Ole Ukena is a conceptual artist that interweaves a variety of media including text, video, photography, drawing & sculpture. Ukena’s diverse media work takes various forms, bound by a common thread of complex simplicity. This unfolding dance between challenging artistic practice and innocent questioning of the “is-ness” of our world defines the very essence of his works. Ukena’s dance often mesmerizes as the juvenile forms an unlikely yet impactful partnership with the spiritually refined. With a wink and a nudge, youthful, playful enthusiasm confronts buttoned-up “maturity”. Sometimes poetically narrative, and in other moments purposefully reduced, Ukena frequently uses language as a tool to build riddles that await completion in the viewer’s mind. His choice of material and medium becomes a metaphor that challenges the status quo. And as his childlike game continues the underlying message invites the viewer into ongoing personal reflection.
As the founder of CRE8 Foundation, Ole engages professional artists and kids worldwide to create collaborative artworks. The workshops and exhibitions draw on collaborative creativity. This serves to verify the power and richness that lies in valuing diversity and authentic self-expression as opposed to conformity.
Archive for April, 2011
The Ideal City Project
Collaborative Ping Pong Mural / Chalk on Stone / India, 2011
Rishikesh, India is a special place for me in many ways. Creatively, this small, holy city on the Ganges River in Northern India has become somewhat of an artistic “laboratory” for me; it’s a place where new ideas have the time and space to be tried out and experimented with. Over the past 4 years, I have spent much of my time here collaborating and hosting art workshops with the kids at Ramana´s Garden orphanage. I love working with kids—their thoughts and ideas are unfiltered and their enthusiasm is always contagious.
The Timeless Project in Varanassi
Some projects are born in seconds, other ones in minutes. Very few take decades. The “Timeless” project has, of course, taken time to materialize, but—as its name might suggest—the perception of time itself happened to be the project’s subject.
I carried this project idea with me for over two years but never found the time to realize it. We travelled 20 hours by train from the northern part of Rishikesh, India to Varanassi which one of the oldest known cities on this planet.
Varanassi is truly an incredible place with all of India´s magic and madness condensed in one spot at the same time. Beggars and bankers, spiritual pilgrims and merchants, gurus and gangsters wander the street. Without further explanation, here a little visual update on what we have been up to.