Talk Art

Talk Art Special LIVE EPISODE with Ruinart! We met leading French artist EVA JOSPIN! Live from London's Frieze week, this inspiring episode was recorded in the Serpentine Pavilion designed by Lina Ghotmeh in front of a live audience.   With the belief art can enlighten and connect us, Ruinart gives Carte Blanche to leading contemporary artists every year to pay tribute to the M...

We meet artist Rafał Zajko (b.1988, Białystok, Poland). Zajko’s work deals with issues around the industrial past, exploring its environmental impact in relation to working class heritage and queer identities. His sculptural practice incorporates diverse materials and processes including ceramics, ventilation systems, prosthetics and performance as a means to examine folklore, science fiction and...

We meet Bengi Ünsal, Director of ICA London which is celebrating its landmark 75th year. She is the second woman to serve as the Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts and has been successfully refocusing their commitment to live music, live performances alongside extensive visual arts, film and education programmes. (As we discover in this episode, the first female Director was Dorothy Mo...

Talk Art special episode with WePresent! We meet Durk Dehner to discuss TOM OF FINLAND as the 40th anniversary of the ToF Foundation approaches. Since first meeting Tom in 1978, Durk worked closely with the artist, serving from time to time as Tom's muse which continued until Tom's death in 1991. We also chat with Richard Villiani, the foundation's Creative Director. In 1984, the nonprofit Tom of...

We meet legendary artist Sylvia Snowden from her home in Washington DC where she has been painting for the past 60+ years! Known for her use of abundantly thick, layered paint, Snowden has developed a visual language in which gems of colour and texture emerge from densely-worked under layers. From dark and earthy tones to the vibrant and artificial, Snowden’s command of chromatic range is the fuel...

Talk Art special episode with WePresent! We meet artist FIZA KHATRI to discuss their recent paintings. Their work represents intimate portraits and gatherings of human and nonhuman inhabitants of their community. They remix imagery from lived experiences, imagined fantasies, sacred landscapes, and archival research to imbricate the social, sacral, and political stakes of building ecosystems of coh...

We meet legendary artist Julian Schnabel to explore more than 40 years of painting. Since his first solo exhibition in 1976, Schnabel has been on a quest to express the inexpressible. Best known for his multidisciplinary practice that extends beyond painting to include sculpture and film. His use of preexisting materials not traditionally used in art making, varied painting surfaces and modes of c...

Talk Art special episode with WePresent!!!  We meet TED ROGERS, a multidisciplinary artist based in Margate working predominantly with movement. Ted explores the extremities of movement through the neurodivergent and non binary lens; plowing their unwavering and infectious energy into any and all mediums, with a particular focus on entertainment and the deeper emotional aspects of humanity. T...

Season 18 begins!!! We meet GUS VAN SANT, iconic American film director, producer, painter, photographer and musician. We discuss his deconstructed Mona Lisa series, his friendship with Derek Jarman and how he became a painter in his teens, the lasting influence of his art teacher, and how painting informed his filmmaking!!! Gus Van Sant (b. 1952, Louisville, Kentucky), admired internationall...

Talk Art Live with Oliver Hemsley!!! Season 17 FINALE!!! For our second interview with artist Oliver Hemsley, we meet within his debut exhibition at TKE Studios, Margate - the artist studio complex and gallery founded by Tracey Emin. Recorded in front of an intimate audience of art lovers, Margate family and friends, this episode is one of our proudest moments - proud of our talent friend Oliver a...

We meet leading artist Victoria Cantons from her London studios!!! We discuss her autobiographical as well as confessional work. Cantons presents a record of trauma and healing, alongside a rigorous inquiry into the social constraints surrounding gender politics. Deeply informed by her own experience of limitation and stigma, her work reverberates with notions of freedom, selfhood, representa...

We meet leading artist RENE MATIĆ to discuss current solo exhibition ‘A Girl For The Living Room’ at Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol. This episode includes a special moment with living legend, and focus of Rene’s new show, TRAVIS ALABANZA. We also explore earlier works exhibited at South London Gallery and their solo show at Quench Gallery, Margate. Plus we discuss a series of fifteen photographs...

We meet leading artist Rana Begum to discuss her new public art flag display on London's Piccadilly in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts and Art of London. We also explore her incredible current solo exhibition at The Box in Plymouth titled 'Dappled Light'. The vibrant designs entitled No.1273 Flag are currently adorning the London skies until 20th August 2023, so make sure you visit if...

We meet renowned British painter and artist David Remfry MBE RA RWS, to discuss curating/coordinating this year's RA Summer Exhibition, working with watercolour, more than 5 decades of art making, and what it was like to live in New York's iconic Hotel Chelsea for 20 years!!! Remfry’s Summer Exhibition 2023 explores the theme Only Connect, taken from the famous quote in Howards End by E.M. Fo...

Russell & Robert meet leading artist Lindsey Mendick, recorded in front of an intimate live audience at Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh. We explore Lindsey's major new solo exhibition 'Sh*tfaced', her first solo show in Scotland. Running until 1st October 2023, this multi-layered exhibition of new ceramics, film and sculptural installations is presented across all of Jupiter Artland’s galleries. Li...

Talk Art SPECIAL EPISODE!!!! We go on an electric Art Adventure from Leeds to Edinburgh! Russell and Robert drive to  Jupiter Artland in Edinburgh in a BMW electric iX to meet Jupiter's founder, the philanthropist Nicky Wilson, and discover some sculpture legends en route.  Our first stop is the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. We convene in their incredible library with Laurence Sil...

We meet leading artist Ilana Savdie from her studio in New York to explore the making of her major new solo exhibition at Whitney Museum! Ilana Savdie explores themes of performance, transgression, identity and power in her vibrant, large-scale paintings. Assembling fragments into finely detailed, fluid compositions, her canvases pulsate with flamboyant colour, conjoining, merging and blending the...

We meet Nadya Tolokonnikova of PUSSY RIOT, the legendary Russian feminist protest art collective. We discuss Nadya's journey in art thus far and her monumental current exhibition in Sante Fe at CONTAINER space. "While working with artifacts, bottling ashes, and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to se...

We meet Daniel Lismore live at Hay Festival 2023! Daniel is a London-based artist. He was born in Bournemouth and raised in Fillongley Village on the border of Coventry. Although he started his career as an artist from the perspective of the outsider, working as a photographer within a year he had moved in front of the lens as a model, later emerging as a creative consultant for Mert & Marcus,...

We meet living legend Sue Tilley and artist Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira!!! Sue Tilley (b. 1957), also known as Big Sue, is an artist, artist's model and writer. Most notably, she modelled for painter Lucian Freud. Tilley collaborated, and was best friends, with performance artist and club promoter Leigh Bowery. In 1997, she published  Leigh Bowery: The life and times of an Icon...

New Talk Art! We meet artist Tim Stoner (b. 1970, UK), best know for his paintings, which we explore in depth in this fascinating discussion!!! Before settling in London full-time, Tim lived and worked between London and Ronda, Southern Spain. In Ronda, a village in Andalucía, he began experimenting with unfinished canvases submerging them in swimming pools, pouring dissolving chemicals and d...

We meet Nicholas Cullinan, leading art historian, curator and current Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The new National Portrait Gallery opens its doors to the public on 22nd June 2023. The Gallery is home to the most extensive collection of portraits in the world, from the 8th century. The NPG collection has over 220,000 works, 150,000 of which are illustra...

In a significant moment for Talk Art podcast, we meet the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate - run by his sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux. We explore the extraordinary, new Los Angeles exhibition 'Jean-Michel Basquiat: KING PLEASURE © ' of over 200 never-before-seen and rarely shown paintings, drawings, multimedia presentations, ephemera, and personal artefacts that tell the story of Jean-M...

Season 17 continues with a magical episode!!! We meet artist STUDIO LENCA!!!! Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos – ‘Studio’ refers to a space for experimentation and constantly shifting place; ‘Lenca’ referring to the name of the artists ancestors from El Salvador. Jose Campos was born in 1986 in La Paz, El Salvador and like many had to flee the country during its violent civil...

New Season 17!!! For the first episode of our NEW SEASON we meet the legendary photographer and activisit AJAMU X, at his studio on Railton Road, South London. Ajamu X (1963, Huddersfield, UK) is a photographic artist, scholar, archive curator and radical sex activist best known for his imagery that challenges dominant ideas around black masculinity, gender, sexuality, and representation of b...