A journey through the subconscious
Welcome to the fifth issue of VAINE, the international magazine for emerging artists and writers.
Issue 05 explores the topic of dreams - the surreal but also everyday phenomenon which has long since fascinated humanity, and inspired incredible works of art.
What do dreams mean? Where do they come from? What, if anything, should we do about them?
These are just some of the fundamental questions explored in this issue, which features fiction and poetry on lucid dreaming, the metaphysics of dreams, fantasy, fears, nightmares and much more, including features articles on their role in psychotherapy, and a look inside London artist Stephen Wright’s ‘House of Dreams’.
For the first time, we also include a brand new editorial photography section, which we hope can become a long-standing feature. As ever, we have an international array of art, from wax pastels to digital illustrations, which help shed light on the words, and create a striking offering.
Take a journey with us through the subconscious, into the mysterious and surreal realm of dreams.
I've had the pleasure of reading an advance of a story (Lucid by Sergey Gusev) from VAINE’s new Dreams issue.
It's obvious that they know exactly what they want in order to give you something strong and deep that will leave you feeling different. [...]
A strong voice that directly talks to you and forces you to stop for a moment is what VAINE is all about.
Alex Maresma Fernández
Meet The Contributors
Amanda Roth
Amanda Roth (she/her) is an emerging poet whose work explores motherhood, ancestry, nature, and belonging. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Wild Roof Journal, Sunday Mornings at the River, and Rag Mag Revival. Her full-length poetry collection, A Mother’s Hunger, was released in 2021. After nearly two decades in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Central Texas with her husband and two sons.
April Bradford
April Bradford (she/her) is a Meanjin-based Creative Writing graduate from the University of Queensland. She currently works as an intern editor at Hunter Publishing and aspires towards a career in publishing queer voices. Her writing has been featured in the Toronto zine Sapphic and Brisbane’s Blue Bottle Journal. April spends her spare time reading, writing poetry and showering her dog with kisses.
Caitlan Docherty
Caitlan lives in Illinois—she has a prairie view from her 4th floor apartment where she spends too much time binge-watching The Real Housewives franchise on Hulu. She’s got a knack for making great vodka or gin-based mixed drinks. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Sunday Mornings at the River Winter 2021 Anthology and Free Verse Revolution Issue IV.
Lydia Evans
Lydia Evans is a Welsh Witch, Tarot Reader and Creative. They view Tarot as a form of poetry that weaves personal narratives towards insight and clarity.
Their holistic approach lifts the subconscious to the fore, peeling back the layers of the self.
Their inspiration comes from dreams, astral visions and folklore. Art is an extension of Lydia’s magical practice, aiding them on their own healing journey.
Nicola Dellard-Lyle
Nicola writes poetry and prose on the wilds of motherhood and conscious living. Her honest words shed light on her and her family’s experiences, reflect the challenges she faces and often open up to impactful realisations. Nicola lives in Bristol, UK where she and her family enjoy leaning into the nature and its cycles.
Georgette Smith
Georgette Smith is an illustrator and artist based in the UK. She uses wax pastels and oil pastels to create colourful scenes and settings as well as give a textured effect.
French Kate
Based in the suburbs of Paris, French Kate is a Franco-British illustrator.
Constantly inspired by people, dance and music, she enjoys mixing traditional and digital tools to create figurative art pieces.
She likes to think her more intricate projects will one day contribute to changing the world for the better and inspire others. That is why she aspires to be an editorial illustrator sometime in the future. However, because of her curious personality, she has also grown to enjoy photography, sculpture and stained glass.
Bauti Botto
Bautista (He/Him) is a moving-image artist who dissects the intersectionality between his queerness, latinx transcultural migranthood, and online coming of age. Residing within this crowded junction, a signature over-saturation entangles each of his projects. He was born in Venezuela to Argentinian parents, but has since lived in Austria, Italy, the US, and now London. This collision of cultures and languages is what led him to the digital, exploring identity as something that can exist beyond a geography or “home base”. He credits digital culture for his ‘coming of age’, too, as gay online spaces are where he learnt of his queer identity. From feature films to memes, his work bulldozes along the fine line between a colorful playfulness and gruesome seriousness - culminating into a fever dream of sorts.
Andra Smileanschi
Andra Smileanschi is a 22-year-old Romanian artist currently residing in Oxford. Her art speaks about her own experiences as a person that never stays in the same space for too long. She paints, draws, does digital art and writes poems. In her visual art she enjoys making unexpected colour combinations and in poetry focuses on snippets of life seen through the lens of emotions and persistent nostalgia.
Laetitia Lesieure Desbrière Batista
Léti is a French and Dominican poet and writer currently based in London. After degrees in Human Rights and English, and experience in diplomacy and teaching, Léti is completing a Creative Writing course, while discovering as much as possible about the world of books. When not working, Léti cooks, sings, collages, embroiders and paints.
Sergey Gusev
Born in a provincial town in Russia in 1999, Sergey Gusev is currently studying at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow and trying to make it as a writer.
Laura Roklicer
Laura Roklicer is a UK based published poet, award-winning screenwriter, lyricist, and short story writer with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Creative Film, Psychology, and Philosophy. Her writing has been described as “Waiting for Godot meets David Lynch” by editor Donna Scott, who included her short story ‘The Loophole’ in an upcoming sci-fi anthology, while her academic work has been published on renowned philosopher, Lisa Bortolotti’s blog. She owns a start-up and draws inspiration from her time at the European Space Agency and recording for BBC, among others.
Federica Colletti
Federica Colletti is a digital artist from Rome and graduate in Psychology.
Her artworks are surreal collages created by free associations, born of a multitude of thoughts left free to circulate and poured into a unique representation. There are recurring themes (such as time, illusion, hope, subjectivity and change) but she likes the observer to be able to decide what they mean for themselves. She has participated in six exhibitions and won two contests, collaborated with a publishing house, art magazine and artists. Other projects are in the pipeline.
“The road is long but hopefully bright.”
Nora Gazzar
Nora Gazzar was born in Cairo, Egypt, worked in London, moved to Dubai, and is currently hopping between London and Dubai.
Despite having majored in political science at University, she doesn’t like identifying herself as a self-taught designer. She genuinely believes that art is accessible, free, and all around us. Her style is constantly developing; she enjoys observing her surroundings, injecting humour and playfulness in everyday situations, and above all, using bold colours along the way.
Herlinde Demaerel
Herlinde is a Belgian illustrator and designer. She draws inspiration from her daily life, which consists of attempting vegetarian cooking, balcony-gardening, amateur craft beer tasting, sipping from espressos diluted with too much water according to Italian standards, flip-flop hiking and living on a Greek island. Her work balances between what may and what may not be. It pitches between subtle expressions and sometimes a little bit of fun. Herlinde uses a wide variety of techniques, often combining a manual and digital process.
Pia Nicotra
Born in 1986 in Argentina, Pia Nicotra lives and works in Florence, Italy.
She studied fashion design at Universidad Empresarial Siglo21 (Argentina), graduating in 2011 with a final project about wearable sculptures. She also worked in the fashion industry in Argentina and in Italy for 12 years. In 2018 she started her studies in visual arts at Accademia d’Arte Ad’A (Florence), completing her education with a Master’s course (2019/2020).
Connecting with her inner consciousness is what drives her to create. Her artistic practice is an expression of a spiritual journey, and reflects her interests in Tarot, Kabbalah, meditation, metaphysics and cosmological theories.
Victoria Sendra
Vicoria Sendra is a photographer born in Alicante. It was while studying Journalism that she first discovered her passion for photography and visual art. On finishing her degree she took on a Masters in Photography at the UPV Valencia, which helped her solidify her technical and artistic knowledge. She currently works as a fashion and product photographer in Alicante.
Andra Smalenic
Andra Smalenic is an illustrator based in Cornwall – her work is heavily inspired by the bizarre and surreal, the intersection between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Her illustrations are often auto-biographical and represent an extension of her psyche. She enjoys incorporating mythology, folklore, magic and the mundane in her creative process. Her other hobby is reading, which unintentionally fuels back into her visual work.
Hanna Rose Bergman
Hanna Rose is from Germany. Being creative, whether through art, fashion or music, is what she lives for. In addition to painting and drawing, she plays numerous instruments, sings, and writes her own songs. Hanna also loves to explore the world in a variety of ways. Be it with the help of long road trips, with a sailboat or with fantasy and dreams.
“You should never underestimate the power of your own imagination, because it can make things happen that you never expected”.
Susanne Lansman
Susanne Lansman is a practice based PhD student at Royal Holloway researching how trauma is enacted in poetry and is a trained adult psychoanalyst working in private practice in London. Her poetry has appeared in The Rialto, The Interpreters House, The Bedford Square Review and is forthcoming in Poetry Salzburg Review. Her work was long-listed for the Juritz Prize in 2019 and her pamphlet was long-listed for the 2018/2019 Rialto Pamphlet Competition. She is currently working on a full length series of poetry exploring the experience and digestion of trans-generational trauma. Her writing process also involves creating mixed media paintings that grapple with loss, guilt and reparation.
Patrycja Frey
Patrycja Frey is a freelance illustrator from Berlin, Germany. For her fine art prints, she uses freehand sketches that she processes digitally. With her black and white illustrations she creates artprints that indicate major socio-political problems: the ruthless treatment of nature and the still unsatisfactory situation of women. Therefore, she depicts strong women who live out suppressed and unspoken feelings. They convey a healing message and encourage people to overcome their fears.