Ivar Johann Kljavin has been generating photographic based images for over 20 years, first starting with electron and light microscopic images turned into artworks and then film and digital platforms on a variety of topics including collage making.  Published work, other than scientific journals and the cover of Neuroscience, includes a work on San Francisco places to go with images as a review of the Bay Area for August Man Magazine, Singapore.  Other works have been shown in galleries in Glasgow, Prague and the UK in both photograph and collage work integrated with mixed medium.  Over the past few years I have further worked on abstract art with an emphasis on mark making, complex collage using pastel, acrylic and oils and alternative forms of digital capture to produce an unusual ground for further painting developments.

Artist statement:

A single photographic image or the same piece of art can represent a beautiful and stimulating image for some, but cause others to experience distress and quickly look away.  Art for me is a powerful tool to resolve the awesome diversity of human nature and interpretation.  With this in mind, I have over the past year initiated three projects.  1st, is collage-work, derived only from images I have taken with the camera with a specific focus on baby doll heads, mostly because the imagery appears to disturb some of the audience, while others take great effort to define what this symbolism could possibly even mean.  The series is called “Head of Baby Dolls”.  The 2nd project is based on alternative forms of digital capture.  Using a slightly modified high resolution scanner and complex lighting, the images captured are without a lens, nor aperture and thus a very shallow depth of field allows for imagery that is not able to be captured with a camera. It is with this method that I generate an unusual ground for further painting in some of my works.  3rd, I have generated works in the form of abstract painting with pastel and/or acrylic with an emphasis on mark-making as the first step in the creative workflow. These works tend to never have a true and certain ending, and such works are fascinating for me because their birth is from an obscure thought with the final outcome that surprises.

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