ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists
My guest today is painter and artist book maker Beldan Sezen, a Turkish-European artist based in New York and Amsterdam. Her paintings, held in private collections internationally, are built through a process of layered, gestural abstraction — response and revision until the composition resolves. Her painting practice sits alongside a long-running practice in artist books, which are held in the permanent collections of the Getty Research Institute, the Library of Congress, Harvard University, Stanford University, MIT, and the Herzog August Bibliothek, among others.

I sat down with Beldan Sezen in her Gowanus studio to talk about her move from graphic novels and comics to artist books and painting, and the question that drives that shift: what is the form the work wants to be told in? We discuss the immense freedom of the artist book, her philosophy of intuition and experimentation and how it's never what she wants, but always what the work wants. We get into the difference between creating something new and reproducing, the rhythm of book days and painting days, and her relationship with painting itself. Finally, Beldan shares her love of fellow artists like Nancy Spero, Anselm Kiefer, Charles Schulz, and more. And we close on the importance of always asking for help and Beldan's complicated feelings about titling new work.Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Beldan Sezen
www.beldansezen.com
insta: @beldan_sezen
Contact Cypher ( Comics commissions for human rights and social justice storytelling)

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to a very special episode of ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists. 
This BONUS mini episode celebrates Episode #80 of the Pod - and features a very special guest. The youngest one in ARTMATTERS history, in fact.
Before we begin, I want to take a moment to say thank you. To everyone who's listened, shared the show, supported on Patreon, and to all the artists and friends who kept telling me to keep going over these past four years. Because projects like this are funny. They don't come with obvious signs that they're working. There's no paycheck. And because it takes so much time, out of my own studio practice and out of the time artists generously give me, there have definitely been moments where I've had to ask myself not whether I believe in it, but whether the value is worth what it costs everyone involved. And whenever I've hit those moments, there have always been people who reminded me that these conversations matter. Thank you.
Since we're hitting 80 this week I'll also mention that incorporating video into this project has definitely added to the overhead and time the show requires. So in the spirit of an NPR pledge drive, if you've been here a while and you're in a position to support, becoming a patron or making a one-time donation would mean a lot. I want to keep this show listener supported and ad-free as long as I can so if you'd like to help, that's the best way to do it. 
My guest today is Leo Ambrosio. Leo is eleven years old, going into the sixth grade, and he recently exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. It began with a program called the Basquiat Project. 
The Basquiat Project is an arts education program developed by the Brooklyn Nets in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. It ran in fifty Brooklyn middle and high schools, asking students to make work about bullying, anxiety, and how you move through it. Out of everyone who submitted, about a hundred pieces made it into the show at the Brooklyn Museum.
Leo was one of them. 
For today’s episode, Leo and his mom joined me in my Bushwick studio. Leo got his hands dirty and helped me prepare some new paintings, then we sat down with the mics and had this conversation. We talk about Leo’s mixed media painting that was selected for the Basquiat Project, about finishing a painting and second guessing yourself, about Frida Kahlo and the Knicks trophy and drawing hands and art camp.  
Enjoy the episode!
The Basquiat Project 
Patreon 
Isaac Mann
Leo Ambrosio

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

My guest today is artist and writer Matthew Weinstein. Over the course of his career, Matthew has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally. His solo museum exhibitions include the Johnson Museum at Cornell University, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, and the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna. In addition to painting, his practice has also included writing, animation, film, and interactive media. His work has been featured in The New York Times, T Magazine, Artforum, Art in America, and The New Yorker, and is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Denver Art Museum, and numerous other public and private collections.

I sat down with Matthew in his Greenpoint studio, where he told me why he believes every painting has a beauty mandate and why he distrusts art whose primary goal is to mean something, saying that meaning can feel like litter in a painting.  We discuss beauty versus prettiness, humor, queerness, and the way doubt and impatience are ever-present in his studio practice.
Matthew also reflects on obsession, arguing that for some artists it isn't a choice, and that it is neither good nor bad, but simply the thing that fuels the work. We discuss the creative crisis that led him to explore animation and why painting and writing remain the bedrock of everything he does. Matthew also discusses his airbrush collaboration paintings,  the influence the artist Hiroshege has had on his current work and why it has taken Matthew years to figure out how to paint a straight line. Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM! 
 If you have any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com 
host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Matthew Weinstein
www.matthewweinstein.com
insta: @matthewaweinstein

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists
Erin M. Riley is a Brooklyn-based artist whose large-scale woven tapestries explore intimacy, memory, trauma, and identity through meticulously constructed images assembled from personal photographs, found imagery, and internet culture. 
She received her BFA from MassArt and her MFA from Tyler School of Art, is represented by P·P·O·W in New York, and has exhibited at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, Museion in Italy, and the 16th Lyon Biennale. Her work is held in numerous public collections, and she is the recipient of both a United States Artists Fellowship and an American Academy of Arts & Letters Art Purchase Prize.
I sat down with Erin M. Riley in her Brooklyn live-work studio to talk about why she intentionally lives where she works and how weaving dictates every aspect of her daily life, physical health, exercise, fasting, posture, breathing, and endurance. We explore the importance of slowness, what it feels like to spend four months making a work you can't truly see until the very end, and the dramatic reveal after removing a finished tapestry from the loom.
We talk about designing and improving weaving tools, the importance of keeping a personal archive, her fascinating system of hand-dyeing, mixing, and preparing yarn before she weaves a single stitch, and the changing place of textiles in contemporary art, and whether the old art-versus-craft debate is finally vanishing.
Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  
If you have any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com 
host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann
guest: Erin M. Riley
www.erinmriley.com
insta: @erinmriley

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Today's guest is David Humphrey, a New York-based painter whose work has been shown nationally and internationally, and who has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in the art world, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. He teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University, is represented by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York, and is the author of Blind Handshake, an anthology of David’s art writing.

On today's episode I ask David about how he knows when a painting is finished, his works on paper, and what late-career de Kooning taught him about the surface of a painting. We get into what David calls the "ecology" of his studio, the sociability of paintings, decision-making in the studio, and the question of shallow vs implied space in his newer work. We also talk about his recent show at Kate Werbel Gallery which features works on paper, wall painting and installation. Finally, David reflects on navigating privilege and provocation during his career, including a memorable and charged moment at a Hunter College lecture that I was actually in the audience for. We finish up by talking about the stakes of painting and the absurdity, weakness, and humor inherent in the medium.

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com 
host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: David Humphrey
www.davidhumphreynyc.com
insta: @aikenhump

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.