In his recent exhibition ‘Boolean Values’, Jonathon Zawada reflects on the legacy of George Boole (the creator of Boolean Algebra) and his impact on today’s digital experiences. The resulting imagery is at first an exercise in intricate and precise illustration, but like all erudite bodies of work possesses a deeper relevance and critique on our immediate world. There is something elegant about this collection of works and a quietness that contrasts many of his more recognized pieces. Coherent, well-measured, but not without humour, ‘Boolean Values’ appears indicative of an artist whose output and input seem perfectly balanced and his Desktop-Desktop alludes to how imagination and environment can fold wonderfully in on each other.

‘Boolean Values’ opens Thursday 10th April 6.00-9.00pm at the Lee Gallery, 491 Chapel St, South Yarra. Until April 30.

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PHOTOGRAPHY — Olivia Hemus

JAMES DOBSON, better known as JIMMY D, is a fashion designer based in Auckland, New Zealand. High in concept, though perhaps darker than most, his labels aesthetic is in line with a Kiwi design tradition of intelligence, sophistication and restraint. His tastefully deconstructed garments reveal an attention to detail and a desire to create an effortless wearability. JEFF BURCH caught up with JAMES in the very little time he has between his day job, and the production behemoth that is his label.

JEFF BURCH — How long have you been designing under the moniker Jimmy D?
JIMMY D — Since the end of 2004, I liked the idea that Jimmy D was a slightly different persona that I could step in and out of, and the idea of designing under James Dobson felt all a little serious and pretentious…

JEFF BURCH — You studied photography formally didn’t you? What made you trade in the medium format camera for a sewing machine and what designers inspired you to start the label?
JIMMY D — It was a gradual transition, I remember when I was in high school I started reading magazines like Pavement and The Face, and seeing fashion photographed in a way I’d never seen before – it wasn’t super slick, or glossy and having up grown up in suburban Upper Hutt, it was an approach to fashion that I could relate to.

I started taking up photography and thought fashion photography was what I wanted to do professionally. After doing a degree in it I quickly realised that the commercial reality of photography wasn’t really for me, and that I was becoming more interested in the clothes that I was photographing rather than taking light readings, and directing a model… I had always been sketching down ideas for clothes, but it wasn’t until I returned to New Zealand after a year in London that I felt that the ideas were strong enough to make a reality.

Initially I was inspired by the fearless originality of designers such as Martin Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Boudicca and Maria Chen.

JEFF BURCH — Seasonal concepts are something that most designers employ quite explicitly. What has motivated you to change to one overall concept?
JIMMY D — I’ve always believed in evolution over revolution, in saying that there is always some kind of conceptual springboard that dictates the direction of the range, but I think aesthetically all the ranges hang together. I’m not interested in bouncing from one disparate inspiration to another – I like that a customer connects with the Jimmy D look, and adds to her collection every season.

JEFF BURCH — Your thoughtful, classic and dark aesthetic is something that is synonymous with New Zealand designers and comparable to the Belgian’s. In your opinion what draws Kiwi creatives to these ideas?
JIMMY D — There have been books written on that very topic! Personally any other aesthetic just doesn’t fit. As a generalisation we’re not a culture that embraces or that is impressed by flashiness. For some reason there is a very stripped back and honest approach to design and whether this is informed by our climate, or relative isolation, who knows?!

JEFF BURCH — In the most recent collection the Jimmy D shillouette has changed quite a lot. Tell us more about this…
JIMMY D — I think because I have little formal training in fashion I’m naturally inquisitive and there’s always an air of exploration to my clothes. I’m obsessed with incorporating a lot of fabric into my designs. I love seeing movement in clothes, so I’m often experimenting with ideas of volume, and science-like notions of cloning, mirroring, and scale. In recent collections I’ve been getting trickier with ways of building volume into garments – for Winter we came up with a way of paneling pieces that was inspired by the idea of a deflated beach ball, where all the volume seems to drip to the bottom, but in an incredibly light way.

JEFF BURCH — There have been murmurings in the fashion community of a Jimmy D men’s collection too. Care to perpetuate the myth?
JIMMY D — It’s something we’ve been talking about for a while, I work with a lot of guys on the label from my PR to my creative collaborator, and we all feel a little neglected fashion wise! It’s just a matter of time, but at the moment my label is still pretty much a part-time pursuit for me, and when I do it I want it to be more than a few token tees.

JEFF BURCH — Could you tell us what other New Zealand designers we should be watching for?
JIMMY D — Designers like Cybele, and Mala Brajkovich are part of the new guard of New Zealand fashion, but there are some super-talented up-and-comers like Jaeha, Jann Wong, and Andrew Smith. I also love Deadly Ponies accessories, we have collaborated on a tentacle necklace for Winter which is pretty much permanently around my neck…

JEFF BURCH — So what is in store for the label?
JIMMY D — An ‘it’ bag, a perfume, a home range, and dressing every stick thin celebrity in Hollywood.

Berlin born and based, MAROK is well known as the Publisher and Art Director of cult-magazine Lodown. As an extension of this he has since produced Lodown Graphic Engineering Pt 1 (Die Gestalten Verlag, 1999), Schizophrenic: Lodown graphic engineering Pt. 2 (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2001), M - transforming language (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2002) and GASBOOK #16 Marok (Design Exchange, 2004). He has exhibited widely throughout Europe and from December 15 to January 11 will be exhibiting alongside Naohiro Ukawa and Namaiki in Kamon at Via Alley in Sydney. He has also recently produced the first in a series of conceptual releases by Unagi Books called Traphic.

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Photos by Thomas Jeppe

Illustrator, musician, cosmic outsider, Will Sweeney is showing his artwork from the new Architecture in Helsinki album and singles in his new show “Subterraneans” at The Narrows from this Friday the 30th of November. For a concise overview of his career to date, check roughly a third of the way down the page here. For a scintillating interview with Will himself, illustriously punctuated with images, see below.

Thomas Jeppe: You have a show coming up at The Narrows. What’s it about?

Will Sweeney: I’ve been working with the local band Architecture in Helsinki (AIH) since the beginning of this year, and I’ve done their most recent LP cover, and artwork for two of their singles as well, and basically they invited me out here, because it’s been quite a good collaboration, it’s been quite a creative process. Quite different from the usual sort of music process of doing someone’s record cover.

TJ: So did they actually invite you to do the show?

WS: Yeah well the manager kind of came up with the idea, Bernadette, she contacted me and had the notions of doing something, and the guy who runs the narrows is a good friend of Cameron, the front man of AIH, and it kind of came together simultaneously with different people being interested in doing it. And I’ve wanted to come here for ages. I’d heard so much about it from Ben (Sansbury), Lizzie (Finn), Ferg (Purcell), all those people. And obviously, because of Misha and Shauna (P.A.M.).

TJ: Are you going to be showing stuff other than the work for the album?

WS: It’s focussing mainly on the AIH stuff, it’s quite a modest show really. It comes off the back of a show I just finished in Tokyo, which I’ve been working towards for most of the year. That was quite a big event. The timing wasn’t perfect to come here, but we decided to go ahead anyway. It’s good for AIH because they start an Australian tour this week, so it makes sense in terms of promotion. But it was a bit of a push really to do this show. I don’t want to say it’s compromised, because I don’t think it is. I think it’s quite nice for the people who are into the band to see the process behind the artwork. But it’s not something that represents everything I do. I don’t want to say it’s the best thing I’ve ever done in exhibitions.

TJ: So you consider it as a show with a specific purpose, rather than a solo show…

WS: Yeah, it’s not really saying ‘this is my world, step inside…’ This show is more specifically about the creative process of working with Cameron from AIH and those other boys.

TJ: Did you work with them closely on the visuals for it?

WS: We talked all the way through it, (Cameron)’s a really interesting guy, he went to art school, I think he specialised in photography, and I think he has a really big hand in everything they do, visually.

TJ: Some of their clips have been incredible.

WS: Yeah, some of them are really good. I’m really wary these days of working with bands and musicians because I’ve had lots of horrible experiences of working through record companies and management. It just gets really convoluted, it’s really common that you take this job on, you think it’s going to be great, and then everybody has an opinion. It’s like too many cooks. It’s really difficult. When AIH first approached me, I was a bit ‘hmmm’, because the manager Bernadette is a friend of a guy at my agency, and I didn’t know how it was going to pan out at all, and there wasn’t that much money floating around for it, and I thought ‘hmm, not that keen to be honest’. They didn’t grab me as a band. Then they sent me the new stuff, and I started speaking to Cameron, and this guy seemed pretty cool actually. He’s really keen in a genuine way. A lot of the time, you get a manager in a band approach you and say ‘oh yeah, we’re touting you as one of the illustrators, you’ve made it we’d like you to do the artwork, we love your work’, this kind of thing, and then you do something for the test and you never hear back from them. It’s not very sincere. That’s quite common. But with Cameron it was really direct and he genuinely was into my stuff and knew it, and it was like ‘oh wow, this is amazing, someone’s actually bothering to do this’.

TJ: That’s a pretty different sort of approach, but still they’re not independent, they’re under a bigger label right?

WS: They’ve got weird deals all over the world, but they’re big in America, and I think they have one deal going on in Australia, one deal going on elsewhere…

TJ: So it means they’ve got creative control.

WS: Yeah. They seem to have pretty cool people working for them, and they’re genuinely nice people, and they do it for the right reasons, they’re not ‘yeah let’s make it big’ or whatever, they don’t give a shit.

TJ: Well it’s brilliant they got you on board.

WS: It’s good it panned out like that. The only drawback is that they’re touring all the time; communication is quite slow sometimes.

TJ: I guess they give you the freedom to do what you like…

WS: I was allowed to do what I like, Cameron never set any boundaries for this, apart from… I can’t remember… ‘Don’t make it too science fiction’ or something like that. It was a good meeting of music and visuals. I think it works well. It pushed my stuff in another direction which I didn’t expect it to go in. It wasn’t like me saying ‘right I’ve got this look for you guys, I know exactly what you need…’ You know, I learnt a lot from it.

TJ: So you didn’t know exactly what they needed.

WS: No, not at all.

TJ: I guess you couldn’t. I haven’t heard the whole new album, but I’ve heard a few bits of it…

WS: It’s a bizarre album,

TJ: The aesthetic that could do it… I don’t know, I guess your style makes sense for it, in a way.

WS: I think so. I mean it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, the album, but I like it. For an album to make pictures from, it’s great. There’s loads of weird textual things, it seems like colourful music, if that makes sense.

Image from “Subterraneans” flyer, downloadable from The Narrows.

The exhibition is open until the 15th of December 2007 AD.

Chuck Anderson has more than made a name for himself as a unique colourist who is as prolific as he is talented. Using a mix of design, photography and illustration, his trademark style of stellar-light flashes and glimpses of imaginary galaxies has been copied to the point of trend. Despite being a form of flattery, style appropriation doesn’t always place its creator in in the most beneficial light yet Chuck remains a leader in a field of young designers somehow managing to balance his personal work with an interesting mix of paying projects. Although the world of big name clients are inclined to use his design eye for Gen-Y marketing purposes, Chuck’s evolution over the years shows that there is a permanence to his work that goes beyond mere trend-aesthetics. Constantly elevating, sideswiping and one upping, his designs continue to reveal the strength of his ideas as well as his inherent need to create and present unique artistic solutions across multiple forms.

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