Interviews by Brainard Carey

Linda Daniels creates vibrant abstract paintings.Linda Daniels (b. 1954) spent her formative years in California. She earned her B.F.A. in General Fine Arts from the California College of the Arts.  

In 1984, she moved to New York City, where her first solo show debuted at fiction/nonfiction gallery in 1988. Over the following decades, her art was featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Palm Beach.

Linda’s artwork has been reviewed in major publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Artforum International, Art in America, and The Brooklyn Rail. In 1991, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting.

Linda returned to California’s Central Coast in 2014, where she currently lives and creates her artwork.

Linda Daniels, Orange-Red with White, 16"x16", AcrylicCanvas, 2018

Linda Daniels, Orange-Yellow with White, 16"x16", AcrylicCanvas, 2020

Linda Daniels, Turquoise-BlueYellow-Green with White, 40"x80", Acrylic on Canvas, 2021

Mark Barrow (b. 1982) and Sarah Parke (b. 1981) met while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. They began collaborating in 2008, when Parke first started weaving fabric on which Barrow would paint. As weaving became the primary conceptual structure through which they approached all subjects, they adopted a joint artistic moniker to more accurately reflect how ideas are generated and spread. Their work focuses on the intersection of weaving (as a spatial and mathematical system) with other visual systems. It also focuses on its intersection with textiles more generally, a tradition that has had an outsized imprint on the history and development of culture and civilization.

Barrow Parke live and work in New York City. Barrow holds a B.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. in Painting from the Yale School of Art. Parke holds a B.F.A. in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design. They have exhibited widely in institutions including the University Art Museum, University at Albany, the Shirley Fiterman Art Center, City University of New York, New York; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany; and Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France. Their work is represented in public collections including Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, California; Yale Museum, New Haven, Connecticut; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the University of Chicago, Illinois; and Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.

c:\ Acrylic on Hand-Loomed Linen, 29 5/8 x 23 3/4 inches, 2022

Woman IV, Acrylic and Embroidery on Hand-Loomed Linen, 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches, 2020

0N10N, Acrylic on Hand-Loomed Linen, 19 5/8 x 15 3/4 inches, 2019

Marisa Adesman (b. 1991, Roslyn, NY) received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI in 2018 and her BFA from Washington University, St. Louis, MO in 2013. Adesman had her first museum solo exhibition, The Birth of Flowers, at KMAC Contemporary Art Museum, Louisville, KY in 2023. She has exhibited work widely including at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM), St. Louis, MO; Black Mountain College Museum, Ashville, NC; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College; Amherst, MA; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York; and Mrs. Gallery, Queens, NY. Adesman’s work is in public collections including Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Deji Museum, Nanjing, China; and Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Bologna, Italy. Adesman lives and works in Chicago, IL. 

Marisa Adesman’s surreal and thought-provoking paintings often depict ordinary objects in bizarre contexts and striking states of mystical transformation. She composes tableware, candles, houseplants, flowers, linens, kitchen utensils, and furniture into strange and unusual arrangements that destabilize our notions about the proper order of a house and home. These settings are often centered around the female form and are guided by Adesman’s visionary poetics of interior space. She examines the art historical meaning of the female figure as a pliable body designed for amorous desire and protection, but also sinister and capable of deception and corruption. Adesman’s compositions mingle ethereal and phantasmagoric imagery of the surrealist period with Dutch still life and vanitas paintings from 16th and 17th century Europe. Likewise, she retains all the attendant technical mastery which defined those artistic styles. Smooth and luminous surfaces combined with a masterful use of chiaroscuro, the skillful contrastingof extreme light and dark, reveals the hand of a remarkably detailed painter whose work demands to be viewed in person.

Marisa Adesman: Tug of War, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman

Marisa Adesman: Deadheading, 2025, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman

Marisa Adesman: The Turn, 2025, Courtesy the artists and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York. Photos by: Marisa Adesman

Amy Winstanley, Photo by Alan Dimmick.

Amy Winstanley (b. 1983, Dumfries, UK) is based in Scotland. She received a BA (Hons) in Sculpture from the Edinburgh College of Art (2005) and an MA from the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (2019).

Recent solo exhibitions include: Life Hum, Margot Samel, NY (2025); Focus, Workplace Gallery, London, UK (2025); Homing, Ginsberg Galeria, Lima, Peru (2024); Soft Spot, A_Place gallery, Glasgow (2024); Lost Hap, Margot Samel, New York, NY (2023); Slim Glimpses, Cample Line, Thornhill, UK (2023); Moral Limb, Stallan-Brand, Glasgow, UK (2021); Grief Bruise, Lunchtime Gallery, Glasgow, UK (2021); Inscapes, AndCollective Gallery, Bridge of Allen, UK (2016); Interconnections, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, UK (2015); Detritus and Other Stories, iota Gallery, Glasgow, UK (2014); and Wanderings, John Muir Birthplace Trust, Dunbar, UK (2011).

Recent group exhibitions include: Tiefkeller -6, Tiefkeller, Bonn, Germany (2025); Open Return, A_Place, Glasgow, UK (2025); Myriad, Ocean’s Apart, Manchester, UK (2025); Out of Earth, The Approach, London (2024), Opening, A_Place, Glasgow (2023); Strangers, Rongwrong, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2022); tangible/intangible, The Haberdashery, Glasgow, UK (2022).

Winstanley was nominated for the Sluijter prize for painting 2019 (Netherlands), and has been the recipient of the Hope Scott Trust award (2014) and the Creative Scotland Visual Arts Award (2010 and 2014).

Along with the artist collective ALKMY she has published short stories and images in What Ties Ties, Ties (2020) and What Thoughts Think Thoughts (2021) both through Print Art Research Centre, Seoul, Korea.

Amy Winstanley, Beautiful and Delicious, 2025, Oil on canvas, 26 x 24 in | 66 x 61 cm

Amy Winstanley, Gifts, Omens, 2025, Oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 59 in | 180 x 150 cm

Amy Winstanley, They Are Just in the Other Room, 2025, Oil on canvas, 59 x 70 7/8 in | 150 x 180 cm

portrait by Catherine Talese

Melanie Vote holds a BFA from Iowa State University and an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. Having grown up on a functional farm before living and working in NYC for over 25 years, her practice straddles these two worlds. Her work investigates the complexities of the human-land relationship, the cyclical nature of life, and the impossibility of permanence.

Vote was a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2007) and was awarded residencies, including the Vermont Studio Center (2002), Jentel, WY (2009), AHAD, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2013), the Grand Canyon (2016), the Weir Farm, CT (2022), and Cill Rialaig, Ireland (2023).

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include work at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2003) and The Hangaram Art Museum (Seoul, South Korea) (2016). Solo exhibitions include, DFN Gallery, NY (2008), Hionas Gallery, NY (2011, 2016), Galleria Farina, Miami (2017), and Equity Gallery, NY (2020, 2025). Vote presented work in a two-person show curated by Liz Garvey of Garvey|Simon Gallery at DFN Projects in October 2023, followed by her solo exhibition, Consulting with the Light Eaters, at Equity Gallery in May 2025. Her work was also included in the group drawing exhibition, “We Were Never Here,” at Kaliner Gallery in August 2025.

Waiting (Portrait of Norman Allen Vote 1945-2025) Graphite and Watercolor on Paper, 2024, 12 x 16 in

Overalls (Drawing) Graphite and Watercolor on Paper 2021, 11 x 8 in Bioluminous, Oil on Canvas, 2025, 70 x 112 in

Bioluminous, Oil on Canvas, 2025, 70 x 112 in

Willie Stewart (b. 1982, Gallatin, TN) lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut. He received his MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2018, and a BFA from The Cooper

Union in 2016.

His work has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at Morgan Presents, New York (2022); Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (2023, 2019); Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2023, 2021); and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, with Brent Stewart (2017). Stewart completed residencies at Pioneer Works (2016), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014)

Willie Stewart Beasts, 2025 Colored pencil, ink and gouache on cotton board, graphite, acrylic, oil and gouache on canvas over panel 80 x 64 inches 203 x 162.5 cm

Willie Stewart The Last Supper, 2025 Ink on cotton board, acrylic over custom armature with hardware, acrylic, gouache, graphite and ink on canvas 67 3/4 x 80 x 12 inches 172 x 203 x 30.5 cm

Willie Stewart Singers, 2025 Colored pencil, ink and gouache on cotton board, graphite, acrylic and gouache on canvas over panel 30 x 22 inches 76.2 x 55.9 cm

Matt Magee is an American contemporary artist known for his minimal geometric paintings, sculptures, prints, assemblages, murals, and photographs. Over a four-decade career, Magee has experimented widely with abstract and conceptual art practices. His compositions draw inspiration from personal history, numerology, and language. In his paintings and prints, he explores language through abstraction, repetition, reiteration, and the occasional tip of the hat to art historical precedents. His visual language relates to early hard-edge abstraction and finds inspiration in contemporary scientific, ecological, and technological ideas.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Albuquerque Art Museum, NM; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, CT; Black Mountain College Art Museum, NC; the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, CT; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Phoenix Art Museum, AZ; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; Tucson Museum of Art, AZ; and the University of New Mexico Art Museum, NM.

Matt Magee, Grapheme: 16 Squares, 2021, oil on primed paper. © Matt Magee; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Matt Magee, Black Grapheme, 2021, oil on panel. © Matt Magee; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Matt Magee, Ryan Lee Grapheme, 2025, acrylic and pencil on canvas. © Matt Magee; Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

SCAD Savannah – Summer 2024 – Exhibitions – Anthony Akinbola – ”Good Hair” – Artist Portrait – SCAD Museum of Art, Gallery 109 – Photography Courtesy of SCAD

Born in Columbia,Missouri, Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, is a first-generation American raised by Nigerian parents in the United States and Nigeria. His layered, richly colored compositions celebrate and signify the distinct cultures that shape his identity. The artist’s signature Camouflage paintings, consisting of single and multi-panel works, utilize the ubiquitous du-rag as their primary material. Universally available and possessed of significant cultural context, the du-rag represents for Akinbola a readymade object that engages the conceptual strategies of Marcel Duchamp and other significant artistic predecessors. Throughout his work Akinbola unpacks the rituals and histories connecting Africa and America, addressing the power of fetishization around cultural objects.

His previous interview on Yale University radio can be found here.

Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola recently was recently selected for the Pullman Yards Artist Residency, which will begin in early 2026. He also recently completed his residency at Black Rock Senegal in Dakar. In 2024, he was named Artist-in-Residence at Dragon Hill in France and in 2022, Akinbola was selected to be in The Artsy Vanguard, an annual feature spotlighting the most promising artists working today. That same year, Akinbola was also awarded the Silver Arts Project residency in New York. In 2019, he was awarded the Van Lier Fellowship and named the eighth Museum of Arts and Design Artist Fellow, which resulted in a solo exhibition at the museum. Akinbola was also selected for the Anderson Ranch Art Center Residency in 2017.

Akinbola has exhibited his work in group and individual shows at renowned institutions such as the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany; The Queens Museum, New York; the Randall Recreation Center, Washington D.C.; the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria; the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT; and the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY, among others.

Anthony Akinbola Brick “Sandstone”, 2025, durags on wood panel 48 x 48 x 3 1/4 inches.

Anthony Akinbola Celestial “Space Jam”, 2025, durags on wood panel 36 x 36 x 3 1/4 inches.

Anthony Akinbola Icarus, 2025, durags on wood panel panel: 72 x 72 x 3 1/4 inches.

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Haynes.

Deborah Zlotsky received a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowships in Painting in 2012 and 2018. Her work is in a variety of public, private, and corporate collections in the US and abroad and she has been awarded recent residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Bemis Center.

Zlotsky is represented by McKenzie Fine Art and Markel Fine Art, both in New York City, Robischon Gallery in Denver, Sandler-Hudson Gallery in Atlanta, and Bernay Fine Art in Great Barrington, MA.

She has a BA in art history from Yale University and an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Connecticut. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and lives in the Hudson Valley.

Deborah Zlotsky, Ghost lines 3, acrylic gouache on panel, 2025, 14” x 11” Photo courtesy of Liz Dejeuness.

Deborah Zlotsky, Not a line but a constellation, oil on canvas, 2025, 14” x 11” Photo courtesy of Liz Dejeuness.

Deborah Zlotsky, Tragedy plus time, oil on canvas, 2025, 60” x 60” Photo courtesy of Liz Dejeuness.

Simone Kearney is a Dublin-born, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist and writer.

Her practice is an inquiry — as much visual as it is psychological — into how experience is a cobbled, fragile thing, shapeshifting, subject to time, configured and reconfigured through our bodies.

In recent projects, she has been working with hand-carved stone sculpture, watercolor, and text, where the work starts to gather like archaeological fragments of the psyche. Dealing in the realm of what floats beneath the surface of consciousness — dreams, ruminations, and archetypal symbols — Kearney creates fields of objects that exist somewhere between rune and cartoon, between suggestive remnant and semi-emergent fact. In her playful receptivity to the raw stuff of stone, earth, pigment in water, or language itself, she explores all kinds of lively materialities. The tangible becomes an occasion for the intangible to reveal itself. Images arise from matter’s ambiguous zones of reference and into the nameable: as ovals, hands, eyes, vessels, ghosts, voids, animals, bodies. Forms are made and unmade.

Kearney currently has a solo show of sculptures and works on paper entitled DIGS at Guest Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, on view from September 20th – November 8th. She also will have sculptures in a group exhibition at Koki Arts in Tokyo, Japan, this October.

Some previous solo exhibitions include Putty’s Coronation, Brooklyn, NY; Undercurrent Gallery, Brooklyn New York; Artshack Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Annex Gallery, Lighthouse Works, Fisher’s Island, NY.

She is a NYFA grant recipient and is the author of Dim, Dahlia, Violet, Stone, (ITI Press, 2024), DAYS, (Belladonna Press, 2021), and My Ida (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017). She teaches at Parsons School for Design and Rutgers University.

Hand (Riddle is everywhere/Because a grain shatters direction), 2025, alabaster, earth, pine pedestal, 11” X 11.5” X 36”

Water Stone (xviii), 2024, watercolor on paper, 22” x 30”

“Hole:Through (One by one, to see),” 2025, rhy ... pine pedestal, 11” X 11.5” X 35