Kundalina with Sat Jivan Jamila

Fall in New Mexico is glorious. It begins with an Indian summer, but not the lingering kind; it’s a gentle, even progression into cooler weather, when the scent of burning leaves fills the air.

During the warmer part of fall, just before the trees began to color, Brett Adamek shot me in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains during a Kundalini Yoga-inspired meditation. If you are unfamiliar with Kundalini, you can learn more about it here. It is one of the most interesting types of yoga I have tried.

Despite the prickly cactus and evening gnats, this was the perfect location for channeling and raising one’s kundalini energy. The setting sun of Albuquerque has the spiritual quality of a Raphael painting. Its penetrating rays spiraling down to earth are god’s fingers, if such a thing exists.

Artist: Jaybo

Jaybo (1968) is a runaway, setting out and wandering along in a physical as well as in a creative sense. In his youth, he ran away from his house in southern France, settling in Berlin-Kreuzberg at the beginning of the 1980’s. When he founded the streetwear label “Irie Daily” and the cultural magazine “Style” at the beginning of the 1990’s, his influence on Berlin’s youth culture and fashion scene could be clearly seen. Even today, urban subculture is the driving force behind his artistic activities.

Nailing down Jaybo’s works to a specific artistic genre seems nearly impossible in the face of the creative impulsiveness and eager experimentation that provide the key to understanding the allure of his works, works which meaningfully negotiate between the genres of pop art, graffiti and street art and which also unselfconsciously contain implicit elements of Dadaism and Surrealism. – Eclecticism? Jaybo is too one-of-a-kind not to be Jaybo – the artist is constantly in the picture!

WS: jayboisms.com

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Artist: Ben Slow

I paint what I sees – in the urban environment, in the media and in the people of the city that I love.  Working from my London studio, I find an exciting dynamic in the contradictory relationship between the glamorous pop images and the raw, unrefined urban context in which such icons are celebrated.  The point of my work is to reduce the silhouette to its most elegant and minimal, while simultaneously embellishing its energy, depth and texture.  The process is as symbolic as it is aesthetic.

I have never stopped expanding my methods and technique, often using found materials as my canvas and defining with whatever materials I come across.  Anything can be used for some sort of mark making if you have the imagination, and the effects of such improvisation are what makes my work so distinctive.  Texture is a vital part of my work and the expressive portraits are richly detailed through a deceptively intricate process of layering and colouring.  This is particularly noticeable in the large scale works such as those at the Royal Albert Hall or in the various street pieces.  The larger the piece, the more room there is for his expressive techniques to run free.

WS: slowben.com

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Photographer: Brett Adamek

Images below all from a body of work under the guidance of Miksang photography.

Miksang, at its most basic level, is concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up—nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see—straight shooting.

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