New Talk Art! We meet ARRAY COLLECTIVE. For this AWESOME new episode, we meet a record five guests - all members of the collective: Clodagh, Jane, Thomas, Sighle and Emma.Winners of the 2021 Turner Prize, Array Collective are a group of individual artists rooted in Belfast, who join together to create collaborative actions in response to the sociopolitical issues affecting Northern Ireland. Array’s studios and project space in the city centre acts as a base for the collective, however the participating artists are not limited to studio holders. Array are based in one of the last remaining inner-city studio buildings in Belfast, and have been working together since 2016. The group maintain independent practices but come together regularly to protest the most urgent social justice issues particular to Northern Ireland: mental health, language rights, abortion, workers’ rights, social housing, gentrification and LGBTQ+ rights. The Turner Prize jury awarded the prize to Array Collective for their hopeful and dynamic artwork which addresses urgent social and political issues affecting Northern Ireland with humour, seriousness and beauty. The jury were impressed with how Array Collective translate their activism and values into the gallery environment, creating a welcoming, immersive and surprising exhibition. The jury commended all five nominees for their socially engaged artworks, and how they work closely and creatively with communities across the breadth of the UK. The collaborative practices highlighted in this year’s shortlist also reflect the solidarity and generosity demonstrated in response to our divided times. Array Collective eleven members are: Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell, Sinead Bhreathnach-Cashell, Jane Butler, Emma Campbell, Alessia Cargnelli, Mitch Conlon, Clodagh Lavelle, Grace McMurray, Stephen Millar, Laura O'Connor, Thomas WellsRead the Elephant Magazine article we mentioned in this episode at this link: https://elephant.art/does-the-turner-prize-deserve-better-art-no-but-array-collective-deserves-better-critics-15122021/Follow @ArrayStudios on Instagram. Learn more at: http://www.arraystudiosbelfast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonus Talk Art! We meet teacher, and Talk Art Book editor, Ella Parsons. This special episode of Talk Art is brought to you in partnership with Get Into Teaching.Ella was the inspiring editor of our Talk Art book in 2021, published by Octopus Publishing, and after our book became a Sunday Time's Bestseller, she decided to change career and become an English teacher. We find out why she decided to switch careers, her passion for education and why 'Every Lesson Shapes a Life'.If you’ve listened to this episode and are now inspired or thinking of a career where every lesson shapes a life - then search Get Into Teaching now to find out more!Follow @Get_Into_Teaching on Instagram. Learn more by visiting: https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/TALK ART BOOK is OUT NOW! Visit Waterstone's or The Margate Bookshop to buy our brand new book in the UK or Amazon or Bookshop.org in USA & Canada. Full list of links in our Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TalkArtFor images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. Talk Art theme music by Jack Northover @JackNorthoverMusic courtesy of HowlTown.com We've just joined 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 leading artist Elad Lassry (b. Tel Aviv, 1977) who defines his practice as consumed with “pictures”—generic images culled from vintage picture magazines and film archives. Tapping the visual culture of still and motion pictures, he engages traditions of story-building with images and the ghosts of history that persist in images long after they have been lifted out of their original contexts. Elad Lassry creates or rediscovers images from a vast array of sources, redeploying them in a variety of media, including photography, film, drawing and sculpture. Despite the diversity of his approach, Lassry has developed one of the most distinctive visual idioms in contemporary art and a rigorously focussed practice that investigates the nature of our perception and the meaning of the contemporary image. Lassry describes his 'pictures', which are all exactly the same scale, as ‘something that’s suspended between a sculpture and an image’. The artist achieves this through a play of virtual and actual space. The image in each picture proposes a virtual space, while the frame, which is not a supplement to the image but an extension of it, carves out an actual space for the object to occupy. The images might be found – anything from a magazine snapshot to a Hollywood headshot – or photographed in studio conditions that reflect many of the concerns of traditional still life. Lassry then deploys the image as an ambiguous, free-floating signifier, which combines with the frame to create a new set of conditions. This hybrid entity becomes a kind of epistemological puzzle, engaging the viewer’s perceptual faculties. How does its objecthood affect our reading of the image? How does the subject matter of the image affect our perception of the object? This disruptive play between image and object extends into his film and sculpture. In the 16mm film Zebra and Woman, the camera begins at the animal’s tail before panning across its striped hide, examining the nuances of colour and form as if it were a mid-century abstraction. Passing the animal’s head, the viewer is plunged, briefly, into blackness before the incongruous appearance of an attractive woman again dislocates the pictorial space. This set of conditions is typical of the artist’s concerns: close-looking, the indistinct space between abstraction and figuration, the combination of flatness and depth, all combining to examine how the mind reacts to different visual stimuli. Lassry brings this set of concerns to bear on a body of sculptural work based on cabinets that further explore a range of perceptual paradoxes. Produced on a scale that reflects the unchanging dimensions of his pictures, the cabinets look both utilitarian and ornamental, both a functional object and its representation.  Lassry lives & works in Los Angeles. He has exhibited internationally including solo shows at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (2020); Le Plateau, Paris (2018); Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2017); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2014); Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2012) and Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland (2010).Follow Elad's galleries: @MassimoDeCarlo, @GalerieFrancescaPia, @WhiteCube & @303Gallery.Special thanks to Francesca Sabatini at Massimo de Carlo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We meet Berlin based artist Navot Miller on the eve of his first solo exhibition at WESERHALLE in Berlin. His new show presents 'Colourful, homo, great.', a series inspired by the artist’s recent travels interwoven with the artist’s multilayered identity. Navot makes large-scale, vibrant coloured canvases, electric compositions fueled by the flamboyant use of colours and the intensity of the exploration of flatness through the means of collage.Growing up, Miller experienced the many facets of life between the rural vastness of his hometown Shadmot Mehola in the north of Israel and the bustling metropolis—such as New York and Paris—where he travelled regularly to visit relatives. In his visual language his traditional religious upbringing as an orthodox jew and his contemporary life do not oppose each other but are brought to a sensible equilibrium.His work process starts with his own experiences documented as photographs or videos. Friends, acquaintances, lovers and everyday situations find their way onto his blank canvas, layered into a carefully composed collage of memories. For instance, the work Angelo & Sergio in Casa Biulú, focuses on two figures in a vibrant blue pool—strangers he got to know during his holidays in Mexico—while the background is drawn from a detail of another photograph from the same trip – the red and white stripes of a popcorn bag. Miller balances the components of space and colour to emit a sense of melancholy and voyeurism that charges the vibrant pieces with an unexpected intimacy. Miller describes how during his trip he was taking medications to treat a fungal infection on his face. Because of this, instead of taking part in social situations as he usually would, he played the role of an observer, watching and documenting interactions unfold. He explains further: “This vacation in Mexico was in many ways like the so-called “window shopping” where we see things we desire however, for a reason, cannot have for the moment.”With a strong interest in architecture, Miller has a naturally heightened consideration towards the arrangement of the individual elements and manages to bring the powerful characteristics of his dream-like scenarios and his own identity into balance that allow for delicate relations to unfold, which are often colourful, homo and pretty great.Navot Miller is a Berlin based artist from Israel. He studies at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee. His works have been exhibited most recently in Elektrohalle Rhomberg in Salzburg, Austria 2020 and at MISA in Berlin, Germany 2021.Follow @NavotMiller on Instagram. Visit Navot's solo @Weserhalle in Berlin, show runs from 18th March until 15th April 2022: https://Weserhalle.com/event/colourful-homo-great/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art speaks to Mark Neville, the award winning British photographer. Since 2015, Neville (born 1966) has been documenting life in Ukraine, with subjects ranging from holidaymakers on the beaches of Odessa and the Roma communities on the Hungarian border to those internally displaced by the war in Eastern Ukraine. Through his community-based projects, Neville explores the social function of the medium, using still and moving images as well as photo books. His projects have consistently looked to subvert the traditional, passive role of social documentary practice to activate social debate and change beyond the boundaries of cultural institutions.Employing his activist strategy of a targeted book dissemination, Neville is committed to making a direct impact upon the war in Ukraine. He will distribute copies of this volume free to policy makers, opinion makers, members of parliament both in Ukraine and Russia, members of the international community and those involved directly in the Minsk Agreements. He means to reignite awareness about the war, galvanize the peace talks and attempt to halt the daily bombing and casualties in Eastern Ukraine which have been occurring for four years now. Neville's images are accompanied by writings from both Russian and Ukrainian novelists, as well as texts from policy makers and the international community, to suggest how to end the conflict.Shortlisted for Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2020, Mark Neville works at the intersection of art and documentary, investigating the social function of photography. He makes lens-based works which have been realised and disseminated in a large array of contexts, as both still and moving image pieces, slideshows, films, and giveaway books. His work seeks to find new ways to empower the position of its subject over that of the author. Often working with closely knit communities, in a collaborative process intended to be of direct, practical benefit to the subject, his photographic projects to date have frequently made the towns he portrays the primary audience for the work. Points of reference for his practice might include the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, or the art works of Martha Rosler, John Berger, or Hans Haacke."What changes people’s minds about a conflict is a poem, a song, or a photograph. It’s people’s feelings that need to be changed. To my mind, that’s the role of the artist." Mark Neville speaking to The Guardian, February 2022.To contact Mark, follow @MarkNevilleStudio on Instagram and his official website is: http://www.markneville.com/If you are able, please help by supporting @SaveChildrenUK Emergency Fund today or text CRISIS to 70008 to donate £5. Your donation will allow their teams to help children in crisis.🇺🇦❤️ Further organisations: @razom.for.ukraine Razom for Ukraine, Help for Ukraine, @sunflowerofpeace Sunflower of Peace, and @revivedsoldiersukraine Revived Soldiers Ukraine are four organisations which use donations to fund medical aid for the people of Ukraine, including the purchase of first aid kits, backpacks stuffed with medical supplies, and medical rehabilitation for injured soldiers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art continues!!! We meet ActionSpace's Sheryll Catto and Charlotte Hollinshead to discuss the inspiring art of Nnena Kalu!Nnena Kalu (b.1966) is a prolific artist working from ActionSpace’s supported studio within Studio Voltaire since 1999. Over two decades Kalu has created a vast body of sculptural and 2D artworks and developed a live, performative element to her art practice. She is driven by an instinctive urge to build repeated marks and forms, creating intensely layered, visually impactful artworks with dense colours and compacted, flowing lines.ActionSpace is London’s leading development agency for artists with learning disabilities. Established in the 1960s, ActionSpace advocates for diversity within the contemporary visual arts sector by supporting artists with learning disabilities to develop their artistic practice, sell and exhibit work, amongst other creative projects.Nnena's drawings and sculptures are currently on view in Margate at Carl Freedman Gallery until 3rd April 2022. The exhibition is titled TO ALL THE KINGS WHO HAVE NO CROWNS curated by Jennifer Gilbert (previous Talk Art guest!) of the Jennifer Lauren Gallery. Free entry! A group show curated by @J_LGallery.Sheryll Catto joined ActionSpace as Co-Director in 2008, having worked in the creative sector for over 25 years. She has a personal and professional interest in supporting the development of creative practices and was attracted to ActionSpace because of our commitment to providing people with learning disabilities with the same opportunities as their peers in the contemporary visual arts sector.Charlotte Hollinshead has led the ActionSpace South London Studio at Studio Voltaire for over 21 years. She supports artists with complex disabilities to develop their individual arts practice and delivers an extensive range of commissions, projects, events and exhibitions including Nnena Kalu’s solo exhibition for Studio Voltaire elsewhere in 2020. Charlotte manages ActionSpace’s innovative participatory programme, including TUBELINES at Tate Exchange where ActionSpace artists created ambitious, interactive installations, artworks and live art happenings that invited participants to create alongside them and share their creative processes. Charlotte also has her own inclusive participatory practice Wild City, developing interactive sculptural works and installations for outdoor public events.Follow @ActionSpace on Instagram! Learn more about ActionSpace at their official website: https://ActionSpace.org/See Nnena's drawings and sculptures in Margate at Carl Freedman Gallery until 3rd April 2022. Follow @CarlFreedmanGallery for more details.Learn more about Nnena Kalu's work at these websites: https://actionspace.org/artists/nnena-kalu/ and https://www.studiovoltaire.org/whats-on/nnena-kalu-2/THANKS FOR LISTENING!!!! We love ActionSpace, thanks to their team for this wonderful episode. Special thanks to Jennifer Gilbert. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Talk Art!!! We meet a GLOBAL LEGEND, our dear friend, the iconic recording artist, three-time Grammy winner, and global R&B superstar, MAXWELL!!!!!! We discuss Maxwell's musical journey, collecting art, visiting Frieze New York art fair where he first expeirenced Hans Op de Beeck's Silent Library (2016) immersive installation, his love for artists Nina Chanel Abney, Steve McQueen, Seydou Keita and Jon Key, covering the iconic Kate Bush song 'This Woman's Work'. We discover his passion for drawing and amazing advice his art teacher gave him in his childhood. His admiration for Tracey Emin’s neons and a trip to the Whitney with Robert where they met Tracey. We explore the text works of Massimo Agostinelli and Max's admiration for the artistry of the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen and his memories from visiting his major retrospective at the Met. We discuss his deep respect and friendships with icons Prince, Harry Belafonte, Alicia Keys. We also hear about the passionate motivation behind Maxwell’s new fundraising sunglasses collection. Finally, we remember Russell’s epic 1990 Heinz ketchup TV advert and our mutual LOVE for our pal & leading British actor Lydia West.Maxwell has artfully managed to transfix music lovers for more than two decades, releasing five studio albums, all in his own time and all duly anointed as classics. The soul singer redefined soul music in April of 1996 when he released his critically acclaimed debut on Columbia, 'Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite.' It earned Grammy nominations, double platinum status and RIAA gold for the single, "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)." The platinum albums 'Embrya' (1998) and 'Now' (2001) followed. After eight years, 2009's 'BLACKsummers'night' debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and won two Grammys, including Best R&B Album.To date, Maxwell has achieved 4 platinum album certifications from the RIAA. His last album ‘blackSUMMERS’night,’ the second instalment of his musical trilogy, earned Maxwell his third Grammy (Best R&B Song for “Lake By The Ocean”) an NAACP Image Award (Outstanding Male Artist), and a Soul Train Award (Best R&B/Soul Male Artist). Recently honoured with the “Legend” Award at the 2021 Soul Train Awards, Maxwell’s upcoming ‘blacksummers’NIGHT’ is one of the most-anticipated R&B events of 2022 and will cap off a journey he first embarked upon over a decade ago. In Feb 2022, STATE Optical Co. launches their collaboration on limited-edition sunglasses designed with Maxwell! The STATE x Maxwell BLACK_SUMMERS’_NIGHT titanium sunglasses will be available for exclusive pre-sale starting Monday, February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Its wide launch will be on March 1st. More here: https://store.musze.com/collections/sunglassesMaxwell can be seen flaunting the new style in the music video for his current Top 10 R&B single, “OFF,” an exciting preview of what’s to come for the highly-anticipated release of ‘blacksummers’NIGHT,’ the final chapter in his critically acclaimed album trilogy. Also keep an eye out for the style as Maxwell kicks off his 25 date NIGHT Arena tour in March 2022. STATE Optical Co. Expands Limited Edition Collab with Global R&B Superstar Maxwell Launching March 1 (Exclusive Pre-Sale to Launch February 14) | Portion of Proceeds to Support the Opening Your Eyes Scholarship. Maxwell's highly anticipated new album blacksummers’NIGHT will be released in Spring 2022.Follow @Maxwell on Instagram for latest details on his new album and tour, as well as Maxwell's official website: https://Musze.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Talk Art!!! Season 12 continues!!! We meet emerging artist Lydia Pettit! We discuss painting, growing up in Maryland, horror films, moving to London and the strength you can gain from being creative!!!! Pettit's first presentation with White Cube is available to view online now, her first solo exhibition with the gallery.Building on the artist’s previous paintings that explored Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, this new series is centred on the alienation we experience within our bodies. Works in oil, embroidery and quilting portray the body with various objects such as keyholes, doors and household items. These domestic motifs serve to symbolise a haunted house, filled with spectres of the past.In her compositions, Pettit toys with different levels of exposure to invite the viewer on the path where the artist's self image intersects with, as she puts it, ‘the memories and ugly feelings that leak out and interrupt us'. Framed with large swathes of black, Pettit’s depictions conjure a void, enveloping and invading the figure. As well as tracing personal experiences of doubt and rumination, recovery and growth, these works also speak to broader issues surrounding body politics and mental health. As the artist states: ‘I use my paintings and quilts to accept this part of me, make peace with it and move forward, and leave these fleeting thoughts on canvas and fabric.’LYDIA PETTIT (b. 1991) is a Painter and Curator from Towson, Maryland. She pursued her BFA in painting and photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art and is a two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. In 2014, she purchased and opened Platform Arts Center, a studio and mixed-use building in downtown Baltimore, to provide affordable studio space to young and low-income artists in the area. Within the space she was the co-Director and co-Founder of Platform Gallery, a project with a focus on providing opportunities to Baltimore-based and regional emerging artists. In 2017 Pettit and her partner closed the gallery, and she turned her focus to her art practice. She obtained her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2020 and is now living and working in Bow, London.Lydia's solo show with White Cube runs online until 8 March 2021. You can visit the exhibition at this link:https://whitecube.viewingrooms.com/viewing-room/introductions-lydia-pettit/Follow @LydiaPettit on Instagram. Her official website is: https://lydiapettit.com/ and you can also Follow @WhiteCube for more details and images! Thanks for listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk Art special episode with WePresent!!! We meet leading artist Alex Prager at her solo exhibition in London's Cromwell Place, South Kensington. We also chat with WePresent's editor-in-chief Holly Fraser about the support they offer artists and creative minds around the world.View Alex's video online here: https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/alex-prager-part-one-the-mountain/Alex Prager's new works feature elaborately staged scenes that capture a moment frozen in time. Prager cultivates an uncanny, dreamlike mood throughout her oeuvre—an effect heightened by her use of timeless costuming and richly saturated colors that recall technicolor films, as well as the mysterious or inexplicable happenings she often depicts. Her meticulously crafted photographs are filled with hyperreal details, from signatures on the cast of a high school football player or bandage on the nose of a woman running in terror, to the face in the reflection of a handheld mirror or figure revealed to be a cardboard cutout, firmly locating Prager’s images in the real world and belying the sense of the surreal that often pervades her work.Although Prager’s immersive, large-scale photographs of crowds are among her best-known work the artist’s newest series evinces a return to portraiture, a genre she first explored early in her practice. Rendered on a smaller, more intimate scale that draws the viewer in, Part One: The Mountain features a series of stripped-down Americana portraits that capture the artist’s subjects in the midst of intense inner turmoil. The inspiration for Part One: The Mountain arose from Prager’s deep desire to examine the myriad emotional states we have all experienced during one of the greatest collective upheavals in modern society. Conceived as psychological portraits, these images visualize a private moment that is understood universally.Prager’s subjects in Part One: The Mountain can be seen as archetypes, an update of sorts to those found in ancient Greek mythology. The series includes Prager’s quintessential characters, placed in a world that teeters between the fabricated and the familiar. Each image in the series occupies ambiguous territory, leaving space for the viewer to interpret each scene and draw their own conclusions about its narrative.The title of the exhibition, Part One: The Mountain, is highly symbolic, with the idea of the mountain referenced throughout literature, religion, and psychology as a place where personal revelations, or reckonings, can occur. If the idea of summiting a peak has historically suggested a spiritual pilgrimage or intense physical challenge, it should be remembered that traversing mountainous terrain has often symbolized overcoming obstacles or making hard-won progress. If we have found ourselves metaphorically on the mountain over the course of the past two years, Prager’s newest body of work prompts us to imagine what the world will look like when we finally come back down.The exhibition is supported by WePresent, WeTransfer’s digital arts platform. On view at Lehmann Maupin's space at Cromwell Place in London from until 5th March 2022, please note that this exhibition is closed on Sundays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Talk Art!!! We meet artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran on the eve of his new solo show in Mumbai, India titled The Mud and The Rainbow.Encountering the sculptures of Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is, at first, bewildering and unsettling, so multifarious and polymorphous are his references. Yet there is a logic to these works, a reasoning which draws the artist to his conclusions, such that we might use the term Syllogisms to understand his plastic experiments. Ramesh is quick to site the synthesis of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian iconographies, which are the inheritance of his Sri Lankan ancestry, to be found in his work, but one can just as quickly recognize affinities with animist African deities, Meso-American idols, and Polynesian effigies. Ramesh claims contradictory identities for his figures: guardians, warriors, goddesses, demons, jokers, and monsters. These multi-headed, multi-limbed, multi-orificed beings fuse elements culled from every possible living creature, both ambulatory and stationary, to perform the contradictory functions of welcoming in and frightening away simultaneously.Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is a Sri-Lankan born contemporary artist who explores global histories and languages of figurative representation. He has specific interests in South Asian forms and imagery as well as politics relating to idolatry, the monument, gender, race and religiosity. While he is best known for his irreverent approach to ceramic media, his material vernacular is broad. He has worked imaginatively with sculptural materials including bronze, concrete, neon, LED and fibreglass, as well as conventional painting and printmaking materials and techniques.His signature neo-expressionist and polychromatic work has been presented in museums, festivals, multi-art centres and the public domain. This has included significant presentations at the National Gallery of Australia, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Dhaka Art Summit, Art Basel Hong Kong and Dark Mofo festival. His first major permanent public artwork was recently installed at the entrance of the new HOTA gallery.Recently, The Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired his monumental work ‘Avatar Towers’. This is an installation of 70 ceramic and bronze figures originally presented in the gallery’s historic vestibule. His work is held in various other public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, The Ian Potter Museum of Art and the Shepparton Art Museum.Ramesh is represented by Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney + Singapore and Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai. His new solo show is available to view online:https://jhavericontemporary.com/exhibitions/the-mud-and-the-rainbowFollow Ramesh on Instagram: @Rams_Deep69 and his gallery @JhaveriContemporary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.