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Ep. 281 Anina Major (b. 1981, Nassau, Bahamas; lives and works in Upstate New York) holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including being a 2026 USA Fellow, finalist in the 2025 Loewe Craft Prize, winner of The Armory Show Pommery Prize 2024, The Future Perfect Prize 2024, the 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship and an artist residency at EKWC, the European Ceramic Workcentre. Major's work has been exhibited throughout The Bahamas, Europe, and the United States, and is on permanent display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of The Bahamas; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art; the RISD Museum; Pérez Art Museum Miami; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. Photo by Melissa Alcena Artist website https://www.aninamajor.com/ Tern Gallery https://www.terngallery.com/ 2026 Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) — Anina Major: The Sacred Mangrove PAMM exhibition Artsy — Anina Major’s Giant Woven Ceramic Pots Rethink Bahamian Craft Traditions Artsy article United States Artists — 11 Questions with 2026 USA Fellow Anina Major United States Artists interview United States Artists — Anina Major — 2026 USA Fellow USA artist profile Larkin Durey — Anina Major: Tender Seedlings Larkin Durey exhibition Shoshana Wayne Gallery — Anina Major: Moments of Being Shoshana Wayne Gallery 2025 The New York Times — From Basketry to Clay, the Bahamas to New York New York Times article Observer — Artist Anina Major Is Recontextualizing the Bahamian Narrative One Clay Plait at a Time Observer article Vogue — In Madrid, the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize Has a Homecoming—and Opens a New Chapter Vogue article LOEWE Foundation — Anina Major — Sandcastle LOEWE Craft Prize Ford Foundation Gallery — Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art Ford Foundation Ceramics Now — Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art Ceramics Now Cabana Magazine — Anina Major | Ceramicist Cabana Magazine Wallpaper* — Five artisans from the Caribbean diaspora to have on your radar Wallpaper* 2024 The Armory Show — Revealing the 2024 Prize Winners — Pommery Prize, $25,000 The Armory Show Joan Mitchell Foundation — In the Studio: Anina Major Joan Mitchell Foundation Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) — Unruly Navigations MoAD exhibition Pamela Salisbury Gallery — Anina Major: All Us Come Across Water Pamela Salisbury Gallery Whitewall — 7 Standouts from Design Miami 2024 Whitewall Phaidon — Great Women Sculptors Phaidon

Ep.280 Jiab Prachakul (b. 1979) is a figurative painter who lives and works in Vannes, Brittany, France. Known for her luminous autobiographical paintings, Prachakul portrays her community and surroundings in quiet scenes shaped by close observation and restraint. Prachakul was born and raised in Nakhon Phanom, a small town in northeast Thailand. She studied film and journalism at Thammasat University in Bangkok and worked as a casting coordinator for Big Blue Production, where she spent her time observing people and discovering talent. In 2007, she moved to London and taught herself to paint after seeing an exhibition of David Hockney’s work at the National Portrait Gallery. She subsequently lived in Berlin, where she met many of the figures who populate her paintings. There, she turned her focus to representing the Asian diaspora, seeking to amend a lack in the Western canon. In 2020, Prachakul won the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has had solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin (2025), Timothy Taylor, New York (2023), and Friends Indeed Gallery, San Francisco (2023, 2021); and her work belongs in the collections of the Roberts Institute of Art, London; the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Profile image by Guillaume Bouzige Artist https://www.jiabprachakul.com/ Timothy Taylor https://www.timothytaylor.com/artists/jiab-prachakul/ New Exhibitions https://www.newexhibitions.com/e/68671 Austin Film Society https://www.austinfilm.org/series/sweet-solitude/ Glasstire https://glasstire.com/2025/04/21/jiab-prachakuls-sweet-solitude-explores-identity-culture-and-place/ Do512 https://do512.com/events/2025/2/7/jiab-prachakul-sweet-solitude-tickets Artnet https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jiab-prachakul-up-next-2626722 Micki Meng https://mickimeng.com/artists/jiab-prachakul Galerie Magazine https://galeriemagazine.com/jiab-prachakul-dreamy-surreal-paintings-explore-identity-representation/ Cultured Mag https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2023/09/07/jiab-prachakul-timothy-taylor-solo-show/ Gillian Jason https://www.gillianjason.com/artists/45-jiab-prachakul/ The Genius List https://www.thegeniuslist.com/interview/jiab-prachakul/ The Contemporary Austin https://thecontemporaryaustin.org/exhibitions/jiab-prachakul-sweet-solitude/

Ep.279 Kyla McMillan is the Director of The Armory Show. McMillan has a wide range of experience in the art world, having experience as an art dealer, gallerist, and consultant. In 2021, she founded Saint George Projects, an itinerant gallery and consultancy, organizing exhibitions and programming in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, Kingston, Jamaica, and Johannesburg. Prior to founding Saint George Projects, she was a director at David Zwirner, New York and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York where she focused on artist management and sales. McMillan also has extensive experience in cultural communications, developing strategy and content for organizations including, Spotify, Adidas, and BMW. Through this work she gained international experience, working with clients in the US, Austria, Germany, and South Africa. Photo by Alexandra Genova, courtesy of Frieze The Armory Art Fair https://www.thearmoryshow.com/article/kyla-mcmillan-speaks-armory-show-about-her-vision-2025-fair Frieze Art Fair https://press.frieze.com/the-armory-show-returns-as-new-yorks-meeting-point-for-contemporary-art-in-the-americas-and-beyond/ | https://www.frieze.com/article/kyla-mcmillan-announced-new-director-armory-show Artsy https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-armory-announces-230-exhibitors-2026-edition The Art Newspaper https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/07/20/armory-show-unveils-230-gallery-line-up-after-moving-fair-to-late-september | https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/07/09/kyla-mcmillan-the-armory-show-director FAD Magazine https://fadmagazine.com/2026/08/21/armory-show-2026-programme/ The Observer https://observer.com/2025/08/interview-kyla-mcmillan-armory-show-2025-new-york-art-fairs/ News Tank Culture https://culture.newstank.fr/article/view/331673/etats-unis-kyla-mcmillan-directrice-armory-show.html Artformum https://www.artforum.com/news/kyla-mcmillan-named-director-armory-show-556529/ Artnet https://news.artnet.com/market/armory-show-names-new-director-kyla-mcmillan-2509444 Ocula https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/armory-show-returns-2026/ Whitewall Art https://whitewall.art/art/the-armory-show-2025/ Heni News https://heni.com/news?artist=Kyla%20McMillan ARTnews https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/kyla-mcmillan-armory-show-director-1234711648/ Art Review https://artreview.com/kyla-mcmillan-to-direct-new-yorks-armory-show/ Glasstire https://glasstire.com/2025/09/09/recapping-the-2025-armory-show/

Ep.278 Tahnee Lonsdale is an artist rendering emotional divinity through the use of layered oil paints and ethereal, intuitive compositions. Born in 1982 and raised in Sussex, UK, Tahnee attended the University of the Arts in London where she primarily studied painting, graduating with a BFA in 2007. After moving to LA in 2015, her practice evolved to embrace large-scale painting, soft sculpture, ceramics and works on paper. Recent solo exhibitions include Walk With Us Into The Forest at Alexander Berggruen in New York, NY; A billion tiny moons at Night Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Not Ghosts, But Just As Loud at MASSIMODECARLO’s Pièce Unique in Paris, France; and Our Humans at Fabian Lang in Zurich, Switzerland. Recent group exhibitions include Bodies of Becoming and Lovers at Main Projects in Richmond, VA; Painting All Together IV at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Raul De Lara, Shanique Emelife, Sihan Guo, Tahnee Lonsdale at Alexander Berggruen in New York, NY; and Observation at Perrotin in Dubai, UAE. Prominent acquisitions of Tahnee’s work include the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, NY; the X Museum in Beijing, China; Fundación MEDIANOCHE0 in Grenada, Spain; and Dragon Hill in Mouans-Sartoux, France. She’s participated in artist residencies at Dragon Hill and Cerámica Suro in Guadalajara, Mexico with Exhibition A. Tahnee Lonsdale lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Katrina Dickson Artist https://tahneelonsdale.com/ Night Gallery https://www.nightgallery.ca/artists/tahnee-lonsdale | https://www.nightgallery.ca/news/night-gallery-to-represent-tahnee-lonsdale Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/four-artists-dismantle-the-boundaries-of-immigrant/ | https://hyperallergic.com/10-art-shows-to-visit-in-los-angeles-september-2024/ Galerie Magazine https://galeriemagazine.com/october-gallery-shows-2024/ Whitewall https://whitewall.art/whitewaller/best-la-shows-alice-neel-tahnee-lonsdale-lita-albuquerque-and-more/ Superfuture https://superfuture.com/2024/09/upcoming-events/los-angeles-a-billion-tiny-moons/ Observer https://observer.com/2024/08/artist-interview-tahnee-lonsdale-spiritual-feminine/ | https://observer.com/2024/08/arts-interview-timothy-tan-contemporary-art-philippines-manila/ Wallpaper https://www.wallpaper.com/art/los-angeles-art-exhibitions-guide Creative Boom https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/tahnee-lonsdale/ Artnet https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tahnee-lonsdale-2112333 Cultured Mag https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2022/05/10/artist-tahnee-lonsdale-gets-spiritual-in-the-studio-with-emcultured-em

Ep.277 Gustavo Nazareno is a Brazilian artist whose practice explores portraiture, spirituality, mythology, and Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions. Through painting and drawing, he investigates themes related to the African diaspora, the cosmologies of Candomblé and Umbanda, and the Yoruba pantheon of orixás, with a particular focus on Exu as a recurring symbolic figure. Nazareno has presented solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries including the Museu Afro Brasil Emanoel Araújo, São Paulo; Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães (MAMAM), Recife; Opera Gallery, London, Miami, and Bal Harbour; Cassina Projects, Milan; Gallery 1957, London; and Selma Feriani Gallery, Tunis. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco; Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo; Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca; and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Seville. His works are included in the collections of Museu Afro Brasil Emanoel Araújo, MAMAM – Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães, Instituto Collaço Paulo, Projeto Afro, and Cornell University. In 2024, the publication Bará received the 66th Jabuti Prize in the Graphic Design category. Gustavo Nazareno Portrait_photo Ana Beatriz Silva Opera Gallery https://www.operagallery.com/artist/gustavo-nazareno PIPA https://www.pipaprize.com/gustavo-nazareno/ Cassina Projects https://www.cassinaprojects.com/artists/59-gustavo-nazareno/ Guzangs https://guzangs.com/gustavo-nazareno-has-nothing-to-explain/ Le journal des arts https://www.lejournaldesarts.fr/evenement/2026/gustavo-nazareno-how-grow-flower-supernova-183945 Artnet https://www.artnet.fr/galeries/opera-gallery/gustavo-nazareno-how-to-grow-a-flower-from-a-supernova-/ Cultures de mode https://culturesdemode.com/timeline_expositions/gustavo-nazareno-how-to-grow-a-flower-from-a-supernova/ Prazzle Arts https://www.prazzlearts.com/editorial/shes-hiding-from-her-groom-jupiters-coming-to-save-her-in-conversation-with-gustavo-nazareno-at-the-opera-gallery-paris Fonts in use https://fontsinuse.com/uses/57825/bara-by-gustavo-nazareno Art Plugged https://artplugged.co.uk/gustavo-nazareno-how-to-grow-a-flower-from-a-supernova-opera-gallery-paris/#google_vignette Art Paris https://www.artparis.com/en/artist/110379 Heni News https://heni.com/news?artist=Gustavo%20Nazareno Gallery1957 https://www.gallery1957.com/artists/43-gustavo-nazareno/ WePresent by WeTransfer https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/gustavo-nazareno-painting-candomble all set concierge https://allsetconcierge.com/2026/06/29/the-alchemist-gustavo-nazareno-has-arrived-in-paris/ FCVM https://fashioncvmag.com/gustavo-nazareno-opera-gallery-paris/ Acuman https://magazine-acumen.com/en/Article/the-pictorial-fables-of-Gustavo-Nazareno/ Fashion Trendsetter https://www.fashiontrendsetter.com/v2/2026/04/20/exhibition-gustavo-nazareno-how-to-grow-a-flower-from-a-supernova/

Born in 1991 in Colombes, France, Johanna Mirabel is a French artist of French Caribbean descent living and working in Paris. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, she has developed a distinctive pictorial language at the intersection of figuration, abstraction and memory. Drawing on her Guyanese heritage and on Édouard Glissant's concepts of creolisation and opacity, Mirabel creates paintings in which suspended figures, fragmented architectures and intimate interiors evoke the instability and plurality of identity. Her work explores questions of memory, transmission and cultural experience through a vivid palette marked by deep reds and ochres that recall both the laterite soils of French Guiana and the history of European painting. Recent projects have expanded these concerns through new materials and forms. In Adieu la chair (Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, 2024), she explored the Guyanese carnival as a metaphor for transformation, while I Wish (Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels, 2025) drew on the tradition of ex-votos and devotional paintings, introducing works on aluminium and copper supports. Mirabel is the recipient of the CPGA–Étant donnés Prize (2024) and the Villa Albertine residency (2025). Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in public and private collections in Europe and the United States. Artist https://johannamirabel.com/ Galerie Natalie Obadia https://www.nathalieobadia.com/fr/artists/93-johanna-mirabel/overview/ Villa Albertine https://villa-albertine.org/va/fr/residents/johanna-esther-mirabel/ Fondation H https://www.fondation-h.com/exhibitions-fr/residence-de-creation-et-exposition CPGA https://www.comitedesgaleriesdart.com/actualites/johanna-mirabel-et-sa-galerie-nathalie-obadia-remportent-le-prix-cpga-etant-donnes-2024-a-art-basel-miami-beach/ Connaissance des arts https://www.connaissancedesarts.com/arts-expositions/art-contemporain/les-maisons-mysteres-de-johanna-mirabel-11195472/ Les Frac https://lesfrac.com/item/johanna-mirabel-habiter-le-chaos/ Frac Auvergne https://fracauvergne.fr/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DOSSIER-PEDAGOGIQUE-Johanna-Mirabel.pdf Centre national des arts plastiques https://www.cnap.fr/johanna-mirabel Lagora des arts https://lagoradesarts.fr/-Johanna-Mirabel-Habiter-le-chaos-.html

Ep.275 Boluwatife Oyediran (b. 1997, Ogbomoso, Nigeria) lives and works in Iowa City, USA. He holds an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he was awarded the Presidential Fellowship. He is currently an MFA in fiction candidate and Sonny Mehta Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Oyediran’s multidisciplinary practice combines painting, creative writing, and photojournalism. His painting practice is committed to reimagining and reorienting Black identity within the canons of history, religion, and western art. His original, self-devised concept “inverted blackness” features portraits of Black migrants in the United States, depicted in luminous, photonegative paintings, visualizing their mutative and otherness identity. His practice centers on the Black diasporic experience in the United States and his vision is to elevate and insert this experience into the canon of art history. Oyediran’s “inverted blackness” series was the subject of a solo exhibition at the AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris, in 2024, titled “Inverted Blackness” and accompanied by a publication of the same name. In 2025, following his MFA at RISD, Oyediran started Inverted Blackness, a Substack Photoblog that publishes photographs and oral accounts of the experiences of Black migrants in Rhode Island. In 2026, Oyediran’s work was acquired by Mattatuck Museum, and in the same year he becomes the first African writer awarded a Sonny Mehta Fellowship at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he’s at work on a novel. Oyediran’s work has been exhibited at the Kunsthalle Krems Museum, Austria; FLAG Art Foundation, USA; RISD Museum, USA; Fondation Blachère, France; Mattatuck Museum, USA; Gallery 1957, Ghana; UTA Artist Space, USA; Featherstone Center of the Arts, USA; Sotheby’s Tel Aviv, Israel; Twelve Gates, USA; and many more. His works can be found in the collections of Mattatuck Museum, David Adjaye, Fondation Blachère, Kutlesa, Serge Tiroche, Amir Shariat, and so many more. You can find him on Instagram @boluoyediran. Photo credit: Ehsan Ahmed Mehedi Artist https://www.boluoyediran.com/ Substack https://invertedblackness.substack.com/ Iowa Writers Workshop https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/news/2021/06/iowa-writers-workshop-announces-sonny-mehta-fellowships-creative-writing AFIKARIS https://afikaris.com/exhibitions/44-inverted-blackness-boluwatife-oyediran/ Gallery1957 https://www.gallery1957.com/artists/85-boluwatife-oyediran/ Overblog https://cultureetplus.over-blog.com/2026/06/boluwatife-oyediran.html Collatar. al https://www.collater.al/en/boluwatife-oyediran-inverted-blackness-chromatic-inversion-identity/ onart media https://www.onart.media/events-centered-on-contemporary-african-art/chromatic-deconstruction-and-identity-the-nuances-of-african-identity-in-america-through-the-art-of-boluwatife-oyediran/ OLYM https://www.olymcollection.art/artists/51-boluwatife-oyediran/biography/ r.public https://rpublc.com/author/boluwatife-oyediran

Ep.274 Siri Devi Khandavilli is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice fluidly bridges tradition and innovation, drawing deeply from Indian artistic legacies while engaging in a broader contemporary dialogue. Working across sculpture, painting, and printmaking, she dissolves boundaries between disciplines to explore themes of cultural migration, feminism, ecology, mythology, and the nature of reality. Khandavilli’s artistic foundation was shaped from an early age at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, where she began her artistic journey, learning Mysore Traditional Painting under the tutelage of her aunt, Susheela Devi. She also holds a BFA and an MFA in Intermedia from Arizona State University, as well as another MFA in sculpture from Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath. This diverse education informs a practice that is both meticulous and experimental, embracing elements of chance while also reflecting history, tradition, and transformation. A recurring motif in her work is the act of mirroring, both literally and conceptually. Her pursuit of the “perfect image” led her to invent a mirror finish on her canvases, blurring the distinction between painting and reflection. The image on the canvas is constantly being created in the present yet carries memories and imprints of the past. She also engages in an ongoing exploration of the tension between control and unpredictability, a theme that permeates her sculptural practice. Her methods, mediums, contexts, and surfaces destabilize singular readings, inviting layered interpretations that oscillate between the apparent and the subversive. She believes that an artwork is never about just one thing but rather about everything happening in the world at the time of its creation, as the artist is thinking and experiencing it all. Her works have been shown and are also held in major institutional collections, including the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, the Nita Mukesh Ambani Private Collection, the Albertina Museum, Durham University Museum, the Fidelity Art Collection, ASU Art Museum, and the Queens Museum, among others. Splitting her time between New Delhi and New York, Khandavilli navigates a transnational space where many experiences overlap, creating a body of work that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Photo Credit Manoj Kesharwani 2024 Lisa Sette Gallery httpswww.lisasettegallery.comartists41-siri-devi-khandavilliworks Gallery Ragini httpsgalleryragini.comsiri-devi-khandavilli BOMB Magazine httpsbombmagazine.orgarticles20260311siri-devi-khandavilli-by-melissa-joseph Art Centrix Space httpswww.artcentrix.com Meer httpswww.meer.comen88201-40-year-anniversary-exhibition-shaping-a-life-of-curiosity India Art Fair httpsindiaartfair.inexhibitors Scale Magazine httpsscalemag.onlinedesignhighlights-from-the-india-art-fair-2025 Artwork Archive httpswww.artworkarchive.com

Ep.273 Born in 1982 in Dallas (Texas, USA), Rosson Crow lives and works in Los Angeles (California, USA). Rosson Crow graduated from Yale University, New Haven, (MFA obtained in 2006), and from the School of Visual Arts, New York (BFA obtained in 2004). The artist was in residency at the prestigious Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2006. She is part of the emerging artist generation of the young contemporary arena both in the US and in Europe. Rosson Crows' work comprises immersive paintings, each steeped in a nostalgic atmosphere, with superimposed impressions and touching reminders of masterpiece films from the French New Wave, which she cites as one of her main artistic references. Rosson Crow recognizes in these literary films themes that are important to her: the fundamentally ambivalent character of reality, memory, experiential confusion and the multiple layers of interpretation that derive from them. By projecting this universe into a saturated future, with psychedelic colors and invasive ornamentations, Rosson Crow navigates between utopia and dystopia, at a time when the planet is threatened by our massive overconsumption: "In a way, the paintings are about the collective hubris of humanity, our bad behavior, inheriting a dream world and destroying it." Rosson Crow’s work was featured in important solo exhibitions throughout the US, and Europe. She has a strong presence in prestigious public and private collections. Rosson Crow has been represented by la Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels, since 2005. Portrait credit Rose Eichenbaum Galerie Nathalie Obadia https://www.nathalieobadia.com/artists/37-rosson-crow/biography/ Miles McCenery https://www.milesmcenery.com/artists/rosson-crow CNAP https://www.cnap.fr/rosson-crow-la-rupture ArtsHebdoMedias https://www.artshebdomedias.com/agenda/rosson-crow-la-rupture/ Arts in the city https://www.arts-in-the-city.com/265337-rosson-crow-a-la-galerie-nathalie-obadia Le Journal Des Arts https://www.lejournaldesarts.fr/evenement/2026/rosson-crow-la-rupture-182905 Actu Arts https://actu.art/event/la-rupture-rosson-crow/ Ocula https://ocula.com/artists/rosson-crow/artworks/ Art Currently https://artcurrently.com/rosson-crow-on-the-seductive-destruction#:~:text=In%20line%20with%20her%20continued,and%20deconstruction%20of%20current%20America.

Ep.272 David Smalling (b. 1987, Kingston, Jamaica) lives and works in New York. He studied Mathematics at Yale University, where he also trained at the Yale School of Art, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Smalling’s painting practice examines the invisible architectures through which cultural hierarchies, inherited rituals, and social taboos shape identity. Working through the visual language of Mannerism, Dutch Golden Age still life, and Old Master painting, he approaches the panel as a diagnostic surface: a place where shame, desire, aspiration, and restraint are staged with theatrical precision. His meticulous compositions often unfold within domestic and ceremonial interiors, where silver platters, pearls, ribbons, brass instruments, mattresses, and other charged objects become symbols of belonging and control. These objects appear seductive at first, but gradually reveal systems of pressure: codes of class, gender, decorum, and performance that shape the body before the body itself appears. In Smalling’s paintings, the feast, the bedroom, and the still life become psychological arenas in which access to elite or aspirational spaces is granted only through subtle forms of compliance. Drawing from the tradition of vanitas painting, Smalling reanimates the memento mori for a contemporary world whose inherited codes have aged but not disappeared. The snail, a recurring motif in his work, operates as a quiet agent of entropy: a slow, viscous disruption within otherwise pristine arrangements of wealth and beauty. Its trace becomes a measure of time, decay, and the instability beneath polished surfaces. Smalling’s practice is also shaped by a rigorous computational process. Through proprietary systems developed by the artist, including Autoglaze and Wide Gamut Pigment, he decomposes images into physically realizable layers of translucent oil paint, translating questions of color, optics, and perception into a precise choreography of material execution. This fusion of algorithmic structure and classical craft allows his paintings to inhabit a space between artifice and revelation, where beauty becomes both seduction and evidence. In 2026, TEMPLON New York presented Elizabethan Collar, Smalling’s first exhibition with the gallery. Taking its title from the veterinary device colloquially known as the “cone of shame,” the exhibition explored conditional belonging, the cost of access, and the fragile performance of identity within spaces of prestige. Through lacquered surfaces, artificial light, and meticulously staged symbolic objects, Smalling invites viewers to recognize the systems they inhabit, and the roles they have learned to perform within them. Headshot Photo Credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Artist https://www.david-smalling.com/ Templon Gallery https://www.templon.com/artists/david-smalling/ Impulse Magazine https://www.impulsemagazine.com/articles Galerie Magazine https://galeriemagazine.com/must-see-solo-gallery-shows-april-2026 Whitehot Magazine https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/elizabethan-collar-at-galerie-templon/7720 Ocula https://ocula.com/art-galleries/daniel-templon/exhibitions/elizabethan-collar/ Yale University Radio https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/david-smalling/ Heni News https://heni.com/news?artist=David%20Smalling Palo Gallery https://www.palogallery.com/exhibitions/32-david-smalling-wood-and-water/works/ ArtRabbit https://www.artrabbit.com/events/david-smalling-wood-and-water

Ep.271 Ruba Katrib is Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1 in New York, where she steers the museum’s program and is a member of the leadership team. At PS1 she has curated exhibitions such as The Gatherers (2025), Ayoung Kim: Delivery Dancers Codex (2025), Sohrab Hura: Mother (2024), Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE (with Yasmil Raymond, 2023), Jumana Manna: Break, Take, Erase, Tally (2022), Frieda Toranzo Jaeger: Autonomous Drive (2022), Greater New York (2021), Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life (2021), Simone Fattal’s retrospective in 2019, and solo shows by Edgar Heap of Birds (2019), Karrabing Collective (2019), Fernando Palma Rodríguez, and Julia Phillips (2018). From 2012–2018 she was the Curator at SculptureCenter in New York, where she organized over twenty exhibitions including 74 million million million tons (2018, co-organized with artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan) and solo shows by Carissa Rodriguez, Kelly Akashi, Sam Anderson, Teresa Burga, Nicola L., Charlotte Prodger, Rochelle Goldberg, Aki Sasamoto, Cosima von Bonin, Anthea Hamilton, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Magali Reus, Gabriel Sierra, Erika Verzutti, and David Douard. In 2018, Katrib co-curated SITE Santa Fe’s biennial, Casa Tomada, along with José Luis Blondet and Candice Hopkins. She is an advisory board member of CCA Berlin and a board member of Topical Cream, and regularly writes for periodicals and museum catalogues. Photo credit : John Kim Ruba Katrib https://www.rubakatrib.com/ MoMA https://www.moma.org/magazine/authors/92 MoMA PS1 https://www.momaps1.org/en/events/663-ayoung-kim-in-conversation-with-dawn-chan-and-ruba-katrib MoMA Greater New York Artists https://www.momaps1.org/en/programs/754-greater-new-york-artist-talks Venice Biennale Qatar Pavilion Announcement Art Basel Unlimited Announcement Unlimited May 26, 2026 interview https://www.artbasel.com/stories/art-basel-2026-unlimited-ruba-katrib-moma-ps1-curator Biennial Foundation https://biennialfoundation.org/2026/04/national-pavilion-of-qatar-at-the-61st-venice-biennale-presents-untitled-2026-a-gathering-of-remarkable-people/ Qatar Museums https://qm.org.qa/en/calendar/untitled-2026/Art Newspaper https://www.artnewspaper.fr/2025/09/02/ruba-katrib-nommee-commissaire-du-secteur-unlimited-dart-basel Document Journal https://www.documentjournal.com/2025/10/the-curators-shaping-the-future-of-archives-ruba-katrib/ Le Quotidien De l’Art https://www.lequotidiendelart.com/articles/27830-ruba-katrib-commissaire-d-unlimited-%C3%A0-art-basel-2026.html Anderson Ranch https://www.andersonranch.org/people/ruba-katrib/ Oolite Arts https://oolitearts.org/event/talks-ruba-katrib/ Site Santa Fe https://www.sitesantafe.org/en/artists/ruba-katrib/ Culturalee https://culturalee.art/art-basel-names-ruba-katrib-as-curator-of-unlimited-sector/ Cultured https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2025/09/02/art-basel-unlimited-ruba-katrib-curator/ Canvas https://canvasonline.com/ruba-katrib-appointed-curator-of-art-basel-unlimited/ Dazed https://www.dazed.me/news/forever-and-always-ruba-katribs-favourite-selection-of-dazed-mena-features

Ep.270 Working primarily within the medium of painting AYOTUNDE OJO is a Nigerian artist whose practice explores the emotional intensity of human relationships and experiences. Born in 1995, Ayotunde Ojo is a Nigerian artist whose practice explores the emotional intensity of human relationships and experiences. Working primarily within the medium of painting, his work draws inspiration from the intimate moments in daily life, the unspoken language of bodily gestures and the hidden tranquillity of interior spaces. “I am interested in making paintings that contemplate the silent conversations that go on between self and space, pivoting between scenes of everyday life,” he has noted. “I am drawn to the idea of solitude and the melancholy that often accompanies these moments within a lived space.” Whether representing himself or close friends, Ojo views his paintings as self-portraits influenced by memory, the subconscious, encounters and exchange with people and his environment. Ojo completed a degree in fine art and graphic design from the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos in 2018. He works in a variety of mediums including charcoal, pastel, oil and acrylic, and embraces a muted colour palette, allowing for subtle tones and delicate hues to create an introspective and somber mood. His debut solo exhibition, These Four Walls, opened in 2024 at Southern Guild Cape Town. Ojo’s work has otherwise been included in group shows at Volery Gallery (Dubai), Harper’s Books (New York), Dida Gallery (Abidjan), Ko Gallery (Lagos), Rele Gallery (Lagos), and Mauani Mercier Gallery (Zaventem, Belgium). He has held residencies at Superzoom Art Gallery in Paris, and Southern Guild’s GUILD Residency in Cape Town in 2024. Southern Guild has also presented his work at Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2024) and at Expo Chicago (2024). Photo: Courtesy of the artist. Artist https://www.ojoayotunde.com/ Southern Guild https://southernguild.com/artists/ayotunde-ojo Tiwani Contemporary https://www.tiwani.co.uk/artists/132-ayotunde-ojo/ Litro Magazine https://www.litromagazine.com/arts-and-culture/ayotunde-ojos-rooms-refuse-to-stay-still-at-tiwani-contemporary-lagos/ Volery Gallery https://www.volerygallery.com/ojo-ayotunde Metal Magazine https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/ojo-ayotunde-a-call-to-pause Maruani Mercier https://maruanimercier.com/artworks/4240-ojo-ayotunde-unanswered-2023/ Frieze https://www.frieze.com/tags/ayotunde-ojo | https://www.frieze.com/event/ayotunde-ojo-life-its-own Knowthisartist https://knowthisartist.com/artists/ayotunde-ojo C& | Contemporaryand https://contemporaryand.com/en/events/ayotunde-ojo-these-four-walls

Ep.269 Chidy Wayne (Spain, 1981) is a Spanish-Guinean artist working primarily in painting and sculpture. His practice addresses fundamental questions such as identity and inner conflict through a gestural, material-based figuration that incorporates oils, acrylics, textured surfaces, and sculptures in wood, iron or plaster. Influenced by both the artistic avant-garde and ancestral cultural elements, Wayne revisits the primitive through a contemporary language, building a repertoire of signs with timeless resonance. His work establishes a dialogue between the rational and the instinctive, where matter becomes language and the energy of gesture acquires a spiritual dimension. Each piece confronts the viewer with their own human condition. Wayne’s body of work inhabits the space between the archaic and the contemporary, the intimate and the collective. From this position, he consolidates a practice that connects the force of the ancestral with the forms of the present. Photographed by: Maral Fard Artist https://chidywayne.com/ Southern Guild https://southernguild.com/artists/chidy-wayne Grege Gallery https://www.gregegallery.com/artists/chidy-wayne Francis Gallery https://francisgallery.com/exhibitions/ancestral-futures Frieze 2026 https://www.thecut.com/article/frieze-new-york-2026-art-scene-report-people-watching.html Imagicasa https://imagicasa.be/en/story/past-and-imagination-chidy-wayne-at-male-castle Luxembourg Art Week https://luxembourgartweek.lu/en/programme/chidy-wayne-solid-ego-005 Art Paris https://www.artparis.com/fr/gallery/4204 Boon Paris https://boonparis.com/chidy-wayne Sight Unseen https://www.sightunseen.com/2024/02/chidy-wayne-artist/ Creative Voyage https://creative.voyage/products/chidy-wayne-in-the-mirror?srsltid=AfmBOoq4pAl2IYXKeU_dEy2nwMNEatrMQteZkTChRRX153i4wMuc4n0G Milk Decoration https://www.milkdecoration.com/los-angeles-le-peintre-chidy-wayne-expose-ses-oeuvres-neo-primitives-a-la-francis-gallery/ Artsper https://www.artsper.com/fr/artistes-contemporains/espagne/113865/chidy-wayne Art Shortlist https://artshortlist.com/fr/artiste/chidy-wayne Boon Room https://boon-room.com/talents/42-chidy-wayne/?srsltid=AfmBOopS-37afSKbWM4Jre6mlL7BkYdp1EB7dcb3mED_FfMHWxycAQ1F

Ep.268 Laurena Finéus is a Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist working primarily in painting, performance and social practice. In her practice, Finéus has been concerned with representations of black geographies, maroon thought, and migratory histories through an array of painterly imagined landscapes. The teachings of Haitian scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot in ‘Silencing the past’ informs her understanding of visual narration in her practice. Finéus’ strategies include the collapsing of history in order to question its production and mechanisms. Finéus is an MFA graduate from Columbia University (2024) and the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine arts (2020). Her work has been exhibited at the SHED NY (2025), Brooklyn Museum (2024), Hudson River museum (2023), the Ottawa art gallery (2021), and Art mûr (2019) among others . She is part of a range of private and public collections internationally such as the Canada Council Art Bank , the City of Ottawa’s Art Collection and Google. She is the recipient of the Saunderson Prize (2024), the Helen Frankenthaler fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields foundation grant (2022-2023) , the Ottawa arts council IBPOC emerging artist award (2022), and the Ineke Harmina Standish memorial (2019). Finéus is based in Brooklyn, NY. Credit Photo: Avery Savage for SHEER WORLDWIDE Artist https://laurenafineus.com/ Fridman Gallery https://fridmangallery.com/2025/07/03/artists-laurena-fineus/ Essence https://www.essence.com/art/the-shed-nyc-portals-exhibition/ Columbia University https://www.vaexhibitions.arts.columbia.edu/class-of-2024/laurena-finus University of Ottawa https://www.uottawa.ca/fr/toutes-nouvelles/celebrer-lhistoire-culture-haitiennes-travers-lart-laurena-fineus Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/janelevere/2025/07/27/early-career-nyc-artists-display-new-work-at-the-shed-in-hudson-yards/ Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/these-are-the-200-artists-in-the-brooklyn-museum-open-call-show/ Juxtapoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/laurena-fineus-love-letters-to-haiti/ Sheer Worldwide https://www.sheerworldwide.com/art/features/2025/8/7/artists-to-know-laurena-finus Jenkins Johnson Gallery https://www.jenkinsjohnsongallery.com/artworks/4308-laurena-fineus-nou-te-gen-yon-paradi-pou-antere-we-2022/ Blackcopper https://www.blackcopper.org/featured-artists/l Ambassade-Haiti https://ambassade-haiti.ca/uncategorized/laurena-fineus/ Haitian Times https://haitiantimes.com/fr/%C3%89tiquette/laurena-fineus/ The Next Contemporary https://thenextcontemporary.com/laurena-fineus/ Haiti Cultural Exchange https://haiticulturalx.org/programs/artists-opportunities/lakou-nou/laurena-fineus/

Modou Dieng Yacine . Born in Saint-Louis (Senegal), Modou Dieng Yacine studied at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Dakar (Senegal) and later earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in California. He currently lives and works in Chicago, and is also active as a curator/co-founder of the curatorial company Blackpuffin. Dieng Yacine works across painting, photography, collage, and mixed media. He often uses non-traditional materials such as denim, burlap, cardboard, vinyl records, archival prints, and hybrid materials layered onto surfaces. He explores spatial/architectural motifs, layering of materials, de-construction of façades, and reveals negative space (cut-outs, hollows) as a strategy. Major themes in his practices are identity, migration, postcolonial history, architecture & habitat, and the intersection of African and Western cultures. Dieng Yacine references the notion of asymmetrical parallelism (a term from poet/philosopher Léopold Sédar Senghor) to describe rhythmic repetition in time/space, which he applies in his compositions. The structure of the canvas itself often becomes part of the message (e.g., exposing stretcher bars, hollows behind façades) to comment on erasure, grief or absence. Modou Dieng Yacine is represented in numerous collections, among these are the collections of the Studio Museum in New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, Gervanne and Mathias Lerind Collection in Paris, Kranzberg foundation in St Louis, Fondation Gandur in Geneva and Carlsberg foundation in Copenhagen. Image courtesy of artist Artist as Curator Blackpuffin.co 193 Gallery https://www.193gallery.com/fr/artists/62-modou-dieng-yacine/ ICI https://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/22963-modou-dieng-yacine Specta https://www.specta.dk/modou-dieng-yacine Dakart News https://dakartnews.com/2025/05/02/modou-dieng-yacines-poetics-of-memory-and-identity-interview/ Artsper https://www.artsper.com/fr/artistes-contemporains/senegal/117864/modou-dieng-yacine Povos Chicago https://povoschicago.com/usr/documents/exhibitions/list_of_works_url/33/steve-doc-modou.pdf Laboratório de Actividades Criativas https://lac.org.pt/en/roots-2025-modou-dieng-yacine-sn/ Meer https://www.meer.com/en/97714-i-will-go-where-your-music-takes-me-dot-dot-dot Artisanal Metals https://artisanalmetals.com/2025/05/05/from-dakar-to-venice-the-postcolonial-art-journey-of-modou-dieng-yacine/ On-Art Media https://www.onart.media/evenements-autour-de-lart-contemporain-africain/black-venezia-une-exploration-artistique-de-modou-dieng-yacine-a-la-193-gallery/ Pilchuck https://www.pilchuck.org/workshop-staff/modou-dieng-yacine Juliet Art Magazine https://www.juliet-artmagazine.com/en/the-imaginary-architecture-of-connections-modou-dieng-yacine-and-zoila-andrea-coc-chang-in-venice/