Sound and Vision

Robert Pokorny is an American contemporary visual artist living and working in Long Beach, California and holds a BA and MFA from California State University Long Beach. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Modern Guilt & Blue Skies’ and ‘Dialogue’ at Ampersand Gallery in Portland, Oregon and in a group exhibitions; ‘Within the Distance’ at Johannson Projects in Oakland, California, ‘Left Coast Connection’ at Ringling College of Art + Design, Englewood Florida. His work is held in public and private collections worldwide, including Fidelity Art Collection and University Hospitals Art Collection. He has been featured in Art Maze Magazine, Amadeus Magazine, Arte Al’ Limite, Cool Hunting, Juxtapoz, Maps, and Voyage LA.

Liat Yossifor is a painter who received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996, and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine in 2002. She was an Artist-in-residence at: the Rauschenberg residency in Florida, and at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany. She has had solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Pomona College Museum of Art; The Armory Center for the Arts; Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt; Patron Gallery, Chicago; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, and Fox Jensen Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Liat is in public collections such as The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among others.  I caught up with Liat over the net for a talk about avoiding technology, starting painting figuratively and moving into abstraction, materiality, studio life and much more. NYC Crit Club is now accepting applications for Spring 2021 semester. Now in its fourth year, NYC Crit Club is offering 9 new courses this Spring via zoom with 8 new faculty and 30 guest speakers and critics from around the country.  Spring 2021 features a newly designed visiting critic program which offers weekly artist talks and critique from established contemporary artists as well as two weeks of professional feedback and dialogues with gallerists and dealers. Including MRS. Gallery, Monika King Contemporary, Pace Gallery and more. Applications open Dec. 31st  and close January 20th. Classes often fill before the deadline for accepted artists. Early applications are encouraged.. NYC Crit club is a radical alternative offering critique, community and connection for artists post BFA and post MFA. They are proud to offer BIPOC Scholarships and work study rates for artists in financial need. NYC Crit club is run by Hilary Doyle & Catherine Haggarty

Mandy Gonzalez is a singer and actress born in Santa Clarita Valley, California. She is known for her leading roles on Broadway, including her role of Angelica in the Broadway production of Hamilton. She originated the role of Nina Rosario in the Off-Broadway and Broadway productions of the musical In the Heights. In 2010 and 2011, she played Elphaba in the Broadway production of Wicked. Mandy has appeared in many television series including The Good Wife, Third Watch, Quantico and many others. She has been recorded for the original cast recording of In The Heights, the Disney animated movie Mulan II, and her own solo album Fearless which she released in 2017.

Vivien Zhang was born in 1990 in Beijing. She is a London-based artist who grew up in China, Kenya and Thailand. She received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 2014, after completing her undergraduate at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London in 2012. Vivien’s recent solo exhibitions include New Peril, TANK Shanghai, Shanghai (2020); Soft Borders, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2020); Codescape, Long March Space, Beijing (2018); and Uzumaki, House of Egorn, Berlin (2018). Her works have been displayed in numerous group exhibitions, including After Image, Mamoth, London (2020); Echo Chamber, Plus-One Gallery, Antwerp (2019); and Digital Natives (with Thomas van Linge), The RYDER, London (2017). She was named on the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, and is the recipient of the Abbey Award 2016-17 at the British School at Rome and the Chadwell Award 2014-15. Vivien is represented by Pilar Corrias Gallery (London) and Long March Space (Beijing).

Gianna Commito is an artist who earned a BFA from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She has been included in exhibitions at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; The Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH; Lehman College Art Department, New York, NY; Webster State University, Ogden, UT; MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland, OH; National Academy, New York, NY; and the Drawing Center, New York, NY; among others. Gianna is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Ohio Arts Council Award; the Cleveland Art Prize; Artist in Residence at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2018, her work was featured in the inaugural edition of the FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art in Cleveland, OH. She lives and works in Kent, OH, where she is a Professor of Painting at Kent State University and is represented by Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York, NY.

Jean Nagai is an artist (b.1979 Seattle, WA)based out of Los Angeles, California. He received a BA from The Evergreen State College in 2004 and his work has been shown at venues like Pt. 2 in Oakland, California, The Hole Gallery in New York, Unit London, Mini Galerie in Amsterdam amongst others.

Anna Park is an artist that lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from South Korea, she moved to the United States to pursue a formal art education. For eight years she lived in Utah and studied at the Visual Art Institute. She then came to New York to attend Pratt Institute for her undergraduate degree. After attending two years there, she went to the New York Academy of Art to complete the Certificate of Fine Arts Program. She has shown at T293 in Rome, Ross Kramer Gallery in Long Island, The Drawing Center, Blum and Poe in LA, Half Gallery in NYC, Anna Zorina in NYC, The Hole, The Garage in Amsterdam amongst many other venues, Her work has been covered in Juxtapoz and Hi Fructose and others.

Born and raised in New York City, Guy Richards Smit is known for his paintings, video installations, musicals and performances exploring the themes of narcissism, desire, power and failure. Using pop cultural forms such as Stand Up comedy, Pop Music, Comic Books, New York Times’ front pages and even television Sitcoms he has conveyed a sharply observant cultural and political message with philosophical observations and humor. Writing in the New York Times in 2013, Roberta Smith called his work a “ …tour de force that showcases his considerable talents for satire, stand up, endurance art and painting…” His work has been seen at Hallwalls, Buffalo NY (2018), SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NY (2016, 2017), Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles CA (2016) The Pompidou Center, Paris (2015) and in biennials in Havana, Valencia and at ARCOMadrid in 2008 and Dublin Contemporary in 2011. Solo exhibitions include Pierogi Gallery (2014), Schroeder Romero & Shredder, New York, USA 2011; Fred [London] Ltd., London, UK 2009; Nausea 2, Premier Series, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004; QED, Los Angeles, CA in 2006. He has received awards including the Penny McCall Foundation Award in 2004 and the Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant in 2016 In 2016 he completed a 5 episode three camera sitcom called The Grossmalerman! Show with legendary director Joshua White (Max Headroom, Seinfeld etc) and began a suite of paintings on paper called A Mountain of Skulls and Not One I Recognize. A monograph of the project was published this month by Trela and can be purchased at www.amountainofskulls.com or at many bookstores and museums around the city. buy the book at www.amountainofskulls.com

Jordan Nassar (b.1985, New York, NY) earned his BA at Middlebury College in 2007. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions globally at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; BRIC, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY;  Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA; Evelyn Yard, London, UK; Exile Gallery, Berlin, Germany, and The Third Line, Dubai, UAE. Nassar was the subject of two institutional solo presentations in 2019: Jordan Nassar: Between Sky and Earth at Art@Bainbridge at Princeton University Art Museum and The Sea Beneath Our Eyes at the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) Tel Aviv. Nassar’s work is currently on view in the exhibition Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950 - 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Upcoming exhibitions include the Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone in New York, opening on October 27, 2020, I Cut The Sky In Two, on view from October 23 through November 21 at James Cohan's Lower East Side space, and a solo exhibition at KMAC Museum in Louisville, Kentucky opening this winter. Sound & Vision is sponsored by Golden Artist Colors.

Caleb Hahne is a Denver based artist who’s paintings address themes of memory, vulnerability, intimacy and boyhood. He received a BFA in Fine Arts from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2014 and currently lives and works in CO. He was an artist in residence at ShowPen from September 2013 to August 2014 and is currently in residency at RedLine Contemporary Art Center, both located in Denver. He recently completed a traveling artist residency with Southwest American Bullet (SWAB). His art has been included in multiple solo and group exhibitions in Denver, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Montreal, Berlin, and the United Kingdom and recently at MCA Denver as well as the New Museum, NY in collaboration with Adidas. Hahne has been featured in Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, and Booooooom.com. Denver Westword named Hahne one of the 100 Colorado Creatives of 2014 and one of the Top 10 Artists to watch in 2015. He is listed as one of the top 10 contemporary artists under 40 by Wide Walls. He’s represented by 1969 gallery in NYC and recently had an exhibition at The Cabin in LA and has exhibited in Antwerp, Belgium at NewChild Gallery. This episode is sponsored by the New York Studio School and Golden Artist Colors.