Talk Art

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, a biography. Freud painted several large nude portraits of Tilley, the first being Evening in the Studio (1993). Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, painted in 1995, was sold at auction for £35 million ($56 million USD). We discuss a brand new exhibition at The Sunday Painter in South London - the first painting show of Portuguese artist Rui Miguel Leitão Ferreira (b.1977) in the UK. Curated by Daniel Malarkey, the exhibition sees Ferreira further develop his self-portrait series Posing for Sue. The works on show explore Ferreira's relationship with close friend and mentor Sue Tilley – widely known for her long-standing professional relationship with Lucian Freud – whilst subtly manipulating and subverting the complex dialogue between the three subjects traditionally involved in portraiture: the portrayed, the artist and the observer. The artist first met Tilley at a charity event in 2013. An in-depth exploration into the experiences of life models within the realm of fine art had recently prompted Ferreira to begin modelling himself, a disquieting endeavour that left the artist feeling increasingly vulnerable and directionless when it came to his own practice. Ferreira found solace in Tilley’s gaze, eventually leading the two to forge a close friendship. Inspired by the powerful artist-model dynamic between Freud and Tilley – whose iconic four-year professional relationship saw Freud produce perhaps some of his most acclaimed and psychologically charged nude portraits – Ferreira sought to capture the intimacy of time spent between artist and sitter through the specificity of paint.Rather than simply mirroring the pair’s relationship, however, the Posing for Sue series attempts to subvert art history’s long established traditions of portraiture – one of the oldest enduring art forms – by reconsidering the roles of all those involved. Ferreira begins his artistic process by filming a video piece in which he undresses in front of Tilley, with each recording capturing the collaborators reacting and responding to each other’s physical presence. Ferreira then paints from carefully chosen film stills, allowing him to analyse the process in motion rather than focusing on one particular viewpoint. By undressing in front of Tilley and remaining completely exposed throughout each filmed session, the source of the gaze, usually strictly maintained by the artist, is intentionally displaced to the model.Posing for Sue explores the notion of shared experience between artist and sitter, tapping into the deep-rooted human desire to capture the complexities of expression via mimetic representation. Through the act of being observed in his most vulnerable state – both by the model and by the viewer – Ferreira utilises his body as an instrument to explore the heights and depths of the human psyche.Follow @SueTilley1 and @RuiMiguelLeitaoFerreiraVisit @TheSundayPainter for info on the new exhibition and their website: https://thesundaypainter.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 distressing their surfaces with palette knives, scalpels and sanding discs. Often reworked over several years Tim creates layered ethereal abstract scenes.Conceived from a multitude of drawings and works on paper, Stoner approaches his paintings as palimpsests, with some of the scenes described as much by the removal and erasure of painting, as by the addition of materials. They have often been amended and reworked over a period of several years. The final paintings become much like visual autopsies, their visible layers revealing damaged, dissected brushstrokes, and elements of the picture surface flayed away to reveal earlier forms and gestures. This distance from nature and the painted gesture, results in compositions which are as much abstract depictions of light, colour and movement, as recordings of the landscape.Tim Stoner was born in 1970 and grew up in London. He lives and works in London and Ronda, Spain. Stoner studied at Norwich School of Art and Design (1989−1992), the Royal College of Art, London (1992−1994), the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (1997−1998), and attended the British School at Rome (2001). Tim Stoner was the winner of the 2001 ica Futures prize.Follow @StonerTim on Instagram.Visit his official website: www.TimStoner.net Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 illustrated from the 16th century to the present day in a wide variety of different mediums.The National Portrait Gallery tells the story of the people who have shaped British history through the medium of portraits and encourages and promotes portraiture in all media. The Gallery houses the most extensive collection of portraits in the world, which offers unique insights into the men and women who have and who are contributing to the culture, identity and rich diversity of Britain. The Gallery aims to be the foremost centre for the study of and research into portraiture, as well as making its work and activities of interest and accessible to as wide a range of visitors as possible.Founded in 1856 and located just off Trafalgar Square, the National Portrait Gallery is home to the largest collection of portraiture in the world, featuring famous men and women who have helped shape British history from the great Tudor courts to the present day, with contemporary portraits reflecting the diversity, inventiveness and multi-culturalism of modern-day Britain. By weaving together 500 years of history, art, biography and fame, the Gallery offers a unique and fascinating insight into those individuals that together characterise a nation. Visitors can come face to face with kings and queens, courtiers and courtesans, politicians and poets, soldiers and scientists, artists and writers, philosophers and film stars. Its 3,000 paintings feature some of the most iconic and instantly recognisable faces in British history, from Elizabeth I to Tracey Emin, with artists ranging from Holbein to Hockney. Behind each image is a fascinating story giving an insight into an individual who stood out in their generation and enriched our culture and national consciousness.Follow @NationalPortraitGalleryVisit: www.npg.org.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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-Michel from an intimate perspective, intertwining his artistic endeavors with his personal life, influences, and the times in which he lived.THANK YOU so much to Jeanine and Lisane for this generous, heartfelt and joyful conversation. It is such an inspiring and thought provoking episode.Jean-Michel Basquiat’s contributions to the history of art and his explorations of multifaceted cultural phenomena––including music, the Black experience, pop culture, Black American sports figures, literature, and other sources––will be showcased through immersive environments providing unique insight into the late artist’s creative life and his singular voice that propelled a social and cultural narrative that continues to this day.This major exhibition is now open at The Grand LA, 100 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, 90012, USA. Organised, curated and executive produced by the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, as administrated by Jean-Michel's sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux. Sir David Adjaye OBE leads the exhibition design for Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure©. Follow @BasquiatKingPleasure for images from this must-see exhibition in LA. Plus follow the official instagram of the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate at: @BasquiatOfficialVisit the official website: https://kingpleasure.basquiat.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 war during the late 1980s. He travelled to the US by land, illegally with his mother and grew up in the gaze of a strictly conservative administration - an ‘illegal alien’. Studio Lenca is focused on ideas surrounding difference, knowledge and visibility. He works with performance, video, painting and sculpture.‘When people ask me where I’m from, I never know how to answer. Born in El Salvador, growing up illegally in California then spending my adult life in the UK. What does that question mean and why do people ask it?’Studio Lenca’s process starts with personal memories and is underpinned by social activism and different forms of praxis.Studio Lenca paintings tell an autobiographical story which navigates borders and identities destroyed, redrawn and erased through colonisation and war. The portraits depict the artist and his community proudly wearing hats and vibrant colours in noble defiance of the ‘western’ discourse around migration.Campos lives and works in Margate, UK. His current studio is based at TKE Studios, founded by Tracey Emin. @TKEStudiosFollow @StudioLenca on Instagram and visit his official website: www.studiolenca.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 black LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom.He is the co-founder of rukus! Federation and the rukus! Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer + Archive and one of a few leading specialists on Black British LGBTQ+ history, heritage, and cultural memory in the UK. In 1997, Ajamu was the Autograph x Lightwork artist-in-residence in Syracuse, USA developing a series of self-portraits during his residency. He studied at the Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and is currently an PhD candidate at Royal College of Art, London. In 2022 Ajamu was canonised by The Trans Pennine Traveling Sisters as The Patron Saint of Darkrooms in his hometown Huddersfield and he received an honorary fellowship from the Royal photographic society.Ajamu’s works have been shown in exhibitions in museums, galleries, and alternatives spaces across globally since the 1990s, his recent solo exhibitions include Archival Senoria at Cubitt Gallery, 2021. As well as included in several thematic group Very Private? at Charleston House, 2022; Fashioning Masculinities, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2022; Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, 2019; Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, 2019; On our Backs: The Revolution Art of Queer Sex Work, Leslie Lohman Museum, 2019. Ajamu’s works are held in collections including Tate, London; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Autograph, London; Neuberger Museum of Art, New York amongst others. His second monograph AJAMU: ARCHIVE was published in 2021.Ajamu X: The theoretical provocations, politics, and aesthetic qualities of my work unapologetically celebrate black queer bodies, the erotic, sex. pleasure and play. The work also poses the imagination/fiction in opposition to the constant framing of our complex and nuanced experiences from with a sociological framework, which constitutes a paradigm based on deficit. As a fine art studio-based and darkroom led photographer working with both digital/large format cameras and early analogue printing processes, my practice privileges process over outcome. The tangible/tactile sensuous elements of fine art photography are essential to my visual-photographic philosophy.In tandem with this, the work explores the ‘thingness; of the photographic print as well as the sensual, material attributes of both print and image, without allowing the usual flattening -out of the photographic image to simple notions of representation to enter the frame.Follow @AjamuStudios and visit his major solo exhibition in London: https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/ajamu-the-patron-saint-of-darkroomsAjamu: The Patron Saint of Darkrooms runs until Saturday 2nd September 2023, Free entry! @AutographABP Gallery address: Autograph, Rivington Place, London EC2A 3BA, UK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonus Live Episode!!! We meet Emma Dabiri, Irish author, academic, and broadcaster live at Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London to discuss Talk Art Book 2!Emma's debut book, Don't Touch My Hair, was published in 2019, followed by the Sunday Times Best Seller What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition in 2021. Her new book Disobedient Bodies will be published in Autumn.Emma Dabiri is a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS, a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths and advisor to the British Council's Arts and Creative Economy board, the Wellcome Trust's Anti-Racism Expert Advisory Group and is a Trustee of Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. She has presented several television and radio programmes including BBC Radio 4's critically-acclaimed documentaries 'Journeys into Afro-futurism' and 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces'.Follow @EmmaDabiri on Instagram. Follow @DulwichGallery to visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery.Buy signed copies of Talk Art Book 2 at Waterstones nationwide and The Margate Bookshop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TALK ART - THE PARTY!!!! In a first for the Podcast, we invite legendary DOSA CAT to take over the podcast during our officiallaunch party at Shreeji News in London's Marylebone, in a glamorous, roving reporter styleeeee!!! Listen in to the wild launch party of Talk Art: The Interviews... OUR NEW BOOK!Conversations captured in this episode include Russell & Robert's MOTHERS - Carole and Judith!!! Artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Joy Yamusangie, Navot Miller, Lydia Pettit and Matilde Cerruti Quara. Plus actors Dino Fetscher, Kadiff Kirwan, Laura Aikman, Charlie King as well the Talk Art boys Russ & Rob themselves on the day their second book is published to the world.Follow @ThatDosaCat on Instagram.Buy signed copies of Talk Art Book 2 at Waterstones nationwide and The Margate Bookshop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TURNING THE TABLES ON TALK ART with ALAN CARR!!!! To celebrate the launch of the brand new Talk Art book 'The Interviews', Russell & Robert meet legendary broadcaster, stand-up comedian and writer ALAN CARR. Who better to chat with than the CHATTY MAN himself???!!!We discuss our new book Talk Art: The Interviews! That's right, it's TALK ART BOOK 2 release day!!! We are PUBLISHED AUTHORS! for a second time!!A huge THANK YOU to all the talented artists whose artworks are featured in the book and to our superstar editor Alison Starling and the team @octopus_books_ & @ilex_creative for their support and belief. Follow Alan Carr @ChattyMan on Instagram. Visit Waterstone's or The Margate Bookshop to buy our brand new TALK ART BOOK 2, out today Thursday 11th May 2021 in UK & Europe and from 6th June in USA & Canada. The book has also been translated into Korean and available in South Korea.'Insights from the zeitgeist are preserved with conviction and clarity, offering an inclusive way to access contemporary art in all its forms. If Talk Art is the fun podcast, then this book is the educational supplement to be prescribed alongside it.' - AestheticaThe authors of the Sunday Times bestseller Talk Art: Everything you wanted to know about contemporary art but were afraid to ask, have brought together 24 of the most profound, moving, funny and informative interviews from the wildly popular Talk Art podcast.These curated excerpts explore the inspirations, art experiences and favourite artists of a fascinating range of creative people from Grayson Perry to Elton John, from Tracey Emin to Paul Smith, and from Wolfgang Tillmans to Sonia Boyce, accompanied by images of the artworks that they have created or that have influenced them.For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. We are on Twitter too @TalkArt. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. For all requests, please email talkart@independenttalent.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We meet Hettie Judah, chief art critic on the British daily paper The i, a regular contributor to The Guardian’s arts pages, and a columnist for Apollo magazine. Following publication of her 2020 study on the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, in 2021 she worked with a group of artists to draw up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents, now available in 15 languages. She writes for Frieze, Art Quarterly, Art Monthly, ArtReview and other publications with 'art' in the title, and is a contributing editor to The Plant magazine. She regularly talks about art and with artists for museum and gallery events, and has been a visiting lecturer for Goldsmiths University and the Royal College of Art in London and Dauphine University, Paris. A supporter of Arts Emergency she has mentored artists and students through a variety of different schemes. As a broadcaster she can be heard (and sometimes seen) on programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Art That Made Us. Recent books include How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022) and Lapidarium (John Murray, London, 2022/ Penguin, NY, 2023). She is currently working on a book and Hayward Touring exhibition On Art and Motherhood (opening at Arnolfini in Bristol, March 2024) among other things.In 2022, together with Jo Harrison, Hettie co-founded the Art Working Parents Alliance - a supportive network and campaigning group for curators, academics, gallerists, technicians, educators and others working in the arts. Follow: @HettieJudahVisit: https://www.hettiejudah.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.