artist and writer of the week…

my favorite kind of artwork is the provacative kind; the one that provokes an emotion out of the viewer, whether it is disgust or awe. Erwin Olaf‘s work does both at the same time. He is an exceptional photographer whose work can be considered controversial and thought-invoking, statements about society or people intrinsically.

Olaf works in Amsterdam in an altered church hall (scandalous!). He mixes photojournalism with artsy photography. He “explores issues of gender, sensuality, humor, despair, and grace in each sucessive series.” All of his work is symbolic and he often does wonderful nudes.


this polish author, Joseph Conrad, who learned the language English when he was twenty-one, is one of the most prolific writers of his generation. Most of his literature are involving the sea or being on board. His style is modern romantic, and my favorite book of his is Heart of Darkness.

His homelife was very interesting. His family was very poor and his father was exiled to a small city north of Moscow for organizing an uprising. Conrad was an orphan by the age of eleven.