Interviews by Brainard Carey

Zeren Oruc is an independent curator based in Belgrade, Serbia, and Istanbul, Turkey. Her curatorial practice revolves around the environment, comparative cultural analysis, and intercultural communication through art. To reflect on the current artistic structures and social issues that art tackles, she tends to take an innovative and multidisciplinary approach, and adapt accordingly to the artist, the project, or the geography that she is working in.

After working with various art institutions in Europe, she founded Belgrade-based initiative, iksvy art, focusing on interdisciplinary art projects and art in Eastern Europe. As a part of iksvy art's program, she led and managed several projects, such as Collective Journaling and Curatorial Round Tables, Curatorial Sessions, and the podcast “iksvy art talks”.

In 2019, she was invited to revitalize the studio of deceased German artist Wolfgang Simon, in Andalusia, Spain. Her efforts resulted in co-founding and curating Montemero Art Residency dedicated to sustainable ecology and alternative art production. She aims to bring people together to build a network for eco-art projects and research alternative materials for art production, while actively supporting the artists in the residency through curatorial sessions.

Currently, she is working on several exhibitions in Belgrade and in Gemer, Slovakia, conducting curatorial brainstorming sessions with artists and giving portfolio reviews.

The book mentioned in the interview is Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.

Muma Paduri - solo show of Joan Alvado, curated by Zeren Oruc, Instituto Cervantes in Belgrade

Muma Paduri - solo show of Joan Alvado, curated by Zeren Oruc, Instituto Cervantes in Belgrade

Christine Suárez is a choreographer, performer, educator and community activist based in Los Angeles. Born in Caracas, Venezuela and raised in Baton Rouge Louisiana, she founded Suarez Dance Theater in 2003. They create at the intersection of collaborative dance-making and community outreach. Their work has been seen in theaters, parks, classrooms and houses and toured nationally and internationally. They have been awarded grants from Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, Flourish Foundation and Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Christine is co-creator of Dance for Veterans - a program that builds creative expression and social cohesion at Los Angeles VA Hospitals.

Christine Suarez & Shelby Williams-Gonzalez performing On Being American for students at Culver Park HS. photo by Alex Millar

Pictured are dancer/collaborators Bernard Brown and Nguyen Nguyen performing Mother.Father. @ the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, CA photo by Christine Suarez.

Photo by Audrey King

Kimberly Brooks is a contemporary American artist and author of The New Oil Painting with Chronicle Books.  She is known for her portraits and landscapes in series addressing identity and memory (“Mom’s Friends”, “The Stylist Project”, “I Notice People Disappear”.) 

Her paintings have been exhibited and featured internationally. Her latest exhibition “New Abstractions” in Los Angeles at Zevitas Marcus, is a result of a year long investigation of capturing the essence of painting for the cover of her book.

Brooks speaks about her work, and the science of creativity to museums, Tedx, and Podcasts including the National Endowment for the Arts.  Brooks conducts workshops at institutions online via her acclaimed artist program. For information on exhibitions and more: 

Storm 20 x 16 in. Oil on Linen

Red Wave 20 x 16 oil on Linen

Elizabeth Munro was born in London in 1939 and currently lives near Porthmadog, in North Wales. She is a painter and art/life practitioner. She was influenced early on by Harry Thubron, her inspirational mentor at Leeds College of Art- and  later by the groundbreaking Judson Dance Theatre where she participated in various performances. Arlene Rothlein, Malcolm Goldstein, and Philip Corner became good friends. Yvonne Rainer was a powerful influence.

Her paintings have been exhibited in various galleries in the U.K. and New York. In the Eighties in Upstate New York she met and collaborated with Linda “Rosita” Montano, performance artist,  as well as becoming a friend of hers for life.

Elizabeth Munro calls her work “Survival Art” and now sees it as a healing response to her childhood sexual abuse.  She attributes her freedom of movement in painting- and the painting itself- inspired by the influence of Sam Francis, Jackson Pollock and the Abstract expressionists-in helping to create a Lifeline for her: for escape, survival, and healing from early child sexual abuse.

At the moment she has her studio in Wales and plans to do whatever she wants to next.

Currently reading: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel, Look At Me  by Anita Brookner and Self- Help by Lorrie Moore.

Scroll painting by Elizabeth Munro - ‘Millstream’, early spring, pink rushing water, Woodstock N.Y.

Photo from my dear friend Sky’s natural burial in Boduan Wood, Eternal Forest Trust, near Pwllheli in Wales. Birds were singing as I scattered flowers and rosemary on the wicker casket.

Photo by Whitney Browne

Alethea Pace is a Bronx-based choreographer and performer. Her first solo performance work, trying to sweep back the ocean with a broom, was created with support from Pepatian’s Open Call Residency and was performed at BAAD! (2016) and New York Live Arts (2017). Her second evening-length work, Bring Me Flowers, was developed with support from residencies including New York Live Arts’ Fresh Tracks, Dancing While Black, 92Y Harkness Dance and premiered at Pregones Theater in 2018.

She is currently working on Here goes the neighborhood... , a multimedia performance installation that reminds us of the wealth of knowledge we have in our bodies, memories and geographies, and empowers us to dream of radical visions for our future.

As a dancer, Alethea has performed with a variety of choreographers and was a member of Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre for eight years. She has been a collaborator in numerous multimedia community-centered arts projects including Angela’s Pulse and the Laundromat Project.

Alethea trained at Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center in the Bronx. She has a BA in Urban Design from NYU where she completed her thesis project on the history of Bronx housing. She is currently expanding her artistic practice as an MFA candidate at the City College of New York’s Digital and Interdisciplinary Arts Practice program. She was awarded the BRIO award and CUNY Dance Initiative in 2019 and was BAAD!’s Muse Artist in Residence in 2020. Read more at aletheapace.com or follow her on instagram @alethea_pace

Alethea Pace and Richard Rivera perform Here goes the neighborhood... Photo by Trevon Blondet

Alethea Pace performs Bring me flowers at Danspace Project in 2019. Photo by Paula Lobo

Dara Haskins (b.1992 Baltimore, MD) Has rooted her practice in Philadelphia working primarily in painting oil portraits and figurative oil and mixed media paintings. Addressing the ways the black body has been represented and looked at throughout history, she challenges the identity of being seen and unseen connecting historical content to contemporary spaces and how that relationship coexists. She is currently working on a series called “Havana time” expressively from her own photographs of people she spent time within Cuba.-Her large to small-scale paintings of objects, people, and places connect daily in domestic environments within the African diaspora.

She is also working on a series called “ quraintin paintings” that reflects on dealing with isolation, time, and opportunity during the pandemic of COVID 19. Haskins received her BFA at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019. Winning the Artist of the week from Rush Art gallery May 2020) and The J Henry Scheidt Memorial Travel Scholarship to Cuba in (2019). She currently lives and works in Philadelphia.

The book that was mentioned in the interview is The Black Interior.

Desire to be 40 x 46 oil on canvas

Are you listening 35 x 34 oil on canvas

Biraaj Dodiya (b. 1993) is a Mumbai based visual artist primarily working in painting and sculpture.

Forms and language around absence, uncertainty and impermanence influence her work. Working within abstraction, her paintings are built through processes of repair and erasure, often evoking the nocturnal landscape and bringing up questions of distance and temporality. Dodiya’s sculptural works often combine discarded objects, industrial material, personal relics and studio detritus.

Dodiya received her MFA from New York University (2018) and BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015). Her recent solo Stone is a Forehead was at Experimenter, Kolkata in 2020.

She is currently reading Bernard Malamud Rembrandt’s Hat.

Silver grip 78 x 60 inches, Oil on linen, 2021

Green Ray 78 x 60 inches, Oil on linen, 2020

Timothy Gierschick (b. 1976, Reading, PA) is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. His paintings and works on paper have been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally, including by Duane Morris LLP offices worldwide, and Capital One Bank NA. Timothy earned his Bachelor of Arts, concentrating in Printmaking, from Messiah College in 2000. He is also employed by the Barnes Foundation as preparator.

Books mentioned at the end of the interview are Mona, by Pola Oloixarac: and Zen Mind by Suzuki.

Bad Blood, latex and enamel on rag paper, 36 x 30”, 2021

The Skater, latex and enamel on rag paper, 40 x 30”, 2021.

Junkie, latex and enamel on found panel, 19 x 40”, 2020

Rana Tahir is a poet, artist, and educator living in Portland, OR. She earned her MFA from Pacific University and is a Kundiman Fellow. Her work has previously appeared in Print Oriented Bastards, Fresh Literary Magazine, and Catch among others.

Books mentioned in the interview:

Artists of the Harlem Renaissance: Countee Cullen, Cavendish Square Publishing (2016)

Choose Your Own Adventure Spies!: Noor Inayat Khan, ChooseCo LLC (2020)

"Asrar" Oil on Canvas, 24 x 16 inches (This painting is inspired by and named after the Kuwaiti resistance member Asrar al-Qabandi. The Kuwaiti flag is painted upside down, a symbol for distress.)

"Crossings" Oil on Canvas, 16 x 24 inches

"Bukhoor" Oil on Canvas, 10 x 5 ft. (This is the painting we talked about. Bukhoor is a type of incense made from wood chips soaked in oil, it is a staple in households in the middle east. Bukhoor is also the name of the manuscript of these Gulf War poems.)

Avery Z. Nelson (they/them) was born in Rhinebeck, NY and received their MFA from Columbia University. Recent solo exhibitions include the Rubber Factory (NYC) and JDJ | The Ice House (Garrison, NY). Nelson has received press in The Brooklyn Rail, ARTFORUM, Huffington Post, Bad at Sports, Newcity, and New American Paintings. They are a current resident of the Sharpe-Walentas studio program in Brooklyn and images of their work can be found on their website: www.averyznelson.com. They recently finished a book of selected diaries of Lou Sullivan, "We Both Laughed in Pleasure," and would highly recommend to anyone looking for a delightful summer read.

Shifting Contours, 2020, 60" x 48", oil on canvas

Headspace, 2021, 76" x 56", oil and collage on canvas