I’ve enjoyed painting and drawing for as long as I can remember, but art hasn’t been a constant part of my life until recently. However I can’t say that me and my creativity haven’t kept in touch this whole time. I’ve been playing the piano, writing poems and short stories, making costumes for my dolls, making up small plays and musicals and reenacting them. I’ve also enjoyed photography. All of these are still my creative outlets. Was my hometown a source of inspiration? Well, yes, because everything around me was a major source of inspiration anywhere I went.

We know it’s been a while since we published the last In Focus episode… But look, the hiatus had its reasons — well, we had, sinking back into the concerns of the new year. On the plus side, we promise that in 2021 the column will be in some way even more exciting than it used to be last year with some new bright and inimitable talents in the limelight. And the first in line here is a conceptual artist and a photographer, whose works one can hardly pass by indifferently. Meet Sandy Skoglund!

Art appeared in my life in the early childhood. I have been drawing since I remember myself, but I never received a formal education. I always thought of drawing as of my own special way of self-expression, it was just a part of me. However, it wasn’t until late 2017 that I discovered fashion illustration. I didn’t know what it was called and how it could be applied, but I was charmed by the pictures I came across on the Internet. They were so elegant and expressive, they caught my eye immediately and I just had an insight - that’s what I should do.

Anja Karboul is a Berlin-based illustrator working in fashion, advertising and advertorial design. Her work ranges from detailed digital portraits to quick analogue fashion sketches.

After earning a degree in Fashion Design in Germany, Anja studied Fashion Illustration as a Fulbright Scholar at Fashion Insitute of Technology in New York and went on to work for a range of prestigious fashion labels including Kenneth Cole, Yohji Yamamoto and Schumacher. Since 2015 Anja is following her passion of illustrating fulltime.

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It’s true, it is really diverse, it combines a lot of practices in one single person. For Tribute to the Noise, the latest series I am developing since two years and a half, I focused on representing the randomity of the behaviour and the constant that in a lot of studies is described as “random variable”: something that you must calculate in all scientific studies, and the one that if you wish to avoid, it will always be there.

Noortje Stortelder is a visual artist and  lives, works  in Rotterdam. 

"I want to give the viewer a new experience. This experience is based on my own reality and search for life, meaning of existence and purpose on earth. Who am I in relation to time, space and other beings? How do others see themselves and me? I now frequently use photography and film as the basis of my work but I still think sculpturally. Layer over layer over layer, editing as a digital sculptor. Our reality is hugely complex and layer. I do not always know what my reality is and from that confusion my work arises."

I  caught up with Noortje on her work process  and the latest developments.

New Exhibition Catalogue is out!