Ian Markell

Dreaming up something special for @galerie_half 📚 launching tomorrow in LA… @noua_unu

When I founded Noua Unu Studio (@noua_unu ) in 2017, I had no idea that it could become what it has today. I sought out to scratch an itch for making images that would exist within a broader context and a wider reach than the art world was seeming to offer in that moment — one hand in my sculpture studio and the other making photographs in the fashion space. Almost 9 years later and I’m so proud of this work, collaborating with some of my childhood heroes and ending up in places I truly never could have imagined in my wildest dreams. Today I’m having a sentimental pinch-me moment as my first cover for Vogue is released. When I was 13, my dad trusted me his Pentax camera from the 70s and taught me to take pictures with it…flash forward to present day, just a few days just before I turn 34 and I’m humbled to look at this body of work from my studio (who’s name means ‘studio 91’ in Romanian) with pride, knowing it was made with the support of so many people I adore—new friends, lifelong friends, artists, creative collaborators, stylish strangers and family. I’m celebrating my friendships and close connections to so many people all over the world today— we have way too much fun together. Just wanted to say thank you to anyone who has supported me and made me feel at home — sickeningly earnest but I wanted to share this moment with all my friends in cyberspace ily <3

Extremely busy

Summer camp send-off 🏕️🫡

Pleasantly pixelated

I’m very proud to announce the opening of this exhibition tonight in collaboration with @kvadrattextiles in Copenhagen. 🇩🇰❤️ Thank you so much to Jeffrey Bernett, @kvadrattextiles , Jonathan Olivares @skeightball and congratulations to all the other artists, designers and architects involved. * * * “Born and raised in California, Ian Markell has drawn on archive images of the 1960s West Coast counterculture in combination with Kvadrat’s sustainable textiles to produce a series of large-scale wall-mounted textile works which, through materials and subject matter, offer an open-ended meditation on sustainability: how it is understood, historicised and marketed, and how it has been perceived in the past. Markell sees a congruence between his interest in photographic imagery, which he retrieves from archives and applies in a creative context, and Kvadrat’s approach in recycling wool in order to create something new that honours its past. The overlap between Kvadrat’s production method and his own practice influenced his choice to use archive images of the so-called ‘hippie’ subculture, a movement whose sociopolitical ideals helped seed an environmental consciousness that took root in the 1970s. Referencing the patchwork quilts and crafts of the 1960s counterculture, the collages bring together materials from disparate sources, with images printed onto Kvadrat fabric, whose pronounced texture put Markell in mind of newsprint. Through an intuitive approach, he has worked on the images and textiles to build multi-textured wall-based artworks. Aluminium pipes sourced from a metal recycling centre were cut down to differing sizes to create wind chimes that hang from the bottom of each work. The manufacturer’s text on the aluminium was deliberately retained to keep a record of its industrial provenance, akin to the recycled nature of the textiles used.”

👂🏼 🔊

📡

📝😉

The art of being y.o.u, ya know?

🐝

🦶