A brush with...

This week, Ben Luke interviews the Danish artist Tal R about his influences and cultural experiences. In this in-depth conversation, the painter and sculptor discusses his early love of art and frustration with art school, the unlikely ritual that keeps his art fresh, and why pursuing mystery is perilous for an artist. He talks about the writers and music that he returns to, and discusses painters including Georges Rouault, Marsden Hartley and Alfred Wallis. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including which cultural experience changed the way he sees the world, what work of art he would most want to live with, and what he thinks art is for. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Tracey Rose about how her influences and cultural experiences have affected her life and work. Among other things, she talks about her education as the only Black child in a catholic school in South Africa and her performances in which she explored gender and race, pushing her body to extremes. She talks about the seismic effect of seeing international contemporary art after the end of Apartheid, about how Duchamp is the most "African" artist in the Modernist canon, and how exploring her ancestry has led her to research the East African slave trade and the earliest forms of human creativity. Plus, she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Rachel Whiteread about how her influences and cultural experiences have affected her life and work. Among other things, she talks about the influence of her parents on her work; the enduring power of Piero della Francesca; the seismic effect of seeing Bruce Nauman's art; how poetry informs her sculpture; and she recalls memorable trips to Egypt and the Soviet Union. Plus, she answers the questions we ask all our guests, including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the US artist Roni Horn about her life and work, with reference to the art, music and literature that are her influences and touchstones. Among much else, they discuss Horn's enduring engagement with the poems of Emily Dickinson, and the sculptures and installations that she has made as a result; her unique friendship with Felix Gonzalez-Torres and the works it inspired; the jazz and R&B singers that she has listened to throughout her life; and her profound experiences in Iceland, the subject of her new book, Island Zombie: Iceland Writings (Princeton University Press). Plus, the questions Ben asks all the guests on A brush with..., including: if you could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Los Angeles-based painter Christina Quarles about her life and work through her influences and cultural experiences. Quarles discusses her powerful figurative paintings. "I see them," she says, "as being portraits not of looking at a body, but portraits of being within your own body." She discusses the effect of living in Los Angeles and arriving there as a child at the point when the city was engulfed in riots prompted by police brutality; how her work might be as influenced by tchotchkes found in a thrift store just as much as works in museums; how writers like Audre Lorde and James Baldwin influenced her thinking; and how she listens to epic musicals as she works. Plus, the questions asked of all the guests on A brush with..., including which contemporary artists she most admires and which work of art she would most like to live with. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson in depth about his influences and cultural experiences. Among much else, they discuss Kjartansson's love of 18th-century art and him being "horny in Rococo class" in school; his admiration for the painter Elizabeth Peyton; how reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray changed his life; and the collaborative ethos behind his video-installation masterpiece The Visitors (2012)—which emerged from "longing to do something with your friends and people you admire". Plus, the questions asked of all the guests on A brush with..., including: if you could live with one work of art, what would it be? And what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Rashid Johnson about the cultural experiences that have had an impact on his life and work. They discuss his beginnings as a photographer, but how he quickly occupied a "post-medium space", working in everything from film to sculpture, installation and, as with the other artists in the first series, in painting. Rashid talks about his use of materials like black soap and shea butter, the role of books in his work, and the personal and political background to his recent body of Anxious works, culminating in the new Anxious Red paintings. Through the conversation, Rashid reveals the influence of cultural figures as diverse as the hip-hop star Rakim, writers including Toni Morrison and Paul Beatty, and artists as diverse as Roy DeCarava, Franz Kline, Jean Dubuffet and David Hammons. He also answers our regular questions about studio rituals, the one artwork he would choose to live with, and, finally, what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Chantal Joffe about the cultural experiences that have had an impact on her life and work. They discuss the shift in her work from early paintings based on pornography to recent depictions of herself and her daughter; they explore the writers and music that she returns to for inspiration, the museums she regularly visits and the daily rituals of her studio life. Above all, they talk about art in depth, and the inspiration of artists as diverse as Piero della Francesca, Edgar Degas, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Chaim Soutine, Maria Lassnig and David Wojnarowicz. This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Luke talks to Jenny Saville about her cultural experiences and their effect on her work and life. We learn about how her uncle inspired her to explore the Old Masters and match their ambition, how having children hugely affected the way she works, the visit to an artist’s studio that changed her life, the epic poetry that drives her painting into new territories, the strange rituals in her daily practice. Ultimately, we explore in depth her passion for art and the compulsion to respond to the world through paint. This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the inaugural episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast series of conversations with artists, host Ben Luke talks to Michael Armitage about his life and work through his cultural experiences: the artists, living and long gone, who he most admires; the art he has pinned to his studio wall; the museum that holds endless inspiration; the writers he returns to; the music he plays as he paints in the studio; the rituals of his daily practice. We learn about the unique fusion of East African and European culture at the heart of Armitage's paintings, explore the ways that the art of the past can infuse the present day; and ultimately ponder the wonderful, yet at times absurd, act of painting. This episode is sponsored by Cork Street Galleries.Links for this episode. Michael Armitage at White CubeMeek Gichugu at Red Hill Art GalleryChalenge van Rampelberg at Urban AfricansGoya’s Black Paintings in the PradoOur podcast, A brush with… Julie MehretuDetailed report on the conservation of Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin in the Basilica dei Frari, VeniceThe National Gallery, LondonVelázquez’s Immaculate Conception at the National GalleryNgũgĩ wa Thiong’oChinua Achebe article in the New Yorker Yvonne Adhiambo OwuorArticle on the Spotify playlist for this and the other episodes of the first series of A brush with… including Michael’s musical inspirationsTitian’s Pietà in the Accademia, Venice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.