brave podcast

In this special Spanish edition of the brave Podcast, guest host, Elena Rueda Ruiz de Austri speaks with artist Sebastián Espejo about his evolving painting practice, the transformative role of critique, and the relationship between material, memory, and time. Reflecting on his move from Chile to London, Espejo discusses how his experience at Turps reshaped his approach to painting, leading him to...

In this episode of the brave Projects Podcast, Victoria Comstock-Kershaw speaks with artist and educator Peter Davies about London's evolving art scene, the legacy of the YBAs, and the communities shaping contemporary painting today. Drawing on his experiences as both a painter and tutor at the Slade School of Fine Art, Davies reflects on artist-led spaces, emerging galleries, the renewed prom...

Victoria Comstock-Kershaw speaks with collector and patron Selim Bouafsoun about instinct, mentorship, collecting, and the responsibility of supporting artists beyond the market. Together, they discuss building Nafas Collection, navigating the art ecosystem, the importance of curiosity and education, and what it means to create a lasting cultural legacy through patronage. From artist mentorship an...

Artist Melania Toma joins host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a conversation on skins, textiles, transformation, and the strange life of materials. Working between painting, sculpture, and textile, Toma reflects on collecting discarded objects, travelling with animal skins across borders, Catholic iconography, bodily memory, and the porous boundary between the self and the more-than-human world. Sp...

Nick Hemming-Brown and Thomas Hjelm join Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast to discuss their collaborative practice and the thinking behind HBH Gallery. Working through a nomadic model, they reflect on building exhibitions outside of fixed spaces, using flexibility as a way to support emerging artists and experiment with new formats. From their first meeting to curatin...

Mike Silva joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast, recorded in his studio as he prepares for an upcoming exhibition in Copenhagen. Working primarily in painting, Silva reflects on his shift away from traditional portraiture towards more incidental, intimate moments, where light, memory, and observation take precedence over representation. Using photography as a start...

Jacob Barnes joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast, recorded inside Season 4 Episode 6, the London-based gallery he founded. Working primarily across sculpture and installation, Barnes reflects on building a programme rooted in ambition, clarity, and a refusal to follow established models. He discusses the gallery’s evolution over its first 18 months and its focus o...

Paola Parole joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave Podcast, recorded inside A Promise is a Spell, her first solo exhibition in London. Working across painting, sculpture, and installation, Parole discusses how themes of womanhood, childhood, domesticity, and storytelling shape her practice. Drawing on the symbolic language of fairy tales, she reflects on passivity in female...

We are excited to launch season three of brave podcast with artist James Dearlove, who joins host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw to discuss his painting practice and the intuitive process that shapes his work. Based in Cornwall, Dearlove creates figurative paintings where human figures appear within swirling landscapes populated by animals, plants, and symbolic imagery. Rather than constructing fixed n...

Jonny Tanna is the founder of Harlesden High Street, a gallery rooted in northwest London that centres artists of colour, outsider practices, and community engagement. He explains how the space grew organically from film nights and curatorial experiments into a platform designed to welcome people who are often excluded from the contemporary art world. Throughout the conversation with brave podcast...

Curator, writer and founder of communications agency The Inventive, James Marshall joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a new brave podcast episode to talk about access, class and confidence in the art world, and how he built a career without the usual pathways. Growing up in rural Scotland with little access to museums or galleries, James shares how arriving in London at 17 reshaped his relationsh...

Artist Eva Dixon joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a new brave podcast episode to unpack the ideas behind, ‘Mercury 13’, Eva’s exhibition inspired by the women who secretly qualified for astronaut training in the 1960s. Eva shares how their overlooked history, especially the story of Wally Funk, shaped the direction of the show. Throughout the podcast, Eva talks about her approach to materials,...

Host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw sits down with artist Esther Gatón at her exhibition Vowels, with anteroom for an episode of brave podcast. Together, they explore the deep relationship between material, process, and intuition that underpins Esther's practice. The conversation moves through ideas of repetition, dreams, care, natural light, and the emotional intelligence of materials. Esther reflects...

London-based painter Elizabeth Dimitroff joins brave host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a rich and thoughtful conversation recorded on the eve of A Boy Falling Out of the Sky at Soho Revue. Elizabeth traces her unexpected journey from studying furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design to rediscovering painting in her mid-twenties, reflecting on how memory, nostalgia, and a quiet surrea...

In this episode, artist Anna Pakosz joins host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw to discuss how her journey from Hungary to the UK, beginning with the Tracey Emin Artist Residency in Margate, shaped her evolving practice. Anna reflects on how movement, gesture, and material experimentation, from dance to rust and blackboard paint, converge in her work to explore presence, rhythm, and transformation. Pakos...

In the first episode of season two of the brave podcast, hosted by Victoria Comstock-Kershaw, Will Jarvis, founder and CEO of Gertude, reflects on his journey from painter to art world innovator. After studying painting at Camberwell College of Arts, Jarvis co-founded The Sunday Painter, marking his entry into the art industry. Throughout the conversation, Jarvis explores multiple layers of the ar...

In this episode, Belarusian-born multidisciplinary artist Viktoryia S. Dijk reflects on her journey in conversation with Kildine de Saint Hilaire. Viktoryia traces her path from early studies in Belarus to pursuing graphic design in The Hague, and more recently completing her MA in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in London. She shares how her practice evolved from classical training in figure...

In this episode, multidisciplinary artist Lily Bunney shares her journey and practice in conversation with Kildine de Saint Hilaire. Lily reflects on how she arrived at her artistic name while working as a teacher and wishing to keep her students from finding her online. She delves into her relationship with social media, her background teaching mathematics, science, and art to pupils aged 11–16,...

Eilen Itzel Mena is an Afro-Dominican American artist, writer, and community organiser from the South Bronx, New York. She holds a BFA from the USC Roski School of Art & Design in Los Angeles and an MFA in Painting from the UCL Slade School of Fine Arts in London. Her work has been exhibited internationally, supported by numerous residencies, grants, and awards, most recently the Adrian Carrut...

Tatiana Cheneviere is the founder of Pipeline, a contemporary art gallery in London that opened in late 2022. With a background that includes seven years at Gagosian, Tatiana brings a balance of institutional professionalism and independent experimentation to her approach. Pipeline focuses on emerging artists and is structured to foster layered, thoughtful practices through both its main exhibitio...

Our third episode features artist, Charlie Russell, in conversation with Kildine de Saint Hilaire. Charlie Russell, a London-based artist, explores themes of light, memory, and domesticity through a blend of traditional painting and digital aesthetics. With an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2024) and a BA from Camberwell College of the Arts, University of the Arts London (2023). Cha...

Our second episode showcases Samah Rafiq, ahead of her solo exhibition in London this upcoming October. Samah earned an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2024, within this episode, she explores her artistic journey since university, from initially working in her room to a studio in Hackney. She reflects on navigating Instagram's algorithm and her solo exhibition in Germany, last...

Our first episode features brave's resident photographer, Sarah Larby, a London-based visual artist and fine art photographer. From her educational journey, books she has created to unexpected encounters like her artwork appearing on a bus stop, we explore Sarah's fascinating story and more! Sarah Larby is in conversation with Kildine de Saint Hilaire.