“I learned to paint instinctively, trusting my body before overthinking the image”: ex to x and Berlin’s flinta* creative landscape.
“My wife (as a wife) sucks”: London has a niche event for just about everyone, but the spaces that don’t resemble a boys’ club stay limited.
A “Dykes Handling Love Letters” service: Berlin’s electronic scene, its queer nightlife, and the festivals positioned around the city.
True artistry is often defined by technical skill, creative vision, and the ability to authentically, and effectively connect with one’s audience. Even better, if you are able to prompt new creative pathways for the viewer to traverse. In artist Lifeng Liao’s personal practice, it doesn’t take long to see the ways in which she builds these universes across mediums, blending concepts and mediums that are defined atop physical silken materials. Her work spans many topic areas, commonly landing on nature’s influence. She draws much inspiration from notions of decay, wet
Barney Pau is a culinary creative in his own words, and in the perspective of many others, a visionary. He is shaping a new direction of food as both art and communion in London. Pau’s work extends well beyond crafting meals and experiences, redefining what it means to sit at a table amongst strangers. Destined to transform into new friendships. Pau has crafted culinary worlds for the likes of DAZED, Maison Margiela, PILOT Magazine, the Royal College of Art, and many others. In addition to his varied projects and exciting
Ferropolis, the Iron City outside Berlin: a weekend of queer chaos, carnage and joy, and a momentary utopia of converging bass and dancing bodies.
Internet Cafe was an exhibition curated by Juliet Wilson at Hypha Studios. The interdisciplinary show was open from January 30th until March 7th, and featured the conglomerate works of 16 different artists. The show called into question our relationship with nostalgia and the impact of new technologies. Many handheld gadgets that we hadn’t realised would become emblematic of dying eras, have since shriveled in the shadow of social media and its harsh and seemingly unavoidable impact. As a result, we’ve now lost sight of the unique artefacts of our Y2K
Yihao (Hao) Zhang has been “drawn to making from a young age”. The London-based artist chatted with COLD about the fact that he has always liked working with toys, breaking them into the sum of their parts to be reconstructed, adjusted, and transformed into something brand new. This process allowed him a sense of discovery, which was only further expanded upon during his time in university. “I studied film props and design, which showed me objects can tell stories. During my MA… I moved toward sculpture and performative installation.” These
The central point between memory, identity, and cultural belonging is the crux of Xinan Yang’s artistic practice. Yang acquired her Doctor of Arts (Doctor of Professional Fine Art) in 2023 from the University of East London. This achievement followed after the attainment of her MFA and BA, cementing her academic track record against her creative practice more widely. Yang’s work has been showcased as part of many exhibitions. Her most recent solo show on display at Orleans Gallery in London is entitled The First Letter Home in Spring. She had
Honeyluv wants her music to make you feel like a bad bitch. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio but now based in German culture-capital Berlin, the international musician and producer is known for her soulful spin on house, cooking up tracks that seamlessly blend sensual energies with upbeat, jovial sound. “It’s sexy, groovy, it’s soulful, it’s deep,” she says; its music for, “a small, dark, underground club. No big festivals, minimal lights.” Before she became a DJ/producer, HoneyLuv, née Taylor Character, experimented with different career paths. As a kid, she imagined herself
Pearly Drops is an entirely self-produced duo from Helsinki, Finland. The pair, Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin are known for their unique, grungy musical language that presents a dream-like auditory landscape. On-the-nose vulnerability is an inherent part of their lyrical framework, all backgrounded by light-touch mystery, drawing listenership into their world. It’s these and many other features of their unique sound that has gained them a dedicated global audience. They are currently rounding off their spring tour which ends on April 30th at Kollektivet Livet in Stockholm, Sweden. Though, it
Fashion week is often captured through camera lenses and smartphone cameras. As photographers cram their way into photo pits, pushing and pulling, arms outstretched to get the best possible shot, there’s another kind of documentation happening concurrently. This comes through the varied perspectives and illustrative styles of physical artists. In previous seasons I’ve witnessed the subtle use of drawing pads, pastels, and pen ink in place of iPhone cameras across presentations and runway shows. I’ve shared queues with these same creatives awaiting entry. As the doors open, artists and other
Turkish artist Halise Karakaya is categorically enthused and influenced by the intricacies of human existence. She’s particularly compelled by the varied ways our individual experiences shift our perspectives of the surrounding world. Emotion is inherently imbued throughout each of her works by way of her unique artistic style. Employing cubic, three-dimensional structures and fluid brushwork – her art embodies its own kind of movement in stasis. That which guides the eye and commands powerful emotions to the fore of the viewer’s mind. Many of her multi-medium artworks are unafraid to
BODUR is a Turkish-Sri Lankan interdisciplinary musician hailing from London. Her various works are emblematic of a unique sonic vernacular, which centres the interplay of her multiple identities and how these associated experiences impact her daily life. Last year, she presented a 28-hour durational performance installation, with which she used to write and record her latest three-track project Second Language. This event allowed listeners a unique first-hand account of the creative process as it developed in real time. Undulating layers of lyrical magic combined and contorted within the limited framework
In classic fashion week chaos, the week began delayed and a bit rocky. After arriving early as hell at London Heathrow (a habit I’ve developed as a result of many travel mishaps and near-missed flights), I ripped my brand-new-to-me wool coat (Vinted, duh!) straight down the back just before boarding. My flight landed around 2:50pm on day one of CPHFW. Instead of attempting to navigate public transport in what was already shaping up to be an unreasonably busy day, I hopped in an Uber to meet my Airbnb host. Once
The process of creative expansion rarely follows a linear path. Many artists, musicians, and wider creatives find themselves experimenting with different mediums, styles, and messaging before they commit to one succinct, clear vision. In Sarah Nimmo’s case, her upcoming debut album marks a new path. One where she is resolutely stepping into her solo career, which comes after globally touring and performing as the frontwoman of her previous project – NIMMO. The move to go solo is born of creative redirection, tracing back to her youth, when hours were spent
Upon attempting to dissect London’s vast creative scene and all its parts, it swiftly becomes apparent that many artists and creatives are not merely relegated to one medium or one scene specifically. Rather, many are inherently representative of a wider net of innovative overlapping artistic practices which interweave and interact like an undulating organism. Anything but stagnant. No, these pathways of creation and connection are alive, breathing even. This is undoubtedly the case for multidisciplinary photographer and videographer, Veronika Butkevich, who builds worlds within her distinct visual identity, showcasing her
We were on our way to The Garage, positioned at an angle across from Highbury and Islington Station. It’s a venue I’ve passed too many times to count. Regardless of the gig or show, it seems that queues have never been short of rammed, heaving with excitement to get inside. We were led around back to meet the two lead singers of American indie outfit Momma in the green room for a quick chit chat before their show. Band founders Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten talked me through the newest
Anyone who has spent time navigating the art world understands how quickly opportunities can dissolve. You meet a visionary curator, or an artist whose work stays with you, exchange social handles, and… the connection vanishes into a crowded feed. For many creatives, maintaining visibility and staying professionally accessible is far more difficult than producing the work itself. FOLLOW.ART (@followart.world) has entered this landscape with a clear goal: to provide artists and curators with practical tools that simplify how they present their work, build professional relationships, and stay discoverable. Instead of
Sitting at my desk in London, I phone in a video call to speak with genre-obliterating musician KABEAUSHÉ, originally from Nairobi but based in Berlin. The state of the video image is misleading—for the seemingly sunlit windows of his room are actually distorted on camera, reflecting off a bright orange wall as he sits in the middle of the frame. We laugh briefly at my sorely mistaken assumption that it might be sunny in Berlin, and commiserate over the grey skies and wet weather, seemingly ever-present in either of our
Emma Sielaff is the founder of the market-series-turned-exhibition, Finders Keepers. The project is dedicated to bringing unassuming relics of human existence into spaces reserved for fine art (exclusively). Sielaff’s work offers a series of questions that beget wider discussions about what it is that makes us distinctly individual – as well as how we simultaneously find ourselves enmeshed in a collective net of memory. Sielaff is an interdisciplinary artist, all-round creative, and community builder, hosting events across London and beyond. Her work presents the notion that connectivity can materialize via
For SS26 JUDASSIME presented Lost Highway at the end of a very busy Paris Fashion Week. The unassuming street level would never do justice to what would lie therein. Guests started slowly piling up, excitedly chattering in the street. Looks were so complex and outlandish, that you couldn’t quite tell if models accidentally became trapped in the queue (looking for backstage). We quickly realised that this show would not only become home to a series of intricate designs, expansive worlds, and a deep set narrative based in destruction and rebirth.
On my arrival outside of Canary Wharf station, I was immediately disoriented (which wasn’t helped by the incoming rainstorm). This is an area of Google Maps that is truly lacking, and it’s shockingly easy to get lost among massive skyscrapers from the moment you exit the tube. I ended up walking directly past the venue a few times before I recognised it… When I circled back around, it was clear as day. Signposting guides you forward, requesting that you hold handrails tightly as you descend into the belly of the
Anna Berghuis is a New York-based visual artist whose work challenges notions of social media-borne “acceptance”, which insidiously seeks to confine us. Her paintings hone in on authenticity in a digital age which continually stifles the very thing we are all subconsciously vying for: the internal muse. Our economy of phone-screen-tapping and instant gratification has warped the way we interpret who we are. We live in an age of relentless discourse about the sheer fact that many of us do not know what we like, or if what we like
