Wander through this exhibition of art and writing, all part of the Landscapes collection. See the full collection in our 2021 December issue.

ArtAscent Gold Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Dakin Roy

ArtAscent Gold Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Landscape photography is among the most challenging tests for a photographer: the risk of disappointment that it does not reflect the majestic beauty of nature is always high. However, photographer Dakin Roy is a spontaneous master of the genre.

Dakin’s eye and lens approach the landscape with delicacy and respect. His shots reveal attention to detail and patience. The photographic landscapes that he selected for the magazine are never sensationalistic. They capture the most intimate soul of nature, exuding calm and introspection.

Some of Dakin’s landscapes appear almost abstract, focusing on natural textures and forms. The photographer dwells on the transformations of flora and fauna, carefully choosing the scenarios in which the elements (earth, water, and sky) collide.

Favourite landscapes for his photography include seascapes, particularly the shorelines of Cape Cod. A tongue of land that plunges into the Atlantic Ocean, leaving the space for vegetation, wind, and saltiness. Observing some of his shots taken in that multifaceted marine, you can clearly perceive what inspires the artist. There are evident sounds and more distant ones, like echoes of humans, animals, and nature: the breeze of the bay, the cry of seagulls, the click-clack of crabs on the rocks, and children laughing over the dunes, cites the photographer. Inspired by the sounds and impressions of the landscapes he visits, Dakin creates evocative and synaesthetic images. We can find photographs of desert-like dunes moved by the wind, alien-shaped water hyacinths, or suggestive twilights suspended between water and sky.

Dakin’s technique also fits the elements of the landscape. His photography, realized with a Nikon D600 DSL camera and a Nikon 28-70mm 2.8 lens, is purely observational. It requires time and control, experimenting with different points of view, framing and cropping techniques. He also acts in the studio through careful editing. His works are the sum of what he viewed and what he felt.

Dakin’s photography is also similar to the Impressionist technique: a high degree of landscape observation and study of atmospheric agents. Different images can be obtained, depending on the day conditions, even the hour. In addition, the skillful sense of the object, as if they were still lifes and not landscape photography, brings him close to the shots of the great Edward Weston.

Like Weston, Dakin Roy does not only take landscape photos but has also experimented with other subjects in his career. Educated in photography at Pratt Institute of New York and the Academy of Art in San Francisco, he has exhibited in solo and group shows around the U.S, mainly in New York. Dakin is also known as a teacher, having taught courses in New York related to digital photography and B/W techniques. A choice that may seem unusual when looking at his colourful photographs, but that makes us understand his primary photographic interest in vision in all its forms.

Dakin Roy is the Gold Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://www.dakinroy.com/

ArtAscent Gold Writer of the 2021 Landscapes call for writers.

Poppi Hmelnitsky

Oceanic Orchestra, Opus 2

The orchestra has arrived.
Risen in salt sand and sea.
Ominous. Tectonic.
Troughs, Crests, all, is gargantuan levitating to the sky…

A landscape, for a poet, is primarily a state of mind. It can act as a powerful recall, bringing to mind words, emotions, and metaphors. And that’s what Poppi Hmelnitsky realizes in her poetry through the voices of the ocean.

Poppi’s experience and vision of the ocean allow her to create a poetic composition that is highly evocative and, at the same time, musical. Oceanic Orchestra, Opus 2. is a piece made up of images, sounds, and actions that follow one another in a continuous game of shifts and correspondences, as if played by an orchestra. And it is precisely the theme of correspondence that is delineated in her verses: the parallelism between human beings and the sea, between the landscape of the beach and the mind of her main character, Henry. The physical movements of Henry, a child swaying his yellow plastic bucket on the beach, are the same motions of the waves. The undulating and ephemeral characteristics of the seascape also impact our constantly floating self. Like the sea, Henry is ephemeral. Like the coastline, the little protagonist is also whipped by the wind, Brushing air, brushing Boy. Poppi’s poetry is cinematic and emotional; inspired by the natural elements of the ocean and Lacan’s research, it can be read on an aesthetic but also psychological level. What happens in the landscape outside is what happens in our psyche inside. Like that of the water, our identity is fragmented, constantly evolving, the result of overlapping waves and experiences.

Stylistically and lexically, Poppi’s poetry is highly musical, like a concert. The echoes of splashes, sea breeze and waves are evoked in the choice of words, mimicking the sounds of the groaning ocean. Like music makers in salted air, perpetuating rhythmical ideas. The wise study of rhythm is also reflected in the organization of sentences, now isolated, now connected by line arrangements and punctuation. Poppi in Oceanic Orchestra, Opus 2. plays with the harmony of the parts. As in symphonic composition, the poet reflects on the role of individual voices and what they create together in a choral framework. After all, even human beings —their mind, emotional experience, identity—are the result of metamorphic cooperation.

Oceanic Orchestra, “risen in salt sand and sea,” and Poppi’s poetics are inspired by the great masters of the literary tradition. From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s imaginative and visionary use of words that masterfully described nature and the ocean, up to the symbolic power of John Keats and the metaphorical density of Pablo Neruda poems. Poppi is inspired by poets capable of creating the enchantment, of breaking the boundaries between images, sounds, senses.

A promising poet with vivid imagery, Poppi Hmelnitsky has already been published in The Literature Magazine at Macquarie University (Sydney), 18th issue of 2021. Her fresh and communicative pen is recognizable as a live sound in a sea of voices.

Poppi Hmelnitsky is the Gold Writer of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for writers. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://instagram.com/poppihmelnitsky/

ArtAscent Silver Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Jing Qiu

ArtAscent Silver Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Squares, rectangles, and vanishing circles travel through the paintings of Jing Qiu. He explores lines and geometric forms, light, and shadow and leads the audience on a personal journey to the softest structure of their imagination.

Let’s dive into a short reflection on geometric shapes in the arts throughout history: one significant work is called “Black Square” by Kasimir Malewitsch, which was first exhibited around 1915. This iconic piece of art simply depicts a black square on a white canvas. It marked, for many, the birth of non-representational art. Similar geometry and structure appeared in the contemporary works of Josef Albers, Piet Mondrian, and Gotthard Graubner, who took advantage of the style proposed by Malewitsch.

Squares in art evoke feelings of solidity and stability. On the other hand, circles suggest emotions, liquid mobility in contrast to the rigid nature of a square. Such opposing examples can be found in Jing’s series Disorganized Desire and The Fault of Thought. His paintings combine these images to create fluidity through colours merging – like soul mates – alongside a sharpness of lines, capturing the audience’s eyes and letting them rest on some kind of peaceful stability. Through this way of creating, the effect of composition forms the relationship between one individual part and the picture as a whole. These intentional placements of contrasting and sometimes colliding geometric forms can be witnessed in Jing’s work: clear and powerful images can still be softened through the ambiguity of light and shadow.

Alongside his use of form and colour, Jing also includes materials like sand, gravel, and even paper, adding texture and a third dimension to his works. These details create a more vivid environment for spectators to engage with, triggering memories of past travels, human connections and opening the freedom for discoveries deep inside ourselves. This is made possible by routes formed and deformed in each painting, inviting us to guide our thoughts beyond habitual thinking. These images allow their spectators to let down their guard, a guard that holds them upright during the social norms of everyday life. This can evoke feelings of distress, but at the same time, it may encourage a new and powerful endurance within our minds to construct an alternative landscape of creativity and a sense of self. Artistic work of this kind can be a wonderful tool to accept change and form a new way of seeing the unknown with welcoming eyes.

Jing’s paintings invite wonderment, a journey through various paths and environments, be they imaginative or in the here and now, and by providing a base from which our minds are free to run wild. Jing Qiu (1998, China) is an independent artist living and working in Shenzhen, Guangdong. His artistic mediums include painting, photography, video, installation, sculpture, and experimental art. His works have been exhibited in China, London (UK), the USA, Canada, Milan (Italy), Spain, Ukraine, amongst other countries and regions.

Jing Qiu is the Silver Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://www.instagram.com/xixiaoart/

ArtAscent Bronze Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Kate Meuser

ArtAscent Bronze Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Watercolour is a delicate and subtle medium, as fluid and unpredictable as the water that constitutes it. Katie Meuser swims in it effortlessly, using paper and water to create evocative and revelatory landscapes. Powerful in their indeterminacy.

Katie’s painting style can be defined as Abstract Expressionism: the non-figurative component of her landscape paintings blends with the emotional charge of her memories. Growing up in Nebraska, nature and wildlife always inspired her. However, her representation of the landscape is never literal; her aim is not to show viewers what they can already see in nature but to draw them away, awakening their subjectivity and emotional side. The series of watercolours Sojourned: Lost In Thought that she selected for this issue tells of a physical, sensory, and mental landscape: Costa Rica. During an art residency, Katie explored its sceneries, capturing its lushness, bright colours and energy. She pours that into her artworks, which do not show us a photographic and objective Costa Rica, but the feelings it can create in the observer. In her watercolours, two landscapes overlap: the en-plein-air landscape and one of the subjective emotions felt there.

Katie’s technique is also functional to the emotional flow she wants to suggest. She mainly uses watercolour, acrylic, and ink as materials. She defines her painting method free-flowing technique, a process she developed during university and no longer abandoned. In her watercolours, she used a wet-on-wet style, painting different layers of colour to obtain varied shades, transparencies, and textures. Water becomes a fundamental material for Katie’s art practice: through water, she does not create perfect outlines but flexible, fluid, mutable forms.

Katie’s approach to the subject of landscape owes much to her favourite painters, including Francis Bacon, for the raw and emotional use of colours, and the English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner, with whom she shares a love for intensity. Like Turner, her painting does not seek to render natural and atmospheric phenomena analytically. Everything passes through the lens of her feelings and emerges transformed. Turner once wrote in a letter Indistinctness is my forte, a statement that also perfectly fits with Katie’s style.

In addition, her paintings also recall certain aspects of German expressionism, particularly in Franz Marc’s landscapes, which are certainly more figurative, but with the same symbolic, powerful, even anti-naturalistic use of colour; and Helen Frankenthaler’s abstract landscapes, created with the free soak-stain technique.

Katie Meuser completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2009. Her large-scale abstract-expressionist paintings have been exhibited in shows and festivals in Chicago, Seoul, and will go even further. Through her unique process of depicting the landscape, she makes viewers truly feel her artworks, not just see them.

Kate Meuser is the Bronze Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

www.katiemeuser.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Richard Stanford

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://richard-stanford.pixels.com/

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Santford Overton

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Jennifer Popp

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Writer of the 2021 Landscapes call for writers.

Kate Merywyn Hawkes

Collapsing Time and Space

Space falls around you. It creates vacuums and folds and will open suddenly to reveal a memory. Space can hide something from us until the last minute. It is surprising, a magic trick we are not expecting. A man levitating in the street for example. A renovated space changes on the outside but does not remove all memories of the old space…

Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

www.wellnesswithkate.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Boran Hrelja

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Akiko Tsuji

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Aaron Krone

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://kroneaaron.wixsite.com/aaronkrone

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Hannah Heaton

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://hannahheaton.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Writer of the 2021 Landscapes call for writers.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro

Beastiary

The squirrels are having a ball, squirrelling
themselves up and down the tall oak trees, leaping
one to the next for whatever reasons they have,
or haven’t. Like kindergarteners on the monkey bars. They…

Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Theodore Heublein

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

www.theodoreheubleinart.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Writer of the 2021 Landscapes call for writers.

Paula Bonnell

What Do the Week and Year Look Like to You?

Part of growing up in a family of four daughters
and our parents, my sister and I often compared
how we saw various “invisible” things, such as
the week and the seasons of the year. To each of us
particular days had particular colours, but we differed…

Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

www.paulabonnell.net

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Larry Wolf

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://www.abrushwiththelaw.com/

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Stu Bloom

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://stubloomphotography.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Roger John Gottlieb

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

https://www.rogergottlieb.com

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Bruce Louis Dodson

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Ryan Johnson

ArtAscent Distinguished Artist of the 2021 Landscapes call for artists.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Landscapes call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Landscapes issue.

www.rjohnsonphotos.com