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.
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Colombian Wall Flair
Cartagena, Colombia
I dig walls. Not Jeff in this case but the ones you find standing around in Colombia.
Old ones, tracing back the colonial background, bright colorful ones in which the saltwater has been engraving fascinating prints.
In Cartagena they seem to be all over the place and once you start to open up your eyes to their beauty and strangeness the city reveals another layer.
There´s actually little other countries I have been to that had walls that were more fascinating to me. Number one might still be India but if I think about it more it´s probably more the weird wall drawings that i admire there and not the walls themselves.
I took a day off and walked around Cartagena to document this Colombian Wallhalla and here´s what I saw:
Museo del Oro
Bogotá, Colombia
One lasting impression in my recent stay in Bogotá was the Museo del Oro. It displays an extraordinary selection of its pre-colombian artworks – the biggest in the world. I had seen them in books before but now being surrounded by them by such large numbers was something very different. The exhibition was called “Cosmología y Symbolismo” (Cosmology and Symbolism) and the official introduction reads like this:
“Pre-Hispanic goldworking societies developed special ways of understanding the world. With these, they gave order to their surrounding and filled them with symbolic content. These cosmologies answered problems that were central to their existence, such as death, illness, and the meaning of life. Imbued with a profound religious sense, they converted the universe, society and its creations into sacred realities, while establishing a link between man and his ancestors that was essential to the continuity of the traditions. Metas, particularly gold, symbolized the fertilizing powers of the sun and expressed the divine origin of the power held by the rulers.”
I found myself wandering around the exhibition rooms completely inspired and in awe seeing these pieces. Here is a selection of some of my favorites.