AIR_MCUBE International Artists' Residency 2024
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF DECEMBER
Ronald LukjanskyThe Netherlands
He is an expressionist painter, often labeled
neo-expressionist. Lukjansky begins each new project with an open mind. Furthermore, he embraces the organic process of creation. His work is driven by pure emotional expression. However, it is often created spontaneously in the moment. His current process emphasizes instinct during the act of painting.
Art is a language unto itself for Lukjansky. It possesses its own dynamic and power. He aims to reach out to the soul of humanity. His films, like his paintings, are deeply personal and spiritual journeys. They reflect his ongoing search to communicate specific emotions.
A Brave New World
RESIDENCY ARTIST of September and November
After his degree in sculpture and MA’s in sculpture and ceramics with AHRB full award, Richard Crooks has been an educator and artist. He has attended supported residency programmes throughout Asia, including with the Kathmandu Centre for Contemporary Arts, The Brihatta Art Foundation and the Bengal Foundation in Dhaka. He has led learning programmes in Bangladesh with the British Council and was a Visual Art Curriculum Specialist for the Ministry of Education in the UAE.
Residencies in Bangladesh, Nepal and Japan have provided unique visual and conceptual contexts that continue to inform practice – including participation as invited exhibitors in the Asian Biennale in Dhaka. He is a fellow with the Salzburg Global Forum, a member of Bath Society of Artists and formally curriculum advisor for the Indian charity Slamoutloud. Work is held in private and public collections.
BEING HERE
Impressions in Harmony
BECAUSE IT'S THERE
ARTICLE BY Stephen Clarke
Senior Lecturer in Art and Design at the University of Chester.
On the border of Nepal and China lies the highest mountain in the world. In 1924, the British mountaineers George Herbert Leigh-Mallory and Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine attempted to climb to the summit of Sagarmatha. Neither of the men returned from this expedition, they disappeared. In the following years traces of Mallory and Irvine were found, preserved on the icy tracts that the explorers had travelled. They had left their mark on the landscape.
Travelling companions share their fate as is the case of Richard Crooks and myself. In the past we have taken long hikes in the British landscape. No dangers were evident and the chances of getting lost were slim in this gentle and cultivated environment. Our conversations as we walked together have provided the ground work for our understanding of each other and the processes of making art. Essential to Crooks’ artwork is his experience of place. In recent years he has undertaken residencies in Bangladesh, Japan and Nepal. In each location he experiences the land and culture through the processes of walking and cycling – a predominantly bodily encounter.
Crooks is primarily a sculptor – he has worked with the unyielding materials of steel and concrete. These physical methods have been transferred to working with the more pliable mediums of clay and collage. Always moving on and continuing exploration, paper-making has become the central process for his residency at Gallery Mcube. Into the pulp of the paper mush he has impressed fragments from his surroundings, leaving his own traces. His countryman Mallory when asked why he wanted to climb the mountain replied ‘Because it’s there’. This is a motivation behind Crooks work – to experience a place because it is there. However, Crooks selects the places that offer distinct and unique cultural interaction. His artwork is an exchange between fellow travellers and the paths that they follow.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF NOVember
Sanna Allåker | Sweden
Sanna Allåker is a dance and performance artist from Sweden. She has a degree in Dance from Liverpool John Moores University and has performed in and co created different dance and multidisciplinary projects throughout Europe, such as Theatre in Palm’s hybrid residency with Intercult in 2023.
Her intention is to create interactive and immersive spaces where both mind and body can be experienced in harmony. I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
BEING HERE
Impressions in Harmony
She was a hundred layers of clay
Pressed and molded
Neither true nor false
Not hidden not visible
Now kept together
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF OCTOBER
Anita Fuchs | Austria
ANITA FUCHS works with photography and installations influenced by the meaning and symbolism of plants. Her projects usually start with an actionist approach: road trips for the purpose of plantlet smuggling, counting oak leaves in a research station, a transport of whole trees in a car from the Provence in France to Austria, or the cultivation of a field with historical seeds. These actions deal with current issues of society climate change, migration, history, global economics, and politics.
Cordyceps, 2024
In collaboration with Rukshana Thapa, an ambitious mushroom researcher from Nepal, Anita Fuchs explores the fascinating world of Cordyceps mushrooms, showcased as mini sculptures. As part of the installation, mushrooms are grown within the gallery space, and Kombucha, fermented tea made from Reishi, is also featured as a part of her installation art.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF OCTOBER
Somayeh Sadat Mirabbasi | Iran
Somayeh Sadat Mirabbasi is an Iranian artist who pursued a major in cinema and animation filmmaking at university. Deeply interested in literature and philosophy, she discovered a passion for writing during their university years, which led to her involvement in screenwriting for animated series and short stories. In June 2024, one of their short stories was recognized as a top ten selection in a literary festival and is set to be published as part of a book.
Somayeh has also contributed to several short animated films, showcasing her versatility across different roles, and her short animation “Boomerang” has earned international festival recognition. With a background in painting since high school, she views the medium as an essential part of their life—a form of self-healing. For her, painting is like a mirror that uncovers the subconscious, revealing the deepest thoughts of the soul. Overall, she believes that art transcends personal boundaries, first aiding the artist and then connecting with others on a universal level.
In her unique vision, Somayeh believes that everything around us—objects, animals, plants, even the tiniest stone—possesses its own extraordinary world. To her, these entities are like messengers, sharing stories from another dimension of truth, one we continually seek. Through her digital art, she invites viewers to explore these unseen realms she knows so well.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF AUGUST/ SEPTEMBER
Renata Bonter-Jędrzejewska Poland
Renata Bonter-Jędrzejewska is Polish-born artist, designer, curator. Since 2017, she has been teaching at the Department of Ceramics at the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy in Wrocław, where she completed the Inter-Faculty Doctoral Studies and obtained a PhD in Visual Arts in 2019. She undertakes professional and artistic activities in many disciplines, in the field of science, art and new technologies.
in Jakarta in 2022, ÉSAD Orléans – École Supérieure d’Art et de Design Orléans in 2023, Tianjin Academy of Fine Art (TAFA), 2024. Her ceramic, drawing and painting works have
been presented at national and international exhibitions, including: in Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Italy, Indonesia. Since 2022, she has been co- creating kinetic installations in collaboration with her husband, also an artist, PiotrJędrzejewski.
Resilience
“As an artist and designer, I focus on the shape of things. The form is always the result of
many complex design processes and is not an end in itself. It requires significant effort and
a lot of analysis and experimentation to come to a final solution. Of course, things always
have shape and materiality, depending on the circumstances in which they were created”.
I’m an interdisciplinarny artist. For many years I gathered various experience and skills in the various fields of the since, art and design. Since 2014 I started to develop my interest in the new technology in ceramics.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF JULY / AUGUST
Marianne Venderbosch | The Netherlands
Marianne Venderbosch is an artist and art historian from the Netherlands.
She has a passion for traveling and exploring new places. Her artworks are either created during her travels or created at home inspired by them. In the last years she traveled through Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Egypt, Japan, China and Morocco. In Ubud, Bali she stayed for a longer period in which she painted and designed. In Carrara, Italy, she worked two month and sculpted in marble.
Next to working in traditional techniques she likes to work in digital techniques and mixed media. Her representations combine figurative, symbolic, organic and decorative forms.
I am here, Where are You?
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF JULY
Phil Robinson | USA
Where is Nepal?
“Where is Nepal”, reverberates throughout my time here. A guest of just one month cannot respond any other way than, “everywhere”. Simple, unpretentious as this question sounds it signals place, time past, present and future history. These works arise from the sensations of being here in Nepal.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF JUNE
Jessica Lynn Smith
ARTIST STATEMENT
Each day, I roam through Patan’s streets, passageways and public spaces. The Newari windows reach down toward similarly hexagonal pavement stones. This insistent honeycomb structure is my gateway into an exploration of shape, light and shadow. Repetition is my way of making sense of space and place. My goal is to share with a viewer the fleeting suggestions of observations that can be carried by color, texture, space, and other elements of art.
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES
Smith uses watercolor, pencil, and ink media on paper in this body of work. She utilizes a variety of templates and hand-drawn components to cultivate colorful patterns through layering and overlapping shapes. Watery reticulation simultaneously suggests an immediacy and impermanence. Smith’s techniques challenge the viewer to look closely, then closer yet, to experience different ways of seeing.
RESIDENCY ARTIST OF MAY
Mahdieh Shahriari Moghaddam Iran
Paper Dream
