Talk Art

Russell & Robert meet the LEGENDARY Dame Zandra Rhodes DBE!!! We celebrate more than 50 years of creativity and FABULOUS!!!We discuss childhood memories of her mother and growing up in Kent, her early experiments with textile design and printmaking inspired by Andy Warhol and travelling to America in 1969 which led to her huge success during the 1970s. We discover her memories of designing clothes for icons as varied as Princess Diana and Freddy Mercury, her friendship with Andrew Logan and Divine plus making numerous costumes for The Alternative Miss World!!! In this special episode, Zandra remembers her dear friend the artist Duggie Fields who passed away in March 2021. We explore Duggie's artworks, including the first painting Zandra bought from him in 1967, and we celebrate his influence on her work, their lasting friendship and ongoing legacy.Dame Zandra Rhodes has been a notorious figurehead of the UK fashion industry for five decades, celebrating her 50th year in fashion in September 2019 with a retrospective exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum – founded by Zandra – entitled Zandra Rhodes: 50 Years of Fabulous and a retrospective book published by Yale. Her notoriety as a print designer combined with an affinity for fine fabrics and colour has resulted in a signature aesthetic that is undeniably unique and continues to stand the test of time.An eponymous pioneer of the British and international fashion scene since the late 60’s, Zandra’s career has seen her collaborate with brands such as Valentino, Topshop and Mac Cosmetics. Continuing to collaborate with brands that inspire her, 2021 will see the launch of Zandra Rhodes x IKEA amongst many other exciting partnerships and projects.Follow @Zandra_Rhodes_ on Instagram. Visit Zandra's official website: https://ZandraRhodes.com/ To learn more about the work of Duggie Fields visit http://www.DuggieFields.com/ or @DuggieFields on Instagram. Visit the Fashon Textile Museum in London's Bermondsey: https://www.FTMLondon.org/ and their instagram @FashionTextileMuseumFor 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.

Russell & Robert meet artist Oscar yi Hou from his studio in New York. We discuss growing up in Liverpool, poetry, calligraphy and new paintings on the eve of the opening of his solo exhibition 'A sky-licker relation’ at James Fuentes Gallery:“Oscar yi Hou’s work is anchored in personhood. While this exhibition presents a series of new portraits, what yi Hou’s paintings really record is the relationship shared between the sitter and the artist. Foregoing fixed representation, the works in A sky-licker relation offer a testament to living alongside others. Made over the past year and a half, these works mark the importance and influence of nearness; the being-with of a queer lifeworld.The exhibition title is itself is the result of a series of relations: skylicker is lifted from Aimé Césaire's poem ‘Cahier d'un retour au pays natal’, which yi Hou first came across in Frantz Fanon’s ‘Wretched of the Earth’. Like the evocation of a sky licker, yi Hou’s given name in Chinese refers to a bird cry (⼀鸣) and he often uses birds as a self-signifier in his paintings and poetry, boundless and in flight. A distinct sense of symmetry can be found in yi Hou’s densely-detailed images, contributing to a compositional logic that is able to hold together a great deal of texture around each of the relationships being represented.Negotiating questions of opacity and (il)legibility, yi Hou employs polysemic symbols such as the five-pointed star, an icon laden with signification between East and West, to emphasize the buried yet multifarious meanings that surround his subjects. In this vein, at times the artist fuses the Chinese calligraphic tradition with graffiti seen on the streets of New York. Yi Hou also makes poetic use of the borders of his works, treating this marginal space as an expression of the interrelation between him and the sitter—while at the same time reflecting upon the limits of grasping this relation. In doing so, the artist’s paintings of others become a form of address, conjuring new signs and meanings to be shared in space. Here, yi Hou intricately demonstrates, in his words, “painting as a practice of dignity.”Oscar yi Hou (b. 1998 in Liverpool, England; lives and works in New York) received his BA at Columbia University, New York. His work has been included in exhibitions at T293 Gallery, Rome, Italy; Asia Society, New York; Tong Art Advisory, New York; Half Gallery, New York; Rachel Uffner, New York; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles; and the Royal Academy, UK. A sky-licker relation follows yi Hou’s exhibition of works on paper at JamesFuentes.Online earlier this year.Follow @OscyHou on Instagram and also @James_Fuentes_LLC Visit Oscar's official website: https://oscaryihou.com/ and his solo exhibition page at: https://jamesfuentes.com/ Oscar's solo show runs in New York from August 26–September 26, 2021.A recent painting by Oscar is also included in 'Breakfast Under The Tree' group exhibition curated by Russell Tovey at Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK until 5th September 2021. Follow @CarlFreedmanGalleryFor images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. Talk Art theme music by Jack Northover  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet British TV presenter and broadcaster Timmy Mallett to discuss his lifelong love for painting, sketching and ART!!! We discover why Timmy's been hailed 'the cycling artist' and how he recently became a TikTok sensation with 'Mallett's Palette', a series where Timmy paints on live stream in front of a global audience of art fans!! We take a trip down memory lane to celebrate our fond childhood memories of 1980s TV & POP CULTURE!!! Wacaday!!!We learn of Timmy's fascination with Vermeer, Bruegel and Dutch still life paintings, his love of Richard Dadd (English painter of Victorian era), Van Gogh, but also Claude Monet and Impressionism. We explore his mammoth cycle trip to the El Camino de Santiago and how he learned to live in the present thanks to his brother Martin, who passed away a week before Timmy’s epic cycling pilgrimage. We hear how he learned to paint via his father, who started out as a commercial artist in advertising. Timmy's fully-illustrated new book 'Utterly Brilliant!' is out now.We learn of his admiration for other painters including David Hockney, Edward Seago and hear of a visit to Andrew Lloyd Webber's home to view his incredible private collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. We explore his 1980s radio and TV years where he worked with other broadcast legends including Chris Evans, Mike Myers (Austin Powers) and Robert's hero Kylie Minogue on ITV's hit kids show the 'Wide Awake Club'... Princess Diana was one of his most famous viewers, tuning in weekly with her sons Harry & William!!!Follow Timmy on Instagram @Timmy.Mallett Visit Timmy's official website at www.TimmyMallett.co.ukUtterly Brilliant!, his entertaining and surprisingly moving autobiography is out now where Timmy shares his journey through TV stardom, cycling the El Camino de Santiago and his passion for art. Published by SPCK Publishing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russell & Robert meet artist Narumi Nekpenekpen from her studio in Los Angeles! Special episode in collaboration with @ODDAmagazine - check out their latest issue for an exclusive #TalkArt feature. Thanks to ODDA for including excerpts from this interview in their new issue!Kate Wong writes about Narumi's works as shown in London at Soft Opening, gallery's space at Piccadilly Circus tube station: Nekpenekpen’s figures are small in relation to the human form, but gargantuan relative to the stars we see in the night sky, or the flecks of earthen elements that constitute the clay from which they have been formed. With their big doe eyes, heart-shaped pouty lips and cobby bodies, they gesture with a quiet but visceral urgency. Inspired by the poetry of dreams and daydreams, and also by the language of film, Nekpenekpen’s work traverses questions of mistranslation, identity and belonging. In their innocence and playfulness, the sculptures protest against the binary of low and high art, and the Western commodification of different aesthetic forms. Drawing from wide-ranging pop-cultural references, Nekpenekpen’s figures come together in a liminal place. Here at the boundary of diverse perspectives, untethered from preexisting ways of seeing and making, her characters come to life. In her process, slab porcelain clay is pushed and pulled into a central foundation onto which, like armour, the artist affixes a head, chunky limbs and highly textured garments, chains and other accessories. Nekpenekpen is interested both in what clay wants to do on its own, as well as what can emerge from their imminent relation. This method of handbuilding is honest, informed both by incongruity and imperfection. The result is a small, fierce army of lovers, produced from Nekpenekpen’s care and a dynamism of intra-acting forces. In this interstitial place, a dependency on others is essential to existence; love reigns supreme.Follow @NaruBlu on Instagram. Special thanks to Antonia Marsh at Soft Opening, gallery in London. Follow @ODDAmagazine on Instagram and check out ODDA latest issue for Talk Art special feature this month!!!For 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.

Season 10 continues!!! Russell & Robert meet leading artist Math Bass from their studio in Los Angeles, California. Bass is an artist known for fusing performance with paintings and sculptures using formal elements like solid colors, geometric imagery, raw materials, and visual symbols. Bass has exhibited internationally and is represented by Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Vielmetter, Los Angeles.Math Bass (b. 1981, New York, NY, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans across painting, performance, sculpture, and video. Throughout the work of Math Bass, recognizable forms appear and yet turn abstract, becoming shapes rather than signifiers, like shadows manipulated by the sun. Repetition is used as a tool to foreground these forms as part of a visual lexicon Bass has been developing over the last several years in the Newz! series — where forms and symbols exist in a multitude of perspectives and (re)interpretation — suggesting the possibility of mutable meaning.Though graphic in the flatness of the forms, there is a crispness and lightness to Bass’s geometric abstraction–thin layers of opaque paint are delicately applied to the raw canvas. In their artistic practice, the artist explores breaking down the common boundaries found within the medium(s) and modes of presentation in order to actively engage the viewer in both surreal and everyday ways.Bass received a BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include: Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2019); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Mary Boone Gallery, New York (2018); The Jewish Museum, New York (2017); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2017); and MoMA PS1, New York (2015). Bass has also participated in selected group exhibitions at Martos Gallery, New York (2019); Fredericks & Freiser, New York (2019); Gordon Robichaux, New York (2018); and the Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, (2012). They will have a solo exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle, Fall 2021 - Winter 2022.Their work is included in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai, CN.Follow @MathPearlBass on Instagram.For 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.

New Talk Art!!! Russell & Robert meet leading artist Larry Achiampong (b. 1984, UK). Larry Achiampong's solo and collaborative projects employ imagery, aural and visual archives, live performance and sound to explore ideas surrounding class, cross-cultural and post-digital identity.With works that examine his communal and personal heritage – in particular, the intersection between pop culture and the postcolonial position, Achiampong crate-digs the vaults of history. These investigations examine constructions of ‘the self’ by splicing the audible and visual materials of personal and interpersonal archives, offering multiple perspectives that reveal entrenched socio-political contradictions in contemporary society.Achiampong has exhibited, performed and presented projects within the UK and abroad including Tate Britain/Modern, London; The Institute For Creative Arts, Cape Town; The British Film Institute, London; David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, Accra; Logan Center Exhibitions, Chicago; Prospect New Orleans, New Orleans; Diaspora Pavilion – 57th Venice Biennale, Venice; and Somerset House, London. Achiampong’s recent residencies include Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle; Praksis, Oslo; The British Library/Sound & Music, London; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; and Primary, Nottingham and Somerset House Studios (London).Achiampong is a Jarman Award nominated artist (2018) and completed a BA in Mixed Media Fine Art at University of Westminster in 2005 and an MA in Sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2008. In 2020 Achiampong was awarded the Stanley Picker fellow and in 2019 received the Paul Hamlyn Artist award in recognition for his practice. He lives and works in Essex, and has been a tutor on the Photography MA programme at Royal College of Art since 2016. Achiampong currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) facilitating art policies in the UK and internationally and also holds a place on the board of trustees for Elephant Trust and is represented by C Ø P P E R F I E L D.Follow

Russell & Robert chat to leading writer Charlie Porter from his home in East London to discuss his new book What Artists Wear.Most of us live our lives in our clothes without realizing their power. But in the hands of artists, garments reveal themselves. They are pure tools of expression, storytelling, resistance and creativity: canvases on which to show who we really are. In What Artists Wear, style luminary Charlie Porter takes us on an invigorating, eye-opening journey through the iconic outfits worn by artists, in the studio, on stage, at work, at home and at play. From Yves Klein's spotless tailoring to the kaleidoscopic costumes of Yayoi Kusama and Cindy Sherman; from Andy Warhol's signature denim to Charlotte Prodger's casualwear, Porter's roving eye picks out the magical, revealing details in the clothes he encounters, weaving together a new way of understanding artists, and of dressing ourselves. Part love letter, part guide to chic, and featuring generous photographic spreads, What Artists Wear is both a manual and a manifesto, a radical, gleeful, inspiration to see the world anew-and find greater pleasure and possibility in the clothes we all wear.Charlie Porter is a writer, fashion critic, art curator and lecturer in Fashion at the University of Westminster. He has contributed to titles such as Financial Times, Guardian, New York Times, GQ, Luncheon, i-D and Fantastic Man, and has been described as one of the most influential fashion journalists of his time. He was a juror for the Turner Prize in 2019, and lives in London. Follow @TheCharliePorter on Instagram. His book is available from Artwords in East London and The Margate Bookshop, Kent and all good stores!For 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.

Season 10 continues with another INSPIRING guest!! Russell & Robert meet leading artist RACHEL FEINSTEIN from her studio in New York to discuss three decades of her artwork in sculpture, painting, drawing, performance and video.In this 1 hour 30 minutes special episode, we discuss Rachel’s vivid childhood memories growing up in Miami, her early sculptures (including jewellery moulded from intimate parts of her body) and the influence of mentors such as Kiki Smith, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Judy Pfaff. We explore the legacy and timeless relevance of fairytales and the way her work encompasses the richness and complexity of a woman’s lifetime and the strong connection between her drawings and sculptures.In richly detailed sculptures and multipart installations, Rachel Feinstein investigates and challenges the concept of luxury as expressed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, in the context of contemporary parallels. By synthesizing visual and societal opposites such as romance and pornography, elegance and kitsch, and the marvellous and the banal, she explores issues of taste and desire.We strongly recommend buying Rachel Feinstein's major monograph, published by Rizzoli (Click here to order). Look back at Rachel Feinstein's recent museum exhibition 'Maiden, Mother, Crone' by visiting The Jewish Museum's website (click here) and learn more at her gallery Gagosian's dedicated page. Follow @RachelFeinsteinStudio and @Gagosian on Instagram.We are SO excited to be back for series 10!! We decided to start it sooner because so many of you have been messaging us and we didn't want to leave you without new episodes!!! We will be with you for the rest of the summer and beyond!!! Also, don't forget to catch up on over 130 one-hour earlier episodes from the Talk Art podcast Seasons 1-9, our treasured archive of creative thinking.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.

For our second episode of all-new Season TEN, Russell & Robert meet artist OLIVER HEMSLEY from his studio in Suffolk!!! Warning: this episode features very strong language!We explore the joys of being a dog parent, his adoration for gay creative heroes Alan Bennett, David Hockney and Keith Haring, studying at St Martins and his early passion for drawing. We discuss the unprovoked attack in which he was stabbed after a night out dancing at the Joiner’s Arms, his resulting paralysis and the long journey to relearning how to draw and making art. We learn about the charity Art Against Knives he helped to found, starting with an exhibition organised by Oliver’s friends and fellow Central Saint Martins’ students to raise money and awareness a year after he was attacked. The event gained support from some of the biggest names in art and fashion with work donated by Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Wolfgang Tillmans and Banksy amongst others. We discover his long friendship with Gilbert & George, who collect his work and are his biggest fans, his admiration for Barbara Hepworth’s hospital drawings and the works of Lubaina Himid, Paul Rego, Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon …AND SO MUCH MORE!!!!Follow @OliverHemsley on Instagram! Visit Oliver's official website at www.oliverhemsley.co.uk Learn more about the Art Against Knives charity at their website: www.artagainstknives.comWe are SO excited to be back for series 10!! We decided to start it sooner because so many of you have been messaging us and we didn't want to leave you without new episodes!!! We will be with you for the rest of the summer and beyond!!! Also, don't forget to catch up on over 130 one-hour earlier episodes from the Talk Art podcast Seasons 1-9, our treasured archive of creative thinking.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.

TALK ART SEASON TEN!!!!! We're back... and what a WONDERFUL guest we have to kick start this new series!!! Russell & Robert meet Olivia Laing, acclaimed writer and critic!!!!! Recorded live from the Hay Festival 2021 with R&R on stage in Hay on Wye, Wales and Olivia on satellite link-up from her home in London.We discuss Olivia's extraordinary book Funny Weather. In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the 21st century. Funny Weather brings together a career’s worth of Laing’s writing about art and culture, examining its role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keefe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, she celebrates art as a force of resistance and repair, an antidote to a frightening political time.We’re often told art can’t change anything. Laing argues that it can. It changes how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living.Follow @OliviaLanguage on Instagram! Visit Olivia's official website at https://www.OliviaLaing.com/ and buy her many books from The Margate Bookshop! Please support your local bookshop. BIG THANKS to the team at Hay Festival, learn more about their genius festival at https://www.HayFestival.org/We are SO excited to be back for series 10!! We decided to start it sooner because so many of you have been messaging us and we didn't want to leave you without new episodes!!! We will be with you for the rest of the summer and beyond!!! Also, don't forget to catch up on over 130 one-hour earlier episodes from the Talk Art podcast Seasons 1-9, our treasured archive of creative thinking.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.