Trifecta Editions is a print collective based in Boston and Cambridge, and the brainchild of two talented and brilliantly creative women, Helen Popinchalk and Morgan Grenier. The two have fashioned and curated Trifecta Editions’ inaugural arts and culture event, Trifecta: Year One, which will begin today at Boston’s Fourth Wall Project and run through Sunday.
| Faye Orlove |
Faye Orlove creates illustrations, comic pins and portraits, music videos and webpapers, all of which contain her signature style and aesthetic. Most of her illustrations and portraits come from the freaky world she has created for herself where her work is both referential – mostly to pop culture icons and 90’s television characters – and also autobiographical to her personal preferences and loves within that world. After living in Boston for five years, Orlove now finds herself in Los Angeles where she can usually be found at a new computer at FOX ADHD where she draws awesome gifs of people like Madonna, melting. Only in LA can you get paid to do something like that.
| Khaldoun Hijazin |
There is a certain amount of shock value and humorous impulse to Khaldoun Hijazin’s previous bodies of work, like a painting of a person with shoes for their head, that allude to meta-narratives that deal with issues of class, power and inequality. Although Hijazin’s newer works take on appropriating and deconstructing the wholeness of traditional western representations – whether historical or contemporary – into fragments, his paintings continue to offer a clearer description of reality than reality itself.
Q: You’re originally from Jordan, but currently live in Boston; what about Boston do you love?
A: I love that Boston is a city built on cultural, artistic and scientific shafts. Many of my favorite artists and thinkers have been nurtured by the cultural climate of this city. The vast resources for research and discovery make this part of the world unmatched in my personal experience. It is a beautiful place for its diversity of people, architecture and events.
Q: What are you most excited for at the Trifecta Year One event?
A: I’m really excited to meet the artists I’m exhibiting with in this event and seeing my work next to theirs at Fourth Wall Project. There’s a lot of experience to be gained in this diverse event Trifecta has created. I also have to mention how honored I am to be included by this collective that supports emerging and experienced artists, and encourages various creative mediums and styles.
Q: What’s currently inspiring you: music, other artists, travel, people, places, etc?
A: Currently I’m spending a lot of time looking at the works of Yinka Shoninare, Dottie Attie, Ken Aptekar, Glen Brown. I find amazing inspirations in listening to basically everything, both from old and new Arabic and American music. Recently I’ve been fascinated with the attitude of classic and oriental jazz. Also what keeps me challenged and inspired is my community of fellow artists at SMFA, which I just graduated from with the MFA degree.
<<<Meet The Artists Part 2
<<<Return to Part 1
Q: You’re originally from Jordan, but currently live in Boston; what about Boston do you love?
A: I love that Boston is a city built on cultural, artistic and scientific shafts. Many of my favorite artists and thinkers have been nurtured by the cultural climate of this city. The vast resources for research and discovery make this part of the world unmatched in my personal experience. It is a beautiful place for its diversity of people, architecture and events.
Q: What are you most excited for at the Trifecta Year One event?
A: I’m really excited to meet the artists I’m exhibiting with in this event and seeing my work next to theirs at Fourth Wall Project. There’s a lot of experience to be gained in this diverse event Trifecta has created. I also have to mention how honored I am to be included by this collective that supports emerging and experienced artists, and encourages various creative mediums and styles.
Q: What’s currently inspiring you: music, other artists, travel, people, places, etc?
A: Currently I’m spending a lot of time looking at the works of Yinka Shoninare, Dottie Attie, Ken Aptekar, Glen Brown. I find amazing inspirations in listening to basically everything, both from old and new Arabic and American music. Recently I’ve been fascinated with the attitude of classic and oriental jazz. Also what keeps me challenged and inspired is my community of fellow artists at SMFA, which I just graduated from with the MFA degree.
<<<Meet The Artists Part 2
<<<Return to Part 1
| Greg Lamarche |
Greg Lamarche is still largely inspired by the dynamism of his native New York City. After spending more than 25 years as a graffiti writer he’s turned his attention to collage art that is meticulously crafted from found objects and usually closely resembles the same curvatures, line work, and bold colors that hint to his obsessions with typography and graffiti.
| Gupi Ranganathan |
There’s something about cell structures and patterns as they transform and evolve, that not only fascinate engineer turned artist, Gupi Ranganathan, that shines through in her paintings and prints. With a background in engineering and management, Ranganathan moved to the US where she decided to study art. While pursuing her BA from Simmons College and MFA from MassArt, her work has continued to live at the intersection of art and science. The themes that she tends to investigate represent processes that are present beyond the world of science, although they may have the same, or similar, or different interpretations in different fields. She works with an open mind and allows her series’ of paintings when I start on a series to evolve organically out her prior works without being categorized as particularly artistic or scientific.
Q: You come from a science background, but have since been focused on your art. How does the artistic process compare to that of scientific research or science in general?
A: In the artistic process, I usually start by reading and researching the area of interest. I do not have a set hypothesis. I have learned over the years that the process I use in my studio is very similar to the process that scientists use. When I am interested in a particular theme or topic, I set up a series of art experiments that I set up similar to what one might find in a laboratory. The only difference that I have found between the artistic process and scientific research is that there is no need for conclusive evidence in the artistic endeavor. In both fields, the creative leaps that the artist or scientist has during the process distinguishes good work from great work.
Q: Tell me a little about the pieces you will be showing at Trifecta Year One.
A: I will be showing artworks from the Emergence series at Trifecta Year One. In Emergence, I concentrated on the dynamic nature of the changes that constantly evolve and inform who we are as a species. In this series, I collage torn samples from silkscreen prints from layered drawings of linear connections. I put together multiple pieces and interconnect them through mark making (using acrylic pens) as by applying one or two simple pieces of logic to discover the complex systems, processes and / or patterns that emerge in each large artwork.
Q: What intrigues you about cell structures and patterns as they transform and evolve, that they are the focus of your paintings and prints?
A: I believe that my body is the source of all my memory. It remembers what I am, where I come from, where I am now, and where I am going. It carries encoded packets of information at the cellular and sub-microscopic level that continuously track its evolution from a unicellular microorganism to its current stage as a human being. It constantly processes these memories to generate new information that will be encoded as knowledge and passed on to the next generation. By continuously creating, preserving, changing and recombining the different elements in my artworks, I explore how changes at the microcosmic level lead us to visually and spiritually reflect on the macrocosm.
Q: What’s currently inspiring you?
A:I love exploring all styles of music from classical to rock to pop to rap. I have always enjoyed listening to Indian classical music – both Carnatic and Hindustani – the development of a raga, as a concert progresses is fascinating. Also people who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and try new things inspire me.
Q: If you weren’t making art, what would you be doing?
A: Running a business that involves a creative pursuit.
Q: You come from a science background, but have since been focused on your art. How does the artistic process compare to that of scientific research or science in general?
A: In the artistic process, I usually start by reading and researching the area of interest. I do not have a set hypothesis. I have learned over the years that the process I use in my studio is very similar to the process that scientists use. When I am interested in a particular theme or topic, I set up a series of art experiments that I set up similar to what one might find in a laboratory. The only difference that I have found between the artistic process and scientific research is that there is no need for conclusive evidence in the artistic endeavor. In both fields, the creative leaps that the artist or scientist has during the process distinguishes good work from great work.
Q: Tell me a little about the pieces you will be showing at Trifecta Year One.
A: I will be showing artworks from the Emergence series at Trifecta Year One. In Emergence, I concentrated on the dynamic nature of the changes that constantly evolve and inform who we are as a species. In this series, I collage torn samples from silkscreen prints from layered drawings of linear connections. I put together multiple pieces and interconnect them through mark making (using acrylic pens) as by applying one or two simple pieces of logic to discover the complex systems, processes and / or patterns that emerge in each large artwork.
Q: What intrigues you about cell structures and patterns as they transform and evolve, that they are the focus of your paintings and prints?
A: I believe that my body is the source of all my memory. It remembers what I am, where I come from, where I am now, and where I am going. It carries encoded packets of information at the cellular and sub-microscopic level that continuously track its evolution from a unicellular microorganism to its current stage as a human being. It constantly processes these memories to generate new information that will be encoded as knowledge and passed on to the next generation. By continuously creating, preserving, changing and recombining the different elements in my artworks, I explore how changes at the microcosmic level lead us to visually and spiritually reflect on the macrocosm.
Q: What’s currently inspiring you?
A:I love exploring all styles of music from classical to rock to pop to rap. I have always enjoyed listening to Indian classical music – both Carnatic and Hindustani – the development of a raga, as a concert progresses is fascinating. Also people who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and try new things inspire me.
Q: If you weren’t making art, what would you be doing?
A: Running a business that involves a creative pursuit.