Everything Is Connected

On this episode I'm joined by Kenturah Davis as we discuss her latest exhibition and her first solo in the UK with Stephen Friedman gallery. Kenturah Davis is a visual artist based between Los Angeles, California  and Accra, Ghana. Her work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, she explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. Davis earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA  Yale University School of Art.

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On this episode I'm joined by LaToya M. Hobbs. LaToya M. Hobbs is an artist, wife, and mother of two from Little Rock, AR, who is currently living and working in Baltimore, MD. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African Diaspora. 

Her exhibition record includes numerous national and international venues, including the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; SCAD Museum of Art; Albright Knox Museum, and Sophia Wanamaker Galleries in San Jose, Costa Rica, among others. Her work is housed in private and public collections such as the Harvard Art Museum, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Getty Research Institute, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Other accomplishments include the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a nomination for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award and a 2022 IFPDA Artis Grant. Hobbs is also a Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, a collective whose vision is to make visible the narratives and works of Black women printmakers, past, present and future. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Jade Thacker. Jade Thacker received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York; Public Gallery, London; WOAW gallery, Beijing, and many more.  Thacker has participated in residencies at Fountainhead Residency, Miami and The Cabin, Los Angeles. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. 

 Thacker’s work delves into the internal conflicts and powerful emotional states that often remain veiled and hard to define. Her boldly colored figurative canvases convey the inner turmoil and subconscious tensions experienced by so many, shedding light on the complexities of human emotion. Her third solo show ‘Personal Weather’ is currently on view at Jupiter Gallery in Miami when we sit down to talk about her latest show. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Sedrick Chisom as we discuss his latest exhibition at C L E A R I N G gallery, And 108 Prayers of Evil. 

Sedrick Chisom (b. 1989, Philadelphia) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a full scholarship to study at Cooper Union, where he completed his BFA in 2016 and was awarded the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Award for Exceptional Ability. In 2018, he received his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Chisom was awarded the 2018–2019 VCU Fountainhead Fellowship in Painting and Drawing at the Macedonia Institute and was a 2019 resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

At the center of Sedrick Chisom’s practice is a commitment to confounding racial origin myths and pseudosciences toward creating apocalyptic fantasies in writing and painting. Appropriating imagery from Black Lives Matter demonstrations, medieval Christian iconography, and Greek mythology, Chisom questions who has the power to construct natural and social worlds, upending the authority of those worlds in the process. Chisom appoints himself a new mythmaker, one whose motivation is fundamentally pro-Black and who is committed to the acceleration of new imaginative possibilities. - Pilar Corrias gallery 

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On this episode I'm joined by, Adrienne Elise Tarver.  Adrienne Elise Tarver is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Her work addresses the complexity and invisibility of Black female identity including the history within domestic spaces, the fantasy of the tropical seductress, and the archetype of the all-knowing spiritual matriarch. Adrienne is a week away from opening her latest solo show and her fourth with Dinner gallery when we sit down to talk about her work and practice. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Mario Joyce. Mario Joyce is a self-taught African American artist based in Los Angeles. His process began early and was heavily influenced by prejudices experienced growing up Black and Queer in rural Ohio. He uses genealogical research, soil from the Ohio he grew up on, carefully sourced vintage collage materials and oil paint to explore how American History is steeped in selective storytelling that neglects to share the experiences of marginalized communities. Mario is a 2023 alum of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, has recently completed the Pratt>FORWARD residency at New Lab in Brooklyn Navy Yard, in New York City. Joyce's latest show at UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles closed a few weeks prior when we sit down to talk about his work and practice. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Maria Elena Ortiz. Maria comes to the Modern from the Pérez Art Museum in Miami (PAMM), where she curated discerning exhibitions such as Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection and The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Caribbean Art. At PAMM and with support of the Mellon Foundation, Ortiz founded and spearheaded the Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI)—a curatorial platform dedicated to Caribbean art. During her tenure in Miami, Ortiz worked to diversify the museum’s collection, securing works by Simone Leigh, Bisa Butler, Bony Ramirez, and others.

María joined the Modern in 2022. Her first exhibition with the museum, Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940 is on view now until July 28, 2024. The show inspired by the history of Surrealism in the Caribbean with connections to notions of the Afrosurreal in the United States. Representing a global perspective, this exhibition is the first intergenerational show dedicated to Caribbean and African diasporic art presented at the Modern. Listen in as we talk about her latest show, what inspires her work, and what she’s most passionate about. 

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On this episode, I'm joined by Mario Moore. Mario Moore is a Detroit native, who received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI in 2009 and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2013. I met Mario late last fall in Detroit when I attended the DIA Gala and spent a weekend in the city, checking out the art scene and meeting some of the city's key players. Moore’s paintings focus on the personal, social, and political implications of our segregated society.  Presenting stories of his own life and those of friends and family, Moore weaves in multiple references to history, art, politics, and literature to complete his narrative. Listen in as we talk about some of the things that make Detroit such a unique city. The changes he's seen take place over the years, his time at Yale, and his love for painting.

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Late last year, as I was ending my season, the news of Radcliffe Bailey's passing was announced and sent shockwaves throughout the art world among his friends, family, peers. 

At the time, I was planning on recording an episode with Karen Comer Lowe, a long time arts professional and curator based in Atlanta. As Karen began to share with me her introduction into the art world, she mentioned the importance of Radcliffe's presence in her life and their friendship. This immediately prompted me to not only want to hear Karen reflect back and share some of the stories and memories that she had of Radcliffe, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk to more people about his life and the incredible impact that he left on the people that he touched over the course of his lifetime.

In this episode, you'll hear testimonials from friends, colleagues, and those who considered Radcliffe family including Joeanna Bellorado-Samuels, Franklin Sirmans, Sheila Pree Bright, Trevor  Schoonmaker, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Karen Comer Lowe, Isolde Brielmaier, and Larry Ossei-Mensah. So many are mourning his loss and this is an opportunity to celebrate his life and legacy. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Essence Harden. Essence Harden is the Visual Arts curator at CAAM,  the California African American Museum.  She' s one of two curators of the Made in L.A. biennial taking place next year in 2025. 

This year, Essence was named the curator of Focus at Frieze LA.  For this year's focus, Essence explores the intimate, environmental, and urban dimensions of ecologies. Across all  Frieze Fairs, Focus is a space dedicated to galleries founded within the last 12 years. So there's lots of emerging galleries and artists to discover. Just last week, the Hammer Museum named Essence one of two curators of the 7th edition of the Made in LA Biennial. to be held in the fall of 2025. When I catch up with Essence, she's fresh off a call with friend and artist Lauren Halsey. 

On this episode, we chat about Lauren Halsey, the importance of place and geographies, and her curation of Focus at Frieze LA opening next week.

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