Interviews by Brainard Carey

By Brainard CareyArts Visual Arts

Interviews by Brainard Carey episodes

June 07, 2023 Destiny Haven Trujillo
Destiny Haven Trujillo (b. 1994, New Mexico, United States) received her BFA in 2016 from the University of New Mexico. In 2022, she had a solo exhibition with Smoke the Moon in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
DIMIN is excited to present Devoraste, a neon diary of the vivid exploits of Destiny Haven Trujillo. For her first solo exhibition in New York, Trujillo embodies the manic charm of her daily life, offering a voyeuristic glimpse into the contemporary vie boheme. The title of the show, “Devoraste”, is derived from the Spanish aphorism meant to convey the concept of unabashed queer self-expression, with the literal translation “you ate that!”. For Trujillo, devoraste references the celebration of pride she conveys in her paintings –colorful bacchanals teeming with joy.
At its core, the work addresses sexual identity and fluidity. The acceptance she has found in the queer community is tantamount in importance to the artist personally as it is to her artistic concept. Approachability is one of the major goals of Trujillo’s canvases – her goal is to welcome the broadest audience possible.
Destiny Haven Trujillo Anthrax (Persistence of Time), 2023 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 36 in 101.6 x 91.4 cm
Destiny Haven Trujillo, V-Day, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 42.5 x 42.5 in, 108 x 108 cm
Destiny Haven Trujillo, Daddy’s Little Girl Ain’t A Girl No More, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in, 121.9 x 121.9 cm

24 min
June 01, 2023 Tim Brawner
Omaha-born, New York-based artist Tim Brawner produces a practice of painting that mines the space between the uncanny and the grotesque. Seeking to produce in the viewer a compelling affect of unease, Brawner utilizes the idiom of illustration to render images of alienation, through the purposeful bricolage of disparate representational elements. In each work, a persistently fine, monochromatic, painterly execution meets the artist’s formal drafting process of drawing and montage in order to achieve what Brawner terms a pathos of ‘weirdness’: a form of defamiliarization which is also a seduction, an entreat, into a strange representational space nonetheless evoking trepidation and dread. These visual chimeras undermine the spectators’ traditional binary frames of reference, eliding at once those of conservative Western Christian morality and those of liberal secular paradigms of Enlightened empathy. As the artist intones, this ‘weirding’ is “part of the drama of the work; it is an ontological struggle [of an alternative world beyond our given dichotomies] to be represented… to come into being.”
Tim Brawner (b. 1991, Omaha, Nebraska) received an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2020. Exhibitions include Zang Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; PAGE (NYC), New York; Yale University Gallery, New Haven, CT; Ashes On Ashes, New York; Yale Painting & Printmaking MFA, Galerie Perrotin; Papa Projects, Minneapolis, MN; Union Pacific, London; Unit London, London; Primary, Miami, FL. Brawner will have his first solo exhibition with Management in 2023.
Tim Brawner, The Escape III, 2023, Acrylic on canvas 36 × 36 in / 91.4 × 91.4 cm
Tim Brawner, Character Head 2, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 48 in / 152.4 × 121.9 cm
Tim Brawner, Character Head 1, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 48 in / 152.4 × 121.9 cm
22 min
June 01, 2023 Jessica Cannon
Photo by Lila Barth
Jessica Cannon (b. 1979, Brooklyn, NY) lives and works in Brooklyn.
She earned an MFA from Parsons School of Design and teaches at Parsons and CUNY Queens College. She is a recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council’s Community Arts Fund Grant and has exhibited in solo and group shows at Winston’s Los Angeles, Honey Ramka (Brooklyn, NY), Crush Curatorial (Amagansett, NY), the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, among others.
Veils, an exhibition of new paintings will be on view at the Polina Berlin Gallery in New York, NY through June 24th. Cannon’s mystic landscapes confront time with a sense of ontological awe. She employs personal and symbolic language in concert with geometric motifs to depict the horizon and the space beyond it.
Jessica Cannon Let It Be The Sky, 2023 Acrylic and iridescent pigments on linen 72 x 60 inches 182.9 x 152.4 cm Photo: Steven Probert. Courtesy the artist and Polina Berlin Gallery.
Jessica Cannon Capitan, Spinning Light, 2023 Acrylic and iridescent pigments on canvas 44 x 36 inches 111.8 x 91.4 cm Photo: Steven Probert. Courtesy the artist and Polina Berlin Gallery.
Jessica Cannon Setting Arch, 2023 Acrylic and iridescent pigments on linen 17 x 14 inches 43.2 x 35.6 cm Photo: Steven Probert. Courtesy the artist and Polina Berlin Gallery.
20 min
June 01, 2023 Deanna Havas
Deanna Havas (b. 1989 in New York, US) is an artist based in Budapest, Hungary. Havas received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Germany in 2016.
Havas’ work has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at the following venues: Tara Downs, New York, US (2023); Triest, Brooklyn, US (2022); Meow 2, Melbourne, AU (2022); Sundogs, Paris, FR (2018); Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, PT (2017); Marbriers 4, Geneva, CH (2015). Deanna Havas's work has been presented in numerous group exhibitions including Colnaghi, New York, US (2022); 1857, Oslo, NO (2017); Jan Kaps, Cologne, DE (2017); Treize, Paris, FR (2016); Schloss Schöngrabern, Ebreichsdorf, AT (2016); Villa Empain, Brussels, BE (2016); and Eli Ping Frances Perkins, New York, US (2016).
Exhibition view of Deanna Havas: Message From the Source. Tara Do'WllS, New York, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tara Downs. Photo: Farzad Owrang
Deanna Havas, Untitled, 2023. Inkjet and acrylic on canvas, 59 x 78 3/4 in/ 150 x 200 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tara Downs.
Deanna Havas, Enhanced Serenity, 2023. Inkjet and acrylic on canvas, 39 1/4 x 59 in/ 100 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tara Downs.
21 min
May 21, 2023 Zoe Pettijohn Schade
Zoe Pettijohn Schade’s densely researched, seductively beautiful drawings and paintings of varying size explore the scientific, art historical, and philosophical aspects of pattern. Her lifelong repertoire of work rests on the premise that the pursuit of form, repetition, organization, and its arrangements are as vitally important and determining as the finality of the image itself.
Pettijohn Schade studied at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, NY in 1995. In 2012-13, she traveled to France on a Fulbright U.S. Research Scholars Grant to work with a collection of 18th century textile paintings, many completed by anonymous women laborers. The title of her third solo exhibition at Kai Matsumiya Gallery, The Hard Problem, on view until June 17, refers to the question of how physical matter gives rise to consciousness. Recent exhibitions include Our Secret Fire at Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY; Less is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design, curated by Jenelle Porter, Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; and deCordova New England Biennial 2019, curated by Sarah Monstross, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA.
Zoe Pettijohn Schade Mirrored Pyramid, 2021 gouache with dyed silver leaf on paper 10½ x 10½ in. 26.67 x 26.67 cm.
Zoe Pettijohn Schade Attempts at Self-Organization 7, 2020 gouache with dyed silver leaf, oxidized silver leaf, composite leaf on paper 19 x 13¾ in. 48.26 x 34.92 cm.
Zoe Pettijohn Schade, Attempts At Self Organization 8, 2021, Gouache with dyed silver leaf, toned aluminum leaf, copper leaf, gold leaf, and palladium leaf on paper, 22¼ x 18⅛ in. 56.52 x 46.04 cm.
27 min
May 17, 2023 George Widener
George Widener’s artwork is as intellectually challenging as it is aesthetically compelling. A high-functioning savant who has channeled his extraordinary gifts of numerical computation into artmaking, Widener struggled for years before his talent was recognized. Born in Kentucky in 1962, Widener’s was not diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome until he was an adult, making an already difficult childhood even more so. Following a stint of service in the US Air Force, Widener was diagnosed with depression, and committed to several psychiatric hospitals. He eventually attended the University of Tennessee. He currently lives and works in Waynesville, NC, near Asheville.
Widener’s brain has been proven to function as a super-calculator, a gift that allows him to process mathematical information in a radically different way than most people do. By directing his impulse to calculate complex sequences of numbers through stunning, often large-scale drawings, Widener makes visible not only his savant skillset, but also his unique creative talent for reimagining it aesthetically. Far from mere illustrations of mathematical process, his drawings stage through form and content simultaneously, often playing out elaborate numerical puzzles and games, complex puns, palindromes, and informed prophecies. The artist’s love for punning is evidenced by drawings of magic squares: squares that contain 9 rows of numbers, in each row of numbers adds up to the same value.
The artist’s work can be found in many notable public and private collections, including, among others, the American Folk Art Museum (New York), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Collection de l’Art Brut (Lausanne, Switzerland), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the abcd/art brut Collection Bruno Decharme (Paris), the Museum of Everything (London), museum gugging (Klosterneuburg, Austria), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (Chicago), the High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and the Asheville Art Museum (Asheville, NC).
George Widener, Titanic, 100 years, 1912 - 2012, 2012 Paint and ink on joined paper 60 x 60 inches
George Widener, Blue Monday, c. 2002 Mixed media on paper 15.6 x 29.4 inches
George Widener, Self Portrait, 2020 Mixed media on paper 60 x 59.5 inches
George Widener, Magic Square (Revolutions), 2022 Graphite and acrylic paint on paper 33 x 40 inches
20 min
May 11, 2023 Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl
Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl is a ceramic artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has worked with a myriad of spatial themes and ornaments that frequently reoccur in his formal vocabulary, and which emerge through a methodical, gradual and experimental serial process. Notably, the knot as a shape has been a leitmotif offering possibilities for various sinuous rhythmic cadences and abstract narratives. The hand built architectonic works appear as ‘spatial drawings’–solid, twisting and turning through space. Kaldahl’s interest also lies in the potential of the object to make a direct emotional impact on the viewer. The motif is always clear in its simplicity and easily decoded while remaining open to interpretations.
Kaldahl first trained as a potter in the 1970s. In 1988, he joined the Masters program at the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated in 1990. He is a co-founder of the artist run exhibition platform, Copenhagen Ceramics (CC) launched in 2012. Kaldahl’s works are represented in several public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris.
MARTIN BODILSEN KALDAHL, Load - Spatial Drawing #89, 2023, Earthenware, hand-built, 36” H x 20.5” W x 17” D
MARTIN BODILSEN KALDAHL, Talk - Spatial Drawing #85, 2023, Earthenware, hand-built, 33.5” H x 20.5” W x 17” D
MARTIN BODILSEN KALDAHL, Walk Done - Spatial Drawing #84, 2023, Earthenware, hand-built, 34.5" H x 21" W x 21" D.
29 min
May 11, 2023 Ted Gahl
Ted Gahl creates intuitive paintings of varying scale, embedding and juxtaposing personal imagery of the present alongside art historical influences of the past. Gahl’s paintings often read as elements of subconscious activities–reveries, dreams, and memories, while being firmly grounded in the act of painting itself. He obtained his BFA from Pratt Institute in 2006 and MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2010. Recent solo exhibitions include MAMOTH, London; Harkawik, Los Angeles; Halsey McKay, East Hampton; Massif Central, Brussels; Alexander Berggruen, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Valentin, Paris; Bjorn & Gundorph, Aarhus, Denmark; S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium; Halsey McKay, East Hampton. Gahl is a 2022 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He lives and works in Northwest Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York.
Gallery Installation. Courtesy, Harkawik.
Ted Gahl, The Entertainer, 2022. Acrylic, Moroccan pigments, graphite, colored pencil on canvas in artist's frame, 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy, Harkawik.
Ted Gahl Tree With Lichen 2022 108”h x 72”w (274 x 183cm) Acrylic on unstretched canvas. Courtesy, Harkawik.
21 min
May 11, 2023 Nicolas Hatfull
Portrait of Nicholas Hatfull. Courtesy of the artist and Dracula’s Revenge, New York.
Nicholas Hatfull (born in Tokyo, Japan) is a painter who lives and works in Norwich, UK. Hatfull’s first solo exhibition in the United States, titled Shades, is on view at Dracula’s Revenge in New York through June 18. Hatfull received a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2011, and was the Sainsbury Scholar in Painting and Sculpture at the British School at Rome in 2012. Recent solo exhibitions include Josh Lilley, London (2020, 2017, 2014); The Club, Tokyo (2019); and Peles Empire, London (2012). Group exhibitions include Leave the road; take the trail at Xenia Creative Retreat, Hampshire (2022); Timelessness at The Club, Tokyo (2020); Stains On A Decade at Josh Lilley, London (2019); Folly at Emalin, Airth, Scotland (2016); D’Après Giorgio at Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, Rome (2012); and Re-generation at Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2012). His work has appeared in Financial Times, Frieze, Mousse, and Time Out, among others. Hatfull’s writing about painting has appeared in Apollo, Frieze, Mousse, and monographs such as Michael Armitage ‘You, Who Are Still Alive’ (2022).
Nicholas Hatfull Shades V, 2023 Oil, gouache and acrylic on canvas 67 x 51 1/4 inches (170 x 130 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Dracula’s Revenge, New York.
Nicholas Hatfull Shades IV, 2023 Oil, gouache and acrylic on canvas 67 x 51 1/4 inches (170 x 130 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Dracula’s Revenge, New York.
Nicholas Hatfull Shades I, 2022 Oil, gouache and acrylic on canvas 67 x 51 1/4 inches (170 x 130 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Dracula’s Revenge, New York.
22 min
May 02, 2023 Luciana Abait
Luciana Abait was born in Argentina and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Her multimedia works deal with climate change, environmental awareness and displacement issues facing immigrants.
Abait’s artworks have been shown widely in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia in solo shows in galleries, museums and international art fairs. Recent projects have been shown at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the Palm Springs Museum of Art. She has completed numerous public art commissions and installations. Her solo exhibition “On the Verge” is currently on view at the Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana.
On the Verge 7, Photograph on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper, 11 x 16 inches, 2022
Green Sky and Black Mountain Archival pigment print mounted on wood panel, 50 x 60 inches, 2021.
Agua, immersive video projection on the Petroleum Securities Building in Downtown Los Angeles, 37 h x 32 w feet, 2021.
22 min

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