Interviews by Brainard Carey

Artist Portrait: “Y, a self portrait”, 2019 4 x 5 x 1” Oil and enamel on panel

Alexandra Noel (b. 1989) currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She graduated with a BA in Visual Arts from the University of San Diego in 2011 and a MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2013.

Alexandra Noel’s small-scale paintings reveal uncanny assemblages of images. She concentrates on things depicted in a manner somewhere between surreal and familiar: newborns, home objects, and suburbia landscapes. She incorporates these aspects into far-flung imagined landscapes, tragic scenarios, and reinvented cinematic moments. The little panels hint at the size difference between human bodies and electronic devices. She zooms in, crops, stretches, and rescales her little panels as if they were images on screen. The audience is invited to view them from a very intimate perspective. Meanwhile, she emphasizes the tension between being sculptural and illusionistic. As a painter, Noel establishes a linguistic parallel to the dystopic and magical themes of her works by writing fiction that resembles the tone of poetry or a movie.

Alexandra Noel lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include Four, Derosia, New York, US (forthcoming), Table, Crevecoeur, Paris, France, Funny Looking, Antenna Space, Shanghai, China, There’s always something, Derosia (Bodega), New York, US, Master Planned, Freedman Fitzpatrick, Paris, France, Just a head, Atlantis, Marseille, France, and Theatre Road, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles.

Recent group exhibitions include A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, (forthcoming) Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows, Cleveland Institute of Art, Front Triennial 2022, Cleveland, Ohio, Chambres d’Amis: Ikea, Office Baroque, Antwerp, Belgium, Particularities, curated by Chris Sharp, X Museum, Beijing China, Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Hammer Museum and The Huntington, Bolthole, with Orion Martin, Potts, Los Angeles, A Cloth Over a Birdcage, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles, Metamorphoseon, Galerie Sultana, Paris, France. Recent publications include “Thirty Stuffed Grape Leaves” and “Ricky Rides Rick” published by Apogee, Derosia and Holoholo and “Take me out, please” published by Bodega (Derosia) and saxpublishers.

“Wedgies”, 2022 2 ¾ x 4 ½ x ¾” (x2) Oil and enamel on two panels Currently on view at Front Triennial, Cleveland Institute of Art

“Skyscape Under Table”, 2022 4 x 4 ½ x 2 ¾” Oil and enamel on panel and wood Currently on view at Crevecoeur, Paris, France

Joy Episalla repositions the photographic and video/moving image into the territory of sculpture. Since the 1980s, Episalla has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, including solo exhibitions at Tibor de Nagy, NYC; Participant, Inc., NYC; International Center of Photography, NYC; and Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris. Their work has been featured in exhibitions including Greater New York, MoMA/PS1; Artists Space, NYC; ICA Philadelphia; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Centrale for Contemporary Art, Belgium. They are the recipient of a 2003 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. Episalla is a founding member of the queer art collective fierce pussy.

Joy Episalla foldtogram (daylight 2), 2018 gelatin silver object 24 x 20 x 3/4 inches

Joy Episalla foldtogram (35' 2.5" x 44, August, iteration 6) 2018-2022 silver gelatin object dimensions variable

Coyle has been working within art for over 20 years, and has been based in London since 2006.

A recipient of International Art Market’s Gold List award. ‘Top international contemporary artist of today', ‘Recommended artist to invest in and to be inspired by’, with work acquired by Dame Janet Wolfson de Botton.

Coyle’s first education in art in the 1990’s included an introduction to 1st wave New York Pop Art of the 1950’s. Her current figurative work focuses on the use of contemporary fashion magazine imagery and advertisements, to produce painterly images of a Fine Art quality. Combining primary and secondary line work with ideas in abstraction, minimalism and negative space.

Her recently completed painting series ’Linda’ and ‘Binary’ deal with embracing and disrupting formal composition. For the first time in 2020 Coyle chose to paint mixed white backgrounds in certain pieces, mixing colours is very important to each piece. This work earned an online review in 2020 from Dab Art Co. in Los Angeles and an inclusion in their current Artsy exhibition. Also, in 2021 Coyle was awarded a Distinguished Award from Canada’s ArtAscent magazine and a Finalist Award from Los Angeles’ Art Show International.

Through Coyle’s career her work has appeared within many publications including The Times (UK), London's Mayfair Times (UK), Avari art (USA), A5 (UK), Al-Tiba9 (Spain), M&Art (Sweden) and Visions Libres (Germany) to name a few. Also, on the covers of Level 25 art journal (USA), Emergo (Netherlands), Litro (UK), and Kapa magazine (Greece).

Coyle’ work was selected by Los Angeles curator Bridget Carron for her collection Power Pop on Saatchi’ online gallery in 2014. In 2018 Coyle’ painting 12.16.07 won the Artness Magazine cover competition and won her an Artist of the Year 2019; Honorable Mention Award from Circle Foundation in France. In 2019 her painting series ‘12.16’ also won her a Special Artist Award from BESTART.  In April 2020 painting Linda no.1 receive a review from Dab Art Co. Los Angeles, and in 2021 won a Finalist Award from Art Show International also in Los Angeles and a Distinguished Award from Canada’s ArtAscent Magazine.

Interviews with the artist have been published in many online and print magazines, including Art Reveal, Murze art magazine, Family Office Elite magazine and Artjobs.com

Earlier in her career in Ireland Coyle exhibited in many galleries in Ireland and exhibited for the Irish National Portrait exhibition in 2005. Coyle also exhibited for charities in the Royal Hibernian Academy and Adam’s Fine Art auctioneers. Just before moving to London Coyle had solo exhibitions in the Signal Art Centre in Co. Wicklow and the Bank of Ireland’s art centre in Dublin, and was described as ‘one of the city’s most promising new artist’ {Metro Life newspaper- January 2006}, and a ‘rising young artist’ {Irish Independent- May 2006}.

While exhibiting in London since 2006, Coyle has expanded her audience exhibiting in America where her work has been positively received. She is now represented by the Helwaser gallery on Madison Ave in New York.

This year Coyle continues her work in figurative art with her ‘Sw16’ series, based on contemporary print media images. She is also working on and abstract project, woodblock prints and after 16 years has now returned to photography, using Polaroid and 120mm camera formats.

12.16.07 Acrylic on canvas 2017 60x48inches

12.16.01 Acrylic on canvas 2018 60x48inches

Portrait by Simon Burstall

Dana Sherwood received her BFA from the University of Maine, Farmington. In 2022, Sherwood installed her first solo museum exhibition at Florence Griswold Museum, CT. Sherwood has exhibited in dOCUMENTA 13, Mass MoCA, Storm King Art Center, Nassau County Museum of Art, FluxFactory, Socrates Sculpture Park, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Marianne Boesky Gallery. Sherwood has had solo exhibitions at Denny Dimin Gallery (New York, 2016, 2019), Kepler Art Conseil (Paris, 2017), and Nagel-Draxler Reisbureau Galerie (Cologne, 2015). Her work has been featured or reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Hyperallergic, Surface, The Village Voice, Food & Wine, The Huffington Post, Art F City, and the Miami Rail. Sherwood has received several prestigious residencies including Swing Space by LMCC, Pilchuck Glass School, and OMI International Arts Center. Sherwood has further upcoming exhibitions at the Berkshire Botanical Garden and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

To learn more, here is Dana Sherwood's catalogue from her museum retrospective at the Florence Griswold Museum and a link to the museum itself.

Other Dessert Landscapes (still), 2021, digital video, courtesy of Dana Sherwood and Denny Dimin Gallery

Inside the Belly of the Reindeer, 2022, Oil on panel, courtesy of Dana Sherwood and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Pollinator Urn, 2022, Ceramic, courtesy of Dana Sherwood and Denny Dimin Gallery

The various types of images in Aschely Cone’s work are unified insofar as they all share a meditation on the idea of ground—as something that underpins or is beneath something else, something that we notice persisting in the face of, or even because of, change, something as simple as the ground we stand on, or something a bit more intangible like what grounds us metaphorically. Her current project, "The Ground Beneath the Ground", thinks about ground as earth or dirt. In these small panels the image is often situated within a low-relief, sculptural niche on the ground of the support itself. Images of the land are depicted—often images of volcanoes, or images gathered from a long-distance solo hike in Northern New Mexico. Her upcoming work will bring this meditation to the forests of Gabon, Africa.

Aschely Vaughan Cone (b. 1985, San Antonio, TX) received an MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2016), an MA in Art History from Tulane University (2014) and BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College (2007), where she studied classics, philosophy and the history of math and science. Her awards include a matching scholarship for study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the SMCM-MICA Artist House Teaching Fellowship, the Hamiltonian Fellowship and The Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship.

The book mentioned in the interview was The Peregrine by J.A. Baker.

We also discussed Gabon, learn more here with a free download.

The French Institute of Gabon was also mentioned, the likely location of her upcoming show.

The Ground Beneath the Ground (installation shot) All works 10"x8"x1" Oil on panel with hard gesso ground 2020-2022

Capulin Volcano, #6 10"x8"x1" Oil on panel with hard gesso ground, oil paint made from New Mexican dirt 2021

David Adamo is an American artist (born 1979, Rochester, New York) who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Primarily a sculptor, he engages with form and materiality, working with wood, plaster, bronze, and other materials to create installations that are both performative and formal in their arrangement.

A process of slow removal is central to Adamo’s sculpture. Objects from everyday life take on new forms, revealed by their remains: the fruit after it has been bitten, the balloon after the air has run out. The same is true of Adamo’s wood works—the eventual forms have emerged through the reduction of material.

For his fifth solo exhibition at Peter Freeman, Inc., a single unlaced shoe sits on steps leading nowhere and miniature doors set into the wall create entrances for small spaces in the installation. Adamo has peeled away the layers of 108 canes, chipping away until they are brittle and useless. The repetition of their spindly forms is offset by the pools of shavings the artist has left behind, exposing his progress in piles of negative material. A scenario is created in which the viewer feels they have just missed on out some action, trailing a sense of something unfinished…

His drawings are made ambidextrously, a practice which he relates to drumming. He describes working line by line, finding a rhythm and pace, and arriving naturally at a wave-like pattern.

David Adamo is on view at Peter Freeman, Inc., New York, through 22 July 2022.

Untitled (part V), 2020, Bic pen on paper, 88 5/8 x 74 3/4 inches (225.1 x 189.9 cm) Courtesy the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. Photography by Nicholas Knight.

Untitled (cane), 2021-2022, ashwood, rubber, ashwood chips, 36 3/4 x 4 3/4 x 1 3/8 inches (93.3 x 12.1 x 3.5 cm) Courtesy the artist and Peter Freeman, Inc. Photography by Nicholas Knight.

Agustina Woodgate (1981, Argentina) practice focuses on the politics of landscapes and infrastructures as a conceptual and public geography. She recombines, activates and repurposes available resources while setting alternative systems in motion. Woodgates' approach is speculative, practical, and site and context-responsive, presenting critical possibilities to concepts on social orders, resource management and information distribution bringing clarity, scale, and accessibility.

In 2011 she co-founded radioee.net a nomadic, translingual, online radio station. In 2015 she co-founded TVGOV, a media company providing ecological data visualization. And in 2018 she co-initiated PUB, an experimental publishing platform within Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam.

She is currently a tutor at the Disarming Design Master Program at Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam and is actively teaching workshops in several universities and organizations.

Her projects have been commissioned by BIENALSUR 2021, 2019 Whitney Biennial, 4th Istanbul Design Biennial; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; 9th Berlin Biennial; Peabody Essex Museum, MA; Bienal de las Américas, CO; ArtPort, Tel Aviv; PlayPublik, Poland; DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Washington; The Bass Museum of Art, FL; Storefront for Art and Architecture, MN and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin amongst others.

Agustina Woodgate, The Source, 2019, Miami oolite, concrete, iron, plumbing grid, water.108 x 108 x 108 in. Photo by Steven Sierra; courtesy of Art Basel and Barro, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Installation view in Collins Park, The Bass Museum, City of Miami Beach.

Agustina Woodgate, National Times, 2016-2019. Close-circuit network of clocks synchronized directly by the power grid. Photograph by Ron Amstut. Installation view of the Whitney Biennial 2019 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 17-September 22, 2019).

Brooklyn-based painter Tim Kent depicts psychotically charged interiors and unsettling dreamlike-vistas. In Kent’s painting, architecture and landscape are fused with gestural brush marks and elements of abstraction, but the picture plane is never flattened. Rather, the viewer is drawn into a deep space enhanced by Kent’s characteristic, symbolic perspectival grid lines. A reference to the Renaissance system used for constructing pictorial space, Kent’s perspectival lines evoke contemporary technological, mechanical and social systems such as electric grids, building elevation lines, internet networks, social networks, the flow of politics and information, and displays of power.

The artist’s imagery has evolved over the course of several bodies of work including A World After Its Own Image (2016) Dark Pools and Data Lakes (2018) and Enfilade (2020).  Kent describes his paintings as sometimes “stemming from a reaction to an event or moment from my life or the world, which I then use as the basis for my work.”  In other instances, his compositions “refer back to my own archive, whether photographs I’ve taken or found, or an image from an earlier work that continues to attract me psychologically or aesthetically. As Kent develops a painting, “the subject moves into focus, usually revealing some form of juxtaposition or conflict which serves as the basis for a larger body of work. Certain themes recur, historical narratives as cultural capital, or the interiors of stately architecture as artifact and landscapes modified by industry.”  

Tim Kent (b. 1975) Print Thief, 2022 Oil on canvas 33 x 33 in. (83.8 x 83.8 cm)

Tim Kent (b. 1975) Ghost of an Idea, 2021–22 Oil on canvas 65 1/2 x 79 1/2 in. (166.4 x 201.9 cm)

Heidi Hahn (b. 1982) was born in Los Angeles, CA and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Hahn received her M.F.A. from Yale University in 2014, and has been the recipient of several awards, residencies, and fellowships, including the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program Residency, Jerome Foundation Grant, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Residency, Madison, ME; and the Fine Arts Work Center Residency, Provincetown, MA, among others.

Her work has been collected by the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, France; Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection, Helsinki, Finland; and New Century Art Foundation, Shanghai, China; in addition to being exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the world including the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, KS; Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY; and Premier Regard, Paris, France.

Lehmann’s mysterious, frequently nocturnal paintings draw from sources as varied as the Flemish Primitives, aeronautic technical bulletins, how-to photography manuals, Gothic altarpieces, and radiographic simulators. The work explores the continuity of symbolic motifs over the course of centuries, but is united by a persistent concern with the iconography of the unseeable.

Prior to completing this body of work, Lehmann co-curated, with Ann Temkin, “Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New,” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; coauthored the anthology Artists Who Make Books (Phaidon/PPP Editions); and wrote “Color Goes Electric,” a widely read history of standard test images and the digitization of color, for Triple Canopy. A former editor at Cabinet and a contributor to Artforum, Lehmann received a BA from Harvard College in Visual and Environmental Studies (1998–2003).