Interview with Arik Levy and Zoé Ouvrier

13/11/20

Interview: Arik Levy and Zoé Ouvrier 

Arik Levy (b1963, Tel Aviv) and Zoé Ouvrier (b1975, Montpellier, France) create works inspired by nature, but they do not simply attempt to interpret what they see; rather, they go beyond this, exploring, in Levy’s case, psychological and material polarities, and, in Ouvrier’s, feelings, emotions and narratives. Beyond Nature, then, is an appropriate title for this first exhibition bringing together the married couple’s works, and they are as excited as anyone to see what new conversations will arise as a result. 

 

I spoke to Levy and Ouvrier via Zoom from their new home and studio in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. 

Read the full interview here

Review of Artemisia at the National Gallery, London

02/11/20

Artemisia

National Gallery, London

3 October 2020 – 24 January 2021

 

The Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c1656) is well on her way to becoming as widely recognised an artistic icon as Frida Kahlo. Certainly in the era of #MeToo, her autobiography of being raped by a fellow artist, a friend of her father, at the age of 17, and enduring a seven-month-long trial, which included torture, to test the veracity of her testament, goes before her and makes her name – for better or worse – more well-known than her artwork. Of the latter, those paintings depicting biblical heroines as strong – and often vengefully violent – real women are the most beloved, and, in fact, generally the only ones known. I confess to having been oblivious to many of her more tender subjects until this long-overdue – and latterly delayed due to Covid-19 closures – exhibition at the National Gallery, London, finally opened its doors.

Read the full article here

NA Meets: Øystein Ustvedt, Munch expert

24/09/20

NA Meets: Øystein Ustvedt, Munch expert

There is a small library of books on Edvard Munch, including several already written by the art critic, curator, and expert on the artist, Øystein Ustvedt. But his new publication, Edvard Munch: An Inner Life, is intended to offer a wide-reaching, all-encompassing introduction for the lay reader.

 

Ustvedt couldn’t be better qualified for the task. He is head of the Stenersen Museum, a curator at the National Museum in Oslo and has curated several exhibitions of Munch’s work. Ahead of the book’s publication, Norwegian Arts talked with Ustvedt about what this volume will offer that others do not, his personal views on the artist he has spent so much time researching, and how he would like to expand his horizons in the future.

Read the full interview here

Interview with Alberta Whittle

05/09/20

Interview with Alberta Whittle

Alberta Whittle (b1980, Barbados) has had a phenomenal couple of years. The Glasgow-based artist, who works in film, sculpture, performance, collage and choreographed installation, was the recipient of the 2018-19 Margaret Tait Award and, this year, was one of the 10 artists to receive a Turner bursary award from Tate Britain, in place of the annual Turner Prize. She is about to show work in the Photoworks Festival in Brighton and in a group show at Copperfield in south-east London. 

 

The Liverpool Biennial and Art Night have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, giving Whittle a little longer to finesse her works for these events, but equally raising new challenges as to how to adapt to the restrictions and changes in the way she can interact with her audience – something which, for Whittle, is key, since she seeks to pose questions and unsettle people from their positions of privilege and passivity. Key themes in her work include anti-blackness, legacies of slavery and apartheid, the erasure of black people and people of colour in everyday society, and also environmental issues.

 

Whittle spoke to Studio International about her practice and motivations, the effect of the pandemic, and the role of viscerality in her work.

Read the full interview here

Meet the Collectors: Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan

 04/09/20

Meet the Collectors: Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan

Published in the Autumn 2020 issue of Art Quarterly

New Ways of Exhibition Making

04/09/20

New Ways of Exhibition Making

Published in the Autumn 2020 issue of Art Quarterly

Interview with Kate Mieczkowska

29/08/20

Interview with Kate Mieczkowska 

Having graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 2018, Kate Mieczkowska was preparing for her curatorial debut, an exhibition of works by eight female-identifying artists at Bermondsey Project Space, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the exhibition moved online. Mieczkowska was not in the least perturbed and is keen to see the positives of this outcome. In the run up to the week-long online event – which will afterwards continue as a permanent website – she spoke to Studio International about the ideas behind the exhibition, some of the links she has forged with artists here and in Saudi Arabia, and her own practice and career trajectory.

Read the full interview here

Interview with Shani Rhys James

04/08/20
Interview with Shani Rhys James

Published in full in edition 2 of The Flux Review

Interview with Joana Vasconcelos

04/08/20

Interview with Joana Vasconcelos

Published in full in edition 2 of The Flux Review

A Celebration of Van Eyck in Ghent

04/08/20

Published in full in edition 2 of The Flux Review