Talk Art

We meet Ginny and Hartley Neel, Executive Directors of the Estate of Alice Neel, and the artist’s daughter-in-law and son. We explore her current exhibition in Belgium at Xavier Hufkens. Alice Neel is widely recognised as one of the great American painters of the twentieth century. Her success, however, has largely been posthumous. In the past decade, interest in her work has grown exponentially,...

We meet Katy Hessel to discuss her incredible new book How To Live An Artful Life. The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it? Dive into the year with the wisdom of artists. Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks,  How to Live an Artful Life  moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encourag...

Happy 80th birthday to Maggi Hambling, our guest this week! We meet Maggi in her studio to discuss her 6 decades of making painting and sculpture. Maggi Hambling CBE was born in Suffolk in 1945. She studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing from 1960 under Cedric Morris and Lett Haines, then at Ipswich School of Art, Camberwell, and finally the Slade School of Art, graduating in 1...

We meet Rose Blake an illustrator and artist making drawings and pictures in London who has just illustrated Russell & Robert’s first children’s book Art School (In A Book) .   Rose Blake studied at Kingston University and the Royal College of Art. She was awarded the D&AD Best New Blood Award and was shortlisted for the AOI prize and The World Illustration Awards.   She shows wi...

We meet writer Damian Barr to discuss his new book The Two Roberts. This intoxicating, brave and compassionate novel from the author of  Maggie and Me  reimagines one of the stongest and most passionate love stories of modern British art, following Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde from their encounter at Glasgow Art School to partying with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon in London as...

We meet Sean Ono Lennon to explore his music and life with art, plus we discuss the forthcoming box set Power to the People , that Sean has produced, of his parents’ Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s 1972 fundraising live New York concert. We consider activism in art, especially the legacy of John and Yoko’s timeless work together (as also documented in the recent One to One documentary). Recorded live a...

This episode is a special partnership with BOSS. Special episode recorded in Milan, September 2025. #AD Russell meets Marco Falcioni, Creative Director of HUGO BOSS. We discuss the Art Basel Awards which BOSS have been partnering with, Marcos' beginnings discovering fashion in the clubs of Rome, how art is intrinsic to his designing, and the importance of his weekly practice of visiting art exhibi...

For six decades American artist Joan Snyder has reimagined the narrative potential of abstraction through her paintings, drawings and prints. She first garnered widespread recognition in the early 1970s with her  Stroke  paintings that dissect the most fundamental of painterly gestures: the brushstroke. Fuelling abstraction with autobiography, she consciously worked against the male-domi...

Talk Art Live in Berlin. Season 26 of Talk Art begins!!!! This episode is a special Paid Partnership collaboration with Berlin Art Week, who flew Russell & Robert to Berlin. Recorded live, in front of an audience, outside the Neue Nationalgalerie in September 2025. Special guests Peaches @peachesnisker (musician, producer, director, performance artist) and Klaus Biesenbach @klausbiesenbach (Di...

WePresent  x TalkArt special episode recorded live at  Whitechapel Gallery.  Recorded in front of a sold out live audience at @WhitechapelGallery we speak with @DominicJohnson and Jamal Butt to explore the current HAMAD BUTT exhibition: his life, art and legacy.  ❤️   And published on @WePresent  today to accompany our podcast is previously unseen artworks by Hamad Bu...

Talk Art live! As part of the Nevill Holt Festival 2025, Talk Art hosted a live podcast recording with special guest Harland Miller. From the Nevill Holt Theatre, the world-renowned artist Miller joined Russell Tovey and Robert Diament in conversation to discuss his paintings and lifetime of art making. The Nevill Holt Festival is an annual celebration of arts and culture held in the Leicestershir...

We meet painter Charlotte Keates within her new installation ‘Inner Landscapes’. We discover the inspiration behind her epic new commission and explore her lifelong passion for drawing and painting. Keates’ work is inspired by interiors, travels, and architectural composition, in seamless communion with elements from the natural world. Trees push through flat concrete, while perspectives unfold in...

We meet iconic painter Sean Scully on the eve of his 80th birthday at his studio in North London. Over the course of his 50-year career, Sean Scully has created an influential body of work that has marked the development of contemporary abstraction. Fusing the traditions of European painting with the distinct character of American abstraction, his work combines painterly drama with great visual de...

We meet John Cameron Mitchell, groundbreaking American actor, writer and director best known for creating, directing and starring in the  Hedwig and the Angry Inch  (2001), a film adaptation of the off-Broadway stage production he co-wrote with composer Stephen Trask. We discuss Claude Cahun, David Bowie and the power of art, ahead of his major live show this Tuesday 8th July at the...

New @TalkArt podcast episode. We meet Ann Carrington @anncarringtonart at her studio in Margate!  Ann Carrington sculpts fantastical metal sculptures that evoke the age of aristocracy. She gathers found and discarded objects to shape her artworks, which often take the form of bouquets, vases, and oversized busts.  The use of discarded, found and multiples of objects is a fundamental elem...

We meet Gary Schneider to discuss his photography, and his collaboration printing for Peter Hujar and other aritsts. Born in South Africa, Gary Schneider is a photographer whose early practices in painting, performance, and film remain integral to his explorations of portraiture. He strives to marry art and science, identity and obscurity, figuration and abstraction, the carnal and the spirit...

We meet artist Joe Bradley, on the eve of his new solo show of new paintings in London. Animal Family is Bradley’s second exhibition with David Zwirner since the announcement of his representation in May 2023. His celebrated debut at David Zwirner New York, Vom Abend, was presented in spring 2024. In November 2025, a major survey of Bradley’s works from the past ten years will open at Kunsthalle K...

We meet Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye (b. 1938, Istanbul, TR) is a ceramic artist known for her refined, monochrome stoneware bowls, which she has been producing for nearly sixty years. Working with the ancient coiling technique and a traditional wooden kick wheel, Ebüzziya Siesbye creates vessels that bear the intimate marks of her hand, balancing density and spaciousness, firmness and fragility. Fired a...

We meet Misan Harriman, photographer, social activist and Oscar Nominated filmmaker. He is one of the most widely-shared visual storytellers of this age. He is also the first black person in the 104 year history of British Vogue to shoot the cover of its September issue. In July 2021 he commenced his appointment as Chair of the Southbank Centre, London. His strong reportage style and unique eye fo...

Season 25 begins! We meet Juergen Teller, one of the world’s most sought-after contemporary photographers, successfully straddling the interface of both art and commercial photography. We discuss childhood, touring with Nirvana, Agnès Varda, Tracey Emin, William Eggleston, Kate Moss, Pope Francis, Kristen McMenemy, Zoe Bedeaux, collaborating with @DovileDrizyte and breakthroughs with Marc Jacobs.&...

We meet artist Chris Levine, a British contemporary artist renowned for his pioneering work with light and lasers. His innovative approach transcends traditional mediums, integrating technology and spirituality to create immersive art installations that challenge and expand human perception.   Levine's multidisciplinary practice encompasses installation, photography, performance, fashion, mus...

Best known for his figurative paintings and pastels, which evoke a luminous, dreamlike reality, TM Davy conjures intimate worlds where figures glow with an almost metaphysical presence, transcending the purely visual. Light and form take on an ethereal quality, reflecting emotions, memories, and the quiet subtleties of human experience. Every brushstroke, every shift of light, seems imbued with a...

Delaine Le Bas works in a transdisciplinary way: she combines visual, performative and literary practices to create an artistic oeuvre that encompasses all areas of life. In her works she deals with many facets, political as well as private and emotional, which involve belonging to the Rom*nja people, their history and rich cultural heritage. Within her work, Delaine Le Bas transforms her surround...

We meet Gary Kemp, one of the UK’s most successful songwriters of the past 40 years. As guitarist and founding member of the most influential and iconic band of the 80s, Spandau Ballet, he was responsible for writing the words and music for 23 hit singles and albums, including modern day standards like True and Gold. We discuss his passion for the Arts & Crafts movement, William Morris, collec...

We meet BAFTA winning producer Susie Hall to discuss the work of late artist David Robilliard and the Documentary she made with Talk Art’s very own Russell Tovey.  Recorded live at TKE Studios, Margate, special thanks to Elissa Cray and all at the Tracey Emin Foundation. Artist David Robilliard changed Russell Tovey’s life. It was Robilliard who inspired Tovey’s love of art, his free attitude...