Kristen Sinclair

On synesthesia, Jean-Michel Basquiat and working with SOAK... exclusively in Jack's words. Who are you and what do you do? My name is Jack Coulter. I am an abstract expressionist artist from Belfast, born in 1994. Why do you do what you do? Where do you draw inspiration for your work? Growing up as a child, I was heavily exposed to abstract art. My aunt Christine was my greatest influence - she was an abstract printmaker. My mum had her prints exhibited in every room of my house - they are breathtaking compositions. I was in awe of her work - I could 'hear' her paintings. Later in life, I became aware that I was born with synesthesia. To have her embrace my artwork from an early age was vital; young minds are brittle - disbelief can arise from just one individual's opinion. Whilst living in Germany, she once had dinner with Georg Baselitz - he was lucky to have met her. She always believed in me, even when no one else did. She sadly passed away the day befor...

The man himself (Source: Rolling Stone) When writing about Hayao Miyazaki and his films, you could really overuse the words ‘cute’ and ‘weird'.  Hayao Miyazaki may just be the cutest old man ever. And his films are just as cute! From the outright adorable (My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo) to the downright bizarre (Spirited Away, Porco Rosso), one of Japan’s most famous directors has smashed box office records whilst producing some of the sweetest and weirdest shit you’ll ever watch. With Studio Ghibli he’s created tens of films from the mid-eighties right up until last year, and of Miyazaki’s movies, here are seven of his best, in my humble opinion: Spirited Away (2001) Source: thedissolve.com Spirited Away happens to be my favourite film of all time. I’ve watched it countless times since I was little and my undying love of this wonderfully far-fetched tale still remains. Translated from the Japanese ‘Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi’, it's something like the Ja...

This article originally featured on the now-defunct altmusicbox in 2015. Anthems like ‘We Are Family’ are usually synonymous with drunk uncles at family reunions and novelty songwriting as opposed to true musical hidden gems. It’s misconceptions such as this that have plagued Sister Sledge’s 1979 album in the eyes of the music-buying public and left the sisters’ 12” singles resigned to the graveyard of charity shop vinyl crates. And what an absolute shame! A perfectly crafted blend of disco, funk and R&B, commercially viable for pop radio yet with a nod to classic soul, Chic-produced We Are Family is an album that has gone on to be a central influence on the dance and even hip-hop scenes for decades after its release. Formed around the talent of four actual sisters – Debbie, Joni, Kathy and Kim Sledge – We Are Family was the group’s breakthrough record, spawning four hit singles thanks to the sprinkling of magical production courtesy of Chic masterminds and godfathers o...

Source: fatgirlscanruntoo.ca Recently I asked my Mum if she wanted to have my copy of Elle as I’d finished reading it, and she took me up on the offer. Sometime later, getting into her car, I found it dog-eared and tossed onto the back seat. Being the complete neat freak that I am, I wondered how she could possibly have chucked it away like that, letting the edges of the pages tear and the covers bend. It cost a whole four pounds after all. The now slightly warped face of Kim Kardashian pouted up at me from the glossy cover. And this wasn’t a one-off encounter with a discarded magazine; battered, years-old stacks of issues of hairdressing periodicals and stereotypical women’s weeklies adorn the coffee tables of salons, waiting rooms and even houses worldwide. It has become a regular occurrence to be faced with magazines bearing a crisis-ridden Katie Price two husbands and four boob jobs ago whilst waiting to see the dentist. The magazine is a bit of a diminishing art form, ...

"Would you like me to seduce you?" Everyone knows the iconic still of Dustin Hoffman and a wedding dress-clad Katharine Ross looking relived and slightly bewildered sitting at the back of a bus. The actors’ expressions in this scene have gone on to become synonymous with Mike Nichols’ 1967 classic The Graduate . Recent East Coast graduate Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), something of an over-achiever at college, returns to his home in the shallowness of white southern Californian suburbia, unsure of where his life is heading and surrounded by “plastics”. Following a family dinner party, Ben is seduced by his parents’ friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), spawning the classic line “Would you like me to seduce you?”. This then develops into a full-blown tremulous affair between the married and much older Mrs. Robinson and the virginal Ben. It soon becomes clear that Mrs. Robinson is in a loveless marriage and is only using Ben for sex. Coerced by his parents, ...

Listening to certain records, it’s sometimes hard to believe that they’re as old as they are. There are the obvious game changers – Sgt. Pepper’s , The Wall , Electric Ladyland , Highway 61 Revisited , Kind of Blue , I Feel Love , Nevermind , Dusty in Memphis , to name a few – but there somewhat less obvious records that have helped to shape modern music. After a lot of narrowing down, I settled with these five as my personal picks. ·          Rapper’s Delight – The Sugar Hill Gang Released in 1979, this ground-breaking hip-hop track sounds like something straight out of the nineties. Nurtured from freestyle created at a hip-hop event in the Bronx in ‘78, it has gone on to be, arguably, the first song to bring rap into the mainstream. The track features a bass line from Chic’s ‘Good Times’ and has influenced huge hits from Blondie’s hip-hop-inspired ‘Rapture’ to essentially Grandmaster Flash’s entire career. Fourteen minutes and thirty-fi...

Title: How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits Author(s): Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline De Maigret, Sophie Mas Publisher: Ebury Press (2014) ★★★★ “Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days.” This book is the bible of every wannabe-Parisienne. Four best friends and life-long inhabitants of the City of Light indulge supposedly satirical yet strangely convincing aphorisms, faux pas, colloquialisms, tips on etiquette, style, sex, home décor, recipes and how to spend idyllic days among the boulevards of the Île-de-France. Teeming with sometimes amusingly useless advice (“Always hire the less attractive babysitter”, “Randomly exclaim, ‘This is the most wonderful day of my life!’”), you often find yourself mentally taking note of the odd nugget of uniquely Parisienne wisdom: “Never wear your glasses, especially if you’re nearsighted. That way, you won’t have to acknowledge people you know. You’ll have that aloof look…”. It...