Interviews by Brainard Carey

Šejma Fere creates collages, mixed media artworks and installations. Her artworks deal with potential of multiple narratives. She is discovering hidden values and uses of found material to create new structures out of it. Her paintings are created in the mode of free associations from numerous fragments, using the recycled materials, technique of collage and digital process. There, by means of the non-linear narration about private sphere, she explores the entanglement of borders of intimate and public space and investigates the ideological constructs, gender stereotypes and the economic conditions that govern home and everyday life. Sewing patterns, lists, charts and statistic data appropriated from textbooks, documents, furniture catalogs and lifestyle magazines are parts of reality that intrude the private sphere and indicate a failed attempt to adapt to prescribed and homogenized world of mass culture. By superimposing one structure onto another, domestic surrounding is presented as a stage where characters live their reality brought by modern life and technology. These multiple perspectives create spatial and temporal disorientation. It is an open work where viewers fill the gaps and create their own interpretation, becoming a part of this imagined world. She graduated painting and printmaking. Lives and works in Belgrade.

In the interview Sejma mentioned the following;

Norient, audio visual gallery and community for the sound of the world.

"Among Women: Serbian Contemporary Art", curated by Rachel Klipa, 937 Gallery, 937 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 (opening on September 6, 2021)

"We are alive", exhibition of Saša Stojanović and Šejma Fere, Gallery Šok Koridor, Art Klinika, Novi Sad (14 September-30 October, 2021 in Šok koriodor, Art klinika, Novi Sad)

Books mentioned:

Tomi Ungerer, children books, J.P. Oliva, L'isolation thermique écologique, Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London.

Šejma Fere, Sofi, kolaž, 2019

House in zemun, 2018- 2021

Sopheap Pich b. 1971, Battambang, Cambodia. Lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Sopheap’s family left Cambodia as refugees in 1979.  Having first settled in camps in Thailand and the Philippines, they arrived in the United States in 1984 at age 13 years old and began his formal education.

He took art classes in Junior High School but shifted his passion to wood shop in high school and worked as a stagehand in college.  He first majored in Pre-Med but later switched to Fine Arts in his Sophomore year, a choice that allowed him to travel to France, Italy and Mexico and led him to spent a year in Paris studying at the national art school at Cergy Pontoise.  These travels impacted his views of the possibilities and limitations of art that have guided his thinking since.

He returned to Cambodia 2002.  And in 2004, began making sculptures using rattan and bamboo, his main materials to this day.  Aside from working on his art, he also owns a farm in the Kirirom Mountain areas where he plants hardwood trees, coconuts and date palms.

His works has been shown at dOCUMENTA 13, the Venice Biennale, the Asia Pacific Triennale, among others.  And are in major museums collections including the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, the National Gallery of Singapore, M+ Hong Kong, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others.

Kapok, 2021, Wood, metal, rattan, bamboo, 160 x 530 x 170cm

La Danse, 2021. Dimension varies. Each tree appr. 7 meters tall. Repurposed aluminum and metal.

Annie Jael Kwan is a curator and researcher whose exhibition-making, programming, publication and teaching practice is located at the intersection of contemporary art, cultural and pedagogical activism with an interest in archives, feminist, queer and alternative histories and knowledges, collective practice and solidarity. She is founder of Something Human, a curatorial platform focusing on intersectional live art that launched the landmark Southeast Asia Performance Collection in London in 2017, co-founder of Asia-Art-Activism, the interdisciplinary research network exploring the paradigm of "Asia" and its proximities in art and activism. She is the recipient of a Diverse Actions Leadership Award 2019, and the founding council member of Asia Forum 2021/2022 that will have its inaugural programme in Venice in 2021 at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia.

Southeast Asia Performance Collection, launched by Something Human at the Live Art Development Agency 2017. Production photo from ‘I am LGB’ (2016), The LGB Society of Mind. Singapore International Festival of Arts 2016. Photo by Wan Zhong Ha

Till We Meet Again IRL, Best Wishes, Asia-Art-Activism, 2020, co-curated by Annie Jael Kwan, Arianna Mercado, Cuong Pham and Howl Yuan, with the support of the Bagri Foundation and Arts Council England. Image courtesy of Yarli Allison.

Dana Lok (b. Berwyn, PA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include "One Second Per Second" at Page, New York, "Words Without Skin" at Clima, Milan and "Mind's Mouth" at Bianca D'Alessandro, Copenhagen. Lok recently participated in the group exhibitions "Regroup Show" at Miguel Abreu and "15 Painters" at Andrew Kreps, New York, and "The Conspiracy of Art, Part II" at Chateau Shatto, LA. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, Frieze, and Cura Magazine.

Lok received her MFA from Columbia University and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2018, she received the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. Recently, Lok's work digs into the metaphors we use to understand basic components of human experience, like time and representation.

Mentioned in interview was Philosopher Sally Haslanger, her books and articles can be found on her homepage. Also mentioned was Krazy Kat and Emily Dickinson.

 Weather System, 2021, Oil on canvas, 70 x 78 in

Causal Wedge, 2020, Oil on canvas, 56 x 65 in

Portrait of Damien Deroubaix by Arno Lam

Damien Deroubaix, born 1972 in Lille, France. Lives and works in Paris and Meisenthal (France).

Damien Deroubaix studied in Saint-Etienne and in Germany (Karlsruhe, 1998). Since 2003, his work has been shown in the leading European institutions and has been presented in many solo shows, particularly in Switzerland and Germany. He has spent a good deal of time abroad, notably for residences at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2005) and ISCP in New York (2008). In 2009, he is nominated at the Marcel Duchamp Prize. His works are in the largest national collections : the Musée d´Art Moderne, the Centre Pompidou, the MAMC Strasbourg, the FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Limousin and Basse Normandie, the FNAC CNAP, the Musée du Dessin et de l'Estampe Originale in Gravelines, and international collections, among them those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Mudam, Luxembourg, the Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken, the Museu Coleçao Berardo, Lisbon,  the Albrecht-Dürer-Haus-Stiftung, Nuremberg, the Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen.

Damien Deroubaix's artistic practice features a great diversity of forms and techniques: oil painting, watercolour, engraving, tapestry, wooden panel carving, but also sculpture and installation. This variety combines with highly eclectic references, often cohabiting in his works in a spirit that is reminiscent of iconoclastic Dada montages. Motifs from medieval danses macabres mingle with evocations of tragic chapters from modern history; topical images are juxtaposed with mythology and folklore; the history of art and the metal music scene collide. His paintings are openly expressionist, often making reference to apocalyptic themes, and perhaps this is what makes them so timeless.

Metamorphosis oil and collage on canvas 78x59 inches, 2018.

Death, oil and collage on canvas 78x59 inches, 2018

Self portrait, 2004, Oil on Panel, 5 x 4"

Jim Torok was born in South Bend, Indiana. He moved to New York in 1979 to study art at Brooklyn College, and received an MFA there in 1981. Several years later, Torok began doing cartoons as a regular feature for Paper Magazine, while at the same time doing realistic paintings of interiors and objects. He also produced animations for MTV.

In the mid ‘90s he started making miniature portraits, and had his first one person show at Bill Maynes Gallery in 1997. He has been making and exhibiting both cartoons and portraits ever since. Torok's work has been exhibited widely in the US and Europe, including a one-person show at the Denver Art Museum, and a three-person show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Recently, several of his pieces were added to the collection of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is scheduled to open in Los Angeles in 2023. Represented by Hyphen Advisory .

The book mentioned in the interview is My Struggle, Book 6, by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Day55, 2020, Ink on Paper, 11 x 8 1/2"

Do Not Worry About It, 2020, Acrylic on panels, 5' x 26'

Ville Laaksonen (b. 1978, Turku, Finland) is a curator, formerly also working as an artist and critic. He has been recently focused on curating international exhibitions and consulting art organisations to innovate how they function and operate in current art-ecologic shift. He is working from Turku and Helsinki, Finland with most recent projects in Los Angeles, Mexico City and Slovakia. Before pursuing an career as an international curator he’s main focus was on esoteric painting and critical thinking, working also as a critic.

As an artist he’s contemporary esoteric works open gates, doors and windows to visualise heaven and hell on earth – and an aesthetic view on life through the vision of an idealist in beauty. Embracing spirituality in life reveals its significance in its unique and delicate ways. Laaksonen was stipendiate for the Union of Finnish Art Associations 2012 and exhibited in Varkaus Art Museum. At the same time Laaksonen had also been invited to exhibit in Artchapel, Turku and nominated as the curator for the Paulo Foundation Annual 2012. Laaksonen works actively on Finnish art scene and he has worked on several trusted positions. He is a member of Helsinki and Turku artists associations, Arte organisation and SKY, The Finnish Society for Curators. Laaksonen has exhibited in several solo and museum exhibitions.

Laaksonen has been working last years through he’s platform Art Incubator, which is a curatorial platform that focuses on developing the role of artists, curators and other art professionals. Collaborating and consulting arts organisations the Art Incubator aims to shift the way art works and helps to organise more conventional practises to new forms.

Wunderkammer exhibion view, Helsinki, 2015

From W0RMH0LE exhibition, Los Angeles, 2020, Works by Teija and Pekka Isorättyä and Jyrki Riekki

Wilfried Souly, photo: Robyn Nisbet

Wilfried Souly is a choreographer, dancer, drummer and Taekwondo expert, originally from Burkina Faso in West Africa. He was trained in African traditional and contemporary dances since his youngest age in the acclaimed company “The Bourgeon du Burkina.” In September 2000, he co-founded “Compagnie Tâ” with two other choreographers and co-choreographed many dance pieces presented around the world, including one work that was selected as a finalist at the fifth Choreographic Encounters of Africa and Indian Ocean in Madagascar. The piece was then presented at the Great Barbican Center in London for a full week event. Compagnie Tâ also collaborated with an association of visual artists on Genies de la Bastille, Paris. Willy himself has collaborated with international choreographers and performed in works such as Space i Tiempo, choreographed by Robert Battle (USA) and Gerardo Delgado (Mexico) in Tampico, Mexico; and Dole Danle, with the French Hip-Hop Company E.Go, directed by Eric Mezzino and Gilles Schamber. In 2007, Willy moved to Los Angeles and joined Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project as an Associate Director, where he co-choreographed and performed Arbre D’Adaptation (2007), which won the Best Choreography award at “Emerging Above Ground 07”; Sira Kan (2008), presented at the NOW Festival 08; and “Dar Es Salaam” (2009).

Willy has collaborated with many local artists and companies, including Maria Gillespie (Exquisite Corps 2010), Victoria Marks (Smallest Gesture/Grandest frame; Medium big inefficient considerably imbalanced dance; Solar Duplex & Watch This), Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre Company (Governing Bodies; Expulsion; Governing Bodies Ventura; Cleopatra; Catch your Breath) and Viver Brasil Dance Company (Xire 2008). He choreographed and produced the dance film Bayiiri (Home Town) in 2011. In 2014, his solo “Saana/The foreigner” is premiered at the Redcat NOW Festival and the Ethna Negria Celebration at Teatro Balboa in Panama City May 2015. “Unarmed”, a piece about social injustice, was presented at the Barnsdall Theater, at “For Our Boys” first edition.

In August 2016 he created On Becoming, a quest for identity at 12th edition of NOW Festival. On October of the same year, his last two works Tekre (Evolution) and Maam /Me were presented at the third Edition of the festival Africa in America at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre. Willy is an Adjunct professor at the UCLA World Art & Culture/Dance Department since 2009 and has been guest choreographer at colleges including Santa Monica College, Los Angeles Valley College, Chadwick school… He teaches community West African Dance classes at Your Neighborhood Studio in Culver City, and has been an Arts Educator for the Fullerton School District since 2009. Willy is currently anMFA candidate at the UCLA World Arts & Cultures/Dance department.

The book that was mentioned was Vetiver by Librecht Baker.

“Unsung”, rehearsal at Centre de Development Chorégraphique in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Photo by Wilfried Souly

“Saana/The Foreigner”, NOW Festival at Redcat Theatre in Los Angeles. Photo: Steve Gunther

Will Corwin, photo: Brett Dakin

William Corwin is a sculptor and journalist from New York. He has exhibited at The Clocktower, LaMama and Geary galleries in New York, as well as galleries in London, Hamburg, Beijing and Taipei. He has written regularly for The Brooklyn Rail, Artpapers, Bomb, Artcritical, Raintaxi and Canvas and formerly for Frieze. He curated and wrote the catalog for Postwar Women in 2019 at The Art Students League in New York, an exhibition of the school’s alumnae active between 1945-65, and 9th Street Club in 2020, an exhibition of Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Mercedes Matter, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner and Elaine Dekooning at Gazelli Art House in Mayfair. He is the editor of Formalism; Collected Essays of Saul Ostrow, to be published in 2021 by Elective Affinity Press, is curating Downtown Train at PS122 in March 2021 which features the work of Boris Lurie, Penny Arcade, Gabriella Grimes, Gordon Matta-Clark, and many others, and he will participate in the exhibition Roots/Anchors at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor Cultural Center in August 2021. He currently has an exhibition "Green Ladder" at Geary Contemporary in New York, on view through April 24th.  He is represented by Geary.

The book mentioned in the interview was Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Green Ladder (Installation) 3, images courtesy Geary

Double Ladder, 2020, aluminum, 40 in. x 10 in. x 6 in. image courtesy Geary

Tim with Nurse Tracy in progress

Tim Okamura investigates identity, the urban environment, metaphor, and cultural iconography through a unique method of painting - one that combines an essentially ‘realist’ approach to the figure with collage, spray paint and mixed media. The juxtaposition of the rawness and urgency of street art and academic ideals has created a visual language that acknowledges a traditional form of story-telling through portraiture, while infusing the work with resonant contemporary motifs.

Born in Edmonton, Canada, painter Tim Okamura earned a B.F.A. with Distinction at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Canada before moving to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts in 1991. After graduating with an M.F.A. in Illustration as Visual Journalism, Okamura moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he continues to live and work.

Tim Okamura - a recipient of the 2004 Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts – has exhibited extensively in galleries throughout the world, including the U.S., Canada, Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Ecuador and Turkey, and has been selected nine times to appear in the prestigious BP Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

In 2006, Okamura was short-listed by the Royal Surveyor of the Queen’s Picture Collection for a commissioned portrait of the Queen of England.

In 2013, the University of North Carolina hosted a retrospective exhibition of Okamura’s work that focused on nearly a decade of production.

Okamura received an invitation to The White House in the Fall of 2015 to honor artists whose work addresses issues of social justice – there he received a letter of commendation from Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden.

Okamura’s painting titled “I Love Your Hair” was selected in 2016 for inclusion in the “American Portraiture Today” exhibition, featured at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. and subsequently toured museums across the United States.

Several of Okamura’s works were recently featured in the “Still I Rise” exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Tim Okamura’s art is on display in the permanent collections of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Jiménez Colón Museum in Puerto Rico, The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Toronto Congress Center, the Hotel Arts in Calgary, Canada, and Standard Chartered Bank in London, England.

Collectors include Uma Thurman, Meg Ryan, John Mellencamp, DJ Black Coffee, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, athletes Courtney Lee and PK Subban, director Ben Younger, and actors Bryan Greenberg, Hill Harper, Annabella Sciorra, and Spike Lee.

"PPE", 48 x 60", oil, color pencil and graphite, 2021

"Two Front War", 55 x 56, oil on canvas, 2021

"Nurse Tracy", 40 x 60", oil on linen, 2021