MAGDALENE
CARMEN
CREATIVE VISION
Merging dream with street grit, fineArt with industrial pop aesthetics, evocative with playful-provocative intent in dynamic, abstract-geometric works centred on two subjects: Urban & Woman. Mediums: digital photography, graphics, glitchFX, AI, English lingo, her body, vocals, poetry & music. Practices art activism via beyond-pretty work that is also cultural commentary. Key series by Magdalene Carmen (M.VII): 1) Addict: semiotic, digital flag-collages (hybrid of MC's urban photography, fashion (self-) portraits & graphics) articulating the corporeal-spiritual, conscious-unconscious tug of war defining the human condition, besides being intimations of feminine power in united & necessary contrast with masculine dynamics 2) Dancer | Her: photographic &/or AI x glitchFX representational #selfportraits toasting the feminine form as eternal & central art subject 3) Give Me A Sign: English lingo x sign satires on #popculture 4) Urban Mesh: kinetic, abstract-architectural portraits of Melbourne (AU) from train windows, being this artist's creative travel advocacy supporting Global Goal No. 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities.
MUL
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ARTS PRACTICE
Magdalene Carmen (M.VII) is a multidisciplinary artist. One of only six contemporary artists for Australia’s inaugural digital billboard Art Prize exhibition (AU Summer 2020) adapted in 2022 for the Big Screen in Fed Square, Melbourne. So far iRL exhibited in both outdoor, landmark city spaces & brick-&-mortar gallery spaces in Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, New York City, Venice besides online features &/or exhibitions. One solo show, Melbourne. Top-100 female digital-NFT artists, exhibited & collected 2022-24 @ MakersPlace. Featured & lifetime galleried artist, Lensculture. Regular exhibitor, Melbourne Centre for Contemporary Photography (since photography-student days, 2015-16). Some IRL works in private collections. Also published poet, indie recording artist (alt-pop/electronic music), dancer-dance teacher. Priorly art modelling (draped & undraped) for various photographers, artists & art schools, now playing her own muse in often anonymous self-portraits celebrating the female form. Formally trained: Ballroom-Latin Dance Medals, Creative Writing-Journalism, Fashion Design-Photo Imaging. Considerably impacted by: Apple's design minimalism, Banksy's art activism & anonymity, Guy Bourdin's provocative fashion productions, PopArt's power, Vermeer's intimacy & mystique, how the Botto Project speaks for what's radically exciting about AI innovations x human creativity.
"A 'holy fuck' kind of thing"
RAISON D'ETRE
"The beautiful thing about art is: it mostly animates on its own and in that animation, somehow takes me to the skies. And all I had was an idea. All I did was play. And then some instinctual thing moves me one way or another. This is the most pleasurable, electric thing: when I don't know what will come but believe I'll get there and then I do. Or I don't (yet) and start again. I like the playing part very much, the adventuring into what-i-don't-know-exactly but only imagine, only feel; the experimenting + discovering, you feel this kind of irrational fever & joy while in the flow, and then euphoria at the end. It does feel like a 'holy fuck' kind of thing really, transcending the mundane in that magical, creative stream, (& in my case, yes) feeling this ineffable union with the Divine with a cpital D. But with that gift comes the artist's (my) responsibilities. Because artists are warriors, revolutionaries, as much as lovers & mystics. I don't only ask: how do I bring joy/inspire others? I also ask: how do I express universal & eternal truths? how do I use my art to question the questionable, flip the flippable? how do I address contemporary issues?"
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See Advocacy​
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