Hey everyone. Happy Lunar New Year. I wish you good luck and hope lots of fortune befalls upon you this coming year. It is the year of the ox and hopefully a lucky year for those of you born on the year of the ox. In what is normally a time for celebration, instead I hope that we can all reflect and take a breather for our physical and mental state in whatever situation we are in. It isn't clear for how long COVID is here to stay, much less the uneven distribution of vaccines and the rise of all these new virus strains. So with all that in mind, 新年快乐 and 恭喜发财!

On today's episode, I am chatting with Lyndon Barrois Jr., an artist who breaks down and re-configures the language of print, design, and popular culture in order to investigate underlying ideology, ethics, and conceptions of identity. Lyndon got a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design from Washington University in St. Louis. I was put in contact with Lyndon through a series of coincidences, starting with an acquaintance of an acquaintance from my undergrad breakdance group who mentioned that his sister and her partner, Addoley and Lyndon, were artists. This was mentioned years ago but I didn't reach out to either one until last year, at which point I realized that Lyndon was just hired at my graduate program as an Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. I remembered seeing the announcement but I didn't connect the dots until after we started chatting. There were a few other overlaps Lyndon and I had with each other and I was happy to learn more about Lyndon's work, along with Lyndon's pizza making skills, his thoughts on taking time off before grad school, and some of the difficulties he encountered while living the art residency life. I plan to talk with Addoley in the near future as well, so keep an eye out for that episode. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this.

Links Mentioned:

• Lyndon's Website
• Lyndon's Instagram
• Young Aspirations | Young Artists
• Jana Napoli
• Amiri Baraka
• Mathias Poledna: Imitation of Life
• Imitation of Life (1959 film)
• My interview with Didier William
• Leslie Smith III

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