Deep Color

Lamar Peterson makes paintings and drawings that prioritize people relaxing and gardening in bucolic outdoor settings. Lamar talks about inheriting his father’s oil painting set, cartoons and coloring books as important early artistic inputs, Mr. T and Black masculinity, gardens as safe and utopic spaces, using a collection of image references and family photos to create the proxy figures in his work, appreciating the humor in everyday moments, the resilience and support within the Minneapolis arts community, watching films while he paints, helping students see the possibilities within art, and engaging with nature as a means of self-care.

View Lamar’s work HERE

Tanya Marcuse makes photographs that capture the imperiled natural world—images like craggy trees changing through the seasons, luscious and rotted fruit covered in a winter frost, or an animal spine draped through misty woods. Tanya talks about her artistic trajectory circling back to her childhood, how her photography leans into the realm of painting, foraging through nature for content, Dante’s Inferno as an important conceptual muse, learning through technical failure, curiosity and looking outward, transformation and metamorphosis, showing work and object specificity, looking for euphoria in her practice, and the thrill and risk of being an artist.

View Tanya’s work HERE

Buy her new book VOL. MCCCXXI ‘Deer’ published by Roman Nvmerals  HERE

View the accompanying film ‘Deer’‍ ‍HERE

Madeline Donahue makes illustrative drawings, paintings, ceramics, and editioned prints that often depict the female body through different periods of physical and biological change, like pregnancy and aging alongside scenes of motherhood, and the overlapping dynamics of being a parent, caregiver, and an artist.

Madeline talks about formative childhood bike rides, mothers as being invisible to culture, written lists and titles as starting points for her work, drawing with paint, the gifts within a complicated life, making a drawing as similar to writing a joke, Death as a super-hot boyfriend, desire as a concept to play with, and the complexity of living in her own body.

View Madeline’s work HERE

Please consider donating to the Fund for NYC Public Schools

Timothy Hull makes drawings and paintings that combine antiquities and artifacts like vases, Greek and Roman figurative sculpture, ancient architecture, and fragments of broken pottery—with contemporary imagery like Swatch watch faces, pop design, and geometric shapes. Tim talks about being kicked out of art classes, being an artist as a holistic outlook, collapsing time as a conceptual device, the balance between form and concept, careerism and artistic authenticity, the exhaustion of adjunct teaching, producing “post-market” exhibitions, co-hosting a new arts-focused podcast called Unstretched with Deep Color alumni Gina Beavers, and relationships, community, and love within life as markers of success.

View Tim’s work HERE

Catherine Haggarty is an educator and artist that makes paintings and drawings that often feature wood grains, objects that look like toys or seashells, and mysterious tableaus of folded paper, tiles, and gestural linework. She is the co-founder of the NYC Crit Club and founder of The Canopy Program—both of which are low-cost educational programs that offer community, connection, and critique to working artists. Catherine talks about sharing ideas through her studio practice and teaching, multiple intelligences and her father’s secret drawings, free throw shots and being a celebrated basketball player, drawing as manual thinking, her painting language as mimicking who she is as a person, the liberation of letting go, and a complex life as a lived life.

View Catherine’s work HERE

Apply to The Canopy Program HERE

Christopher Robin Duncan makes sculpture, ambient sound-based work, and exposure paintings that rely on factory dyed fabrics faded by the power of the sun. Chris talks about how punk and hardcore music shaped his worldview, his belief system and visual language as equivalent, celestial cycles as a tool in his process, making rules only to break them and learning how to get out of his own way, time as a tool and gesture in his artwork, his sonic work as soundtracks to his paintings, Prince versus Bruce Springsteen, a recent collaborative project with NIAD Art Center, an allergy to exceptionalism and the rewards of being generous, and finding joy through the mystery of art.

View Chris’s work HERE

Listen to Chris’s sound-based work HERE

Please consider donating to The Middle East Children’s Alliance

Support Deep Color HERE

Deep Color (the exhibition) opened at Halsey McKay Gallery on May 24 and will be on view through June 30th, 2025. The exhibit features drawing, painting, sculpture, writing, editioned prints, and photography by over 60 Deep Color alumni artists. In this special episode, artist and HMG founder/owner, Ryan Wallace, talks with artist and Deep Color host Joseph Hart about how the show blossomed from idea to reality, the DIY nature of producing art exhibitions, the range and cohesiveness of the works on view, being surprised by a handful of artworks during installation, the unscientific curatorial process behind Deep Color, wearing shorts on airplanes, and stamina and horizon lines for Deep Color as a project.

Listeners are encouraged to check out the exhibit in-person or online, then revisit the episode archive for that extra magic and context, and as a method for learning about and connecting with the artworks on view.

“I’m incredibly appreciative of these artists for recording conversations with me for Deep Color and for being part of this exhibition. They’ve let us behind the curtain and into their studios. They’ve told us stories about the formative experiences that helped shape their artwork and outlook. They’ve offered us guidance, and different models, for how to approach and think about being an artist. Through these acts of generosity, and through their artwork, these artists are contributing to culture in a way that can fuel imagination, provide light, and soften the complicated aspects of our daily lives. This is a profound gesture that we should all salute and support.” -Joseph Hart

View the Deep Color exhibition HERE.

Support Deep Color HERE

Tony Lewis makes drawings using a range of materials and methods that are centered around mark-making and language. Tony talks about athletics, psychology, and art history as frameworks for his world view, drawing as a type of behavior, Calvin & Hobbes comics as a muse, how drawing exists outside of the “art world”, expanding his practice into site-specific installations, not being able to hide or cheat in drawing, cocktail bars as portraits of a place, drawing as problem solving. and kindness and self-awareness as 50% of a career.

View Tony’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Sean Sullivan makes paintings and drawings that hum and weave through abstraction, representation, and systems of visual organization. He is also the co-owner of R&F Paints—an artist owned company that manufactures handmade oil and encaustic paints for artists. Sean talks about how music and poetry served as gateways into visual art, the farmer and the fisherman as a type of ethos, using printmaking techniques in his painting and drawing process, embracing error as a form of magic in his work, wanting to be in close proximity to his family while he’s making art, and art as a potential way to make sense of a complicated world.

View Sean’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Sara Maria Salamone is a photographer and co-founder of Mrs. Gallery--a contemporary art gallery located in Maspeth, Queens. Sara talks about the gallery ‘s history and roots as a beer and dance hall, the series of professional experiences that lead to opening her own gallery, the curatorial vision that informs Mrs.’s programming, how she scouts and finds artists, expectations within the gallery/artist relationship, studio visit tips, weathering art market dips, and the massive importance of artistic community.

View Sara’s photography HERE

Check out Mrs. Gallery HERE

Support Deep Color HERE