The blood always had a powerful and meaningful connotation. It is social and political and I think art symbolically bleeds in order to make people react.
Leslava: Hi. I am very pleased to know you closer. Tell us briefly about yourself.
Hello, first of all, thank you for this interview. As an artist, I see myself as someone who is experimenting in many fields, and I agree with Wagner’s approach with his Gesamktkunstwerk, a total art. I try different techniques, also video and music, but I will come back to it. I started to draw very young and very early, I was attracted by everything that close to darkness. I always wanted to be an artist, at least to create and emancipate myself in this way. In terms of university studies, I first made a bachelor’s degree in visual arts and then a master’s degree in art and sociology of culture. I finally passed an exam to teach.
Leslava: Artists have long used a part of himself to create their works. The blood is used and Vinicius Quezada and Marc Quinn, and Jordan Eagles. But perhaps only you do not use the optimistic view. Your work is full of truthful image of human life, ritual and symbolism. Tell us about your work, the main idea.
I did not really try to deal with this or that, it was simply expressed naturally, I think it would be difficult for me to do anything other than what is commonly called dark, I could try but it would not have the same sincerity and spontaneity in my opinion. Life in general inspires me, the world in which we evolve, our everyday life etc. I like when art is expressive, regurgitated on the canvas, violently. Sometimes I do not know what will happen but I have this urge that tells me to paint or create, the same for music. Improvisation is also important to me. It is as if I was guided by a force that showed me the way unconsciously.
I also write what I see in dreams in order to transcribe them, I like the fact that dreams do not really make sense, or rather, has no end or beginning. It loses the viewer and allows him to wander together with the the painting, its evocation. In fact, my art haunts my nights, I had a lot of sleep paralysis that made me see strange things, feel presences, these dreams inspired me a lot in my paintings and my music. Art is a vital to me, a constant need, whether it is to write an idea, or to paint etc., this is inevitable.
Leslava: Blood - the life and the blood outside the living body - death. You like Jordan Eagles (which takes blood from an abattoir), working literally between life and death. Have you looked into the eyes of death?
I have bee influenced by death, that is a fact. I lost my parents from cancer and their agony til they died marked me deeply. Their death made my art become even darker. Dealing with it in art is a way for me to exorcise my fears, to mourn and finally to feel alive.
Leslava: I am impressed by the fact that you like black metal. Among your works there are dedicated and mayhem and bathory. Tell me when you started listening to this music what hooked you in it?
The first extreme cd I got, my mother offered it to me at the age of 13, it was Schizophrenia of Sepultura, before that I listened mainly to Metallica and Maiden. I then bought Morbid Visions which is still one of my ten favorite albums, all styles combined.
I was passionate about the first Norwegian releases and I have been collecting vinyl records for 20 years now.
Leslava: You designed the covers for bands? With what bands do you worked?
Yes i’ve done a lot of artworks for bands from black metal to hardcore and even some electro and experimental stuff. I’ve done covers for Drowning The Light, Necrophagia, Sarke, My own projects of course and many more. The first cover I did was almost 10 years ago for A Agathocles EP.
Leslava: You have and your project. K.F.R. What is the origin of this project? What does it mean for you?
K.F.R means Kafir which is translated from arabic to «disbeliever» It is a word written on Dajjal’s forehead, the Antichrist in Islam. K.F.R was born in order to translate my paintings into sound. There was a time during which I felt the need to give a counterpart to my paintings, it is as if they asked me to describe their screams and whispers. I released 3 albums that represent a trilogy plus a few demos and EPs. On each album, a guest is singing on one track, for Anti, it was Meyhnach from Mütiilation, for Nekro, Azgorh from Drowning the Light and finally for the last one, Ø, Vordb of Belketre. Ø is the ultimate album of K.F.R, the darkest but also the most personal, I concentrated on it for about two years by returning then abandoning it to finally come back etc. It was a difficult and painful process, I left some of my own with it, that’s for sure. Being the last album of the trilogy, it had to be the most eloquent, the most representative of my approach. The cover is a self-portrait that I realized with my blood, rather the portrait of my alter ego, my subconscious that pushes me to create this way. Here is a link of the bandcamp of the album:
https://kfr-dajjal.bandcamp.com/album/-
I also have some other projects, Saturnian Tempel which is black metal as well and focused on space : https://saturniantempel.bandcamp.com/
Griim which is some dark ambient with black metal elements : https://griiim.bandcamp.com/album/j-yful-no-se
Leslava: Do you go to the exhibitions? What can you say about contemporary art?
Every form of art and creation is legitimate to me, everyone is free to express themselves and I invite everyone to do so. Art is, in my opinion, one of the primary meanings of life. Orlan used her blood in the sixties symbolically, she considered her body envelope as the first material: «My body has become a public place of debate», in other words, her body leads to reflection, she does One with her Work. Other artists have used their blood symbolically, as is the case of the Viennese Actionists who, in order to denounce the lack of denazification of Austria, conjured their artistic practice into a kind of irreverent panphlet, mainly performances. The blood always had a powerful and meaningful connotation. It is social and political and I think art symbolically bleeds in order to make people react. I’ve done several exhibitions, and i intent to do some more, it is a good way to meet and interract with people
Leslava: Are you planning to experiment with your works? Maybe installation?
I did a few in the past with some videos associated with sound and paintings. I’d like to do a performance someday with K.F.R, not a common live show but like an art performance.
Leslava: Do you like horror movies? What are you afraid of?
Hong Kong cinema is the one that made the most impression on me, especially before the handover in 1997, a blessed time when everything was possible. I’m a very big fan of graphic violence and movies like The Untold Story, Ringo Lam’s Full Contact, A bullet in the head, Story of Ricky, Prison of fire, Men behind the sun, Run and Kill, School on Fire, Dumplings, The Blade, the eight Wu lang diagrams, more generally John Woo’s films before his arrival in the US, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To and the Shaw Brothers movies.
There are also Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist by Shinya Tsukamoto, Buddy Gioviniazzo’s Combat Shock, The Toxic Avenger, You Will not Kill by Kieslowski, Suspiria, The Exorcist, In Hell, The Brood and Videodrome by Cronenberg (All his filmo in fact), DerTodesking, Scarface, The Shining, clockwork Orange, A Serbian Film etc
Leslava: What do you think about religion?
I have a rather ambiguous relationship with religion, a kind of attraction / repulsion, a hatred for it and at the same time a sort of fascination with the sacred.
Religious art is very interesting and is governed by codes that fascinate me. The position of the hands and postures are for example signs that people read to understand what it was returning. As people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance had very little access to knowledge and learning, few could read, which is why these codes were taught through art in order to guide them religiously.
Thanks for your time.