Interviews by Brainard Carey

Brainard Carey
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Lives of the most Excellent Artists, Architects, Curators, Critics, Theorists Poets and more, like Vasari’s book updated. (Interviews with over 1200 artists and others about practice and lifestyle from Yale University radio WYBCX)

  1. 4D AGO

    Ye Zhu

    Based in Brooklyn, NY (b. 1986, Taishan, China), Ye Zhu is an interdisciplinary artist focused on painting, public art, and social practice. He has presented solo exhibitions at DIMIN (2023) and Harkawik (2022) in New York, NY; at Moskowitz Bayse (2021) in Los Angeles, CA; and at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx, NY (2022). His work has been included in group exhibitions at The Sugar Hill Museum in Harlem, NY (2022–23), Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles (2023), Galerie Marguo in Paris, Harper’s (2023, 2021), and James Fuentes (2021) in New York. Over the past year (2024–25), he completed residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Dieu Donné Workspace in Brooklyn, and Wave Hill in the Bronx. Zhu has created numerous public projects, including a tribute installation for healthcare workers at the Yale School of Medicine (2022), a billboard project with Kingsgate Project Space in London (2021), A Universe in Strafford, NH (2021), and CONSTELLATION on Governors Island (2021), featured in The New York Times. He is a founding member of Haven Arts Park (2020–2023), an initiative dedicated to transforming contaminated land into an art park, and was a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant (2022–2023). The Cosmos of Seeds, 144″ x 96″ Ego Decay, 96″ x 48″ Star Studded Snail, 42 x 39

    22 min

  2. 4D AGO

    Ron Norsworthy

    Ron Norsworthy is an interdisciplinary artist whose broad practice engages the fields of art, architecture, filmmaking and design. Informing his work is a foundational belief that the rooms, spaces and environments we inhabit and interact with speak volumes not only about who we are now, but also about our dreams, aspirations and our struggles as well. Through the creation of collaged reliefs, decorative objects, textiles and installations, his work carries the viewer through a non-linear, layered story of his life, one shaped by his lived experience as a queer person of the global majority. Norsworthy was born in South Bend, Indiana and currently lives and works in Connecticut and New Jersey, respectively. His work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem, NY; The Old Stone House, Brooklyn, NY; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ; The Wassaic Project in Wassaic, NY; Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT; Standard Space, Sharon, CT; Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ; the International Quilt Museum, Lincoln, NE; the New York Historical Society, NYC; the Governor’s Island Art Fair, Governors Island, NY; the Armory Show, NY; Paris Photo; and it is also in the permanent collection of the Newark Museum of Art. In 2023, Norsworthy was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship in Visual Arts. Ron Norsworthy, Do You Know What You’re Looking For?, 2025, Mixed media collage in relief on wood panel Ron Norsworthy, More or Less, 2025, Mixed media collage in relief on wood panel Ron Norsworthy, Trying to Remember the Future, 2025, Mixed media collage in relief on wood panel

    26 min

  3. 5D AGO

    Xanthe Burdett

    Xanthe Burdett Xanthe Burdett (b. 1995) is an artist from Devon currently living and working in London. Her practice is led by painting but also encompasses drawing and installation. She graduated from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024, and received her BA in Education, English and Drama at Cambridge University. Her work explores the relationship between the body and nature, questioning the notion of the body as nature itself. Through a personal mythology deeply rooted in place, Xanthe weaves bodies and stories into layered works where the boundary between the human and non-human shifts and stretches. Her pieces, which move between extreme scales, evoke a dynamic interplay as strange, otherworldly creatures emerge through the layers of glazing. Xanthe approaches her practice as a mesh, with her paintings existing within an interconnected web. One thread extends to the monumental hunting tapestries at the V&A, another to the way light dances across a fallen tree on the riverbank of her childhood. Xanthe is a recipient of the De Laszlo Foundation Young Artist Award and has been shortlisted for the Jacksons Painting Prize.  Xanthe Burdett, The Lily Pickers , 2025 Oil on linen 72⅞ x 55⅛ in (185.00 x 140.00 cm) Xanthe Burdett, Voices caught in the earth , 2025 Oil on linen 13¾ x 11¾ in (35.00 x 30.00 cm) Xanthe Burdett, Psychopomp, 2025 Oil on linen 28 x 42 Inches (71.12 x 106.68 cm)

    22 min

  4. JAN 23

    Katie Simmons

    Katie Simmons is an artist, educator, and wildlife biologist from the Appalachian mountains in east Tennessee. She holds baccalaureate degrees in art history, visual art, and wildlife biology and her MA in education and MFA in drawing and fiber art. Katie is an instructor of drawing and fiber art at Colorado State University and Front Range Community College. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally in numerous group and solo shows in the United States, western Europe and South America. Her research on feminist aesthetics, the uncanny, and the commodification of bodies through sex trafficking has also been published and presented at regional and national conferences. Katie has been the recipient of the Charlie and Gwen Hatchette Creativity Award, the Keith Foskin MFA Scholarship, the Boynes Artist Award, the Oak Springs Garden Foundation Residency, Centrum Residency, and a finalist for the Women United Art Prize and Prisma Art Prize. She is also a vocal advocate for the Sexual Assault Victim Advocate Center in Colorado. In her free time, Katie loves ultra trail running, spending time with her family, and watching bad tv with her dog. Katie’s work has most recently been exhibited in a solo exhibit at Metropolitan Community College’s Gallery of Art and Design and she has upcoming shows this spring and summer at the Sanger Gallery in Key West, Florida, the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art in Fort Collins, Colorado and Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Pinecone Quilt I (Side A and B) 2025 Plastic refuse, embroidery thread, found curtains and bed sheets with ballpoint pen drawing and homemade walnut bark ink 85 x 85” Digitalis purpurea, 2025 Ballpoint pen and ecoprinted common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) on silk 70 x 48” Invasive Species I: Rubus phoenicolasius, 2025. Ballpoint pen and homemade natural dye made from wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius) on cardstock, 50 x 38″

    22 min

  5. JAN 23

    Paul Scott

    Paul Scott in print studio with cut Wild Rose detail Paul Scott (b. 1953, United Kingdom) is a UK-based artist, living and working in Cumbria, with a diverse practice and an international reputation. Creating individual pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft, and design, he is well known for his research into printed vitreous surfaces, as well as his characteristic blue-and-white artworks in glazed ceramic. Scott’s artworks can be found in public collections around the globe, including the National Museum, Norway; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; National Museums Liverpool; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY. Commissioned work can be found in a number of UK museums, as well as in public places in the north of England, including Carlisle, Maryport, Gateshead, and Newcastle upon Tyne. He has also completed large-scale works in Hanoi, Vietnam, and at the Guldagergård public sculpture park in Denmark. A combination of rigorous research, studio practice, curation, writing, and commissioned work ensures that his practice continues to develop. His work is fundamentally concerned with the reanimation of familiar objects, landscape, pattern, and a sense of place. He was professor of ceramics at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) from 2011–2018. Scott received his Bachelor of Art Education and Design from Saint Martin’s College and his PhD from the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design in England. His current research project, New American Scenery, has been supported by an Alturas Foundation artist award, Ferrin Contemporary, and funding from Arts Council England. Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Souvenir of Portland OR Black Lives Matter (After Killen & Howard)/Trumpian Campaigne, No.5, 2021. Transfer print collage on partially erased Staffordshire transferware souvenir plate by Rowland & Marsellus, c.1900 10.25″ Dia. x 1” D Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Residual Waste (Texas) No.5/1, 2022 Transfer print collage, shell-edged pearlware platter, 13″ H x 17.25″ W x 1.25” D Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, The Sleep of Reason, Wood Cuts (After Spode’s Woodland/Wild Rose) 2, 2024 Transfer print collage on pearlware plate with Kintsugi, 11″ Dia. x 0.5″ D Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Sampler Jug, No.7 (After Stubbs), 2021 Transfer print collage on pearlware jug, 15″ H x 14″ W x 11.75″ D

    27 min

  6. JAN 22

    Aglaé Bassens

    Aglaé Bassens, Photo: Jenny Gorman Aglaé Bassens (b. 1986, Belgium) has a BA in Fine Art from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University (2007) and an MFA in Fine Art Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2011). Her work has been exhibited internationally, with solo presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; HESSE FLATOW, New York; 12.26, Dallas; Nars Foundation, Brooklyn; CRUSH Curatorial, New York; and Cabin Gallery, London; as well as group exhibitions at Gowen Contemporary, Geneva; STEMS Gallery, Paris; The Valley, Taos; and Workplace Gallery, London. Bassens’s works can be found in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami and Colección SOLO, Madrid, Spain. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Aglaé Bassens (b. 1986) What was that, 2025 Oil on canvas 39 3/8 x 51 1/8 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist and HESSE FLATOW, New York. Photo: Jenny Gorman. Aglaé Bassens (b. 1986) Stone Tiles, 2025 Oil on canvas 51 1/8 x 39 3/8 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist and HESSE FLATOW, New York. Photo: Jenny Gorman. Aglaé Bassens (b. 1986), Deflated, 2025, Oil on canvas, 51 1/8 x 39 3/8 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist and HESSE FLATOW, New York. Photo: Jenny Gorman.

    20 min

  7. JAN 21

    Janet Echelman

    Janet Echelman is an artist known for sculpting at the scale of buildings and city blocks, creating large-scale, fluid installations that merge art, architecture, and engineering. Her work transforms with wind and light, inviting viewers into immersive experiences rather than static observation. Echelman uses unconventional materials—from atomized water particles to fiber stronger than steel—blending traditional craft with advanced computational design. Her monumental works anchor public spaces across five continents, in cities including New York, London, Sydney, Shanghai, and Singapore. Permanent installations in locations such as San Francisco, Vancouver, and Porto continually evolve with shifting light and air. Echelman’s unconventional path includes a degree from Harvard, five years living in a Balinese village, and graduate studies in both painting and psychology. Oprah ranked Echelman’s work #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!, and she received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.” Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, she has taught at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Her interdisciplinary approach challenges artistic boundaries and redefines urban space through experiential public art. Her recent book, Radical Softness The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman is now available. Remembering the Future, on view at MIT Museum, and its maquette at Sarasota Art Museum retrospective. Photos: Anna Olivella Study (Butterfly Rest Stop 1/9 scale), on view at Janet Echelman: Radical Softness, Sarasota Art Museum through April 26, 2026. Photo: Ryan Gamma. Noli Timere, Echelman’s sculpture-dance collaboration with choreographer Rebecca Lazier, currently traveling the eastern seaboard. Photos: Julie Lemberger

    19 min

  8. JAN 20

    Isaac Lythgoe

    Isaac Lythgoe is a sculptor, painter and writer based In Paris, FR. His practice is world-building; reimagining narrative traditions and modes of storytelling, he creates interconnected works that probe power structures, contemporary ethics, and shifting social norms. Within this constructed universe, arcs of romance and mortality intersect, inviting viewers to consider how collective memory is formed—and what future societies might resemble. This temporal drift between past and future is mirrored in Lythgoe’s aesthetic language, where tensions between the natural and the synthetic unfold through form, material, and gesture. Recent and forthcoming shows include Phantasmagoria: Folkloric Sculpture for the Digital Age, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK, (2026), Would I lie to you, Duarte Sequeira, Seoul, KR (2024), Production Residency at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, FR, (2024), Cute!, Somerset House, London, UK, (2024), After Laughter Comes Tears, MUDAM, Luxembourg, LX, (2023) amongst others. Beautiful losers, 180cm x 140cm, oil on canvas, 2025. I pretended there was nowhere to love, 80cm x 60cm, oil on canvas, 2025 Everyone’s a bad guy, 110cm x 80cm x 80cm fibreglass, carbon fibre, epoxy, cast aluminium, scarab beetles

    21 min
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Lives of the most Excellent Artists, Architects, Curators, Critics, Theorists Poets and more, like Vasari’s book updated. (Interviews with over 1200 artists and others about practice and lifestyle from Yale University radio WYBCX)

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