On this episode, I’m joined by Julien Creuzet, the Afro-descendant French Caribbean artist who has his first institutional solo exhibition on view now through June 1, 2025 at The Bell at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island. 

In the episode Creuzet shares his artistic journey and passion for making exhibitions where he can have a discussion through art. His work spans various mediums including sculpture, poetry, video, music, and more. Here, he’s reimagined his French Pavillion from the 60th Venice Biennale for The Bell, focusing on water as a site of both historical and contemporary traumas and emancipatory futures. Creuzet’s artistic practice has long referenced legacies of colonialism, and his challenge to the architecture and history of the French Pavilion extends to Brown University's campus and Providence’s centrality within the Black Atlantic. He delves into the autonomy in his creative process and how identity influences his work's adaptability across different cultural and political contexts. The exhibition reflects on the colonial history of Martinique, connections between different regions, and the fluidity of human identity. 

Brown is situated near the Providence River, one of the many Rhode Island ports through which the largest number of enslaved Africans entered the Thirteen Colonies prior to 1774. Triangulated with Africa and the Caribbean in the 18th century, the shipping industry of Rhode Island evolved to be deeply enmeshed with the U.S. cotton industry as the region became a center of textile production in the 19th century. Creuzet is fascinated by the watery connection between Venice, the Caribbean island of Martinique where his family has lived for generations, and Providence, conceptualizing the migration of the pavilion across a Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean dense with histories that have long informed his work. The presentation at Brown is of a different viscosity, an adaptation to Providence waterways and colonial thematics that are present on campus and loom large across the region. 

 On this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Joy Simmons. 

Dr. Joy Simmons  is a radiologist, art collector, and philanthropist. In this episode, she discusses her multifaceted engagement with the arts. Beyond simply acquiring works, Dr. Simmons supports an entire arts ecosystem from artists to small non profits to galleries and museums through her work, her stewardship, and her commitment.

She emphasizes the importance of visibility and community support for Black artists, writers, and curators. Dr. Simmons shares how her collection has grown over the years, and the unique installations in her home, highlighting the personal and cultural significance behind each piece. In the episode, she also reflects on the evolving art scene, the importance of preserving Black culture through art, and the impact of the recent wildfires in L.A. and the sociopolitical changes on the art community. 

 On this episode, I'm joined by Shinique Smith.  

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, and now Los Angeles based,  Shinique Smith is best known for her visual poetry,  monumental fabric sculptures, and paintings of calligraphy and collage that engage abstraction. Her work gained critical acclaim and widespread attention through her participation in important group exhibitions, including Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 30 Americans organized by the Rubell Family Collection and Unmonumental at the New Museum. 

Last fall, Smith unveiled a new monumental aluminum sculpture for Miami Arts in Public Spaces at the Port of Miami. She currently has work on view in several shows across the US, including By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection, curated by Naomi Beckwith, Poetics of Dimensions at the ICASF, curated by guest curator Larry Ossei-Mensah, and earlier this month, Smith opened up a two person show celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Nigerian Rele Gallery, Social Fabrics, Magic and Memory, features Smith's work in conversation with Lagos-based artist, Marcelina Acpojotor. 

Over the last twenty years, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from clothing and explored concepts of ritual using breath, bunding and calligraphy as tools toward abstraction. Her layered works range from palm-sized bundled microcosms to monolithic bales to massive chaotic paintings that contain vibrant and carefully collected mementos from her life. Smith’s practice operates at the convergence of consumption and spiritual sanctuary, balancing forces and revealing connections across space and time, race, gender and place to suggest the possibility of new worlds. 

On this episode I’m joined by Taylor Renee Aldridge. 

Taylor Renee Aldridge is a writer and curator based in Detroit, Michigan. In 2014, with writer Jessica Lynne, she co-founded ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. In Fall 2024, she assumed the role of Executive Director at the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation. 

In the episode we discuss her return to her native Detroit, the importance of ancestral practice, why there’s a lack of art criticism today, and what she’s excited about for the future. 

Taylor has edited and contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs, including Enunciated Life (CAAM, 2021) and Mario Moore | Enshrined: Presence + Preservation (Charles H. Wright Museum, 2021).  Her writing has appeared in Artforum, The Art Newspaper, Art21, ARTNews, CanadianArt, Contemporary&, Detroit Metro Times and SFMOMA’s Open Space. She has organized exhibitions with the California African American Museum (CAAM), Detroit Institute of Arts, and Cranbrook Art Museum, including the critically acclaimed Simone Leigh (2024, CAAM & LACMA). Taylor is the recipient of the 2016 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short Form Writing and the 2019 Rabkin Foundation Award for Art Journalism. She holds an MLA from Harvard University with a concentration in Museum Studies and a BA from Howard University with a concentration in Art History.

 Image Credit:  Bella Lopez
Contributing Audio Credit: Alan Mckinney  

On this episode I’m joined by Ekow Eshun. Ekow Eshun is a writer, editor and curator, known for his work in arts, culture, and identity. In the episode we discuss his latest exhibition, The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, on view through February 9 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show brings together over 60 contemporary works that unfold around three core themes: Double Consciousness, Past and Presence and Aliveness. As the former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, he played a significant role in shaping the institution's programming. 

Image Credit:  Zeinab Batchelor 
Contributing Audio Credit: Alan Mckinney 

We're back with another season of Everything is Connected in 2025! 

Before we get started with a new season I just want to take a moment and say thank you to all of the listeners from all over the world. We had more listener-ship in 2024 across the globe than ever before. So thank you all. It's really such a joy and such a pleasure to be in company with you on this journey.

Being in conversation with artists and curators, visual creatives, and cultural leaders. People who are actively thinking about our world, investigating our society, and doing that through the visual landscape, through curatorial projects, and through thinking about creative solutions to some of the world's problems.

On this episode, I'm joined by Otobong Nkanga as we discuss her latest commission, Cadence, on view at the MoMA now through summer 2025. I first discovered her work when I wrote about her earlier this year for the summer issue of Sculpture Magazine.

Otobong Nkanga, a multidisciplinary visual artist born in Nigeria and based in Antwerp, Belgium, explores themes of memory, identity, and the complex relationships between people and their environment. Nkanga’s art is deeply rooted in storytelling, using materials like minerals, textiles, and organic substances to narrate humanity's interaction with land and resources.

 Nkanga's work has garnered international acclaim, including numerous exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as Tate Modern, Castello di Rivoli, and the Venice Biennale. In 2019, she received the Sharjah Biennial Prize and the prestigious Ultima Prize for Visual Arts in Belgium. Her ongoing project Carved to Flow, which merges art, community, and sustainability, exemplifies her commitment to creating dialogues around ethical consumption and interconnectedness. Nkanga's innovative work continues to influence contemporary art, prompting critical reflections on the ties between ecology, culture, and the global economy.

On this episode I'm joined by Jammie Holmes as we discuss his work and practice; the journey that led him into art and the focus of his practice today. 

His exhibition, Morning Thoughts, at Marianne Boesky Gallery is on view when we sit down to talk about his origin story and some of the ideas he’s investigating in his latest body of work.
 
 Incorporating portraiture, symbolism, and written text into his work, Holmes intersperses reflections on social, cultural, and political concerns with deeply felt meditations on notions of family, home, and Blackness. He is a storyteller whose determination to imbue his work with his own subjective, lived experience is itself a subtle, effective political gesture.
 
 His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including: Afro-Atlantic Histories, which traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Dallas Museum of Art, TX. 

On this episode I'm joined by Kandy G Lopez as we discuss her practice on the eve of the closing of her two person show with Aminah Robinson at ACA gallery in Chelsea. In the exhibition viewers were presented with her mixed media, fiber, and stained glass works. 

Lopez  is an Afro-Caribbean visual artist, eager to be challenged materialistically and metaphorically when representing marginalized individuals that inspire and move her. Her works are created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture. Lopez is interested in developing a nostalgic dialogue between the artwork and the viewer. 

This episode was recorded before the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election. 

On this episode I'm joined by  Genevieve Gaignard as we discuss her latest exhibition, and third solo with Vielmetter Los Angeles, Thinking Out Loud. In the show, Gaignard excavates concepts of identity and reflects on the intersections of life’s journey.  In what might be Gaignard’s most intimate body of work to date, Thinking Out Loud overlaps her practice with her most recent lived experience, set against the backdrop of her newly situated life in New York where she has a new studio. Her symbol-laden, cryptic work speaks to larger truths: the building and breaking down of walls, the rupture of domesticity as wallpaper tears, and the detritus of everyday life that we must all work our way through. Gaignard explores the veil as armor, representing protection while moving through growth.  Gaignard has described her working process as a “lived playlist, a diaristic processing of my life, a creative vibe set against the backdrop of mix tapes and personal soundtracks that transcends, romanticizes, and provides an escape from the everyday.” 

On this episode, I’m joined by Paul Anthony Smith. His latest show, Antillean, is on view at Jack Shainman Gallery when we sit down to talk. Paul has just returned from London, where he attended Frieze London, and spent time seeing his Jamaican family, who lives there. In the episode, Paul reflects on the history of the Caribbean and explores themes of migration. We discussed how photography plays a key role in his work, and his use of labor-intensive techniques, such as the hand-scratching method known as picotage, including how becoming a father has changed his perspective on life and creativity.

In Antillean, he continues his exploration of the ways in which memory, both personal and historical, can shape the present and fragment the past. This body of works stems from photographs Smith made during Carnival festivities in Trinidad and Tobago from 2020 to 2023. 

Paul Anthony Smith was born in Jamaica in 1988 and currently lives and works in New York City. 

On this episode, I'm joined by Chiwoniso Kaitano Executive Director of MacDowell, the nation’s first artist residency program. She is the 10th person to lead the organization since 1907. Before joining MacDowell, Chi spent the last four years at the helm of Girl Be Heard, expanding its organizational budget, increasing individual giving by 200 percent, and growing both the staff and board. Prior to Girl Be Heard, she served as executive director of Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based arts and culture organization. She is an avid traveler, having lived on three continents. She holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs. She also serves on the Board of Directors of three New York City-based nonprofits: the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Center for Fiction (formerly The Mercantile Library), and The Jazz Leaders Fellowship of Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Originally from Zimbabwe, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

On this episode, I'm joined by Samuel Levi Jones ahead of his latest solo exhibition at Vielmetter, Los Angeles, abstraction of truth. The exhibition presents a profound and timely critique of the structures that shape our understanding of authority and history. Jones’ method of deconstructing books and now, flags serves as a powerful metaphor for the dismantling of the colonial and imperial narratives that continue to influence our legal and social systems. By physically tearing apart these symbols of power and reassembling them into abstract compositions, Jones not only challenges the authority of these texts but also invites viewers to question the origins and implications of the knowledge they represent.

Samuel Levi Jones was born and raised in Marion, Indiana, and he lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trained as a photographer and multidisciplinary artist, he earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from Taylor University and a B.F.A from Herron School of Art and Design in 2009. He received his MFA in Studio Art from Mills College in 2012. He is the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Alexander Wein artist prize awarded by the Studio Museum in Harlem.

On this final episode of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, I'm joined by Sir John Akomfrah RA. Akomfrah is a Ghanaian-born British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator.  A pioneering filmmaker, Akomfrah creates multichannel video installations that critically examine the legacy of colonialism, the Black diaspora, and environmental degradation. Akomfrah weaves together original footage with archival material to create stirring, layered narratives that juxtapose personal and historical memory, past and present, and environmental and human crises. This year, Akomfrah was commissioned by the British Council to represent Great Britain with his multi-layered film piece, 'Listening All Night to the Rain.' 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-car.eer, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society

On this episode I'm joined by Sandra Poulson. Sandra Poulson is an Angolan artist based in London and Luanda. Poulson draws from personal experiences and observations growing up in Luanda, Angola, a former Portuguese colony. Her work investigates the political, cultural, and socio-economic landscape of Angola analyzing the relationship between history, oral tradition, and global political structures. I first discovered Poulson’s work earlier this year on a trip to Sharjah when I visited the Sharjah Art Foundation and The Africa Institute. At the time, Poulson’s work, as part of the Sharjah Architecture Triennale, was still on view. 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I’m joined by Wael Shawky. Wael Shawky is an Egyptian artist working between Alexandria and Philadelphia, whose practice is based on extensive periods of research and inquiry, tackling notions of national, religious and artistic identity through film, performance and storytelling. Shawky reconsiders historical narratives and contemporary culture. He was commissioned by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to represent Egypt this year in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I'm joined by Azu Nwagbogu, curator and a National Geographic Explorer at large and director and founder of Lagos Photo Festival and African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organization based in Lagos, Nigeria dedicated to the promotion of art in Africa with the purpose of developing talent, creating societal awareness, and providing a platform to express creativity. He is also the curator of the first ever pavilion of the Republic of Benin at the Venice Biennale. 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists & Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I'm joined by MADEYOULOOK the South African, Johannesburg based interdisciplinary artist collaborative between Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho. The works of MADEYOULOOK take as their point of departure everyday Black practices that have either been historically overlooked or deemed inconsequential. These works encourage a re-observation of and de-familiarisation with the everyday of urban South African life. 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists and Curators in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I’m joined by Aindrea Emelife. Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Aindrea is currently Curator, Modern and Contemporary at MOWAA (Museum of West African Art,). She is also the curator of the Nigeria Pavilion at this year's 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. 

This exclusive season of Everything is Connected: African Artists in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. 

The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is an interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study, research and documentation of Africa, its people, and its cultures; its complex past, present and future; and its manifold connections with the wider world. The Institute is conceived as a research-based think-tank, and a postgraduate studies institution (offering both master’s and Ph.D. programs), which aims to train a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies. The institute programs include international symposia and conferences, teaching of African languages and translation programs, active publishing of books and periodicals, visual art exhibitions and artist commissions, film and performance series, and community classes and outreach events.

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid-career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

Light Work presents: Everything is Connected: African Artists in the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale! ⁠sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University launching next week! 

The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is an interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study, research and documentation of Africa, its people, and its cultures; its complex past, present and future; and its manifold connections with the wider world. The Institute is conceived as a research-based think-tank, and a postgraduate studies institution (offering both master’s and Ph.D. programs), which aims to train a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies. The institute programs include international symposia and conferences, teaching of African languages and translation programs, active publishing of books and periodicals, visual art exhibitions and artist commissions, film and performance series, and community classes and outreach events.

For the series, Folasade Ologundudu, writer, curator, and the creator, host, and producer of Light Work Presents Everything is Connected, speaks with artists and curators of the African diaspora participating in this year's 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. Before, during the vernissage, and after the VIP opening of the Venice Biennale, Ologundudu engages in-depth conversation with artists and curators during this historic edition of the Biennale, presenting  more African nations and artists than ever before.

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I'm joined by Kenturah Davis as we discuss her latest exhibition and her first solo in the UK with Stephen Friedman gallery. Kenturah Davis is a visual artist based between Los Angeles, California  and Accra, Ghana. Her work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, she explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. Davis earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA  Yale University School of Art.

On this episode I'm joined by LaToya M. Hobbs. LaToya M. Hobbs is an artist, wife, and mother of two from Little Rock, AR, who is currently living and working in Baltimore, MD. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African Diaspora. 

Her exhibition record includes numerous national and international venues, including the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; SCAD Museum of Art; Albright Knox Museum, and Sophia Wanamaker Galleries in San Jose, Costa Rica, among others. Her work is housed in private and public collections such as the Harvard Art Museum, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Getty Research Institute, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Other accomplishments include the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a nomination for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award and a 2022 IFPDA Artis Grant. Hobbs is also a Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, a collective whose vision is to make visible the narratives and works of Black women printmakers, past, present and future. 

On this episode I'm joined by Jade Thacker. Jade Thacker received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York; Public Gallery, London; WOAW gallery, Beijing, and many more.  Thacker has participated in residencies at Fountainhead Residency, Miami and The Cabin, Los Angeles. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. 

 Thacker’s work delves into the internal conflicts and powerful emotional states that often remain veiled and hard to define. Her boldly colored figurative canvases convey the inner turmoil and subconscious tensions experienced by so many, shedding light on the complexities of human emotion. Her third solo show ‘Personal Weather’ is currently on view at Jupiter Gallery in Miami when we sit down to talk about her latest show. 

On this episode I'm joined by Sedrick Chisom as we discuss his latest exhibition at C L E A R I N G gallery, And 108 Prayers of Evil. 

Sedrick Chisom (b. 1989, Philadelphia) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a full scholarship to study at Cooper Union, where he completed his BFA in 2016 and was awarded the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Award for Exceptional Ability. In 2018, he received his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Chisom was awarded the 2018–2019 VCU Fountainhead Fellowship in Painting and Drawing at the Macedonia Institute and was a 2019 resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

At the center of Sedrick Chisom’s practice is a commitment to confounding racial origin myths and pseudosciences toward creating apocalyptic fantasies in writing and painting. Appropriating imagery from Black Lives Matter demonstrations, medieval Christian iconography, and Greek mythology, Chisom questions who has the power to construct natural and social worlds, upending the authority of those worlds in the process. Chisom appoints himself a new mythmaker, one whose motivation is fundamentally pro-Black and who is committed to the acceleration of new imaginative possibilities. - Pilar Corrias gallery 

On this episode I'm joined by, Adrienne Elise Tarver.  Adrienne Elise Tarver is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Her work addresses the complexity and invisibility of Black female identity including the history within domestic spaces, the fantasy of the tropical seductress, and the archetype of the all-knowing spiritual matriarch. Adrienne is a week away from opening her latest solo show and her fourth with Dinner gallery when we sit down to talk about her work and practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Mario Joyce. Mario Joyce is a self-taught African American artist based in Los Angeles. His process began early and was heavily influenced by prejudices experienced growing up Black and Queer in rural Ohio. He uses genealogical research, soil from the Ohio he grew up on, carefully sourced vintage collage materials and oil paint to explore how American History is steeped in selective storytelling that neglects to share the experiences of marginalized communities. Mario is a 2023 alum of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, has recently completed the Pratt>FORWARD residency at New Lab in Brooklyn Navy Yard, in New York City. Joyce's latest show at UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles closed a few weeks prior when we sit down to talk about his work and practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Maria Elena Ortiz. Maria comes to the Modern from the Pérez Art Museum in Miami (PAMM), where she curated discerning exhibitions such as Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection and The Other Side of Now: Foresight in Caribbean Art. At PAMM and with support of the Mellon Foundation, Ortiz founded and spearheaded the Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI)—a curatorial platform dedicated to Caribbean art. During her tenure in Miami, Ortiz worked to diversify the museum’s collection, securing works by Simone Leigh, Bisa Butler, Bony Ramirez, and others.

María joined the Modern in 2022. Her first exhibition with the museum, Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940 is on view now until July 28, 2024. The show inspired by the history of Surrealism in the Caribbean with connections to notions of the Afrosurreal in the United States. Representing a global perspective, this exhibition is the first intergenerational show dedicated to Caribbean and African diasporic art presented at the Modern. Listen in as we talk about her latest show, what inspires her work, and what she’s most passionate about. 

On this episode, I'm joined by Mario Moore. Mario Moore is a Detroit native, who received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI in 2009 and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2013. I met Mario late last fall in Detroit when I attended the DIA Gala and spent a weekend in the city, checking out the art scene and meeting some of the city's key players. Moore’s paintings focus on the personal, social, and political implications of our segregated society.  Presenting stories of his own life and those of friends and family, Moore weaves in multiple references to history, art, politics, and literature to complete his narrative. Listen in as we talk about some of the things that make Detroit such a unique city. The changes he's seen take place over the years, his time at Yale, and his love for painting.

Late last year, as I was ending my season, the news of Radcliffe Bailey's passing was announced and sent shockwaves throughout the art world among his friends, family, peers. 

At the time, I was planning on recording an episode with Karen Comer Lowe, a long time arts professional and curator based in Atlanta. As Karen began to share with me her introduction into the art world, she mentioned the importance of Radcliffe's presence in her life and their friendship. This immediately prompted me to not only want to hear Karen reflect back and share some of the stories and memories that she had of Radcliffe, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk to more people about his life and the incredible impact that he left on the people that he touched over the course of his lifetime.

In this episode, you'll hear testimonials from friends, colleagues, and those who considered Radcliffe family including Joeanna Bellorado-Samuels, Franklin Sirmans, Sheila Pree Bright, Trevor  Schoonmaker, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Karen Comer Lowe, Isolde Brielmaier, and Larry Ossei-Mensah. So many are mourning his loss and this is an opportunity to celebrate his life and legacy. 

On this episode I'm joined by Essence Harden. Essence Harden is the Visual Arts curator at CAAM,  the California African American Museum.  She' s one of two curators of the Made in L.A. biennial taking place next year in 2025. 

This year, Essence was named the curator of Focus at Frieze LA.  For this year's focus, Essence explores the intimate, environmental, and urban dimensions of ecologies. Across all  Frieze Fairs, Focus is a space dedicated to galleries founded within the last 12 years. So there's lots of emerging galleries and artists to discover. Just last week, the Hammer Museum named Essence one of two curators of the 7th edition of the Made in LA Biennial. to be held in the fall of 2025. When I catch up with Essence, she's fresh off a call with friend and artist Lauren Halsey. 

On this episode, we chat about Lauren Halsey, the importance of place and geographies, and her curation of Focus at Frieze LA opening next week.

On this episode I'm joined by Dominic chambers.  Dominic and I have known each other for a couple of years now and I’ve watched his practice grow so much in that time. It's been a minute since we sat down and talked about his work and practice, so it was great to catch up with him and learn all about the work in his latest show at Lehmann Maupin gallery, and some of the things that have been inspiring him lately.

Born in St. Louis Missouri, Chambers currently lives and works in New Haven CT. Chambers received his MFA from Yale in 2019. Chambers creates vibrant paintings that simultaneously engage art historical models, such as color-field painting and gestural abstraction, and contemporary concerns around race, identity, and the necessity for leisure and reflection. Interested in how art can function as a mode for understanding, recontextualizing, or renegotiating one’s relationship to the world, the artist sees painting as a critical and intellectual endeavor, as much as an aesthetic one.

On this episode I'm joined by Reginald Sylvester. Reginald has his first solo show open right now at Roberts projects in Los Angeles when we sit down to talk about his work and art practice.  Reginald Sylvester II works predominantly in abstraction, making large-scale paintings and sculptures which often include found objects. His show, at Roberts Projects, T-1000, features new and interconnected sculptures and paintings. In his latest series he transcends the traditional canvas, discovering novel methods of creative process through experimentation with and investigation into physical, industrial, and spiritual engagements with rubber, steel, and aluminum. 

On this episode I'm joined by Bethany Collins. Her first solo show is on view at  Alexander Gray Associates  when we sit down to talk about her latest works and the ideas and concepts that ground her practice. Bethany Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptual practice examines the relationship between race and language. Centering language—its biases, contradictions, and ability to simultaneously forge connections and foster violence—her works illuminate America’s past and offer insight into the development of racial and national identities. Drawing on a wide variety of documents, ranging from nineteenth-century musical scores to US Department of Justice reports, she erases, obscures, excerpts, and rewrites portions of text to bring to the fore issues revolving around race, power, and histories of violence.

On this episode I'm joined by Sanford Biggers. Sanford Biggers was born in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in New York City, where he has for decades. Over the course of his career, Biggers has won numerous awards and exhibited in countless museums and exhibitions. His work is currently held in some of the world's most important artistic institutions from the Museum of Modern Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

We're right in the middle of fall in New York City, when some of the most important shows of the year are presented. Fall art shows are easily some of the best you'll see all year in New York. At the time of this recording, Sanford has concurrent shows that have recently been on display in New York and Chicago with Marianne Boesky and Monique Meloche. 

On this episode I'm joined by Calida Rawles. Calida Rawles merges hyper-realistic paintings with poetic abstraction. Rawles opened her first major solo show in New York City where we hosted an artist talk this past weekend. In A Certain Oblivion, the title of her latest show, Rawles presents 10 paintings that reflect on the overturning of Roe v Wade, and what Calida calls ‘a dark time’ in society. Where there is darkness there is also light. In this vein, Rawles views the challenges we face today as an opportunity to dream of a new and different future. 

On this episode I'm joined by Deborah Roberts. She’s on the eve of her first show in New York City in over five years at Stephen Friedman gallery opening, "What about us?" at their newest space in Tribeca. It's an important moment for her as an artist and for the New York art scene. Deborah is showcasing some of her biggest works to date and playing with composition and scale in ways that are new to her practice. During the conversation we talk about some of the layers and the deeper context behind her work,  ideas that are integral to the way that she thinks about and experiences the world, and why she believes that her work and the perspective she's illustrating is important necessary and timely for people to see.  

On this episode I'm joined by Alteronce Gumby. Alteronce Gumby is an artist and local of New York City. His artistic practice includes painting, ceramics, installation and performance. Gumby’s work has been exhibited at galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, Gladstone Gallery and Camden Arts Centre. Gumby graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Painting and Printmaking in 2016.  Using shards of tempered glass, gemstones, resins, and other unconventional materials, Alteronce Gumby creates luminous paintings that operate at the intersection of abstraction and representation. 

In his work, Gumby employs color as both material and metaphor, deftly harnessing its subtle effects and rich tonal relationships while also exploring color’s capacity to create and convey meaning. His prismatic fields add new perspectives to the history of abstract painting by proposing deliberate connections between color, society and the universe. Alteronce conducts extensive research on his materials, examining their historical uses, kinetic abilities and ocular qualities. Once coalesced, these materials form unpredictable surfaces, alluding to the greater forces at play in the universe.

Let’s dive into my latest episode with Alteronce Gumby. It’s filled with lots of lots as we talk all things, traveling, hip hop and doing what we do so kids who look just like us are inspired to realize their creative ambitions. 

On this episode I'm joined by Lisa Kim. Kim is the director of the Ford Foundation Gallery, an exhibition space within the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. A former Gagosian Gallery staffer, Kim’s previous post before joining the Ford Foundation Gallery was as director of cultural affairs at Two Trees Management Company, a real estate development firm in Brooklyn, where she oversaw the company's arts philanthropy, public art initiatives, produced the annual DUMBO Arts Festival (2011-2014).

Let’s dive into my latest episode with Lisa Kim where we’ll learn more about her passions, why she believes art is important, and what she loves about collaboration.

On this episode I'm joined by Raelis Vasquez. A native of the Dominican Republic, Vasquez moved to the United States in 2002 when he was seven. He graduated with his BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Columbia University in 2021. It was around this time that I was first introduced to his work and I was immediately drawn to his figures.  Vasquez draws on historical, political and personal narratives through depictions of daily life. His painterly compositions evoke the complexities of Afro-Latinx experiences. Through attentiveness to the people and places he portrays and through his gestural brushwork, contrasts of warm and cool hues, and the use of texture, the figures in Raelis Vasquez' work often appear to simultaneously inhabit a space of ease and vulnerability, encouraging viewers to consider their own positions on class, race and geography. He's on the eve of opening his first solo show with PM/ AM Gallery in London and his first solo in over two years when we sit down to talk about his work and practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Tariku Shiferaw.  Tariku Shiferaw is known for his practice of mark-making that explores the metaphysical ideas of painting and societal structures. This formal language of geometric abstraction is executed through densely layering material to create “marks,” gestures that interrogate space-making and reference the hierarchy of systems. 

On this episode I'm joined by Basil Kincaid. I first met Basil in Miami with Mindy Solomon, a Miami-based gallerist who has built a working relationship with Basil over the years exhibiting his work in multiple shows. Our introduction sparked a deeper conversation about Basil’s work and practice, and in 2021 I wrote the exhibition text for his first monograph with Galleria Poggiali in Milan.  During our conversation we touched on when we first met, our shared experiences of spending time in Ghana, and some of the important experiences that have been critical to Basil's more recent work, with quilts.  

On this episode I'm joined by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones the London born, Nigerian painter whose lived and worked in New York for the past severalyears. Tunji is back from a long stint in Lagos when we sit down to talk about his experiences, life in Lagos, the importance of traveling, the commercial art world, and the importance of professional development for emerging artists. We bumped into each other at the opening for Africa Fashion at the Brooklyn museum a week earlier and also shared our thoughts on the importance of this moment in history regarding African diasporic cultures across the globe.

On this episode I'm joined by Christine Kuan, President & Executive Director of Creative Capital. Before joining Creative Capital, Christine Kuan was CEO/Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art-New York. With twenty years of experience in both nonprofit and commercial sectors of the art world, Kuan has expertise in art education, museums, and digital strategy across cultural institutions and the art market. She was formerly Chief Curator and Director of Strategic Partnerships at Artsy, where she oversaw the organization’s museum and institutional partnerships, digital collection strategy, open access policy, educational initiatives, and auctions.

On this episode I'm joined by Emma Prempeh. I first became introduced to Emma’s work on Instagram during the pandemic. I was researching artists for a series of conversations I’d put together with women artists on Art News Africa, a large IG platform that promotes the work of African diasporic artists. It’s a couple weeks after Frieze New York when Emma and I sit down to talk over Zoom. She’s currently working and living in Uganda. Emma has just recently closed her first solo presentation at Frieze Art Fair with Tiwani Contemporary as we begin to chat about her work and practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Phillip Collins.  Phillip is a marketer turned art collector. Out of the urgent need to bridge a gap in the commercial art market and the desire to spotlight the stories that mattered to him the most, Phillip gave birth to Good Black Art—a platform that’s investing in emerging Black artists from the onset of their careers, creating an ecosystem that offers access to sales and collaborations, exhibitions and media opportunities. We are sitting in Soho at The Malin when we begin to talk about how we first met, our experiences in the art world and the ways in which travel and new experiences bring us closer to ourselves. 

On this episode I'm joined by Selasie Gomado. Selasie and I met in 2022, in Accra through Gideon Appah a Ghanaian artist, who closed his first solo show with Pace gallery earlier this year in London. Selasie and I are in Accra when we sit down to talk about the artist agency and collective ARTEMARTIS which works with some of Ghana’s most emerging artists showcasing their work both locally in Ghana and internationally throughout the continent, Europe, and beyond. What began as an online shop with a few friends in 2018 has grown into a collective that supports artists with art supplies and studio spaces to an agency that focuses on bringing the artists to larger markets through group exhibitions and shows. 

On this episode I'm joined by Katherina Olschbaur. I first met Kat in LA when we were deeper into the pandemic and still reeling from life in lock down. We were both following each other on Instagram at the time but had never met in person. I was immediately stuck by Kat’s energetic presence and her interesting ideas about the world. 

Originally from Austria, Kat currently lives and works in LA. Her captivating surrealist paintings draw viewers in with rich luscious colors in striking combinations. Her drawings are an integral part of her painting practice deeply informed by her subjects and conceptual frameworks. Katherina was an artist in residence at Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock residency in Senegal, West Africa in 2021. 

It’s a couple of weeks before her first solo show with Perrotin Gallery in Hong Kong when we sit down at Soho House in New York to talk about her work and practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Ayesha Williams and Paul Ninson. Ayesha Williams is an art professional with over a decade of experience working with visual artists, presenting programs, and generating funding for both commercial galleries and nonprofit institutions. She is currently the Executive Director of The Laundromat Project, a nonprofit organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. Paul Ninson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Dikan Center, a not-for-profit visual education institution in Ghana that is fast gaining reputation for its impact and dedication to educating the next generation of Africa’s creative leaders with the skills to transform their communities, countries and the continent. 

We're at Dikan Center in Accra, Ghana when we sit down to talk about their work and respective practices within the art world. 

On this episode I'm joined by Helina Metaferia. Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work integrates archives, somatic studies, and dialogical practices, creating overlooked narratives that amplify BIPOC/femme bodies. 

Her work is in the permanent collection of institutions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; RISD Art Museum, Providence, RI; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY. 

Helina is preparing for EXPO Chicago, the annual fair that brings the city's art community together, when we sit down high up at Silver Arts, the shared studio space Helina is currently working out of that plays host to dozens of emerging artists living and working in New York City. 

On this episode I'm joined by Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Throughout paintings, works on paper, ceramics, and site-specific mural and sound installations, Michaela Yearwood-Dan (b. 1994; London, UK) endeavors to build spaces of queer community, abundance, and joy. Yearwood-Dan's singular visual language draws on a diverse range of influences, including Blackness, queerness, femininity, healing rituals, and carnival culture. Moving freely between media, Yearwood-Dan embeds botanical motifs and meditations within brushy abstract forms and heavy drips of paint. From the monumental scale of her paintings to the more intimate scale of her ceramics and works on paper, Yearwood-Dan's practice frequently reflects an inviting domesticity. Resisting any singular definition of identity, the artist explores the possibilities of creating spaces-physical, pastoral, metaphorical-that allow for unlimited and unbounded ways of being. 

This episode was created in partnership with Marianne Boesky gallery. To celebrate the artists’ second solo show with the gallery we hosted an artist talk with Michaela. It’s a warm Saturday afternoon in Chelsea when we sit down to talk about the show, her practice, and some of the ideas that guide her work. 

On this episode I'm joined by Alex Delotch Davis. Alex is an art and fashion marketer who specializes in developing high-earning multicultural audiences. Presently, Delotch-Davis is Manager of Marketing at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, where she supports the reservoir of culture and commerce that the institution generates for the Atlanta metro area. 

I got on a call with Alex a couple weeks after the Spelman symposium for Black American Portraits at the Spelman Museum of Fine Art and during the opening weekend of the first exhibition by the new director of the Johnson Lowe gallery, Donovan Johnson whose inaugural exhibition, The Alchemists, was curated by Donovan Johnson and Seph Rodney. 

On this episode I'm joined by Gideon Appah.  Born in Accra, Ghana in 1987, Gideon received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana in 2012.  Appah lives and works in Ghana. With a diverse practice that ranges from the expressionistic to the surreal, Appah draws from his personal experiences to depict life in his native Accra. Appah’s work investigates his childhood as well as local mythologies, ethereal landscapes, rivers, domestic interiors, and recurring figures both imagined and known, such as his grandmother and brother. He has also created traditional portraiture and painted dreamlike scenes of jewel-toned figures in imaginative, symbol-laden landscapes. 

It’s a Sunday afternoon in Gideon’s studio in Kasoa, about an hour’s drive from Accra, where he’s working on a painting for his latest show on view now at Pace Gallery in London when we begin talking about his work and studio practice. 

On this episode I'm joined by Liz Andrews. Liz is an artist, curator, museum professional, and leader who is dedicated to the arts and social justice. She has worked with arts organizations across the nation. In August 2021, Liz began her role as Executive Director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Prior to joining Spelman College, Liz Andrews was Executive Administrator in the Director’s Office of LACMA where she expanded her role to collaborate on projects and priorities across museum departments, including diversity and inclusion efforts and curating exhibitions. Her curatorial projects at LACMA included The Obama Portraits Tour and a companion exhibition Black American Portraits. 

It's a few weeks after the Spelman Symposium for Black American Portraits when we sit down to talk about her work and the legacy of Spelman Museum of Fine Art. 

On this episode I'm joined by Danny Baez. Originally from the Dominican republic,  Danny  moved to New York City when he was 18. His journey in the arts can be considered coincidental but I don't believe in coincidences. Everything in life happens for a reason and the places that we find ourselves are not by accident.  Danny has built a career over decades rooted in supporting his friends and extended community.  He is a co-founder of ARTNOIR, the majority women nonprofit organization that amplifies the work of BIPOC artists across the globe.  He is the founder of REGULARNORMAL gallery. Danny apprenticed with Gavin Brown for a time before carving out his own path. He’s worked with artists such as Aya Brown, Melissa Joseph, Na’ye Perez, Khari Turner, and more.

We're in New York City on the eve of MECA, the art fair Danny co-founded in 2017 in San Juan Puerto Rico when we sit down to talk. This is the first year the fair places host to his native country of DR.

On this episode I'm joined by Kent Kelley. I met Kent Kelley for the first time a couple years ago through Anwarii Musa who was on a recent episode. Kent comes from the financial world and has worked as a CFO for many years. He recently started collecting art and currently sits on the board of the High Museum in Atlanta. Kent was a big part of an article I wrote for Artnet highlighting the incredible things that are happening  on the Atlanta art scene. 

Kent shared with me some of the amazing things that have been happening in Atlanta and some of the key stakeholders who are a part of the vibrant art community there. The Spelman Symposium was in full swing when Kent and I sat down to talk about his interest in the arts, how he got started collecting and some of the things that he's most excited about in his art collecting journey.

On this episode I'm joined by Reyna Noriega. I met Reyna in 2021 when I was working on an editorial for Bal Harbour shops and highlighting taste makers in Miami. Reyna invited me over to her place to do our interview in person and shoot a little content. Overlooking the bay in Miami we talked about her art - she’s an illustrator and has worked with some of the world's biggest brands creating products to empower women and girls of color to feel their very best. Reyna Noriega is a visual artist and author, born, raised and working in Miami, FL. Having seen the power of introspection, self reflection and healing, Reyna’s work centers that aspect of our journeys as we seek to rise and be our best, most authentic selves so that people may experience sustainable peace and happiness. 

 We are on the rooftop at Soho Beach House overlooking the ocean when I sit down to vibe with her and learn more about her journey as an artist and some of the core ideas behind her work. 

On this episode I'm joined by Anwarii Musa. Over the last decade Musa has built an art advisory firm focused on the work of contemporary artists. He works with emerging as well as seasoned collectors who sit on the boards of some of the worlds most important institutions as well as works with several athletes and former athletes who are actively building legacy collections.

It’s  Frieze week in LA when we sit down to talk about his journey into the arts.

On this episode I'm joined by Kimberly Drew. Kimberly Drew is a curator, critic & author of two books, This Is What I Know About Art and the anthology Black Futures with Jenna Wortham, both released in 2020. Drew received her B.A. from Smith College in Art History and African-American Studies.

The last time I caught up with Kimberly we were both in Ghana experiencing all the country has to offer spending time in the capital city of Accra, while also visiting important spots in Kumasi and Tamale. Drew and I witnessed the launch of Amoako Boafo's artist residency and foundation, partied at some of Accra's hottest spots and spent time with local artists in the capital city. Listen in as we reflect on this wildly rich experience. 

On this episode I'm joined by Ambrose Murray. Murray received their BA in African American studies from Yale in 2018. They are a self-taught painter and seamstress from North Carolina with roots in Florida. Through their work, Ambrose seeks to bring physical form to the ideas and theories they have been struck by from Black feminist writers and visionaries. 

In an artist statement they reveal

My process is an exploration of our bodies and land as sites of historical memory and mystical/imaginative potential. The act of making through collage becomes a process to imagine and visualize the complex layers and depth of the story that live within our bodies. Through processes that deepen my relationship to my materials, texture, and color, my practice becomes a space to physically re-member and reconstruct the stories and relationships that have been pulled apart and dismembered across generations. 

On this episode I'm joined by Jeffrey Meris, the New York-based artist whose paintings, sculptures, and conceptual work draw on his lived experiences.  

Meris was recently announced as one of this years winners of the prestigious and highly coveted Studio Museum of Harlem residency which has seen the likes of heavy hitters such as Chakaia Booker, David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Mickalene Thomas and Kehinde Wiley partake in its program. 

Formally Jeffrey Meris is an artist who works across sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing to consider ecology, embodiment and various lived experiences while healing deeply personal and historical wounds. 

On this episode I was joined by Larry Ossei-Mensah and this time he interviewed me! 

Sitting on the other side of the table was definitely a change of pace for me, but Larry asked all the right questions. 

We  reflected on Ghana and our experiences  as cultural workers and thought leaders within our industry. Larry's insightful questions helped me to open up and share some of the personal things that I experienced  while I was in Ghana.

Let's dive into the first episode of season 3 where I sit down with Larry Ossei Mensah and we chat about our experiences in Ghana, the launch of Amoako Boafo’s artist  residency program, and the ways in which being in Africa and spending time on the continent transforms our perspective of our work and our place in the world.

This year, to start off 2023, we're back with season 3 of Light Work presents: Everything is connected, a podcast where we talk to artists, thought leaders and creatives across industries, mainly within the arts, about life, work and culture. 

This season we are taking a more global approach as we share episodes recorded in Ghana throughout the year. As always, our conversations are intended to inspire and impact our audiences in positive ways. Uncovering insights into the minds of our peers, professional colleagues, and the people around us whose work intends to foster positive change in our society. 

On this episode we're joined by Bony Ramirez 

Bony Ramierz is a self taught artist who retains a connection to his Dominican heritage through his art, incorporating elements of the Caribbean with his own distinctive details. He left the island when he was a child and migrated to the US. Through painting and drawing, Ramirez creates life-sized paper figures onto painted wood panels. His subjects are bold yet strange, often appearing mysteriously oversized with contorted limbs. Ramírez paints his distorted figures on paper using acrylic wash, colored pencils, and oil pastels before cutting them out and pasting them to wood panels decorated with backgrounds painted in acrylics. 

On this episode we're joined by Terrell Villiers. 

Terrell is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, community organizer, curator, and producer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Recognized internationally for his cartoon illustrations, where he explores the nuance of identity, through the intersectionality of black homosexuality, and black queerness / transness. Through the myriad of unaddressed traumas he experienced growing up visibly queer in a conservative Caribbean household, he creates a series of characters and fantasy worlds as a form of survival to transport himself to imaginary spaces unbound to any rule or order.

On this episode we're joined by Chela Mitchell. 

Chela provides art advisory to private, public, and new collectors looking to navigate the contemporary art market. With a deep understanding of the art market, CMA helps clients build fine art collections. Founded in 2018, CMA's strength is building cultural and medium-diverse art collections. We work closely with our clients to understand their needs while focusing on the best way to execute their goals. In addition to advisory, we provide art direction for projects that seek to establish a fresh, creative perspective.

On this episode were joined by Nate Lewis. Nate is a visual artist, most well known for his layered works on paper where he explores history, time and movement through the body. He engage in practice that incorporates photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. 

Lewis’s work is in the public collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Blanton Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Grinnell College Museum of Art, and 21c Museum Hotels,Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Cardiff, United Kingdom, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, International African-American Museum, Charleston, SC, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA , and more. 

 Cierra Britton is a curator and art dealer living and working in New York City. As the director of the Cierra Britton Gallery, her mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work across all mediums. 

Founded in 2021, the Cierra Britton Gallery is the first NYC-based gallery dedicated to representing BIPOC womxn artists whose work contributes to the contemporary cultural dialogue across the globe. The gallery’s mission is to make space for artists who are creating exploratory work inclusive of all mediums such as painting, photography, drawing, and performance. Starting as a nomadic and online gallery, our programming has focused on a diverse roster of artists making work that is rooted in storytelling, exploration, and cultural commentary.

On this episode we're joined by Marcus Leslie Singleton. The Brooklyn based painter depicts intimate moments of Black life. He has exhibited his work at galleries and art fairs in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Singleton reflects on the process of identity building and questions around Black consciousness. 

On this episode we're joined by Lauren Pearce. 

Lauren Pearce is a black artist who pulls inspiration from her community, creating powerful mixed media art, bringing textures in her portraits, and iconic shapes and colors to her captivating murals. Her passion for expressing her identity led her to art School. At the age of 24, she began her professional career as an artist. Using an array of materials in her work, she transfers her world into her paintings and allows her imagination to bring forth the colorful language of Identity, race, and womanhood, beyond a canvas. 

On this episode we're joined by Storm Ascher, founder and owner of superposition gallery which opened  in 2018 The gallery represents emerging and mid-career artists from around the globe with an emphasis on creating community. Taking on the life of the nomadic artist and resident, curatorial projects come to fruition through iterations of borrowed space in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. Next week, storm and superposition are kicking off summer in the hamptons! – In honor of its four year anniversary, Superposition Gallery presents RESILIENCE, curated by Storm Ascher, at Eastville Museum (Eastville Community Historical Society) in Sag Harbor opening July 4, 2022, and running through September 30, 2022.

On this episode we're joined by Jake Troyli 

Jake Troyli investigates the construction of otherness and the commodification of the Black/Brown body, confronting and exploring labor capitalism and sweat equity as a demonstration of value. He makes energetic paintings, often featuring a self-portrait or avatar of himself embedded in engaging scenes, with a markedly classicist approach. Utilizing techniques formalized during the High Renaissance, underpainting and toning are central to the conception of each work, beginning with a burnt sienna foundation to establish values. In a timely evolution of his practice, Troyli expands the functionality and influence of his figures, imbuing them with new agency and establishing absurd narratives to consider the timeless conversations surrounding the preconceived notions of identity and value structures. Through the presence of prop-like iconography and compositions reminiscent of community theater sets, Troyli positions his figures as performing commodities constantly on display.
@jake_troyli

On this episode we're joined by Jenee Daria Strand, the Curatorial Assistant for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Jenée-Daria aims to expand her knowledge of art history, and integrate her interests in performance practices, to examine Black subjectivity within the museum setting. She holds a BFA from Florida State University, and is pursuing an MA at New York University (NYU).

On this episode we're joined by Genesis Tramaine, is an expressionist devotional painter who creates abstract portraits of men and women who transcend gender, race, and social structures. Genesis Tramaine’s striking, near-abstract portraits of Black subjects take inspiration from biblical hymns and the scrawling figuration of 1980s New York graffiti art. The Brooklyn-born artist has exhibited at galleries in New York, Paris, Brussels, London, and Shanghai. In 2020, she was an artist in residence at the Rubell Museum in Miami.  

Tramaine paints with a confrontational and provocative use of color and through an urban-inspired, mixed-media approach. The artist describes her practice as focused on the shape and definition of the American Black Face, explaining that her subject’s exaggerated features capture the spirited emotions of the untapped, underrepresented soul of Black people through a mixture of acrylic and oil-based paintings. 

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Tramaine earned her M.S from Pace University and B.S from Utica College of Syracuse University. Tramaine has exhibited nationally and internationally, including an inaugural solo exhibition with Almine Rech in London in February 2020, ‘Parables of Nana’, as well as exhibitions at Richard Beavers Gallery, Brooklyn, NYC; The Tree House, Governors Island, NYC; The Salt Space, Chelsea, NYC; The Raging Spoon Gallery, Toronto, Canada; AOF Gallery, NYC; and more. Her work resides in prominent museum collections including the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami and the Contemporary Art Foundation, Tokyo. 

On this episode we're joined by Clotilde Jimenez - born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1990 he is a visual artist currently  based in Mexico City. Jimenez has developed an artistic practice that spans multimedia collage resulting in a thought provoking cannon of motifs including: tropical fruits, pink painted fingernails, lingerie, and boxing gear. Emotions triggered from vivid dreams and memories take form, as the artist sketches daily. I caught up with Jimenez during the global lock down to learn more about his work and practice. 

Close readings of Jiménez’s work change initial evocations of whimsical frolic, and carefree simplicity, to varying interpretations that are dependent on the viewer’s point of view, regarding gender performance, sexuality, social justice, and racial equality. Nonetheless, Jiménez utilizes quotidian, relatable childhood experiences that present the question, “What is so queer about queerness?” 

His work is featured in noted collections including; The Ford Foundation, Orlando Museum of Art, Hessel Museum of Art, and the Beth Rubin DeWoody collection.

On this episode we're joined by Muna Malik - the multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, painting, and sculpture, to include a wide array of mediums that seek to create cultural awareness and understanding. Her work has also been featured in ArtForum and i-D Magazine. 

Malik also explores the complexities and entanglements between individuals and communities. The two core interrelated strands to her practice are using abstraction to explore the variations and nuances of identity, and the second is creating platforms for community connection through interactive installations, sculpture, and photography.

While this episode - recorded in 2020 touches on her work with For Freedoms and it’s national campaigns throughout the US, Malik also participated in the Fountainhead Artist residency program in Miami. The month-long residency hosts artists from across the globe. Operating annually the Residency hosts 30-40 artists per year. 

Malik, born in Yemen, is a first-generation, Black Yemeni immigrant, whose road to the arts came by way of her innate passion to help others. 

On this episode, we're joined by Jerrell Gibbs. His vibrant paintings retrace family memories examining the origin of his own life by representing intimate and instantly joyous moments. Affirming the multilayered experience of the African American diaspora Gibbs plunges the viewer into an immersive experience through the realm of his childhood.

Growing up in Baltimore influenced his perspective on socio-economics, body politics, race, economic disparities, and their influence on one another. Through his figurative portraits, Gibbs invigorates banal representations of black identity by depicting empathy, inviting the possibility for a spiritual connection. The works are adapted from small Polaroids into life-size paintings. Gibbs works from an archive of hundreds of family photos taken throughout the '70s and ’80s from family photo albums

The Baltimore native graduated with an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD in 2020. His work is in the permanent collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, CC Foundation, X Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Gibbs is represented by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery.

On this episode, we’re joined by Nico Wheadon. She is an independent art advisor, curator, educator, and writer who adopts interdisciplinarity as a strategy for building a more responsive cultural ecosystem. An advocate for BIPOC and womxn artists in all endeavors, she uses her myriad platforms to expand the canon of contemporary art, whilst cultivating a community of professional practice and collective care. Through her consultancy, NICO WHEADON PROJECTS, she delivers cultural strategy and curatorial guidance to artists, cultural institutions, entrepreneurs, foundations, and government agencies. Nico is an adjunct professor at Barnard College, Brown University, and Hartford Art School, teaching at the intersections of art history, creative and cultural entrepreneurship, and museum studies. 

On this episode of Light Work presents: Everything is Connected, we are joined by Patrick Alston and Larry Ossei-Mensah.  Alston has a solo show on  at Ross and Kramer Gallery in Chelsea until May 14th 2021. We sat down to talk about how this new body of work came about, some of the themes that he's exploring in his most recent paintings, the relationship he's developed with Larry over the years,  and building relationships based on respect trust and vulnerability as key markers for success. 

Patrick Alston energetically creates works that, along with the interplay of titles, trigger thought-provoking and reflective topics including but not limited to socio-politics, identity, language, and the psychology of color. Alston’s re-contextualized subjects, rich palettes,
and complex compositions are dramatized exhilarating energies, expressed through mature gestural mark-making (some of which are reminiscent of the traditional graffiti culture of New York) that help to project an unwritten aesthetic which makes up the urban landscape.

On our final episode of the season, Renee Cox shares some of her thoughts on Black life in America, discovering racism for the first time as a young artist, and validating oneself as a radical act of self-love in an oppressive capitalist society. 

Layo is a Nigerian artist mainly in the 3D space with sculptures that lend themselves to tell the story of her identity and cultural heritage as a West African woman born and raised in Lagos Nigeria. She currently lives and works in New York City. Bright completed her MFA at Parsons in 2018 with honors. In her newer works, she continues exploring themes of the self through portraiture using glass, clay, and traditional textiles to tell her story. 

www.layobright.com

Cydne Jasmin Coleby, the Bahamian born artist who studied graphic design in her formative years at the University of the Bahamas,  takes a mixed media approach to her works that deal with breaking new ground and achieving personal triumph in spite of trauma and loss. Using rich personal experiences as a backdrop for her creativity, Coleby fuses traditional Bahamian textiles with her skills in graphic design to create intricate collages deeply rooted in storytelling. 

In her own words she describes her work in more depth. 

"Self-reflection is an intrinsic aspect to my art practice. Through my graphic collages I examine personal and collective/ancestral relationships to trauma and conditioning. It’s hard to distinguish between which experiences inform rather than define our identity. My work aims to explore this grey area, while questioning our ability for healing, and to cultivate our individual and collective narratives, through these events.”

Lucia Hierro is a New York based multimedia artist exploring themes of culture and class as seen through the lens of her eyes as a self-proclaimed Domninican New Yorker. The Yale MFA graduate creates distinct pieces using digital media, collage, painting, and installation to realize her life-sized works.through pop-at and notions of identity politics her work shows an understanding of the ways in which american consumerism and labor impact our everyday lives. From the years she spent growing up in New York’s Washington Heights to her time spent at Yale university, Hierro shares some of the intimate moments that led her towards a career in the arts and ultimately to her distinctive practice. 

I sat down with Mikhaile Solomon, the founder of Prizm Art Fair to learn more about how and why she started the Black-led fair which amplifies the work of Black artists working throughout the world. In this episode, recorded just a few weeks before Art Basel in Miami during the COVID pandemic we talked about her passions and why it’s so important that people - Black people especially - take agency over the narratives that shape perception and understanding of their cultural experiences. 

Prizm is pleased to present a dynamic fair with layered programming that is sure to capture the eyes and minds of our attendees. With over 30 emerging and established galleries and artists offering their varied Diasporic narratives and perspectives, riveting conversations lead by new and established thought leaders in Diasporic Visual arts practice, and cutting-edge events and installations that offer sensory delight. 

In an intimate conversation Delphine Diallo shared how she’s been developing her creative process through the COVID pandemic, why decolonizing the mind of western patriarchy is so important, and how her art seeks to create a new archetype for the Black woman. 

Delphine Diallo is a Brooklyn-based French and Senegalese visual artist and photographer. Diallo immerses herself in the realm of anthropology, mythology, religion, science and martial arts to release her mind. Her work takes her to far remote areas, as she insists on spending intimate time with her subjects to better represent their most innate energy.

 “My intention is to change the gaze in photography, create a new narrative to empower Black women and create new experiences for consciousness to expand. I want to bring a great new vision of black female archetypes: the explorer, the queen, the goddess, the innocent, the sage, the mother, the caregiver, the ruler, the lover, the spiritual warrior, the magician, the every woman, so many others.”


www.delphinediallo.com 
www.lightworkco.com 
What We're Reading: The Women Who Run With Wolves

Dexter Wimberly is an independent curator and entrepreneur who has organized exhibitions and developed programs with galleries and institutions throughout the world including The Third Line in Dubai; Contemporary Art Museum CAM Raleigh in North Carolina; The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco; Koki Arts in Tokyo; and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, and Hyperallergic; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Dexter Wimberly has served as Director of Strategic Planning at Independent Curators International in New York City. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art. He is the founder of ART WORLD CONFERENCE, a business and financial literacy conference for visual artists. He was recently listed in the Observer's "Arts Power 50: Changemakers Shaping the Art World in 2019." In 2020, Wimberly founded the Hayama Artist Residency in Hayama, Japan.

Dexter Wimberly - www.dexterwimberly.com
Art World Conference - www.artworldconference.com
Light Work - www.lightworkco.com
What We're Reading: Finite and Infinite Games

Patrick Quarm is a contemporary painter who lives and works in Ghana. His use of richly patterned textiles from Ghana, painted on and cut out to reveal new shapes form a tapestry of historical references that confront ideas of Black and African identity. 'Quarm weaves and splices cultural signifiers from different eras and communities into multi-layered works that invite the viewer to explore them from different angles.' Quarm received his MFA at Texas Tech University and currently is showing his first New York City solo at Albertz Benda in Chelsea. The exhibition closes Saturday, Oct. 3rd. If you haven’t already, go check out his show. 

Albertz Benda - www.albertzbenda.com 
Patrick Quarm - www.patrickquarm.com
Light Work - www.lightworkco.com
What're Listening to: Oumou Sangare 

In this 2nd episode of a two-part series with Ferrari Sheppard, the artist shares some of the intimate details of his youth and the incredible experiences that shaped him into the man he is today. From growing up in Chicago to finding himself as a creative, and adding beauty to the world one painting at a time, Ferrari spoke openly about his passions as an artist and creative individual. If your in L.A. be sure to see his highly anticipated solo show at Wilding Cran gallery in Los Angeles, on view until Oct. 31st, or view it online. 

Ferrari Sheppard - www.ferrarisheppard.com
Wilding Cran - www.wildingcran.com
Light Work - www.lightworkco.com
What Ferrari is Reading: Jack Whitten: Notes from the Woodshed

In this first part of a two-part episode, Ferrari Sheppard joins me in conversation on living in Africa, finding his distinct style, and the rising consumption of Black art. Sheppard is a contemporary painter whose work has been described as raw figurative abstraction. His highly anticipated first solo show at Wilding Cran gallery opens in Los Angeles on September 12th 2020. 

Ferrari Sheppard - www.ferrarisheppard.com
Wilding Cran Gallery - www.wildingcran.com
Light Work Company - www.lightworkco.com
What Ferrari is Reading: Jack Whitten: Notes from the Woodshed 

Ludovic Nkoth is a MFA student at New York City's Hunter College, with several group and solos shows forthcoming this fall. On this episode, Nkoth discusses the ways in which his art can be used as an educational tool to teach Black people about their stolen African heritage through visual arts. We talked about his love of family, cooking, and the importance of keeping a great team of people close to him as sources of inspiration. 

Ludovic Nkoth - https://www.lnkoth.com/
Ross & Kramer - https://rkgallery.com/ 
Light Work - https://lightworkco.com/ 
What We're Reading: Think and Grow Rich 

Khari Turner is an emerging artist currently in Columbia's 2021 MFA program. His work is a celebration of Blackness. While earlier undergraduate works focused on social justice and prison reform, Turner's current paintings are a celebration of Black life and focus on the deeply rooted relationship African-Americans hold to water or a lack thereof while exploring the nuances of love, identity, gender dynamics, and masculinity.

Khari Turner @khari.raheem
Sonya Clark - www.sonyaclark.com
John Gray, Ghetto Gastro -  www.ghettogastro.com
Band of Vices - www.bandofvices.com
Iris Project Residency - www.irisproject.com 
Original Music @lionkojo | www.soundcloud.com/lionkojo 
Light Work www.lightworkco.com | @lightworkcompany 
What We're Listening To: Burna Boy, African Giant 

On this episode Larry Ossei-Mensah joins Folasade Ologundudu in conversation on COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement and his work as an independent curator and one of the co-founders of ArtNoir. Ossei-Mensah has over a decade of experience in the arts industry and through ArtNoir highlights the talent of Black and Brown artists from across the globe. 

Larry Ossei Mensah: @youngglobal 
ArtNoir:  @artnoirco 
Original Music:  www.soundcloud.com/lionkojo | @lionkojo 
Light Work Co:  www.lightworkco.com | @lightworkcompany 
What We're Reading: Khalil Gibran, The Prophet 

In this trailer, Folasade Ologundudu, the host and creator of Everything is Connected, introduces the ideas behind this new podcast. 

Everything is Connected features some of today's most diverse and interesting creatives working in art, education, and design. We discuss current events and culture. No topic is off-limits. We talk about race, sex, love, mental health, and the state of our world. Tune in! 

Original music: Lion Kojo | https://soundcloud.com/lionkojo | @lionkojo 
Light Work: www.lightworkco.com | @lightworkcompany