Building Gene’s Dispensary: Community, Curation, and Creating New Art Spaces in Los Angeles with Keith J Varadi

In this wide-ranging conversation on What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist, curator, and writer Keith J. Varadi, founder of Gene’s Dispensary, for an illuminating discussion on forging alternative pathways in the contemporary art world. Through candid reflection, Varadi shares their journey from painting to sound art, music, and ultimately to the establishment of their independent gallery space in Los Angeles—a project that has rapidly become a vibrant hub for creative cross-pollination.

Drawing on years of experience as both a practicing artist and an accomplished curator—with writing credits in Carla, Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, and Los Angeles Review of Books—Varadi discusses how health challenges, a deep commitment to community-building, and a rigorous interdisciplinary ethos led to the creation of Gene’s Dispensary. Operating in the heart of Los Angeles at 2007 Wilshire Boulevard, Unit 820, Gene’s Dispensary takes inspiration from DIY spaces, Black Mountain College, and the inclusive spirit of early L.A. dispensary culture.

Over the course of the episode, Varadi reflects on studying at Rutgers and Virginia Commonwealth University, their experience living in New York and Pittsburgh, and the evolving sense of belonging they found upon relocating to Los Angeles. Topics explored include the challenges and possibilities of starting an art space without institutional funding, building a collector base from scratch, integrating musicians, comedians, and writers into gallery programming, and the nuances of L.A.'s cultural landscape compared to New York.

Highlights include a behind-the-scenes look at Gene’s Dispensary’s chess tournaments, multidisciplinary performances, and the gallery’s mission to dissolve boundaries between visual art and other forms of creative practice. Varadi also offers insight into the gallery’s namesake, paying homage to socialist leader Eugene V. Debs and affirming a commitment to equitable practices within the art market.

Whether you are an artist seeking alternative models of sustainability, a curator interested in community engagement, or simply an art lover curious about the dynamic intersections of creativity in Los Angeles, this episode offers a compelling portrait of persistence, generosity, and invention.

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In this revelatory episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes Chinese-Canadian visual artist Ketty Haolin Zhang for a candid and multifaceted conversation that traverses personal narrative, cultural identity, and the shifting landscapes of the art world.

Born in northeastern China and currently based in Vancouver, Chang unpacks the nuances of the “1.5 generation” immigrant experience—a term that resonates deeply in her practice and daily life. Her formative transition from a fifth-tier city in China to cosmopolitan Vancouver was less a relocation and more a system reboot, an abrupt recalibration that continues to echo through her work and worldview.

Throughout the discussion, Zhang thoughtfully reflects on her evolution from data analyst at an investment firm to full-time artist, and the calculated risks that led her to embrace painting and mixed media sculpture. Her visual language avoids overt cultural symbolism, instead delving into the atmospheric and emotional terrain of liminal spaces—transitory zones where belonging and alienation coexist in quiet tension. Drawing inspiration from personal snapshots and the intimate memories of others, her work invites viewers to project themselves into the scene, resisting the fixed narratives often expected from artists of diasporic backgrounds.

This episode also interrogates the art world’s complicated relationship with capitalism, institutional critique, and the silent stigma around commercial ambition. Zhang speaks with clarity about reconciling her creative integrity with the pragmatic need for sustainability, demystifying her approach to grants, residencies, and the economics of art-making in Canada.

Together, Zhang and Proenza explore how geography shapes artistic ecosystems—juxtaposing Vancouver’s scaled-down, transit-friendly gallery network with the sprawl and ambition of Los Angeles and the high-octane density of New York City. Chang offers a rare, introspective glimpse into the psychology of multilingualism and code-switching, the visceral dissonance of returning to a changed homeland, and the performative nature of self-presentation in the social media age.

Themes Covered:

The “1.5 generation” identity and its impact on cultural integration

Liminality and the aesthetics of in-betweenness

Transitioning from a data-driven corporate role to full-time artist

Navigating Canada’s grant-based art system

Cultural tokenization, commercial validation, and institutional critique

MFA programs and professionalization across North America

Immigrant family expectations and artistic self-determination

Choosing between L.A. and New York as an emerging artist

Notable Quote:

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🔗 Follow Ketty Haolin Zhang on Instagram: @kettyzzz

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In this intimate conversation hosted at Don’t Look Projects for her solo show By the Company They Keep, the Chenhung Chen traces a path from formative memories of classroom murals in Taiwan to a tactile, spiritually inflected sculptural practice rooted in the poetics of material and memory. Drawing on a lifetime of cross-cultural experience—born in Taiwan, educated in New York at the School of Visual Arts, and now based in California—Chen reflects on the diasporic transformations that shaped her worldview, her practice, and her understanding of artistic responsibility.

Over the course of the episode, she speaks candidly about the lasting impact of calligraphy, the subtle power of Taoist and Confucian thought, and the slow labor of crochet and wire weaving as acts of embodied meditation. Her early engagement with Chinese ink painting, which emphasizes the expressive qualities of line and brushstroke, has evolved into three-dimensional constructions made from recycled electrical wires and cables—materials charged both with literal energy and symbolic resonance.

The conversation explores the artist’s conceptual relationship to “order and chaos,” how her sculptural forms emerge from stream-of-consciousness gestures, and the intuitive logic behind her use of nontraditional materials. She discusses how her experiences as a medical and legal interpreter have revealed the porous boundaries between cultures and languages, underscoring the interconnectedness of all people. Throughout, she emphasizes the importance of embracing contradiction, translating cultural tension into visual rhythm, and honoring what she describes as “the inner world”—a central tenet of her creative methodology.

Themes of hybridity, displacement, and the invisible labor of women recur throughout the dialogue, as the artist describes her attraction to utilitarian crafts like crochet and basketry, her reverence for nature, and her use of everyday materials—paper, staples, hair, and cables—as repositories of lived experience. The result is a body of work that operates like a visual diary: both diaristic and durational, deeply rooted in personal memory and shaped by global histories.

From reflections on the Cultural Revolution and Renaissance painting to the pandemic-era shift toward domestic intimacy, this episode offers a nuanced meditation on what it means to make art across geographies, traditions, and states of being. For Chenhung Chen, to create is to process—an act of digestion as much as construction. “Everything I see, I take in,” she says. “And then it comes out.”

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Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.

🔗 www.whatsmythesis.com

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This week on What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined in-person by multidisciplinary artist Gerald Collins, whose practice illuminates the intersection of architecture, chromotherapy, and community. Based in Detroit, Collins returns to the show for a candid and expansive conversation that moves through memory, material, and meaning with striking clarity. Spanning topics from childhood sketchbooks to large-scale light installations, this episode traces Collins’s journey from the east side of Detroit to Topanga Canyon and back again—both physically and philosophically. The artist reflects on the deep roots of his creative practice, from early encouragement during “bring your kid to work” days, to being admitted as a first grader into an upperclassmen art program, where he began printmaking and working with chalk pastel on a collegiate level. As Collins explains, his formative artistic influence stemmed from early exposure to Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods, and later, a deep investigation into chromotherapy—a therapeutic practice using color and light to alter spatial perception and emotion. Whether cutting into gallery walls or building immersive environments from scratch, Collins emphasizes the relationship between architectural space, color intensity, and human experience. Highlights from the conversation include: Chromotherapy and Perception: Collins unpacks how intense color fields can cause spatial disorientation, recalling immersive environments where corners of a room seemingly disappear into pure chroma. Material vs. Meaning: A reflection on Rothko, Picasso, and the emotional resonance of limited palettes. Creative Infrastructure in Detroit: Collins offers a powerful account of how mutual aid and collective support within Detroit’s artistic ecosystem has shaped his path. Ikigai and Artistic Labor: The Japanese concept of purpose (Ikigai) as a framework for balancing paid design work and an ambitious artistic practice. Installation as Service: Art-making as a humble, community-centric gesture rather than spectacle—“None of this is really ours,” Collins states, “we’re here to help each other out.” Also explored are Collins’s recent projects, including a large-scale light installation for the College for Creative Studies’ annual fashion show, where he collaborated with a Detroit production company to transform over 6,000 sq ft into a fully immersive environment with coordinated LED and video elements. He also shares insights into transitioning toward more transportable work, including sculpture and print-based media. A resonant thread of the episode is Collins’s embrace of service, humility, and gratitude—an ethos forged through personal adversity and community resilience. He speaks candidly about surviving a childhood brain injury, sidestepping violence growing up in Detroit, and finding purpose through both art and architecture. His presence is grounded yet visionary—a voice shaped as much by the Rust Belt as by the light itself. Listen now to hear how light becomes language, architecture becomes empathy, and Detroit becomes the backdrop for a singularly expansive practice.

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In this episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Liz Hirsch, co-director of 839—an artist-run house gallery in Los Angeles that reimagines what a commercial art space can look and feel like. Located in a 1920's bungalow, 839 is part of a growing network of intimate, artist-centered spaces shaping the future of exhibition-making in L.A. With a background in academia, curatorial work, and community organizing, Hirsch discusses the vision behind 839: a space that supports artists through solo shows, long-term relationships, and thoughtful engagement. Many of the gallery's artists-including Olivia Gibian, Andrés Janacua, and Nichelle Dailey-have recently presented solo exhibitions at 839, some for the first time.

Queer Spectacle, Polaroid Realities, and the Art of Wrestling with Identity with Christopher Anthony Velasco

In this illuminating episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist and educator Christopher Anthony Velasco—a polymath of performative personas, analog photography, and speculative queer mythologies. Known for his immersive character work and deep engagement with the aesthetics of subversion, Velasco brings an electrifying mix of vulnerability, irreverence, and narrative dissonance to a conversation that resists containment.

Anchored by his long-running alter ego The Doctor, Velasco charts a performative lineage from backyard wrestling and horror cinema to body horror and experimental drag. His work collapses boundaries between art and entertainment, sincerity and satire, fiction and lived experience—what he terms “the art world as a wrestling ring.” Through characters like Krystal Carrington and Doctor Barbie, Velasco reclaims and retools identity through spectacle, queering archetypes from within.

This episode explores:

The influence of Japanese wrestling and horror film on Velasco’s photographic performance work

The metaphysical potential of Polaroids as portals into alternate dimensions

Drag as worldbuilding and trauma alchemy

Navigating academia as a queer artist of color—from community college through CalArts and UC Santa Barbara

Sobriety, creative resilience, and re-emerging with purpose

Velasco speaks candidly about substance use, identity crises, and the emotional minefields of higher education, particularly the lack of institutional support for artists of color. Yet, the episode also brims with humor, warmth, and geeky tangents—from Transformers lore to micro machines, Proenza’s Miami coke-snobbery, and the joys of analog photography.

This conversation is a living archive: disorganized, alive, and expansive. Like Velasco’s art, it makes space for contradiction, chaos, and camp without apology.

Follow Christopher Anthony Velasco on Instagram at @caver83

Hosted by Javier Proenza

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In this episode of the podcast, host Javier Proenza is joined by Rhett Baruch, founder of the contemporary art space Rhett Baruch Gallery, for a candid conversation that moves fluidly between car culture and curatorial strategy—touching on everything from VTEC engines and flat-plane V8s to the architecture of gallery identity in Los Angeles.

Baruch discusses his unconventional journey from car enthusiast to gallerist, tracing how a passion for craftsmanship, aesthetics, and the tactile qualities of objects evolved into a sharp curatorial practice. With no formal background in the art world, Baruch speaks to the DIY spirit that shaped the gallery’s beginnings—from styling vintage design vignettes in his historic Little Bangladesh apartment to leveraging Instagram to cultivate a following of interior designers who would become his first collectors.

Throughout the conversation, Baruch emphasizes materiality, intention, and relationships over trend-chasing or institutional pedigree. His eye for precision, born of a background in automotive performance and design, guides Rhett Baruch Gallery’s focus on high-quality, often hand-built contemporary works—from the sculptural paintings of Cole Seager and Christopher Ríos to the minimalist interventions of Satoshi Okada.

Informed by an understated spirituality and a quiet resistance to conventional art world hierarchies, Baruch’s practice speaks to a broader shift in the collector landscape—one where emerging buyers are invited into the fold through aesthetics, storytelling, and trust.

This episode offers an illuminating look at how one of LA’s most distinct young galleries is redefining what a contemporary art space can be: refined but accessible, rooted in design yet committed to fine art, and always evolving.

Highlights include:

How Rhett Baruch transitioned from automotive culture to the contemporary art world

The role of interior designers in seeding a new generation of art collectors

Rhett Baruch Gallery’s focus on material quality and process-based practices

Thoughts on the art world’s relationship to faith, aesthetics, and the "white cube" model

Building credibility without an MFA or institutional affiliation

Gallery branding, voice, and strategy—from vignettes to vernacular

Featured Artists Mentioned:

Rhett Baruch Gallery

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"Worldbuilding Through Memory and Myth: Elias Hernandez on Storytelling, Surrealism, and the Legacy of Conflict"

In this immersive episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist and educator Elias Hernandez, whose deeply narrative visual practice draws from Latin American surrealism, video game aesthetics, and inherited stories of displacement and resilience. A recent MFA graduate from USC and collaborator with cult streetwear label Brain Dead, Hernandez charts a complex universe in his paintings—populated by star-bearing knights, sentient castles, and time-traveling wizards—where memory, mythology, and trauma are rendered in fantastical allegory.

Born in Mountain View and raised between the Bay Area and Sunnyvale, Hernandez reflects on a childhood steeped in card games like Magic: The Gathering, which sparked his fascination with visual storytelling. These early interests evolved into a practice that explores “the burden and blessing” of cultural inheritance—from Salvadoran family histories shaped by civil war to folkloric Catholic imagery and Latin American feminist surrealism.

In conversation, Hernandez discusses how drawing, teaching, and game-inspired worldbuilding intersect in his creative process. His paintings act as sequential mythologies—each one building upon the last—presenting a nonlinear, symbolic narrative of a hero's journey infused with biblical allusions, cosmic cults, and archetypes of good and evil. These compositions resist linear interpretation, instead inviting viewers into a slow unfolding of meaning that echoes oral tradition and pre-Columbian storytelling.

As Hernandez explains, his work is not overtly political, yet it is politicized by its very existence within American contemporary art spaces. Drawing from artists like Otto Dix, Diego Rivera, and Leonora Carrington, his practice embodies a transhistorical dialogue where surrealist aesthetics and contemporary iconography converge—memes, murals, and medieval allegory colliding in a uniquely generational vision.

Highlights include:

How early exposure to fantasy media and tabletop gaming shaped his narrative sensibility

The role of inherited trauma in the creative act and character development

Reflections on his time as a bilingual educator in Oakland and the visual languages of immigrant youth

A detailed breakdown of his fictional universe, including moon-worshipping cults and star-forging armor

The spiritual dimensions of drawing and ceramics as ritual practices

Insight into Central American cultural erasure and mythological reimaginings

Hernandez’s work transcends medium and genre, bridging pop culture with ancient cosmology, and positioning painting as a vehicle for complex identity expression and speculative folklore. This episode is an invitation into the mind of a worldbuilder—one who channels collective memory into realms where the past haunts, empowers, and transforms.

Follow Elias Hernandez on Instagram @eliasxhernandez and visit his website at www.eliashernandez.art.

Listen now and subscribe to What’s My Thesis? on your favorite podcast platform.

#EliasHernandez #LatinArt #SurrealistPainting #WorldbuildingArt #ContemporaryArtPodcast #WhatsMyThesis #ArtAndIdentity #FantasyArt #CivilWarMemory #MagicTheGatheringArt #USCArt #BraindeadCollab

Episode Title: “Sanctuary in Practice: Art, Advocacy, and Survival with Dalia Palacios”

In this luminous and profoundly intimate episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by teaching artist and community advocate Dalia Palacios, whose multidisciplinary practice and lived experience offer a compelling meditation on resilience, displacement, motherhood, and the transformative power of art.

Palacios, born and raised in Echo Park, Los Angeles, recounts her early creative awakening amid housing insecurity, gentrification, and cultural dislocation. Her trajectory—from riding buses and bicycles across the city, to leading youth art workshops that reflect current gallery exhibitions—unfolds with honesty and urgency. With a voice shaped by community organizing, lived trauma, and poetic resolve, Palacios articulates the many roles she occupies: artist, mother, educator, survivor, and advocate.

A former resident artist at Arts at Blue Roof, Palacios reflects on the pivotal experience of having a dedicated studio for the first time—a moment that catalyzed a deeply collaborative and experimental body of work, incorporating embroidery on paper, recycled materials, sculpture, and storytelling. The residency not only fostered material exploration but also offered a vital container for healing postpartum depression and longstanding mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic lockdown.

Throughout the conversation, themes of intergenerational trauma, the stigmatization of mental illness in Latino communities, and the tension between art world access and grassroots engagement are explored with vulnerability and depth. Palacios shares how art has remained her sanctuary from childhood through motherhood, offering a rare continuity of purpose across ever-shifting landscapes.

Highlights include:

Her work with students at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center and the exhibition Black in Place

Memories of learning to draw in Tijuana and formative punishment-as-creativity exercises

Her advocacy against gentrification through graffiti, wheatpasting, and stencil work

The profound role of community support in her healing journey

The collaborative joy of working on a public mural with L.A. Commons and artist John Treviño

Insights into applying for artist residencies as a parent and self-taught practitioner

Palacios’s reflections are a reminder that the act of making art—especially in community—is a radical form of care. Her work speaks to the invisible labor of motherhood, the architecture of survival, and the quiet brilliance of those who create despite the odds.

Follow Dalia Palacios on Instagram @blissone and stay tuned for her forthcoming website.

Keywords: Dalia Palacios, LA artist, teaching artist Los Angeles, postpartum depression art, Arts at Blue Roof, Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, gentrification graffiti, art and healing, Latinx artist mental health, public mural Los Angeles, L.A. Commons, John Treviño, community-based art, artist parent residency, What’s My Thesis podcast.

Art as Infrastructure: A Conversation on Social Practice, Community, and the Evolving Role of Nonprofit Art Spaces in Los Angeles

In this compelling episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza sits down with Pranay Reddy, the director of LA Artcore, for a far-reaching conversation that explores the role of nonprofit art spaces as vital community infrastructure in Los Angeles. With clarity, conviction, and deep sincerity, Reddy offers an unfiltered look at his trajectory from punk and zine culture in suburban Colorado to leading one of the city’s longest-running artist-run institutions.

The conversation traces Reddy’s early exposure to alternative music and DIY media, his education at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the profound influence of social practice artists on his own sculptural and photographic inquiries. Through personal reflection and institutional critique, Reddy unpacks the realities of inheriting LA Artcore’s legacy and reimagining it for a new generation—one that demands transparency, inclusion, and intentional community-building.

As the city contends with stark inequalities and ongoing housing crises, Reddy’s leadership emphasizes LA Artcore’s position in a broader ecosystem of mutual aid, solidarity, and decolonial cultural work. The discussion touches on the failures of the commercial art fair model, the limitations of traditional museums, and the importance of small-scale, grassroots infrastructures in giving artists room to experiment and be seen.

Reddy shares details about LA Artcore’s upcoming programming, including:

Naman – A self-titled exhibition by a collective of Philippine X diaspora artists, opening March 15, exploring contemporary identity, historical presence, and visibility.

Labkhand Olfatmanesh – A powerful installation centered on grief and grounding practices.

Teamoz – An artist whose research into panda symbolism interrogates the complexities of U.S.–China relations.

Tokyo Exchange Exhibition – Featuring ten artists from Tokyo, reactivating LA Artcore’s longstanding commitment to international dialogue.

Through it all, Reddy reaffirms his belief that artists are conduits of the communities they live and work in—and that art, at its best, is an infrastructure for care, connection, and change.

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