Everything Is Connected

On this episode I'm joined by Jeffrey Meris, the New York-based artist whose paintings, sculptures, and conceptual work draw on his lived experiences.  

Meris was recently announced as one of this years winners of the prestigious and highly coveted Studio Museum of Harlem residency which has seen the likes of heavy hitters such as Chakaia Booker, David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Mickalene Thomas and Kehinde Wiley partake in its program. 

Formally Jeffrey Meris is an artist who works across sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing to consider ecology, embodiment and various lived experiences while healing deeply personal and historical wounds. 

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On this episode I was joined by Larry Ossei-Mensah and this time he interviewed me! 

Sitting on the other side of the table was definitely a change of pace for me, but Larry asked all the right questions. 

We  reflected on Ghana and our experiences  as cultural workers and thought leaders within our industry. Larry's insightful questions helped me to open up and share some of the personal things that I experienced  while I was in Ghana.

Let's dive into the first episode of season 3 where I sit down with Larry Ossei Mensah and we chat about our experiences in Ghana, the launch of Amoako Boafo’s artist  residency program, and the ways in which being in Africa and spending time on the continent transforms our perspective of our work and our place in the world.

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This year, to start off 2023, we're back with season 3 of Light Work presents: Everything is connected, a podcast where we talk to artists, thought leaders and creatives across industries, mainly within the arts, about life, work and culture. 

This season we are taking a more global approach as we share episodes recorded in Ghana throughout the year. As always, our conversations are intended to inspire and impact our audiences in positive ways. Uncovering insights into the minds of our peers, professional colleagues, and the people around us whose work intends to foster positive change in our society. 

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On this episode we're joined by Bony Ramirez 

Bony Ramierz is a self taught artist who retains a connection to his Dominican heritage through his art, incorporating elements of the Caribbean with his own distinctive details. He left the island when he was a child and migrated to the US. Through painting and drawing, Ramirez creates life-sized paper figures onto painted wood panels. His subjects are bold yet strange, often appearing mysteriously oversized with contorted limbs. Ramírez paints his distorted figures on paper using acrylic wash, colored pencils, and oil pastels before cutting them out and pasting them to wood panels decorated with backgrounds painted in acrylics. 

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On this episode we're joined by Terrell Villiers. 

Terrell is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, community organizer, curator, and producer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Recognized internationally for his cartoon illustrations, where he explores the nuance of identity, through the intersectionality of black homosexuality, and black queerness / transness. Through the myriad of unaddressed traumas he experienced growing up visibly queer in a conservative Caribbean household, he creates a series of characters and fantasy worlds as a form of survival to transport himself to imaginary spaces unbound to any rule or order.

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On this episode we're joined by Chela Mitchell. 

Chela provides art advisory to private, public, and new collectors looking to navigate the contemporary art market. With a deep understanding of the art market, CMA helps clients build fine art collections. Founded in 2018, CMA's strength is building cultural and medium-diverse art collections. We work closely with our clients to understand their needs while focusing on the best way to execute their goals. In addition to advisory, we provide art direction for projects that seek to establish a fresh, creative perspective.

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On this episode were joined by Nate Lewis. Nate is a visual artist, most well known for his layered works on paper where he explores history, time and movement through the body. He engage in practice that incorporates photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. 

Lewis’s work is in the public collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Blanton Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Grinnell College Museum of Art, and 21c Museum Hotels,Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Cardiff, United Kingdom, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, International African-American Museum, Charleston, SC, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA , and more. 

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 Cierra Britton is a curator and art dealer living and working in New York City. As the director of the Cierra Britton Gallery, her mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work across all mediums. 

Founded in 2021, the Cierra Britton Gallery is the first NYC-based gallery dedicated to representing BIPOC womxn artists whose work contributes to the contemporary cultural dialogue across the globe. The gallery’s mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work inclusive of all mediums such as painting, photography, drawing, and performance. Starting as a nomadic and online gallery, our programming has focused on a diverse roster of artists making work that is rooted in storytelling, exploration, and cultural commentary.

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On this episode we're joined by Marcus Leslie Singleton. The Brooklyn based painter depicts intimate moments of Black life. He has exhibited his work at galleries and art fairs in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Singleton reflects on the process of identity building and questions around Black consciousness. 

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On this episode we're joined by Lauren Pearce. 

Lauren Pearce is a black artist who pulls inspiration from her community, creating powerful mixed media art, bringing textures in her portraits, and iconic shapes and colors to her captivating murals. Her passion for expressing her identity led her to art School. At the age of 24, she began her professional career as an artist. Using an array of materials in her work, she transfers her world into her paintings and allows her imagination to bring forth the colorful language of Identity, race, and womanhood, beyond a canvas. 

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