Influenced by hip-hop, history, and science fiction, Donté K. Hayes explores memories of the past to project possible futures. The ceramic vessels in his “Welcoming” series use the pineapple as a surrogate for the Black body, tapping into its dual significance as a symbol of welcome and hospitality for some groups and a symbol of racist exclusion and agricultural colonization for others.
Without Definitions: A Conversation with Julia Haft-Candell
An artwork is an odd kind of cipher—by the time viewers see it, it’s all veneer, divorced from the studio, stripped of the labor and history that went into its production (as well as its synergistic relationship with its creator), and polished up into an end product.
Texturas Visuales: Una Conversación con Paula Córdoba
Artista plástica argentina viviendo en Houston, Paula Córdoba desarrolla una obra donde busca poner en evidencia aspectos culturales silenciados de aquellas culturas que siempre quedaron a la sombra del pensamiento hegemónico occidental.
Soft Persuasion: A Conversation with Beili Liu
The work of Beili Liu, an installation artist based in Austin, Texas, consists of hundreds of not-quite-identical units that construct an architecture of thought with correlatives in lived experience. Although the repetition of objects is a representation of single-mindedness, Liu’s installations leap from obsession and repetition to something profound and expansive, merging the personal with the political.
Higher Realities: A Conversation with Glenda León
Cuban-born artist Glenda León came of age during Fidel Castro’s regime, so she learned early on to make art from mostly free and cheap stuff. Now dividing her time between Havana and Madrid, León remains a media egalitarian whose odd assortment of materials includes everything from her fingernails, hair, and the sound of her breath to pianos and mountains of sand.
Monumental Trickery: A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Krzysztof Wodiczko has made statues, buildings, and monuments almost magically come to life.
Perfume de Mujer: Una Conversación con Paula Zaccaria
Profesora de Educación Especial con orientación a la enseñanza de niños y adolescentes con disminución auditiva, Licenciada en Artes Visuales con especialización en escultura y profesora universitaria, la artista plástica Paula Zaccaria establece, desde sus comienzos, un vínculo fundamental con los sentidos, llevándolos directamente al plano de la composición como protagonista, especialmente el olfato.
You Get Out What You Put In: A Conversation with Patrick Strzelec
“You get out what you put in” could be a textbook definition of mold casting. I did learn how to make a proper mold from Patrick Strzelec in the 1990s, but this working-class American adage also sums up his integrity and transparency—as a maker, an educator, and a thinker.
Restless and Alive: A Conversation with Jennifer Tee
Dutch artist Jennifer Tee works across sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and collage. Her experiments with space, form, materials, and imagery (particularly her development of floor pieces and her fascination with curving lines and their associations) all focus on evoking “the soul in limbo.”
Qualities of the Unsaid: A Conversation with Kiyomi Iwata
Kiyomi Iwata, who was born in Kobe, Japan, is a textile artist whose work explores the relationship between geographies—East and West, North and South— through cultural signifiers, text, and materiality.
