Everything Is Connected

On this episode I'm joined by Kimberly Drew. Kimberly Drew is a curator, critic & author of two books, This Is What I Know About Art and the anthology Black Futures with Jenna Wortham, both released in 2020. Drew received her B.A. from Smith College in Art History and African-American Studies.

The last time I caught up with Kimberly we were both in Ghana experiencing all the country has to offer spending time in the capital city of Accra, while also visiting important spots in Kumasi and Tamale. Drew and I witnessed the launch of Amoako Boafo's artist residency and foundation, partied at some of Accra's hottest spots and spent time with local artists in the capital city. Listen in as we reflect on this wildly rich experience.

On this episode we're joined by Genesis Tramaine, is an expressionist devotional painter who creates abstract portraits of men and women who transcend gender, race, and social structures. Genesis Tramaine’s striking, near-abstract portraits of Black subjects take inspiration from biblical hymns and the scrawling figuration of 1980s New York graffiti art. The Brooklyn-born artist has exhibited at galleries in New York, Paris, Brussels, London, and Shanghai. In 2020, she was an artist in residence at the Rubell Museum in Miami.
Tramaine paints with a confrontational and provocative use of color and through an urban-inspired, mixed-media approach. The artist describes her practice as focused on the shape and definition of the American Black Face, explaining that her subject’s exaggerated features capture the spirited emotions of the untapped, underrepresented soul of Black people through a mixture of acrylic and oil-based paintings.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Tramaine earned her M.S from Pace University and B.S from Utica College of Syracuse University. Tramaine has exhibited nationally and internationally, including an inaugural solo exhibition with Almine Rech in London in February 2020, ‘Parables of Nana’, as well as exhibitions at Richard Beavers Gallery, Brooklyn, NYC; The Tree House, Governors Island, NYC; The Salt Space, Chelsea, NYC; The Raging Spoon Gallery, Toronto, Canada; AOF Gallery, NYC; and more. Her work resides in prominent museum collections including the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami and the Contemporary Art Foundation, Tokyo.

On this episode we're joined by Bony Ramirez

Bony Ramierz is a self taught artist who retains a connection to his Dominican heritage through his art, incorporating elements of the Caribbean with his own distinctive details. He left the island when he was a child and migrated to the US. Through painting and drawing, Ramirez creates life-sized paper figures onto painted wood panels. His subjects are bold yet strange, often appearing mysteriously oversized with contorted limbs. Ramírez paints his distorted figures on paper using acrylic wash, colored pencils, and oil pastels before cutting them out and pasting them to wood panels decorated with backgrounds painted in acrylics.

On this episode were joined by Nate Lewis. Nate is a visual artist, most well known for his layered works on paper where he explores history, time and movement through the body. He engage in practice that incorporates photography, sculpture, drawing and painting.
Lewis’s work is in the public collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Blanton Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Grinnell College Museum of Art, and 21c Museum Hotels,Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Cardiff, United Kingdom, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, International African-American Museum, Charleston, SC, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA , and more.

On this episode I'm joined by Kandy G Lopez as we discuss her practice on the eve of the closing of her two person show with Aminah Robinson at ACA gallery in Chelsea. In the exhibition viewers were presented with her mixed media, fiber, and stained glass works.
Lopez is an Afro-Caribbean visual artist, eager to be challenged materialistically and metaphorically when representing marginalized individuals that inspire and move her. Her works are created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture. Lopez is interested in developing a nostalgic dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.
This episode was recorded before the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election.