Everything Is Connected

On this episode I'm joined by Dominic chambers.  Dominic and I have known each other for a couple of years now and I’ve watched his practice grow so much in that time. It's been a minute since we sat down and talked about his work and practice, so it was great to catch up with him and learn all about the work in his latest show at Lehmann Maupin gallery, and some of the things that have been inspiring him lately.

Born in St. Louis Missouri, Chambers currently lives and works in New Haven CT. Chambers received his MFA from Yale in 2019. Chambers creates vibrant paintings that simultaneously engage art historical models, such as color-field painting and gestural abstraction, and contemporary concerns around race, identity, and the necessity for leisure and reflection. Interested in how art can function as a mode for understanding, recontextualizing, or renegotiating one’s relationship to the world, the artist sees painting as a critical and intellectual endeavor, as much as an aesthetic one.

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On this episode I'm joined by Reginald Sylvester. Reginald has his first solo show open right now at Roberts projects in Los Angeles when we sit down to talk about his work and art practice.  Reginald Sylvester II works predominantly in abstraction, making large-scale paintings and sculptures which often include found objects. His show, at Roberts Projects, T-1000, features new and interconnected sculptures and paintings. In his latest series he transcends the traditional canvas, discovering novel methods of creative process through experimentation with and investigation into physical, industrial, and spiritual engagements with rubber, steel, and aluminum. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Bethany Collins. Her first solo show is on view at  Alexander Gray Associates  when we sit down to talk about her latest works and the ideas and concepts that ground her practice. Bethany Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptual practice examines the relationship between race and language. Centering language—its biases, contradictions, and ability to simultaneously forge connections and foster violence—her works illuminate America’s past and offer insight into the development of racial and national identities. Drawing on a wide variety of documents, ranging from nineteenth-century musical scores to US Department of Justice reports, she erases, obscures, excerpts, and rewrites portions of text to bring to the fore issues revolving around race, power, and histories of violence.

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On this episode I'm joined by Sanford Biggers. Sanford Biggers was born in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in New York City, where he has for decades. Over the course of his career, Biggers has won numerous awards and exhibited in countless museums and exhibitions. His work is currently held in some of the world's most important artistic institutions from the Museum of Modern Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

We're right in the middle of fall in New York City, when some of the most important shows of the year are presented. Fall art shows are easily some of the best you'll see all year in New York. At the time of this recording, Sanford has concurrent shows that have recently been on display in New York and Chicago with Marianne Boesky and Monique Meloche. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Calida Rawles. Calida Rawles merges hyper-realistic paintings with poetic abstraction. Rawles opened her first major solo show in New York City where we hosted an artist talk this past weekend. In A Certain Oblivion, the title of her latest show, Rawles presents 10 paintings that reflect on the overturning of Roe v Wade, and what Calida calls ‘a dark time’ in society. Where there is darkness there is also light. In this vein, Rawles views the challenges we face today as an opportunity to dream of a new and different future. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Deborah Roberts. She’s on the eve of her first show in New York City in over five years at Stephen Friedman gallery opening, "What about us?" at their newest space in Tribeca. It's an important moment for her as an artist and for the New York art scene. Deborah is showcasing some of her biggest works to date and playing with composition and scale in ways that are new to her practice. During the conversation we talk about some of the layers and the deeper context behind her work,  ideas that are integral to the way that she thinks about and experiences the world, and why she believes that her work and the perspective she's illustrating is important necessary and timely for people to see.  

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On this episode I'm joined by Alteronce Gumby. Alteronce Gumby is an artist and local of New York City. His artistic practice includes painting, ceramics, installation and performance. Gumby’s work has been exhibited at galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, Gladstone Gallery and Camden Arts Centre. Gumby graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Painting and Printmaking in 2016.  Using shards of tempered glass, gemstones, resins, and other unconventional materials, Alteronce Gumby creates luminous paintings that operate at the intersection of abstraction and representation. 

In his work, Gumby employs color as both material and metaphor, deftly harnessing its subtle effects and rich tonal relationships while also exploring color’s capacity to create and convey meaning. His prismatic fields add new perspectives to the history of abstract painting by proposing deliberate connections between color, society and the universe. Alteronce conducts extensive research on his materials, examining their historical uses, kinetic abilities and ocular qualities. Once coalesced, these materials form unpredictable surfaces, alluding to the greater forces at play in the universe.

Let’s dive into my latest episode with Alteronce Gumby. It’s filled with lots of lots as we talk all things, traveling, hip hop and doing what we do so kids who look just like us are inspired to realize their creative ambitions. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Lisa Kim. Kim is the director of the Ford Foundation Gallery, an exhibition space within the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. A former Gagosian Gallery staffer, Kim’s previous post before joining the Ford Foundation Gallery was as director of cultural affairs at Two Trees Management Company, a real estate development firm in Brooklyn, where she oversaw the company's arts philanthropy, public art initiatives, produced the annual DUMBO Arts Festival (2011-2014).

Let’s dive into my latest episode with Lisa Kim where we’ll learn more about her passions, why she believes art is important, and what she loves about collaboration.

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On this episode I'm joined by Raelis Vasquez. A native of the Dominican Republic, Vasquez moved to the United States in 2002 when he was seven. He graduated with his BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Columbia University in 2021. It was around this time that I was first introduced to his work and I was immediately drawn to his figures.  Vasquez draws on historical, political and personal narratives through depictions of daily life. His painterly compositions evoke the complexities of Afro-Latinx experiences. Through attentiveness to the people and places he portrays and through his gestural brushwork, contrasts of warm and cool hues, and the use of texture, the figures in Raelis Vasquez' work often appear to simultaneously inhabit a space of ease and vulnerability, encouraging viewers to consider their own positions on class, race and geography. He's on the eve of opening his first solo show with PM/ AM Gallery in London and his first solo in over two years when we sit down to talk about his work and practice. 

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On this episode I'm joined by Tariku Shiferaw.  Tariku Shiferaw is known for his practice of mark-making that explores the metaphysical ideas of painting and societal structures. This formal language of geometric abstraction is executed through densely layering material to create “marks,” gestures that interrogate space-making and reference the hierarchy of systems. 

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