ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Isaac Mann
  • 4.8 (42)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Weekly

ARTMATTERS is an intimate, bi-weekly podcast featuring in-studio conversations between host Isaac Mann and professionalartists from around the world. Now in its second season with over 55 episodes, the show has become a vital resource for thecontemporary art community, exploring everything from technical practices and daily studio insights to career advice, creativeblocks, and the emotional realities of making art. Host Isaac Mann brings both the perspective of a working artist and the curiosity of a thoughtful interviewer to each conversation,creating a space where artists can discuss not just their techniques and influences, but also the vulnerable aspects of creative life-hope, depression, expectation, success, and failure.  Whether exploring technical processes, relationship dynamics, or tips for a healthier practice, ARTMATTERS offersboth emerging and established artists a rare glimpse into the real experiences behind successful creative careers.

  1. 1d ago

    #81 with Beldan Sezen

    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.

    #81 with Beldan Sezen

  2. Aug 6

    #80 Spectacular! Leo Ambrosio, ARTMATTERS' Youngest Guest (Bonus Episode)

    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

    #80 Spectacular! Leo Ambrosio, ARTMATTERS' Youngest Guest (Bonus Episode)

  3. Jul 30

    #79 with Matthew Weinstein

    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.

    #79 with Matthew Weinstein

  4. Jul 16

    #78 with Erin M Riley

    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.

    #78 with Erin M Riley

  5. Jul 2

    #77 with David Humphrey

    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.

    #77 with David Humphrey

  6. Jun 18

    #76 with Margaret Curtis

    Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists Our guest today is Margaret Curtis, a feminist painter born in Bermuda whose vivid, densely layered canvases explore power dynamics at both the personal and societal level. Margaret is an inaugural recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship, and her work first gained national recognition in Marcia Tucker's landmark Bad Girls exhibition at the New Museum in New York in 1994. Since then she has shown at the Brooklyn Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Wexner Center, with recent solo shows at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Post Times Gallery in New York City. Her work has been reviewed in the Times, Artforum, Art in America, and Harper's, and is held in permanent collections throughout the United States. I sat down with Margaret in the last days of her exhibition entitled ‘S at Post Times in Lower Manhattan. I set up the mics and the cameras and Margaret spoke to me about endurance, dumb mark-making, her beloved Quinacridone gold and how she describes a day in her studio as 30,000 nonverbal decisions, and feeling practically broken by the end of it. We talk Cricut, Frisket, Speedy Carve and Dibond as well as the cake decorating tools that she snatched up in a deliberate act of rebellion against her painting instructors - and originally kicked off this predilection for alternative mark-making, Margaret explains why she believes style is a market pressure, not something worth pursuing, and that each painting demands its own visual language. She also talks Jack Whitten, gives some great final advice, and tells me why painting has always been "her friendliest enemy.” 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: Margaret Curtis www.margaretcurtisart.com insta: @margarcur Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

    #76 with Margaret Curtis

  7. Jun 4

    #75 with Catherine Haggarty

    Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists Today's guest is Catherine Haggarty, a Brooklyn-based painter, educator and founder whose work has been featured in Artforum, the New York Times, Hyperallergic, and BOMB magazine, among others. Catherine has exhibited widely across New York, LA, and Miami and has been a visiting artist at institutions including Cornell, RISD, Pratt and Rutgers, where she also earned her MFA. She co-founded NYC Crit Club in 2017 and also created the Canopy Program, a one-year mentorship platform now serving artists all around the world. On today's episode I joined Catherine in her Crown Heights studio for an expansive conversation. We discussed the emotional weight of years of unsold work in storage to what it really means to slow down and become more deliberate as an artist. Catherine speaks to me about motherhood, sustaining a practice over decades, the difference between style and voice and what led her to co-found NYC Crit Club and build the Canopy Program into the global platform it is today. We also talk about drawing, watercolor and other painting practices, as well as the importance of saving money and taking care of your body. Enjoy the conversation! 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: Catherine Haggarty www.catherinehaggarty.com  insta: @catherinehaggarty  insta: @thecanopyprogram  insta: @nyccritclub Canopy Program Application - NOW OPEN Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

    #75 with Catherine Haggarty

  8. May 7

    #74 with Brittany Fanning

    Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists On this week’s episode I’m joined by Brittany Fanning. Brittany Fanning graduated from the University of north Virginia, and moved to South Korea in 2015. She spent seven years painting the neighborhoods around her, drawn particularly to the contrast between new Brutalist structures and traditional hanoks.  After relocating to Los Angeles in 2022 her work shifted toward the city’s architecture, flora, and fauna. Fanning  began exhibiting in Korea in 2018 and has since shown at Steve Turner and The Lodge in Los Angeles, Galerie BHAK in Seoul, as well as Mindy Solomon in Miami and Artemin in Taipei. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Portray Mag, and Type 7. She is currently based in New York.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ I joined Brittany Fanning in her studio, surrounded by rolled and unrolled canvases and at least one painting she's threatening to destroy. We get into her process: the impatience that launches a painting before the plan exists, and the small linen studies she uses to dig herself out of the compositional holes that impatience creates. We also talk about her push away from photo reference, her complicated relationship with the figure, and her black-and-white paintings. And then we get into the art world stuff: galleries that don't pay, galleries that disappear, and why Brittany has made a bit of a tradition of calling people out on Instagram right around the holidays. It's a hell of a conversation, articulate, transparent, and resilient. Without spoiling it, I'll just say: good luck to any gallery that tries to mess with her. Listener note: Brittany's candor about her experiences with Pictorum and OTI inspired me to share my own, with Primary Projects in Miami. It felt like the right time. 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 an any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com host: Isaac Mann www.isaacmann.com insta: @isaac.mann guest: Brittany Fanning www.brittanyfanning.com insta: @brittanyfanning Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

    #74 with Brittany Fanning
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4.8
out of 5
42 Ratings

About

ARTMATTERS is an intimate, bi-weekly podcast featuring in-studio conversations between host Isaac Mann and professionalartists from around the world. Now in its second season with over 55 episodes, the show has become a vital resource for thecontemporary art community, exploring everything from technical practices and daily studio insights to career advice, creativeblocks, and the emotional realities of making art. Host Isaac Mann brings both the perspective of a working artist and the curiosity of a thoughtful interviewer to each conversation,creating a space where artists can discuss not just their techniques and influences, but also the vulnerable aspects of creative life-hope, depression, expectation, success, and failure.  Whether exploring technical processes, relationship dynamics, or tips for a healthier practice, ARTMATTERS offersboth emerging and established artists a rare glimpse into the real experiences behind successful creative careers.

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