johannes Christopher Gerard (NLD)
This years LAF theme of surface/support evokes for me mostly the question of support. In my broken bridges
series (work in progress in the pictures) I am working through the idea about the broken links between people or
states. The lines of communications that have seemed so evident when I was growing up have become more
vague or unreliable. In this piece, I voluntarily destroy the road surface disrupting the visual metaphor of a
bridge linking together two separated land masses, people or countries.
 The second work I would like to submit is a variant of the collapsing arch piece that I made in late 2018. A less
ambitious version closer to the ground covering 1m 20 x 50 cm. Still based in raw clay with a time-based element.
The structure of the arch being very strong in architecture, supporting heavy loads over large spans. Over the
course of the week I plan to add elements that will slowly undermine the structure of the arch and eventually lead
to its collapse. Negating its ability to support.
 Quercy Golsse (CAN)
Laroque, watercolour Puycelsi, watercolour Towards Puycesli, watercolour
The underlying structure is a framework for explorations in paint.
I aim to create a  breadth of dialogue in paint which can be read and
explored by the viewer.
 Neal Greig (IRL)
“Timelesness”
is a project focused on the theme of
changing the perception of time and
space through a threshold medium,
which is in most cases water.
Selected photos from the series
Timlesness II capture this thin line
between two spaces. Although the
surface reflects reality, it transforms
that reality into a brand new image.
The presented photos attempt to
capture the variability and fluidity of
this new image.
Lucie Hájková (CZE)
DRAGONS AND MONSTERS – MIXED TECHNIQUE ON PAPER
Jiří HavlíČek has taught a generation of Czech artists at Masaryk
University, Brno and through his tireless work as educator and participant
in the alternative/underground art scene in the Czech Republic. His work,
usually small scale, on paper, is often inspired by Hieronymous Bosch,
mediaeval and Cabbalistic art whose fantastical forms often carry a
political or social critique
Jiří HavlíČek (CZE)
Objects of support (here, chairs) find themselves challenged by cropped
composition, darkness, isolation.  Normally dependable, their simple function is
called into question by provocations.
Eric Hesse (USA)
TWO OCEANS
Unluckily my forests are darker and darker :(
‘Hope some day they change, more color and more light :) 
 Juliana Neves Hoffmann (BRA)
“Cursed” (9:58)
A mock horror
 Patricia Jimenez, Maia Robles, Eustice Iglesias, (ESP)
All and Sundry? Installation: Dried cabbage leaves, pencil drawing, Gluelam Circular bowl
Unstuck from facts, contemporary ART, so-called, is trial by social media.
Dried leaves are as good as tweets when it comes to the news of the world.
What appears dried up and dead lives on in the hysterical messages left behind. 
Dried by the sun or cleansed by fire, an eye out if you don't mind for the invisible: edit to taste, boil to a
minimum, Bob is your Uncle.
 Ian Joyce (IRL)
UNTITLED
Surface as a free space of inner feelings back to nature
 Karina Karaeva (RUS)
Powerism (3:00)
Since the beginning of history, it is impossible to ignore
the existence of a power that, besides the adventure of
life of mankind, is all together with us, is constantly
changing, brings benefits from time to time, has been
created by man and has always existed.
Suspended (4:33)
“Suspended” explores the emptying and suspending of
the contents of the concepts that are important to
human life (freedom, equality and Justice ) illustrated
in the International Sign Language “Gestuno”.
The duration, 4 ’33”, refers to John Cage’s suspension
of time..
 Hamza Kırbaş (TUR)
Aesthetics of capitalism: -Use it – have fun – then throw it away. Consumerism as a journey to destruction. So, I was
walking along the beach in Santa Marinella (Italy), and this beach would be really beautiful without all the garbage, trash
and mess everywhere, and I felt a need to do something with this mess. I didn’t and still don’t understand this way of
living. Making a mess everywhere. It’s hard for me to watch children playing in this polluted place. It makes me angry, it
makes me sad and it makes me ask myself how can I change it. I am talking about walks to beach as about an ‘instant
depression’.. I started collecting the garbage pretending I was an archaeologist of the future wondering what these pieces
are from. But it wasn’t enough for me just to pick it up and then throw it away to the bin. I took it home with me. I wanted
to make jewellery from it, not to throw it away again so the trash would lay somewhere again, where there, on the beach,
there appears a new amount of trash everyday from the sea… I realized that these plastic pieces are pretty photogenic
when it’s out of context, in some way it reminds me Matisse or El Lissitsky….and I started to take these ‘abstract graphic’
photos in a way which makes me happy and also sad at the same time.
OUT OF CONTEXT
Drahomira KlofáČová (CZE)
I prefer in my creations the mix of materials. I work their opposition: the color, touch,
reflection, hardness ... The combinations are endless. I play with different materials such as
silver, gold, copper, organic materials such as wood or the mother of pearl without
forgetting the earth, symbol of our creation. I like to bring them back to life form, aesthetics,
symbiosis, it's a bit like giving them back a soul.
NECKLACE, BRACELET AND EARRINGS) ENTIRELY MADE WITH RECYCLED MATERIALS (COPPER,
WOOD, MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND EARTH).
Sylvie Köchlin-Proust (FRA)
Apo (0:45) Frozen (1:14) Hurt (1:22)
In my videos I am working on the subject of visual message and its ambiguity. I use digital technology - projection of
videos on different surfaces - human face, wall, etc. The doubling of visual perception opens the viewer the possibility of
interpretation according to his own needs.
The common denominator of my videos is to support the courage to cope with difficult life situations (Frozen, Apo, Hurt).
All three videos have the ambition to be the visualized support for the themes typical of today - self-knowledge and selfacceptance.
My goal is to evoke these life situations in the viewer and make him feel his life.
 Šimon Kříž, (CZE)
Flashlines is an interactive light art project by Daniela & Pascal Kulesar. Using only an
i-pad and digital projector they are able to ‘draw’ on buildings with light. It is interactive
and visitors are invited to become artists themselves. It creates amazing images and
shows your location in an unseen way.
FLASHLINES
Daniela & Pascal Kulesar (DEU)
AUTORETRATO
In the Self Portrait video I make a full-size self-portrait around me. But as I draw, the
line moves away from my actual body shape, and in the end I rest inside another
representation of myself. When I leave the scene, I leave it there. The remains are
talking about art itself, in a cycle of self-reference.
 
Luana Lacerda (BRA)
When the media that supports our visual communication fails.
 
A series of 13 images created as an automatic feedback during uploads to social network
Instagram.
GLITCH
Lacuna Studios (GBR/ESP)
ART DOLLIES
Location shots from an on-going film set in Lanzarote.
Lussie Lafayette (ESP)
Surface I Surface II
What you see is not what you see. You are looking at macro photographs of
destroyed graveyard stones and yet you don’t feel uncomfortable. You feel calm
and curious. What you see is time contained in surface. This series refer to work of
Martin Heidegger – Being and time. Being is the most universal and emptiest
concept, that is indefinable or obvious, yet so important for us.
 Ema LanČariČová (SVK)
The central theme of this work is the the search for knowledge and practice of art without the
possibility of conclusion. A road without end. We work continuously from the formula of exposure
and variation without reaching a final conclusion, integrating the error, the accident, as an
essential part of the creative process. This approach responds to a fragmentary vision of reality
constructed by the sum of multiple points of view.
The repetition emerges as a compositional structure that alludes to the process of search, of
progress, the way to Ithaca (by Kavafis)... moving without advancing, seeking to build your own
rest, trying to generate your own space with the body in dialogue with the non-place constructions
(Auge) that surround us.
Kepa Landa (ESP)
My latest works pay tribute to Zao Wou Ki, especially his work around
inks on paper. Ink on paper: the essential of my plastic research.
I'm also interested in embossing on paper.
Elizabeth Le Calvez (FRA)
The medium itself is the focus of the work: in 2 minutes and 5 seconds, the object reveals
itself. Only with this medium and related technology, the object is revealed this way
through time. Time itself is the essential element of video if everything—content, subject
matter—is stripped away.
FOUNTAIN ACROSS THE STREET (2:05)
Teresa Leung (HKG)
I have been occupied with how the artworld
can be seen from the insiders and the outsiders
point of view, the processes and activities that
occur behind the privacy of studio doors, the
hanging and display of works animated by the
commodified space of the gallery, the milling of
observers in gallery spaces, the way that their
presence then gives life and purpose to the
works on display. In my recent work I have
been attempting to further reduce the detail
within the finished images. I am also
preferring to work from instinctive sketches
and not found photographic imagery as my
source material, to give them a more
immediate appearance and to challenge me
more in my practice. The trueness of
inspiration, application and result becoming
more relevant, allowing me to reassess what I
feel is invigorating and explorable for me. By
exploring the fictional concept of the image of
an artwork, a gallery building and the
exhibitions that could occur within them. The
fictional becomes potentially more resonant
than the actual.
Enzo Marra (GBR)
Lu Meng (KOR)
When Grapes Grow on a Willow Tree is an art film about interpreting the mise-e-scene of the oriental representation
on western cinema. Exploring the power of representation and psychoanalysis of the stereotype. The film speaks to
its audiences as well as the film speaks for its audiences’ unconsciousness. The film is a language that I composed to
depict the enigmatic signifiers of representation. The film is asking the questions, who has the power to represent
other culture? how do they represent it? The stereotypes of the orient on representation in western cinema based on
imagination, fantasy, fetishism and binary structure… the enigmas came from the untranslatability of cultures and
languages. My film is imagining and re-imagining/translating and de-translating the western representation of the
east. The “mise-en-scene” of my film is signifying the the ‘un-say’, what is left is to be filled with my viewer’s
imagination and the interpretation of the enigma.
 
What lies beneath, behind, after is always obstructed by something or someone. The surface obstructs the view underneath and our need to see
through, behind, beneath is innate to everyone. A human need and curiosity lies at the core of it all. The surface is there to protect the truth,
the origin, the essence of it all. What lies beneath the obscurities is what really drives us, pushes as into the action. Fascination for this project
spurs out of the amazing technology we have today. The Scanning Electron Microscope enables us to go into the micro scale and nano scale of
objects, might be organic or inorganic. Obscure mechanism of consciousness is a series of digital prints derived from photographs taken by the
SEM microscope. They were realized with the help of University of Nova Gorica, as a part of the SUNGREEN project. Digital prints are
assembled from static frames taken from the time sequence of the same sample burned by an electron beam. This way the prints gain rhythmic
continuity as a consequence. Art, or inspires technology or is inspired by it. The view into the unknown is revealing of the symbiosis of the
processes on all levels. What we see are processes beforehand not seen by people. We could have only felt and imagined them. The object of the
view is a chewing gum. A chewing gum is an ordinary object, not much thought about. We discard it after use without putting too much
thought into it. It is an object that has been chewed over and over again. The same as thoughts, ideas, art, etc... Due to an objective view on the
subject, the chewing gum can become an artefact, a piece of human history. As an object without a particular value it becomes an object of
research and with a new point of view put upon it, it gains value .The play of the objects is left to the object, the process is a spontaneous
reaction to the projected beam of electrons and we have none or very little control over it. The previously obscured mechanisms are revealed.
Giving value to such an ordinary object reveals the processes the mind goes through to uncover hidden depths needed to create. It is a
projection of the processes that go on the subconscious and conscious level all the time of our existence. We cannot see this with our eyes; we
need a mechanical eye in the form of SEM microscope to discover these realms. Many natural, organic objects exhibit fractal properties and
many systems in which we live in exhibit the same complex, chaotic behaviour. In these digital prints we see a fractal, never-ending pattern. It
is created by repeating the same process over and over again in a never ending loop, the same as fractals in nature. What we see is
mesmerizing beauty. The use of SEM was enabled by University of Nova Gorica and its project SUNGREEN, microscope operator and sample
preparation: doc. dr. Mattia Fanetti, coordination doc. dr. Aleš Vaupotič. The author would like to thank Prof Dr Matjaž Valant and Rector
Prof, Dr Danilo Zavrtanik.
Vanja Mervič (SVN)
Borky / Obrany ( 2016 and 2018)
 A series of photos of suburban house façades in the workers’ districts of Borky and Obrany, in Brno, CZE.
 The bright colours are a new phenomenon, post-Perestroika, and a conscious attempt to banish the concrete
grey and military green of the Communist era, as people begin to assert their individual style on their
surroundings, in distinction from their neighbours.
   
Something about to happen… (7:26) a short film about the political indecisiveness about Cyprus’ future.
 
Moorland Productions (GBR)
Specially created for LAF 2019,
this original glass work by
Linda Norris reflects on the
care with which we attend our
houses, but perhaps not our
lives..
Linda Norris (GBR)
‘Esthesis gan anim’ (with Lara Sophie Benjamin) and ‘Instructions for use’ (with
Alem Alquier) are two specially written compositions for LAF.
The first attempting to put into sound a range of unusual emotional states;
the latter echoing the futuristic mechanical music of the machine age.
Bernard O’Neill (IRE)
IN A GLASS 1 (PHOTO) 20 X 30 CMS IN A GLASS 2 (PHOTO) 20 X 30 CMS IN A GLASS 31 (PHOTO) 20 X 30 CMS
‘In a glass’ is focused on exploring the imaginative landscape.
Found images do not originate purposefully. The play of light and fluid
in a glass creates an intangible landscape. Its existence is therefore
ephemeral. The resulting illusion is the result of surface and light.
Jana Ovčáčková (CZE)
The ideas behind recent scientific experiments to create lightening farms to store the captured
force in lightening are fascinating, despite concluding in a generally pessimistic outcome as to the
viability of such a project. However, even though it is true that by the time a bolt of lightning
actually reaches the ground its power is already severely diminished in comparison to the overall
power generated by the entire storm, and the idea of lightning farms has so far proved an
unrealistic source of energy; it is not impossible to imagine that some new future technology may
enable us to capture the electricity generated overall by thunderstorms.
“STORM PROJECT”, WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER
Rachel Pennington (GBR)
This film shows two women, dressed in white
overalls and appearing almost identical. They
are painting spherical objects, which they roll
across a white surface to create ambiguous
images – surface to surface painting. Each
woman’s cyclical movements reflect the
other’s. A mirrored surface divides them,
offering a fluidity to their actions but
suggesting they are both supporting yet
competing with one another. They appear
purposeful and yet they seem to teeter on the
edge of consciousness. The dimly lit scene
gives no clues as to the location, although
strange-looking vessels close by may point to a
scientific set-up. Sounds of a mechanical
nature, or perhaps a factory or science lab,
ring in the air.
Surfacing Like a Fish - This film records the
movement of ink and paint on the paper's
surface. Unconscious thoughts govern the
movements and the decisions. It's about the
surface supporting the watery material. And,
paired back further, its about the surface
supporting the subconscious - as one - united.
Its very initiative - free - escaping any
meaning.
Karen Piddington (UK)
“Ophelia” – acrylic on plastic sack
The work revolves around the problem of plastic and the
destruction of the marine natural environment. The support /
surface on which I paint the works is what gives content to the
painting as it is plastics and other elements found in the sea, the
coast or in nearby environments. It is therefore a "conceptual"
work that acquires meaning precisely because of the support in
which it is conceived
Raquel Plans (ESP)
Short films exploring the interactions of science and nature, often with
surprising results…
PlantBot Genetics (USA)
“Three surfaces” (1989)
Francis Pratt (GBR)
The three table tops are: (a) the one in the detail of the Matisse  poster (b) the one that
supports the vase of jonquils, etc. and (c) the glimpse of my much loved white plastic dining
table. The first and the last of these table tops are deliberately painted to hug the picture
surface: Matisse because of his Modernist Painter interests and mine in homage to Matisse.
The third is depicted as receding into illusory pictorial space, thereby creating a push pull,
visual effect. The support is for Ken and his generosity to artists.
In this film, I worked directly on the super-8mm film, considering the
materiality of the medium for itself, by scratching and superimposing films.
Camille Pueyo (FRA)
is an experiment in raw illustration using acrylics on canvas, dealing with the subject
of creation of the universe based on the Hindu mythological telling of Vishnu's cosmic
dream sleep; but the medium of marrying this with animation techniques and with
graphics in a unique, first-of-its-kind manner makes this live action animation video
hard to slot into any category or genre. The making itself was the most outstanding
feature of this Surface work.
NANTASHAYANAM - THE COSMIC DREAM SLEEP OF VISHNU (3;37)
Murali Raman (IND)
1 - The paintings do not aim to convey any specific message but their own reality (surface, forms, colors) .
2 - No obligation of frame or traditional canvas structure ( no stretcher).
3 - Reutilization of materials to use as canvas (piece of cloth) .
4 -Repetitive and interactive patterns ( repeat, double,  multiply) .
5 - Painting action with a "rhythm” that creates the unity of the artwork. 
6 - Strong visual impact,  almost "tactile", with geometric interplays of colors. 
 
Maria Resende (POR)
Last year I visited France for the the first time, travelling to Normandy, Paris, the Dordogne and finally Larroque.
This was the first study that I produced here and has that pressures of the moment - of seeing a view for the first time
yet also with a familiarity too – its a communion in paint, in a land where every view seems to hold that prospect of
the stroke of a brush – a conversation with those living and those gone, still sharing in the journey of paint.
Le Mont St Michel 2359 –
The Astronaut has been a reoccurring motif in my work for many years, Its an epic voyage, a journey through inner
space as much as outer. Sometimes that journey is in sculptural or photographic form - Here, its a journey in paint,
informed, in no small Measure, by my travels in France. One of the things that impressed me greatly on these travels,
was the walk up to Puycelsi from Larroque- the distant view of the spires and the celestial blue of the interior painted
ceiling of St Corneille - in the picture this blue has fused with the night skies of Normandy where I spent 5 weeks
previously, often gazing from the fields around the Ancient Manoir in which I was staying, at the evening sky giving
way to night. The background has become Le Mont St Michel, out of which our Time Traveller steps, at 2359 - we are
left to ponder what time exactly is this? The year perhaps ? - Or could it be the last minute before midnight - the final
minute of the day or even of time itself?
LE MONT ST MICHEL 2359
OIL ON CANVAS, 50 X 50 CM
Arran Ross (SCO)
Narratives are continually played out within the historical power relations of a society.
Within these, there are tensions such as the construction and deconstruction of cultural identity. It is these places and
tensions with the past that interest me. In making site visits, I come across objects where identity has clearly manifested
itself. But whose identity is it?  The Support / Surface movement wanted to strip the medium down to its phenomenological
foundations and then begin to reconstruct it without in any way forgetting or obscuring those foundations. My sculptural and
film works have similar aims, where I seek to explore phenomena of loss and disappearance from the ground up, where the
past built environments become sites of memory. By accessing found texts and researching local archives, pastiche re
-creations of places and scenes are re-created in film. They have a Kuleshov effect that makes distinct contrasts between the
items that have been pulled directly from the landfills of history.
Alan Rutherford (SCO)
Petra Ryšková
 
studied special pedagogy and art education at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University. At present, her work is focused on
bringing the world of special education closer to other people with the help of art. This year, she presented a series of workshops
A Little Different - Mainly Together at the Department of Special and Inclusive Education.
Everyone is different
Ceramics, photography. In the workshop A Little Different - Mainly Together, everyone made his own ball, which should be
perfect for the person. Then people exchanged balls with each other. The aim was to show that what is perfect for me may not be
the best for others. It is one of the most important principles in helping others - realizing what is actually needed for others.
 
Petra Ryšková (CZE)
“Untitled” is an obsessive attempt at con-fusion with lived places, fusion
with surfaces, trying to mould as much as possible with the support
that sustains and belongs to us.
“UNTITLED”, PHOTOGRAPHS, 30 X 45 CMS
Silvia Sanna (ITA)
‘Untitled 155’, acrylic on canvas, 40.5 cm x 30.5 cm, 2018; ‘Untitled 156’, acrylic on canvas, 40.5 cm x 30.5 cm, 2018
He always starts by picking up on elements from a previous painting. Then he constructs a multi lined grid, and the
interjection of these lines helps him to arrive at a new work. While this sounds methodical, intuition plays its part and
is revealed in the pentimenti inherent in the act of painting. He often regards it as a cousin of the earlier painting –
related, yet not too closely. Snoddy likens the whole activity of making art to building a family. But he is even more
convinced that structure is the absolute key to a fully considered and contemplative painting. He invites us to think
about process, and work out for ourselves how the images have been arrived at. He says, ‘I would hope that the
paintings reward looking at to induce a slow, inexorable awareness of intricate relationships’ and ‘through the
reworking of the paintings glimpses of the decision making reveal themselves.’ (Richard Cork)
.
Stephen Snoddy (GBR)
A container ship is not an inanimate object. The ship that travels thousands of miles on the high seas is full
of life ,stories, tragedy and hope. The harbours reached, the industrial landscape one encounters, the cargo
that floats in an endless ocean. Anina is no-dialogue film essay, shot on-board a containership, crossing into
the Baltic. establishes a correlation between the import of goods and the import of migration. By looking at
the opposite ends of the refugee naval routes, the camera makes visible the omni-present malevolence of
the seascape mirrored on the industrial naval landscape. The container ship culture, engulfing even the
screen this text is made manifest, crafts its own mythology of our access to excess.
ANINA
Alcaeus Spyrou (NLD)
These 3 drawings are part of a series called Temporary Monuments. The project
questions the hidden surface of some construction sites as well as the concept of
temporality and loss in urban planning.
Passing by construction sites, I sometimes notice parts of them wrapped in
plastic sheeting. Ensuring temporary protection, it sometimes reminds me
of monuments right before their inauguration.
“TEMPORARY MONUMENTS”
Radina Stoïmenova (BUL)
Transience (8:35)
Transience depicts an episodic memory of the artist by drawing connections between the inner self and the landscape
through an interplay of various surfaces and subjects found in nature that resonate with the various ephemeral states
of mind. The multitude of surfaces from the natural environment symbolize the many layers and depth within the self
that constitute our subjective realities. Chronicling recollections through fragments of writings found in the artist’s old
diary, the single channel video attempts to evoke the essence of the transient self. Dreamscape is an exploration of how
sounds in dreams can be translated both aurally and visually through sound art and painting, and how the two distinct
mediums could work together to form a narrative in a way that could potentially aid in the understanding of the self.
The series of work involves the replicating of sounds the artist heard in his dreams, with each sound sequence rendered
correspondingly into an abstract painting, allowing these enigmatic “dreamscapes” to surface into actualizations. The
completed work made up of both sonic and visual compositions, aims to provide the audience with a sensorial
experience of the artist's self-portrait as told by his dreams.
Jaxton Su (SGP)
A film is a manifesto written by a planetary rover and it pictures a
vision of digital plants on Mars as our future.
“MARSQUAKES”(10:08)
Jadwiga Subczyńska (POL)
I live in a rural area and am
inspired by the amazing
landscape of my Lanzarote.
Orzola winter
Eliza Szymanska (SPA)
Notwithstanding how much I love and appreciate my work as a teacher, I felt a bit frustrated that I was not
able to focus on my artistic work for a while. Therefore I created something to express my suppressed
feelings- a one minute video “Nostalgia for Art – ART IS DEAD” which was shown at several art events in
Berlin, Taipei and Toronto. After I had discovered my skin condition called skin writing (Dermatographia)
I understood that art can never be dead for me as it is such a big part of me. Therefore I decided to use my
skin as an art medium and develop a very different form of expression.
SELFIE 2
Darko Taleski (MAC)
My video poems are surrealistic videos: they have no synopsis.
Every one can give them the contents they want.
“WALKING ON WATER” (1:52) “TUNTEMATON - UNKNOWN” (2:19)
Eija Temisevä (FIN)
Blue and White Rings, 60 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2018.; Flow I, 60 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2018.; Upside down curve,
60 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 201Flow III, 60 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2018.; Red-Green-Red, video looped, 2017.
 
Andrea Thoma studied in Montpellier with some of the original Surfaces/Supports group and her work in painting
and video reflects their concern with the formal ingredients of art. Paintings accumulate layers and forms and
change slowly over time, often in series of twos and threes which develop organically, the one influencing the other
until each arrives at a formally satisfying conclusion. The videos interact with the paintings by exploring similar
themes of colour and surface, but also explore the dimension of time.
 
Andrea teaches in the School of Design at Leeds University.
Andrea Thoma (DEU / GBR)
Mkrtich Tonoyan is a painter, photographer and Director of ACOSS an
artist-led residency centre in Yerevan, Armenia.
HELD BRAIN MERI DOG IN STONE CIRCLE
Mkrtich Tonoyan (ARM)
“Juno” (4:30)
A short film using animation and original NASA footage.
 
Marianna Daniela Torres (MEX)
The aim of the project is to create experimental, audio reactive & real time graphics & animation
via various techniques and mediums, such as generative art, live visuals, VR, depth cameras,
digital & analogue synths, midi controllers.
This project addresses Donald Trump's ideology. It takes his face or his speeches as a primary
input source and finally, creates an interactive artwork in which POTUS is under criticism.
TRUMPTARD
Thomas Valianatos (GRC)
Marcos Vidal (ESP)
The name of this series is "VERDADEROS MACHOS" (True Men) ;
it's about surface, human surface, male surface, also it's collage that is
very surface all the time. This series has 100 pieces.
Marcos Vidal (ESP)
“Crossing’
These works from the ongoing Crossing series
address the dialogue between the traditional
medium of oil paint on canvas and the
embracing of a new post-capitalist art.
Responding to the phenomenon of digital
technology and its impact on contemporary
society, these works explore the relationship
between surfaces and textures - the
materiality of painting.
“Shudder” explores notions of materiality in
terms of surface and texture. It is a liminal
work that captures organic shadows on a wall.
The surface - moving shadows - is a transient
bi-product created as a result of sunshine
filtering through trees at a particular angle
(dependent on both time of year and time of
day); the support is the (texturally visible) wall
on which they are cast. Without the sun to
create the shadow, and the wall to support it,
the work cannot exist: the result of an
ephemeral and unpremeditated interaction.
The pulsing 'shudder' suggests a biological
reflex that has resonance on both micro and
macro (environmental) levels.
Ian Wieczorek (GBR/IRL)
“Water ceremony” (2:03)
My practice combine fine art and making with found objects. I would describe myself as working on
the borderlines of textile practice: my works is a mixture of crafting and conceptualising.
I go into specifies groups and look at their common way of living, codes/symbols, manners, solutions,
explanations (/folklore) valuation and understanding forms. I want to question traditions within
visual art that had historically as a central function the study and reproduction of nature.
Linda Marie Westgaard (USA)