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brave podcast brings forward the voices shaping contemporary art. Through intimate conversations each episode explores the ideas, challenges, and dreams shaping creative practice today.

  1. Melania Toma: Skins, Rituals, and Living Entities

    8H AGO

    Melania Toma: Skins, Rituals, and Living Entities

    Artist Melania Toma joins host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a conversation on skins, textiles, transformation, and the strange life of materials. Working between painting, sculpture, and textile, Toma reflects on collecting discarded objects, travelling with animal skins across borders, Catholic iconography, bodily memory, and the porous boundary between the self and the more-than-human world. Speaking through ideas of energy, intuition, and interconnectedness, the episode moves through questions of material agency, abjection, hierarchy, and the emotional weight objects carry over time. The conversation also explores London’s artistic ecology, residencies as transformative experiences, and the role of instinct in building a practice that continuously shifts.

    34 min
  2. Nick Hemming-Brown & Thomas Hjelm: Rethinking the Gallery Model

    APR 27

    Nick Hemming-Brown & Thomas Hjelm: Rethinking the Gallery Model

    Nick Hemming-Brown and Thomas Hjelm join Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast to discuss their collaborative practice and the thinking behind HBH Gallery. Working through a nomadic model, they reflect on building exhibitions outside of fixed spaces, using flexibility as a way to support emerging artists and experiment with new formats. From their first meeting to curating international group shows, the conversation traces how a shared approach to art and audience has shaped their partnership. They also discuss the limitations of the traditional white cube, the importance of narrative in exhibition-making, and how digital culture continues to reshape both the production and experience of art. Throughout, they emphasise a commitment to artist-led thinking, documentation, and creating exhibitions that feel both accessible and engaging.

    30 min
  3. Mike Silva: The Incidental Moment

    APR 16

    Mike Silva: The Incidental Moment

    Mike Silva joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast, recorded in his studio as he prepares for an upcoming exhibition in Copenhagen. Working primarily in painting, Silva reflects on his shift away from traditional portraiture towards more incidental, intimate moments, where light, memory, and observation take precedence over representation. Using photography as a starting point, he describes painting as a process of translation shaped by intuition, touch, and the act of looking. The conversation also touches on vulnerability in his work, the influence of analogue culture, and the balance between spontaneity and control in his process. Reflecting on his career, Silva speaks candidly about navigating the art world, from being dropped by a gallery to rediscovering visibility through social media, as well as the changing conditions of image-making today.

    46 min
  4. Jacob Barnes: Season 4 Episode 6

    APR 2

    Jacob Barnes: Season 4 Episode 6

    Jacob Barnes joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave podcast, recorded inside Season 4 Episode 6, the London-based gallery he founded. Working primarily across sculpture and installation, Barnes reflects on building a programme rooted in ambition, clarity, and a refusal to follow established models. He discusses the gallery’s evolution over its first 18 months and its focus on presenting work that is direct, forceful, and capable of provoking strong reactions. Recent exhibitions are explored, including David Atwood’s use of industrial washing machine components to examine domestic labour, alongside The Bar, an immersive, rule-based project testing endurance and social interaction. The conversation expands to the London gallery landscape, where Barnes advocates for greater urgency and originality while critiquing repetition within the ecosystem. He outlines how initiatives such as Minor Attractions and Summer Sessions connect contemporary art with music, performance, and public programming. An upcoming exhibition by Japanese artist BIEN is introduced, whose work bridges painting and sculptural form while engaging with literary references. Together, these threads point towards a programme that continues to evolve through experimentation, international dialogue, and a sharpened engagement with painting.

    36 min
  5. Paula Parole: A Promise Is A Spell

    MAR 20

    Paula Parole: A Promise Is A Spell

    Paola Parole joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for this episode of the brave Podcast, recorded inside A Promise is a Spell, her first solo exhibition in London. Working across painting, sculpture, and installation, Parole discusses how themes of womanhood, childhood, domesticity, and storytelling shape her practice. Drawing on the symbolic language of fairy tales, she reflects on passivity in female narratives, the tension between fantasy and reality, and the emotional power of personal memory. The conversation also explores the materials and motifs in the exhibition, from thorns, birds, and cages to her papier-mâché rocking horse, as well as the pressures of making a first solo show and her work co-founding Filthy Fox Auction Club, which supports recently graduated artists in London.

    41 min
  6. James Dearlove: The Trilling Wire

    MAR 5

    James Dearlove: The Trilling Wire

    We are excited to launch season three of brave podcast with artist James Dearlove, who joins host Victoria Comstock-Kershaw to discuss his painting practice and the intuitive process that shapes his work. Based in Cornwall, Dearlove creates figurative paintings where human figures appear within swirling landscapes populated by animals, plants, and symbolic imagery. Rather than constructing fixed narratives, he allows compositions to emerge from instinct, aiming to interrupt immediate interpretation and hold viewers in a moment of uncertainty before meaning settles. The conversation explores his exhibition The Trilling Wire, whose title references T. S. Eliot and the idea of hidden tension or vibration beneath the surface. Dearlove reflects on how literature influences his visual imagination and how his paintings attempt to capture emotional states before they become defined, allowing multiple feelings and possibilities to coexist within the same image. Dearlove also shares how leaving London for Cornwall helped him focus on painting more seriously, while time spent living and working in Greece introduced new imagery drawn from coastal landscapes and olive groves. The episode concludes with reflections on his unconventional path back to painting after a career in television, and his belief that persistence, experimentation, and openness to chance are essential in building an artistic practice.

    49 min
  7. Jonny Tanna: Harlesden High Street, Building Community Through Art

    JAN 5

    Jonny Tanna: Harlesden High Street, Building Community Through Art

    Jonny Tanna is the founder of Harlesden High Street, a gallery rooted in northwest London that centres artists of colour, outsider practices, and community engagement. He explains how the space grew organically from film nights and curatorial experiments into a platform designed to welcome people who are often excluded from the contemporary art world. Throughout the conversation with brave podcast host and arts editor, Victoria Comstock-Kershaw, Jonny challenges the dominance of the white cube, the decline of traditional art fairs, and the narrow collector base that many galleries rely on. He argues for broader cultural engagement, drawing from music, film, and counterculture, and speaks about Minor Attractions as an alternative fair model that prioritises social exchange, experimentation, and atmosphere. The episode explores how outsider artists are supported at Harlesden High Street, including Jonny’s approach to curation, performance, and installation. He shares stories that highlight how everyday encounters, local communities, and unconventional narratives shape the gallery’s programme. Jonny also reflects on sincerity in the art world, warning against the performative use of terms like community and accessibility. He emphasises that galleries are ultimately people-driven spaces and that treating artists and audiences with respect is essential for long-term sustainability. The conversation closes with future plans for Harlesden High Street, including archival-focused projects, exhibitions exploring music history and cultural shifts, and Jonny’s ongoing commitment to building platforms that prioritise cultural value over commercial posturing.

    1h 4m
  8. James Marshall: Access, Confidence and Communication

    12/22/2025

    James Marshall: Access, Confidence and Communication

    Curator, writer and founder of communications agency The Inventive, James Marshall joins Victoria Comstock-Kershaw for a new brave podcast episode to talk about access, class and confidence in the art world, and how he built a career without the usual pathways. Growing up in rural Scotland with little access to museums or galleries, James shares how arriving in London at 17 reshaped his relationship to art, and why he decided to create his own opportunities rather than accept unpaid labour as the entry fee. Throughout the episode, James breaks down the power dynamics behind internships and early career roles, and explains how bringing a clear skill set to the table can shift the balance. From learning social media on the fly to building The Inventive, he reflects on the reality that experience does not pay rent, and why paid apprenticeships and properly funded routes into the sector are overdue. The conversation also explores language, communication and the performance of the gallery ecosystem, and why contemporary art needs fewer barriers and less art speak. James and Victoria discuss accessibility in exhibitions, the value of wall texts, and how formats like Minor Attractions can help audiences connect with work beyond the white cube. James also shares what is next, including plans for a group show exploring queer relationships with intimacy, and a full circle moment working with Simone Brewster on a commissioned installation film at the Design Museum.

    50 min
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About

brave podcast brings forward the voices shaping contemporary art. Through intimate conversations each episode explores the ideas, challenges, and dreams shaping creative practice today.

Information

  • Creator
    brave Projects
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © brave Projects
  • Show Website
    brave podcast

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