Azul Silverio is a Los Angeles-based artist, writer, curator, and arts administrator currently working at the Hammer Museum. Drawing on their experience at LACE and on the board of the National Performance Network, Silverio discusses supporting artists through institutions, developing a curatorial and writing practice, and navigating the contemporary art world.

The conversation traces Silverio’s background in printmaking, performance, and autobiographical work exploring queer and trans identity, Latino and Mexican culture, and a Catholic upbringing. Silverio and host Javier Proenza also consider burnout, artistic ambition, networking, multidisciplinary careers, and the value of building a creative practice slowly and consistently over time.

Lebanese weaver and performance artist Saba Sadr, an MFA student at Otis College of Art and Design, joins Javier Proenza to discuss returning to Los Angeles after more than two decades in Lebanon and how experiences of displacement, caregiving, and political conflict inform an evolving artistic practice. Although Sadr's work centers on weaving and performance, the conversation expands into broader questions of identity, memory, and belonging.

Together they examine the meaning of resilience, the complexities of Lebanese conservatism and resistance, queer community organizing in Lebanon, the challenges of public visibility, and the long-term consequences of war on individuals, families, and cultural memory. Throughout the discussion, Sadr reflects on the relationship between art, community, and the responsibility of speaking from lived experience rather than abstraction.

Juan Gomez returns to What’s My Thesis? to discuss his evolving practice across sculpture, installation, and drawing, and the ways his Mexican American identity and family history have resurfaced through materials associated with physical labor. Working with wire, knots, cement, bricks, packing materials, and found objects, Gomez reflects on his family’s roots in Zacatecas, his father’s blue-collar work, and the unexpected relationship between the labor he grew up around and the work he makes today.

In conversation with Javier Proenza, Gomez considers the economics of sustaining an artistic practice outside the commercial art market, the role of mentorship and community, material impermanence and collecting, social comparison, failure, and the pressure to define success through institutional recognition. They also discuss Gomez’s time in Mexico, mortality and memory, AI-generated imagery and handmade objects, and his view of art not as a hobby but as a lasting discipline and way of life.

In this episode, Javier Proenza speaks with Los Angeles painter and sign painter Alex Gonzalez about the relationship between place, labor, and artistic practice. Drawing from a lifetime spent in the MacArthur Park neighborhood, Gonzalez describes how its density, street life, and changing social landscape have become the foundation of a narrative painting practice built on observation, symbolism, and allegory.

The conversation explores the value of professional sign painting as both a craft and a sustainable career, the realities of maintaining an independent studio practice outside the gallery system, and the challenges of balancing artistic ambition with financial stability and family responsibility. Throughout, Gonzalez reflects on the ways everyday experience can be transformed into contemporary painting without losing sight of the community from which it emerges.

Sterling Wells is a Los Angeles–based painter represented by Night Gallery whose practice combines plein air watercolor with ideas drawn from conceptual art, environmental systems, and site-specific observation. In this conversation, Wells reflects on growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, studying painting and sculpture, living in New York after the 2008 financial crisis, and developing an interdisciplinary approach through graduate study at ArtCenter College of Design.

The discussion examines the role of water as both material and metaphor, the relationship between documentation and painting, and the evolution of Wells' practice from sculptural installations to large-scale outdoor watercolor works. Wells also speaks candidly about gallery representation, artistic community, financial uncertainty, and the practical realities of sustaining a contemporary painting practice while remaining committed to a slow, labor-intensive process.

Moon is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, art handler, and co-founder of DMS Atelier, an artist-run space in Los Angeles dedicated to exhibitions, artist residencies, and community programming. Originally from Chicago and a graduate of Grambling State University, he discusses the experiences that shaped his path from athletics and hip-hop culture to contemporary art and arts education.

The conversation explores artistic practice, teaching, community-building, and the development of DMS Atelier's residency program and community feed initiative. Along the way, Moon reflects on regional identity, the cultural differences between Chicago, Louisiana, and California, and the importance of creating spaces that foster sustained artistic practice, accessibility, and meaningful relationships within contemporary art.

In this episode, Javier Proenza speaks with South African interdisciplinary artist Azole Njengele, an MFA candidate at Otis College of Art and Design, about the relationship between architecture, drawing, and photography in her evolving practice. Reflecting on her education and professional experience in South Africa before relocating to the United States, Azole discusses how architectural training continues to shape her understanding of space, image-making, and artistic process.

Their conversation explores contemporary photography, portraiture, consent and ethics, South Africa's art communities, and the differences between artistic life in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Los Angeles. They also consider the practical realities of sustaining a creative practice, the opportunities afforded by graduate study, and the role of observation, collaboration, and interdisciplinary thinking in contemporary art.

Interdisciplinary artist Manny Valdez joins What's My Thesis? to discuss his participatory practice, recent projects, and experiences as an MFA graduate from Otis College of Art and Design. Drawing on performance, installation, screen printing, and artist participation, Valdez examines how artists construct identity, navigate institutional structures, and create opportunities within the contemporary Los Angeles art world.

The conversation explores the realities of art education, grant applications, rejection, networking, retail labor, and teaching, alongside broader questions about artistic ambition, community, and sustaining a practice outside conventional career pathways. Throughout, Valdez reflects on the value of collaboration, resilience, and creating work that invites dialogue rather than certainty.

Javier Proenza speaks with Ioanna Sakellaraki, a Greek visual artist, photographer, and Fulbright Scholar currently conducting research with the Smithsonian, about the development of her interdisciplinary practice across photography, collage, embroidery, and archival work.

The conversation examines Sakellaraki’s transition from a career in communications strategy with EU institutions into contemporary art, the influence of personal grief and the discovery of her late father’s archive on her work, and her engagement with Greek mourning traditions, Orthodox ritual, memory, and the unstable boundary between documentary and conceptual image-making.

For the 300th episode of What’s My Thesis?, Javier Proenza is joined by Los Angeles-based artists and cultural workers Dakota Noot and Christopher Anthony Velasco for an informal conversation shaped by friendship, shared history, and long experience in contemporary art communities. The discussion reflects on public visibility, social media hostility, reputation, and the shifting dynamics of creative life in increasingly online cultural spaces.

The episode also examines practical questions of artistic survival, including teaching, freelance writing, collaborative creative work, and the limitations of traditional institutional pathways. Moving between humor and critical reflection, the conversation offers a grounded portrait of how artists build careers, relationships, and parallel forms of legitimacy outside conventional gallery structures.