Let's set the scene: It's raining as night falls in a small village town. You open a heavy set of iron doors and enter the local tavern, lured by a warm light. Inside, coils of cigar smoke hang dank in the air around flickering lightbulbs. It smells of stale beer. Sailors sit in the corners hunched around card tables, yelling in a language you don't understand. You walk over, and someone hands you one of Handiedan's artworks. "PROST!" everyone cries, and you all proceed to get smashed on home-brewed vodka.
Handiedan's mixed media works have an old-school air about them. They take us back to times that we were too young to experience, like the opium dens in London, classic glamour Hollywood, or backstage at the Moulin Rouge in the 1930s. (and if you're 80-years-old and a regular Lifelounge reader, then good on
you!)
She uses anything as her background – vintage sheet music, Chinese calligraphy paper, old doors, even clogs (she's from Holland). From there, she'll add classic pinup figures and yellowing movie posters, using some serious fine knife cutting skills to peel back certain layers of the image. The finishing touches of filigree are often done with playing cards, pen doodles, and stamps. And voila! Masterful mixed media.
More at
handiedan.com (one of the cooler interactive websites we've seen recently).