<div>Photography — Greg Adamski Stylist — Natsumi Ogasawara Makeup — Ryoko Ushio Hair — Asahi Sano &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
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City Waves

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<div>Your work often feels like a bridge between dreams and digital dimensions. How do you approach creating a visual world that feels so alive and cinematic? Everything I do is born out of intuition. I do my best to create the best conditions for me to disconnect my ego and intellect enough to bring forward what wants and needs to come through. You explore the intersection of artistry, creativity, and emerging technology. How do you find balance between intuition and innovation?Sometimes I think it’s important to take the time to learn the technology and tools well enough to make sure they don’t get in the way for what needs to comes through. Other times it is about seeing opportunities in the technology, using it in new ways or combining things that haven’t been combined before. That said, when creating with new technology, I still lead with the same voice as if I was drawing or writing a song. However, my canvas for digital work is wider, with more nodes and multiple dimensions. 
Many of your visuals evoke emotion through light, color, and texture — almost like scenes from an unseen film. What role does storytelling play in your creative process? I think it feels like that because I work through feeling. I don’t necessarily know the story before I start the work. I start with the feeling or atmosphere, and work my way into it through that door. Sometimes I have a scene in my mind, but not the full story. I enjoy discovering the full story as I go. When presenting the work I think storytelling is crucial. It needs to have rhythm and elements of surprise. 
Do you see AI as a collaborator or as a tool in your artistic evolution? In my visual work I approach AI as utility. Obviously, it works differently than traditional software like photoshop or illustrator, but it is just another tool for me to visualize my inner world. If something I create with AI does not correspond my inner world or feeling, there is no connection, and I move on. Instead of knowing specific features or step-by-step pathways of attaining a certain outcome, as one would do with Photoshop for instance, AI is more about understanding how to communicate -in words, parameters and images. I feel I have a fairly good understanding of how to efficiently communicate with the AI to reach my destinations. Obviously, there is an element of discovery in using a tool like, for instance, Midjourney, but it is the same in Photoshop where you are adjusting the values more directly with your mouse or keyboard to arrive at the result you desire. Different paths, but we are in essence doing the same thing (in my opinion). I also think it is interesting that Midjourney is evolving and adding features on request that provide more ‘control’ for the user. I personally want to harness the powers of AI in my visual work while staying true to my own voice, which I believe I have been able to do, and even more effectively with more control.
The concept of “Creative Clarity” appears often in your work, what does it mean to you personally? It goes back to the concept of Know(ing) Thyself. It is the root of all creative integrity. Every act of creation mirrors the consciousness that made it. When you don’t know yourself, your work tends to echo others or seek external validation. When you know yourself and your inner world (your desires, fears, ego and illusions), you have clarity, and your work carries coherence and truth. It becomes a natural extension of your inner state. 
What inspires your visual language are there filmmakers, painters, or musicians who shape your imagination? It’s a mishmash of everything I have connected with through my wide-eyed life. I am inspired by stories, moments, atmospheres, presence, dreams, magic and mysteries. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of art that I love and that has inspired me, but to single out any one artist or piece would be misleading. I consume a lot of music and visual work. In your opinion, what makes an image truly cinematic? The atmosphere. It is what makes us feel the image rather than understanding it. 
How has your relationship with art changed through mentoring and guiding others in their creative journeys? It has definitely solidified my own approach to work, discipline and self care. It has also softened me to the external world and other people’s work. Being a human being connecting with other human beings around the world that share many similar human struggles has been a gift and provided a new lens for me to view other people’s art. 
If your art were a film, what would be its central message or feeling? It would blur the lines between dreams and reality and show that your human experience is nothing but a result of your own perception, and that by awakening your imagination you can be the co-creator of your own reality. Not by escaping, but by being fully present and aware, inside and out. It would also show the importance of beauty, love for one another, and perhaps most importantly: hope. 
What’s next for you any upcoming projects that continue to explore this dialogue between creativity and consciousness? Right now I am trying to get my installation HEKA out on the road to spaces around Europe. Then I am working on an installation with Italian artist Alessandro Ramundo for Milan Design Week in April. In addition I am working with Inner Vision to develop physical and virtual experiences that help regulate the nervous system. Besides this my studio and I are in the planning phase of several installations and art experiences that blend art and science. 
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Everything I do is born out of intuition. I do my best to create the best conditions for me to disconnect my ego and intellect enough to bring forward what wants and needs to come through. 

Marius Troy

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<div>Owen Gent is a British artist and illustrator known for his expressive, narrative-driven imagery. Blending traditional painting with contemporary illustration, his work explores emotion, symbolism, and storytelling and has been featured across international editorial, publishing, and cultural projects. Your work feels like stills from a dream what makes an image cinematic to you? I try and create paintings that feel like a stolen moment from a much larger story or sequence, rather than an arranged tableau of people and objects. I suppose to me a cinematic image is one that feels like we're being given a single, secret moment of a whole that we'll never fully see but can completely feel. Do you think in stories or in moods when you paint? If I'm working on illustrating an article or a book where the story already exists, I'm very much thinking in terms of that persons story or the authors underlying point or intention. In my personal work however I really relish trying to avoid narrative completely, at the start at least, in this instance I'm almost always trying to find that rare, reflective moment where beauty and melancholy meet. Which filmmakers or films inspire your visual world? I always come back to Andrej Tarkovsky's films, especially Stalker, The Mirror and The Sacrifice - his sense of space, symbolism and empathy are just stunning and it's rare to find a director with such an uncompromising vision. How do light and silence shape your work? Light and space are crucial to my work as they give my paintings shape, a sense of place and therefore solidity. I use the word 'space' instead of 'silence' because I suppose that's the visual equivalent right? It's another thing that Tarkovsky does so beautifully, he let's open space and time do the talking rather than filling every moment. What emotion do you chase most in your art? I'm not sure if this is an emotion but a sense of weightlessness and of being suspended is something I really enjoy creating in my work - safe but falling. With commissioned work I suppose empathy is what I want people to find, the aim is always to make the viewer feel what the subject - and there's almost always a figure or a being of some sort is feeling. Where do your stories begin memory, love, or imagination? Most pieces that are completely my own start with some fragment of memory and I guess a memory is treasured because of love. There's something uncomfortable in the word imagination, it suggests that everything is dreamt up suddenly and then transcribed to paper, the process feels more like feeling your way in the dark - you add a line or a shape and if it feels wrong you step back and keep trying until that mark feels right and you can move to the next one. How do you translate a feeling into color? Subconsciously, at least that's the hope and it isn't always possible when working with clients. If a feeling is honest then the colours already in you somewhere, you just have to feel it out. What does “cinema” mean to you beyond the screen? Something expansive, epic and consuming. If your art had a soundtrack, what would it sound like? I hope it's a beautiful, endless and ever changing ambient drone of voices and strings, though I suppose that's up to whoever is experiencing it. What story do you want people to feel in this issue? I'm not sure if that's up to me to say, though I always hope that my work makes someone feel or remember a feeling they've already had or forgotten - one of the beautiful things about art is it's ability to summon nostalgia. 
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Owen Gent is a British artist and illustrator known for his expressive, narrative-driven imagery. 

 Owen Gent

Displace No.2 Owen Gent Large

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Photographer: Amer Mohamad Stylist/Art Director: Sleiman Dayaa Glam: Madina Mado Hair: Mariyam Osmanova Model Valerie Santos 
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Jacket: Dior

Total look: Tom Brown

Total look: Fendi

Total look: Loewe

Total look: Blaneciaga

Dress: Loewe

Bag: Valentino

Earrings: Saint Laurent

total look: Celine

Total look: Louis vuitton

My heart's confusion - Amer Mohamad