ARTiculate

Rebecca is an artist based in Essex and East London. Rebecca is known for work that draws on a mixture of slapstick and deadpan comedy and the absurd. She is interested in how awkwardness can invite empathy, and how a fallible, open subject could suggest a resistant position against powerful systems. Her work responds to landscapes, including wild, rural and urban, from a feminist perspective. She is especially interested in how humorous interventions can speak to power. Rebecca has a BA in Painting from Camberwell College of Art and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art. She also has done a  Constellations programme, exploring the expanded field of public art, with UP Projects, Flat Time House and Liverpool Biennial * She has been nominated for a number of prestigious awards and commissions some of those include Thames Estuary Festival, commissioned psychogeographic walk by Metal Culture UK * 2021 - Nomination for The Arts Foundation Award for Visual Art * 2020 - Nomination to propose an artwork for The High Line Plinth, New York * 2019 - Nomination for Paul Hamlyn Award * 2019 - PEER Notices commissioned artist, PEER Gallery, Hoxton, London

Hoa Dung Clerget is a French Vietnamese artist with a multi disciplinary practise. Transforming every day objects into vessels of memory, meaning and emotion, her work reflects a different temporal experience. Having grown up in France in a Vietnamese family, Hoa Dung uses the family traditions embodied in domestic objects to construct her artistic language. It allows her to speak about cultural tensions that the diaspora encounters. Hoa Dung's family's unwritten history is passed down orally and through everyday objects. These domestic objects tell the stories of immigrant women who through their gestures build the link between two different cultures. Hoa Dung holds a BA Hons in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and an MA in Painting from the Royal college of art. She also holds an MSc from Ecole Centrale de Lyon (major Applied Mathematics).

Episode 3 of Season 2 of ARTiculate. I continue to talk to remarkable artists who inspire me in their pursuit of finding their authentic voice within their practise. In a time when it is dangerous to touch our friends, the sensitive touch embodied in a good painting is a genuine gift. They embody something of the human intelligence that made them. They are the products of care embedded in a surface through touch. They speak to us as physical bodies, and remind us of how that physicality connects us to the people around us and to the larger world. I had the pleasure of talking with Jai Chuhan who's unique and expressive paintings are as she puts it ‘painterly exploration of displacement, conflict and desire challenging tropes of exploitation or celebration. Jai is an Indian born British artist who studied at UCL Slade School of Fine Art in the 80s and is currently based in Manchester. Her paintings are sculptural, thick with the texture of impasto paint giving her portraits a certain gravitas. The deliberate use of a vivid colour palette presents the female body as a physical and psychological presence, suggested by simplified geometric areas of colour and lines and shifting viewpoints. Anonymous figures observed in the city are complemented by portrayal of familiar people including self-portraits, using a combination of observation, memory and photographs. Jai's thinks of her practise as an act of zoning in to process beginning with layers of marks. She invests her time in reworking each and every individual picture by erasing an image, after another image, negotiating with time and the image as an act of searching and finding a visual crystallization of ideas. Whether she uses thick impasto of pigments or thin washes that fill the canvas, whatever the method, it makes us as the viewer lose sense of time. Her genre of painting reflects her transcultural aesthetic influences. Jai's work have been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally in solo including the Home and Unhome group show in China, and two solo shows for Asia Triennial Manchester 2018. Some of the prestigious institutions in the Uk include the Tate Liverpool; Barbican, London; Ikon, Birmingham; Arnolfini, Bristol, University of Cambridge; among many many other galleries and institutions.
Recent solo exhibitions include at People's History Museum for Asia Triennial Manchester 2011; Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool 2013; Liverpool Biennial 2014; Gallery Oldham and at HOME for Asia Triennial Manchester 2018. Recent group exhibitions include at ArtANKARA Contemporary Art Fair, Turkey 2020.

Episode 2 of Season 2 of ARTiculate my podcast series sharing my conversations with artists from a variety of backgrounds and histories. It is a way of keeping myself engaged in these difficult times and I hope it can brighten up your day listening to some of these very interesting people. I have the pleasure of presenting the lovely Louisa Loakes a textile artist quietly doing some really beautiful and unique block printed textiles for furnishings, and home ware. Having studied painting in her graduation from the Wimbledon college of art Louisa approaches textile printing with the same rigour. As a self-taught block printer, she approaches fabric like a painting - or one of her charcoal drawings - creating delicate, twisting patterns that repeat themselves across its surface. Distinctive in their simple use of geometric form, monochromatic palette and signature dash of hand-painted colour, Louisa's hand-carved block printed patterns are charged with a human touch, the irregularities that appear in the printing process giving each piece a distinct energy and identity. In this podcast we talk about Louisa's beginnings as a young artist forging her career in the late 90s, her experiences while learning the craft in Rajasthan in India and her successful career from her home studio in Peckham.

Nimmi is an artist and a Senior Cognitive Behaviour Therapist based in London who helps people suffering from anxiety stress and depression. Nimmi did her D Phil from Oxford university in the 80s after winning a Commonwealth Staff Fellowship while teaching in India. Nimmi then went on to do her masters in fine art form the Wimbledon college of art in 2019. Nimmi has exhibited widely with group and solo shows and her tryptich ‘ drawing ‘Burnout' was selected and exhibited by the Bloomberg  new contemporaries exhibition this year. In this podcast we talk about her dual practise of being an artist and a therapist and how they mutually influence each other. As a trained psychologist, Nimmi focuses on the human states of mind such as angst, grief, love and resilience  and blends them with the Japanese concept of wabi sabi which is a call to the return to the principles of simplicity, an appreciation of the value of the unadorned, everyday objects, to see beauty in the quotidian  to create a vibrant range of gestural drawings that captures the mood, the movement of the objects and spaces with the perfect mix of composition line movement and value. Nimmi is interested in the theme of Transformation looking at how people recover from adversity and has written a book titled ‘ becoming resilient' She is currently working on a video installation using her experiences to create a visual landscape that documents the ‘everyday' life of a woman in her 60s living in the UK today. She has written a blog for the new contemporaries website called ‘ whoever has heard of a 65 year old emerging artist?

Episode 21 of ARTiculate presents Natasha Jeyasingh. Natasha is a Mumbai based art advisor and founder of Carpe Arte in India. It is a a platform that encourages people to engage with and support contemporary art. Through her projects, she hopes to take the contemporary art and design scene to a wider audience through pop-up exhibitions, interactive projects and dialogues around the subject. The platform has gone on to help sell works of a huge number of artists and also raise funds for Indian artists to experience residencies and internships abroad. Natasha has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Govt. College of Art, Chandigarh and a Post Graduate Diploma in Design from the prestigious National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad. A young collector, Natasha has worked alongside scenographer and curator Rajeev Sethi to establish the Hyatt Regency, Chennai's public art collection and has managed creative projects such as refurbishing the state hall at ‘Rashtrapati Bhavan' the residential palace of the President of India in New Delhi. She has also curated collaborative shows in prestigious galleries and worked on projects with famous designers such as Regis Mathieu and Jean-Francois Lesage. Natasha has also written articles for the Architectural Digest covering art fairs in Europe.

Ravista is a bilingual storyteller & visual communicator from New Delhi. She did her BFA in Graphic Design and Comparative Literature and Creative Writing from the Rhode Island School of Design. As a designer her practice lies in the interdisciplinary fields of graphic design, photography, filmmaking, writing & research. According to her design is one of the lenses that allows for clarifications in a world that is built around misconceptions.. so relevant now more than ever! She tells complex multilingual stories of individuals in the hope that those smaller stories will tell larger tales of nations whose voices have not been heard in the past due to the hegemonies of the West. Currently she is focused on looking at design through the lens of decolonization, which in its essence means, giving voice & visibility to minorities from around the world. She has started a design collective called Active & Concerned Citizen last year, whose focus is to help clear misconceptions of Indians living in India to the Wider World. It is a collaborative effort with other Indian artists & designers. Her specialty has been in publication design, but she has recently diversified into film & sound. Ravista has just completed her Masters in visual communication from the Royal College of Art London.

Laura Wilson is a multidisciplinary artist who's practise sits in the intersection between archeology anthropology and history. She is interested in how history is carried through millennia through everyday materials, trades and craftsmanship. She works with specialists to develop sculptural and performative works that amplify the relationship between materiality, memory and knowledge. and her interdisciplinary and research-based works have been exhibited widely. Laura's project Trained on Veda, a malted loaf and evolving artwork was initiated during her residency at Delfina Foundation in 2016 is currently being developed in partnership with TACO, Grand Union, Site Gallery and MIMA, supported by Arts Council England. Laurahas recently been awarded the Jerwood New Work Fund and an a-n Bursary for new work in 2021, and has a forthcoming commission with Mansions of the Future and The Collection, Lincoln. In this conversation Laura talks about her projects and how she has carved a niche with her very unique archive of projects involving ancient recipes to unearthing Bronze Age utensils from archeological sites to choreographing site specific performances with dough.

In this episode I talk to the wonderful Almuth Tebbenhoff. Almuth is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and was elected as its vice president last year. She has exhibited widely in Britain and Europe and in 2009 she created the ‘Star of London' award for the British Film Institute Film Festival and in 2013 curated the annual sculpture exhibition at the University of Leicester among her numerous other accomplishments. We talk about her beginnings in her career in London, her commitment to her practise, to learning and going out of her comfort zone to work with new materials, experiment with scale and forge new alliances.

Juliet Jacques is a writer and filmmaker. She has published two books Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study and Trans; A memoir. Trans: a memoir is a log of her experiences as a person growing up in a time and society that was hostile to even to question ones's gender that is assigned at birth and her gender change surgery. This was made into a landmark series in the Guardian called ‘A transgender journey' from 2010 to 2012. the column was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011. Juliet also writes short fiction, essays and critical appraisals on literature, film, art, music, politics, gender, sexuality and football. She has given reviews on the London Review of Books, Frieze, Art Review, New York Times, The Washington Post among the many publications. She was included in the Independent's Pink List for many years and is a regular contributor to the New Statesman. She has made two films – Approach/Withdraw, co-directed with artist Ker Wallwork in (2016), and You Will Be Free in (2017) and has also directed a documentary entitled Revivification: Art, Activism and Politics in Ukraine (2018), as part of a residency there. She has also founded and co-hosted Suite (212) on fm radio– a radio programme that looked at the arts in their social, cultural, political and historical contexts, running from 2017 to 2019. She has recently relaunched the show as a podcast. Juliet has taught at the City Lit institute in London in 2019, and on the Contemporary Art Practice course at the Royal College of Art. As well as giving guest lectures and workshops at various art institutions, Juliet has presented her work in many countries across the world and has been nominated for numerous awards for her writing. She has completed her PhD in Creative & Critical Writing at the University of Sussex in 2019.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Sara Byers is a London based artist, musician and museum educator.  Her practice can best be described as based on the ‘truth to materials' tenet of modern architecture, which holds that any material should be used where it is most appropriate and that its nature should not be hidden, disguised, or concealed.  From reclaimed and recycled material, to food products, metal, wood, plastics, resins and textiles, Sara's practice creates the fantastical from the mundane while addressing wider issues of empire, class and accessibility. Sara holds a BA from Camberwell and an MA from the RCA in Fine Art Sculpture. She was a Fellow in Sculpture at The Cheltenham Art College and at The University of Glamorgan. She was awarded the SOGAT Prize, The K-Foundation prize by Rachel Whiteread, and has exhibited in the UK and Europe. Sara has taught on many courses, both in the UK and internationally, and is an artist-educator regularly working for Museums and Galleries, delivering Master Drawing Classes at UCL, and devising education projects for the V&A and The Saatchi Gallery. Articulate is a podcast for students of art that I have started in order to create an archive and a community for them to dip into for ideas and inspiration. I speak with artists across continents and genres about themselves and how they see their art in today's world context.

In this episode I speak with young Khursheed Nariman who is an amazingly talented artist based in New Delhi. Khursheed started off as a student of political science and won many awards in her leadership roles in college but then moved to art and quickly made a mark again in Delhi's art circles. She has apprenticed with well known artists and artisans across India and has been part of many shows in India and abroad. Khursheed has also started a novel initiative called ‘Art and Artisans ‘ that connects artisans and master craftspeople from villages and towns with secondary and A level school art students in a drive to provide an impetus to the arts sector. She has recently been awarded the prestigious Delhi Minorities Commission award for sculpture. I was so impressed by khursheed's singing on her Facebook post that I had to went on to find out more about her practise and was so impressed by her boundless energy and will to keep learning.

In today's episode I will be talking with the lovely Louise Grundy. Louise is an artist entrepreneur social worker and educator all in one. She works primarily in sculpture, creating layered paper portraits inspired by archival material and family history. Louise explores words, records stories behind both famous and not-so-famous faces and is well known for her Ancestry Heads project, a series of sculptural heads drawing on the themes of history and memory. The Ancestry Heads project started in 2016 and she has since created over 30 sculptural portraits for exhibitions and private commissions. In our conversation Louise talks affectionately about her parents and their support, her resourcefulness and her current practise and success with Ancestry Heads. A much needed conversation about resilience, self belief, determination and quiet ambition.

In Episode 13 I speak with Jo Vickery who just completed her stint as the International director of Russian Art at Sotheby's. Jo has been with Sotheby's for over two decades and is on the cusp of starting her own Art Advisory venture which will launch in 2021. In this episode we talk about made Jo choose the art industry as a career after studying languages in her graduation. Her beginnings at Sotheby's and her love for the Russian language and culture that extended on to learning and helping artists in Russia connect with collectors worldwide.

In this episode I speak with Jelili Atiku is one of Nigeria's most well known and award winning performance artists who's practise sits in the intersection between politics social justice and climate change. He is admired for his fantastically elaborate performances that are energetic full of imagery, costumes and movement that reflect Nigeria's rich heritage and history. Through drawing, installation sculpture and live art Jelili Atiku brings social and political issues facing Nigeria and its post colonial identity into prominence. He was the recipient of the prestigious Prince Claus Laureate award in 2015. We speak about his deep pride for his culture and indigenous knowledge that drives his practise. He talks about his research and careful consideration behind every project and his legacy through his ‘live art'.

In this episode I speak with Liam Ashley Clark a multidimensional artist who works in drawing painting photography collage making and sculpture. Liam's work has its roots in skateboarding, street art and folk art but is also influenced by contemporary and historic art practises. His works across mediums contain a combination of image and text , use of colour and pattern with an injection of irony and humour! Liam was one of the artists selected in the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2019 with his works shown in Leeds and in London.

Next episode I talk to Deepa Khanna Sobti, a Singapore based artist of Indian origin. She is renowned for her abstract expressionist works that are accompanied by original poems. Deepa paints solely with a palette knife to give her paintings a gestural feel that reminds us of Action Art. She has achieved international renown with multiple solo and group exhibitions and has won the Royal Arts Prize in 2016. Deepa's works are featured in a book published by the International Confederation of Art critiques.

Next episode I talk to Nour Abdul Salam a textile designer from Lebanon. Nour talks about what made him gravitate towards textile designing from Interior Architecture, researching of ideas from the sublime to the mundane, his unique creations integrating sustainable initiatives, bringing his heritage and culture in his work and dealing with the quarantine with a one of a kind creation.

My next episode features Catherine Leo the intrepid young artist using art as a way of going into a trance and folding into herself. Catherine talks about her travels in India, her plans with art therapy and ends with promising to do another podcast to continue with her endless ideas about art and wellness.

Next episode I speak with Antonis Sideras a performance and video artist based in London. Antonis talks about his practise and art activism for gay and queer rights, his ambivalence towards gay pride, RuPaul, and his alter ego character Queero. ARTiculate is a podcast that aims to provide a platform for student artists to express themselves and ultimately build connections with other artists across the world.

Next episode I talk to the ebullient Matrika Bhandari who is pursuing her MA in Textiles at the RCA. We talk about her experiences with making bespoke designs with master weavers in Rajasthan and her current project with sustainable fabrics and making designs for masks in the lockdown. ARTiculate is a podcast that aims to provide a platform for student artists to express themselves and ultimately build connections with other artists across the world.

Next episode I speak with Jeremy Ip an artist based in HongKong.

ARTiculate is a podcast that interviews art students from all across the world to build a connection through ideas, inspirations and experiences. Today I talk to Shameen Arshad who is based in Islamabad in Pakistan.

I talk to the truly inspiring Ania Sabet. Ania is a medical doctor working at the St Thomas hospital London in Accidents and Emergencies. She is also pursuing a full time Masters in Sculpture the Royal College of Art London. We talk about her straddling two careers, her mentors, her plans post lockdown. ARTiculate is a podcast that aims to provide a platform for student artists to express themselves and ultimately build connections with other artists across the world.

This episode features VanaTanvi an art practitioner / PhD student and Associate professor at Kala Bhavan which is part of Shanti Niketan. Kala Bhavana (Institute of Fine Arts) is the fine arts faculty of Visva-Bharati University, in Shantiniketan, India. It is an institution of education and research in visual arts, founded in 1919, it was established by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. VanaTanvi has BA/ MA in Fine Art specialising in Textile Fibre Art and is currently pursuing her doctoral thesis on the philosophical basis of art. She is also researching on the relationship between sound and painting through the study of Ragamala paintings of India. Ragamala paintings are a form of Indian miniature painting, a set of illustrative paintings of the Ragamala or "Garland of Ragas", depicting various of the Indian musical modes called ragas. They stand as a classical example of the amalgamation of art, poetry and classical music in medieval India. ARTiculate is a podcast that aims to provide a platform for budding artists to express themselves and ultimately build connections with other artists across the world.

ARTiculate is a podcast that connects art students from across the world through their ideas, inspirations and experiences. Today I talk to Laura Tillotson who is an Masters student studying in Manchester.