Interviews by Brainard Carey

Photo by Elizabeth Bick

Artist and Curator of the Every Woman Biennial: C. Finley, based in New York City and Rome, is known for her elaborate paintings and intense use of color, monumental murals, multi-disciplinary collaborations, and her activism through urban art interventions, including her acclaimed Wallpapered Dumpsters.

As the creator of the 2014-2021 Every Woman Biennial she exhibited over 1200 female and non-binary artists in New York, Los Angeles and London.

The book mentioned in the interview was At Certain Points We Touch by Lauren John Joseph.

Ecstasy of Santa Theresa 111x73.5 in acrylic on canvas 2020

Mano Divina 24x20in acrylic and gouache on canvas 2021

Kevin O’Brien is a Brisbane based architect. In 2018 he joined BVN as a Principal, becoming part of one of Australia’s largest and most highly acclaimed architectural practices. In 2017 he became the Professor of Creative Practice at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. He is a former Board member of La Boite Theatre, and the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane.

Kevin is passionate about the arts. He collaborates broadly within the visual and performing arts sector as well as his creating his own works. He has produced set designs for Queensland Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre and Moogahlin Performing Arts, and installations for Urban Theatre Projects, Bleach Festival, the Sydney Festival and QAGOMA. Exhibition designs have been completed for the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the Queensland Museum, the Institute of Modern Art, and the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Of specific significance is the Finding Country project that began in 2005 and continues to this day as a guide for practice, teaching and thinking about architecture and its relationship with the Aboriginal concept of Country. In 2012 this endeavour took the form of the Finding Country Exhibition as an official collateral event of the 13th Venice Architectural Biennale. The central artefact of the exhibition was an 8m x 3m drawing of Brisbane containing 44 grids emptied by 50% to reveal an argument for the form of Country. The drawing was burnt on the opening night as a performative act demonstrating fire as a tool of Country.

Kevin’s current focus is on the development and demonstration of a Designing with Country methodology that seeks to locate people in settings that enable a sense of belonging to (as opposed to owning) Country.

Blak Box – travelling sound pavilion. Sound and light works by Indigenous artists to connect visitors to stories of the Country it is located on

Finding Country Exhibition, Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 – 8mx3m drawing of Brisbane emptied by 50% to reveal an argument for the form of Country.

An-My Lê lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Lê received her BA from Stanford University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art. She is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York, where she has taught since 1999. In addition to her survey exhibition, On Contested Terrain, traveling in the US, she has had solo exhibitions at the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes (England) and Museum aan de Stoom (Belgium) in 2014; Baltimore Museum of Art in 2013; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art / SFMOMA in 2008; Dia:Beacon in 2006-07; and MoMA PS1 Contemporary Arts Center in 2002.

As a teenager Lê fled Vietnam with her family in 1975. They eventually settled in the US as refugees. Her work often addresses the impact of war on culture and on the environment. Lê says her "main goal is to try to photograph landscape in such a way that it suggests a universal history, a personal history, a history of culture."

Lê is the recipient of numerous awards and grants: in 2012 she was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship; in 2010, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award; in 2007, the National Science Foundation, Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Award; in 2004 the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship; and in 1997 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship.

The exhibition, đô-mi-nô, runs from 24 June – 20 August 2021 at Marian Goodman Gallery New York (24 W 57 Street, New York, NY 10019). For further information, please contact the gallery at (212) 977-7160.

An-My Lê Untitled, Ba Vi, Viêt Nam, 1998 Silver gelatin print Image: 16 x 23 in. (40.6 x 58.4 cm) Frame: 21 1/8 x 27 3/4 in. (53.7 x 70.5 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery

Installation view An-My Lê ,“đô-mi-nô,” Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2021 Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery Photo credit: Alex Yudzon

Installation view An-My Lê ,“đô-mi-nô,” Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2021 Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery Photo credit: Alex Yudzon

David Daut Makala is a self-taught artist born in 1983 Lusaka, Zambia. Makala is known for his  versatility with materials manifesting in sculpture, painting, printmaking, digital art and performance. He considers his studio practice a form of research space where thoughts and ideas gather resulting in exquisite pieces of art.  For David, the processes involved in production also allow for greater interrogations in themes such as "Identity politics and mapping". Makala  works from his studio in Chilenje which he purposely chose as a way of working with the  community. His works are part of the collection at the renowned Lechwe Trust and Chaminuka Lodge collections.

He has participated in numerous exhibitions and art fairs such at the FNB Johannesburg Fair.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Dolefully, a Rampart Stands (Penguin 2019).

She's the director of the MFA in Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College, and lives in New York City.

Autumn Wallace (b. 1996, Philadelphia, PA) is a visual artist who works across media to create paintings and sculptures that examine human sexuality, gender, and the black femme experience.

Influenced by early 90’s cartoons, Byzantine aesthetics, Baroque Style, and what Wallace describes as “low-quality adult materials”, Wallace’s work generates a sense of fluidity whereby figures defy spatial, social, physical, emotional, and psychological boundaries. Wallace is a graduate of the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

Recent solo exhibitions include How to Hug Yourself: 10 Steps (with Pictures), Gaa Gallery, #THECONTAINTERSTORE, Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; #MAJORSEXUALCHEESEFETISH, Portside Art Parlor, Philadelphia, PA; How Could I Say No To You?, HOUSE Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; and #SingleWithPets, Stella Elkins Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Wallace is the recipient of numerous fellowships including residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), North Adams, MA; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and Yaddo Saratoga Springs, NY.

The books mentioned in the interview are Aesop's Fables the Unabridged version, and Nature Poem by Tommy Pico.

'Double Dutch' Acrylic, Oil, Pastel and Rhinestones on Canvas hung by Grommets - approx 73 x 61" - 2020

'Gold Plated Moment' Acrylic, Oil, Pastel and Gold Leaf on PVC - 48 x 48" - 2021

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE is most recently the author of The Freezer Door, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, one of Oprah Magazine’s Best LGBTQ Books of 2020, and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

Her previous nonfiction title, The End of San Francisco, won a Lambda Literary Award, and her novel Sketchtasy was one of NPR’s Best Books of 2018. Sycamore is the author of two nonfiction titles and three novels, as well as the editor of five nonfiction anthologies.

Her sixth anthology, Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing up with the AIDS Crisis, will be out in October.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore signing at Elliott Bay, 11-19-20, by Karen Maeda-Allman

Shingo Francis is an artist and painter who employ a minimal and abstract approach to his work to explore color, time and expanse. He has a keen appreciation for how these elements shape our perceptions.

Shingo Francis grew up between California and Japan, two locations that inform his work and practice. Through the process of compositional reduction and color as space Francis created a series of paintings titled “Blue’s Silence” with simple two tones in blue. These paintings subsequently evolved into a new series of paintings titled “Infinite Space” with an overall monochrome color as space with a simple composition with one line towards the bottom signifying an attention to presence. The central color is autonomous due to the refined composition dissipating both at the top and bottom of the canvas revealing a subtle motion of transparent layers. Both series of paintings produce a sense of silence and space with experiences of shifts in tone and complimentary juxtaposition of color.

A recent series of paintings titled “interference” utilize a material with small particles cut in an angle to reflect a specific spectrum of color. There is no pigment such as cobalt or cadmium but only color from the color spectrum of light similar to how a rainbow reveals color through the refraction of light in rain droplets. Yet there is an opposing color as well to each refracted color, therefore the painting will shift between two complimentary colors. For example, if the light reflects the color green, it will also be the color magenta when the light is not reflecting back but looked in ambient light. Besides the interesting mechanics of these paintings, the square composition is symmetrical and produces a space to project and hold ones attention or presence. The ever-changing phenomena of these paintings reflect the cyclical nature of time and how our bodies move through space.

Shingo Francis also works on large scale drawing installations, he paints on a large roll of watercolor paper which is suspended from the ceiling in a semicircle allowing the viewer to be subsumed by the curvature of the paper and image.

Francis received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pitzer College in Claremont and a Master of Arts degree from Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California.

Francis’s work has been exhibited in Japan, United States, Germany, South Korea, and Switzerland. He has been included in museums shows at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Ichihara Lakeside Museum and the Martin Museum of Art. He received the Fumio Nanjo Award in Tokyo, and is represented by MISA SHIN GALLERY and William Turner Gallery.

The book mentioned in our interview is Interaction of Color by Josef Albers.

Infinite Space (red) Oil on linen 76” x 51”/ 194 x 130cm 2015

“Subtle Impression (violet, blue and emerald)”Oil on canvas40 x 34” / 100 x 86cm2019

Marco Casagrande, Finland, Shenzhen

Marco Casagrande (born 1971) graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology Department of Architecture in 2001. From the early stages of his career Casagrande started to mix architecture with other disciplines of art and science landing with a series of ecologically conscious architectural installations around the world. All in all, more than 86 realized works in 16 countries.

He is the laureate of the European Prize for Architecture 2013, Committee of International Architecture Critics CICA Award 2013 for conceptual and artistic architecture and UNESCO & Locus Foundation’s Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2015.

Casagrande’s works and teaching are moving freely in-between architecture, landscape architecture, urban and environmental design and science, environmental art and circus adding up into cross-over architectural thinking of «commedia dell’architettura», a broad vision of built human environment tied into social drama and environmental awareness. «There is no other reality than nature». He views architects as design shamans merely interpreting what the bigger nature of the shared mind is transmitting.

He views cities as complex energy organisms in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens as well as the development of the city. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Casagrande is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called Third Generation City. The theory views the future urban development as the ruin of the industrial city, an organic machine ruined by nature including human nature.

Urban Acupuncture: a cross-over architectural manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect of a city. The City is viewed as a multi-dimensional sensitive energy-organism, a living environment. Urban acupuncture aims into a touch with this nature. UA: Sensitivity to understand the energy flows of the collective chi beneath the visual city and reacting on the hot spots of this chi. Architecture as environmental art is in the position to produce the acupuncture needles for the urban chi. A weed will root into the smallest crack in the asphalt and eventually break the city. Urban acupuncture is the weed, and the acupuncture point is the crack. The possibility of the impact is total, connecting human nature as part of nature. The theory opens the door for uncontrolled creativity and freedom. Ruin is something man-made having become part of nature.

Casagrande has been teaching in 65 academic institutions in 25 countries since the year 2000 including the Aalto University, Helsinki University of Art and Design, Tokyo University Tadao Ando Laboratory and China Central Academy of Fine Arts. He was a visiting professor at the Bergen School of Architecture 2001–2004 and Taiwanese Tamkang University Department of Architecture 2004-2009, Principal of the independent cross-disciplinary research centre Ruin Academy in Taipei and Taitung, Taiwan (2010 -) and Artena, Italy (2013 -) in cooperation with the Aalto University’s SGT Sustainable Global Technologies Centre. Casagrande is the Vice-President of the International Society of Biourbanism (2014 -). Currently he holds the professorship of architecture at the Bergen School of Architecture, Norway.

Marco Casagrande is the Principal of the Casagrande Laboratory (2003-), a Finland based internationally operating multi-disciplinary architecture and innovation office.

Ultra-Ruin by Marco Casagrande

Marco Casagrande, Ultra-Ruin

Bug Dome by WEAK! in Shenzhen

Ward Shelley works as an artist in New York and Connecticut. He is interested in constructed worlds and intersecting narratives; how they create, mediate and inform each other. He wants to know how things really work.

Shelley specializes in large projects that freely mix architecture and performance. For more than a decade, he has been collaborating with Alex Schweder, using experimental architecture to explore the dance between the designed environment and its consequences. Since 2007, the duo have designed, built, and lived in (or on) seven structures, all of them in locations where the public are invited not only to witness, but also to actively engage with the artists in direct dialogue about their practice—an activity that has coalesced into what they call “performance architecture.”

Shelley also works on diagramatic paintings: information-based timelines on culture-related subjects and historical postmortems. He frequently works with Douglas Paulson on installations and environments that attempt to turn mind, text, and meaning inside out (for a better look). They created the “The Last Library” project for Spaces in 2015.

Shelley’s work has been exhibited in more than 10 countries and is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Shelley received a Painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, and grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in New York.

A new septuagenarian, this year Ward claims to be taking a year off to re-evaluate the direction of his life and his work. He has re-booted and found time for few extra-curricular activities, particularly around music and reading, and has begun rescuing plants (otherwise known as gardening). Being outside has become a priority.

The book mentioned in the interview was: A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry.