Wishtank
Lichiban: a borderless beauty of portraits
by: Garrett Heaney
A few months ago we began communicating with the folks over at the Boston-based arts project Simply Outstanding. Steve Osemwenkhae, the founder of that Site, recommended that we contact an artist by the name of Lichiban. Osemwenkhae is a trustworthy-sounding name, so we followed his advice and could not have been more pleased with the gold at the end of the rainbow. We talked with Licsi (aka L1), about her experience with borders, her humanitarian work and the beauty she finds within human beings. Conversations like this remind us why we started Wishtank, so please, enjoy Lichiban’s words and portraits with a smile.
Wishtank: In Steve Osemwenkhae’s article at Simply Outstanding, he calls attention to your “fascination with borders, limits and ambiguous dividing lines.” What do borders represent to you?
Licsi: Hmmm, that’s a great question. Borders represent so many symbolic meanings as well as life experiences for me. I spent my early childhood in a town in Hungary, which was on the Hungarian-Romanian border. Our street was the last one in town (essentially forming the town border), and there was an animal cemetery at the end of the street. On the way to school, I would think about the meanings of the many borders I was surrounded by… borders were to me artificial lines that divided people speaking different languages, civilization from nature, or life from death. I began to like the idea that I was living on the border, or margin, because I felt it was a much more raw and open-ended space, a place of in-betweens and of unclear divisions. Think about it, borders divide and connect, demarcate and unify. Living on the border makes you think hard about your place in relation to the ‘other side.’
The most important ‘border’ is what you draw around yourself to distinguish yourself from others: the boundaries of your identity. Most people can’t deal with having an open-ended identity; they feel like they have to belong to strictly defined identities (religion, race, age, subculture, sexual orientation, etc.) to feel comfortable in the world. I like to blur my own boundaries and challenge people’s expectation of me. Sure I’m a female, was born in Central Europe, and spent most of my adult life in the US, but what does that tell about the deeper me. I travel a lot and I find myself able to connect with villagers in Morocco, goat farmers in Eastern Turkey, spiritual healers in Kashmir, or bboys in NYC. I’m more interested in where I overlap with people than what differentiates me from them.
For me, the margin or the border has the potential to be the most creative space because of the ambiguities and the raw open-endedness inherent in it, and because one can find inner freedom there more easily. On the margin, you can create your own rules instead of going along with those established by the common denominator. I’m a rebel at heart, so of course I’m drawn to the marginal. I should add that I’m not trying to romanticize the margin… I’m well aware that it is also a much harder place to be in, and so many creative people lose track of their dream, incapable of realizing their talent because of the limitations of living on the margins — such as poverty and lack of access to resources (if you come from a poor background, you’re most likely discouraged from being an artist).
When you are oriented towards the center (center of power, the mainstream, the establishment, the rules), you don’t have as much freedom to realize yourself and there is a real danger that you lose your compassion for those far from the center. I think the most remarkable works of art, literature or music have always come from the life experiences of the marginalized, from those who were forced or chose to live on the margin, let it be societal or spiritual margins. Life on the fringe is the life of the disenfranchised, the underdog, the outcast, the revolutionary, the trickster, the spiritual seeker who has given up wordly gains…or it can be that of the artist. The struggle to survive, to maintain your dignity when you’ve been oppressed or abused by those in the position of power I think can bring out the most mind-blowing, soul-clenching human expressions of art. In that sense, I think art (I mean all forms of art: music, film, painting, poetry, comedy, etc.) is a path to healing the wounds of being human.
Love, sex, music, intimate conversations, my spiritual search, and painting portraits are among the things I cherish the most, because they blur the line between the ‘me’ and the ‘you’ most effectively. You see, it all comes together.
Wishtank: Since moving here from Budapest a little over a decade ago, how has the American experience affected you as an artist?
Licsi: I love living in the US. As a country, I think it is the most unique and fascinating human experiment. People continue to come to the US to make a better living or to realize their dreams and in the process they have to give up some of their cultural identities and adjust to the larger American identity. Having been to a lot of other countries, I think the American identity is the most flexible and accommodating to ‘resident aliens’ like myself (haha… quite a hilarious term). I tend to get uncomfortable in places that are too homogenized, where I can only see the same kind of people, which is why I also like to live in large US cities. Like most Americans I know, I don’t agree with current US politics, but then I take a look at my old country or other countries I’ve visited, and I see a lot of corruption, lies, and human rights abuses there too… so at the end of the day, what is important to me is the people I interact with on a daily basis. I have been given the most incredible opportunities in this country, for which I’m really thankful. I love the fact that I can have the most diverse group of friends from all different backgrounds and that I get to be exposed to their world all the time...which of course filters into my work in one way or another. Cities like New York City or Los Angeles are still the most exiting centers of creativity, and the most open to new emerging talents. To be around that kind of high-voltage creative energy and to see people with a “do-it-yourself” attitude succeed is incredibly inspiring to me as an artist. Americans can be crazy. I mean good crazy. I like crazy.
Wishtank: What does beauty mean to you?
Licsi: There are many types and shades of beauty… I am most interested in human beauty, though I definitely find myself taken aback by the beauty I find in nature or in animals… but it is easy to love them because they don’t challenge you internally. For me, people are more interesting because we are self-aware creatures who can do amazing things, but we often do shitty things instead to mess up what is beautiful about us… we love, make friends, have sex, we write stories to entertain, incite others to be violent, save others while willing to sacrifice our own life, or abuse and kill our own kind… of course, the negative aspects of being human is what makes it more challenging to prefer people to nature (which I do nonetheless and which is why I live in a city and not in some isolated rural place). I love the complexity that comes with each individual. Our life experiences shape our facial expressions in subtle ways, and as a painter, I am really interested in the story behind the face, in what the outer beauty tells me about the person’s inner life.
I like the soulful kind of beauty that is a trademark of a person who has a lot of fire within. I think beauty is not only in the features, but also in the amalgam of people’s life experiences filtering through their facial expressions. I often find myself compelled to draw someone whose life story touches me in some way (often it is just an intuition that I have by looking at the face). Beauty is the fire in the eyes of a man who has suffered and was able to transform his pain into love. Or in the expression of someone who feels free… or loved… or wants to be desired… or is desiring someone… or is revealing her inner world… or in the moment when a sad face breaks into a smile.
People construct ideals of beauty and make a lot of efforts to be around them. Look at how much we love to be around images of charismatic or iconic figures…we surround ourselves with images of actors, models, singers, or religious figures and we are willing to pay more for a product because we see them associated with someone we find attractive. I would be willing to take the risk and go as far as saying that human beings’ need for aesthetic pleasure is comparable to our need for sexual satisfaction (though it is less obvious, I think that is also why we love art). I certainly experience the act of looking at someone beautiful as something intensely pleasing. Something that makes you exited and happy that a person can look like that, whether it’s a 7-year old child or a hot 34-year old, or a sage-like old man. At least that is how I go about my days. Maybe if I were a car engineer, I would get exited about auto parts like this.
Wishtank: You’ve got quality taste in hip hop — I am finding that to be more and more of a distinction among people of our generation. Have the worlds of music and visual art ever converged for you?
Licsi: Oh yeah, most definitely. I got my obsession with music from my dad, who was a big fan of Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Bowie, and we used to record whole albums from the radio together back in the early 80s. I always listen to music when I paint and a lot of my inspirations actually come from the particular record I’m listening to. I have drawn a number of singers’ portraits (like Sarah White, Tina of 1Headed Dog, my friend Kira) because musicians are really compelling to me. Like in visual art, to produce real music you’ve gotta be willing to expose your soul and to make yourself vulnerable to being dissed, but once you free yourself internally, you can create the dopest music that has the power to change people’s lives. That is real inspiration right there. I listen to a lot of underground hip-hop and have plans to do more hip-hop related illustrations (can’t say more now, but it’s going to be funny). I would love to design record covers…you know, it would make me feel like I was part of the music in a way.
Wishtank: How did you get involved with human rights organizations? What is the most important lesson you’ve learned working in refugee camps and with The Cordelia Foundation in Hungary?
Licsi: I volunteered during the summer of 2004 at refugee camps in Hungary, and in 2005 I got an Amnesty International grant to do volunteer work for the Cordelia Foundation (Hungary), an organization that offers psychiatric and psychosocial care to torture survivors and other serious trauma victims of organized violence living in refugee camps. Doing this kind of work will change you forever. It is very inspiring when you see people who are stripped of everything — their homeland, their family, and their dignity — stranded in a country where they don’t speak the language, and yet, they are STILL willing to get up in the morning and believe that if they just try harder, they will be able to rebuild their lives. It puts things in perspective, and you realize how much of your life, your relative freedom and safety you take for granted daily. I think it was working in the refugee camps and listening to people’s life stories that made me realize how important it is to tell people’s stories and give a voice to those who have been forced into silence. I think I do it with my portraits, while others do it with photography, film, music, poetry, or story telling. One of the most important lessons I learned in the camps is that helping even one person to heal and rebuild his life is an incredible achievement and that people shouldn’t get discouraged by the failure of grandiose plans to save the world or remain cynical about social action because the “world is doomed”… that is an armchair philosophical attitude I have little respect for. Having studied world history for years, I believe that the world hasn’t changed much, in fact… human beings have displayed incredible extremes of cruelty and selflessness, in all parts of the world, in the past too. What is different now is that we have found more ways to extend our lives (and in turn overpopulate the planet) and proportionately more ways to exterminate ourselves. When you help even one person, you might save a whole future generation of people. To initiate real changes in the world, you have to give up the lofty talk and get down to business instead.
Wishtank: Can you tell us a little about your recent Girls Dream in Color project?
Licsi: My current project is curating an all-girl underground art show called GIRLS DREAM IN COLOR with a fellow artist friend, Claudia. For our featured artists, we chose Lady Pink, the legendary female graf writer from the movie Wild Style, and Donna Ferrato, award-winning photographer who is best known for her documentation of domestic abuse. We will have some of today’s hottest female artists’ work showcased as well. It hopes to be a traveling exhibition having Boston and New York as its first stops. The show is going to be a fundraiser for two different causes: I chose Project Joy, a non-profit organization that uses play to heal children whose lives have been deeply impacted by trauma, while Claudia would like to support ovarian cancer research. I will have a blog up soon, so make sure to check back on my myspace page for more info.
Wishtank: Any final words for our readers?
Licsi: There is a whole world out there, y’all… never stop questioning your own limitations and the limits others set for you. Love is liberating. The revolution begins within.
p.s. love you Wishtank!
• Keep up with Lichiban on all her addies:
http://www.lichiban.net
http://www.lichiban.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/lichiban
All materials published on wishtank.org are under the shared copyright protection of Wishtank magazine and the original authors, photographers and artists who created them. For contractual reprint or copy permission, contact Garrett Heaney at editor@wishtank.org. Wishtank likes to share, but looks out for our contributors. ©2007 and beyond