Memphis Material

Memphis Material
  • 5.0 (9)
  • Arts
  • Updated Weekly

An oral history project chronicling the stories of the visual arts in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis Material is a podcast celebrating the personal histories, intimate stories, and the studio practices of some of the people who help shape the creative landscape of our city.

  1. 1d ago

    Kong Wee Pang Part 2

    Kong Wee Pang moved to the United States in 2001 from multicultural Malaysia. She graduated from the Singapore Nanyang Academy of Fine Art. In 2001, she moved to the United States, where she received a degree in Fine Art and design and an MFA from the Memphis College of Art.  In 2016, she co-founded Taropop Studio, focusing on public art and award-winning branding. She has shown her work in New York, California, and elsewhere in the United States, also Spain, Italy, Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia.

    Kong Wee Pang Part 2

  2. Sep 4

    Kong Wee Pang Part 1

    Kong Wee Pang moved to the United States in 2001 from multicultural Malaysia. She graduated from the Singapore Nanyang Academy of Fine Art. In 2001, she moved to the United States, where she received a degree in Fine Art and design and an MFA from the Memphis College of Art.  In 2016, she co-founded Taropop Studio, focusing on public art and award-winning branding. She has shown her work in New York, California, and elsewhere in the United States, also Spain, Italy, Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia.

    Kong Wee Pang Part 1

  3. Aug 28

    Elizabeth Alley Part 3

    From Elizabeth’s great website: Elizabeth Alley, a painter and sketcher from Memphis, explores vulnerable landscapes through on-location sketching to create painting and drawing installations. She received a BFA from University of Memphis, and has shown her work locally and regionally at Crosstown Arts, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the Nashville International Airport, and Wavelength Gallery in Chattanooga. In 2025, she participated in the Arctic Circle residency, and worked with four artist friends to open ShapeShifter Art School and Gallery.

    Elizabeth Alley Part 3

  4. Aug 21

    Elizabeth Alley Part 2

    From Elizabeth’s great website: Elizabeth Alley, a painter and sketcher from Memphis, explores vulnerable landscapes through on-location sketching to create painting and drawing installations. She received a BFA from University of Memphis, and has shown her work locally and regionally at Crosstown Arts, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the Nashville International Airport, and Wavelength Gallery in Chattanooga. In 2025, she participated in the Arctic Circle residency, and worked with four artist friends to open ShapeShifter Art School and Gallery.

    Elizabeth Alley Part 2

  5. Aug 14

    Elizabeth Alley Part 1

    From Elizabeth’s great website: Elizabeth Alley, a painter and sketcher from Memphis, explores vulnerable landscapes through on-location sketching to create painting and drawing installations. She received a BFA from University of Memphis, and has shown her work locally and regionally at Crosstown Arts, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the Nashville International Airport, and Wavelength Gallery in Chattanooga. In 2025, she participated in the Arctic Circle residency, and worked with four artist friends to open ShapeShifter Art School and Gallery.

    Elizabeth Alley Part 1

  6. Aug 7

    Mary Jo Karimnia Part 2

    Mary Jo Karimnia is an artist, curator, artspace owner and former arts administrator based in Memphis, Tennessee. She builds rich, highly crafted surface patinas with glass beads, foil and velvety flocking on vintage and contemporary imagery, using these non-traditional art materials to produce an altered view. Her work plays around the edges of nostalgia, imagining beauty and sadness competing in unreal views of an idyllic, miscolored past that never really was and an equally idyllic aching for a future that may never be. A rainbow array of translucent beads may be affected by the color of the surface below and ideas are often deep and hidden in shadows encompassing ancient magic and everyday life. Karimnia helped to found and is the former Director of the Crosstown Arts Residency Program. Her practice includes a grassroots, behind the scenes activism with priorities elevating diversity and building deep connective fibers between local and nonlocal multidisciplinary artists from a variety of backgrounds. Karimnia co-owns and runs the Studiohouse on Malvern in Memphis, Tennessee which hosts a yearly Studiohouse Openhouse event as well as intimate let’s-talk-about-the-art-world teas. She founded and runs the Front Porch Window Gallery, a small space meant to build community through self curation. It encourages unexpected art encounters by being embedded in a neighborhood and is lighted for viewing day or night. Karimnia has gallery relationships with Sheet Cake in Memphis, Tennessee RO2 in Dallas, Texas and PURO in La Paz, Bolivia. She has shown in the US and Bolivia and received grants, awards and residencies from ArtsMemphis, Urban Art Commission, and Mackinac Island Parks Commission and her work is in the collection of the Memphis Art Museum. Writing about her solo museum show Fold at Dixon Gallery and Garden Fredric Koeppel said her work “… plays around the fringes of folklore and the transformation of the psyche through the magic of women’s work and the way it impinges on the ordinary.”

    Mary Jo Karimnia Part 2

  7. Jul 31

    Mary Jo Karimnia Part 1

    This interview was recorded on May 2, 2025. Mary Jo Karimnia is an artist, curator, artspace owner and former arts administrator based in Memphis, Tennessee. She builds rich, highly crafted surface patinas with glass beads, foil and velvety flocking on vintage and contemporary imagery, using these non-traditional art materials to produce an altered view. Her work plays around the edges of nostalgia, imagining beauty and sadness competing in unreal views of an idyllic, miscolored past that never really was and an equally idyllic aching for a future that may never be. A rainbow array of translucent beads may be affected by the color of the surface below and ideas are often deep and hidden in shadows encompassing ancient magic and everyday life. Karimnia helped to found and is the former Director of the Crosstown Arts Residency Program. Her practice includes a grassroots, behind the scenes activism with priorities elevating diversity and building deep connective fibers between local and nonlocal multidisciplinary artists from a variety of backgrounds. Karimnia co-owns and runs the Studiohouse on Malvern in Memphis, Tennessee which hosts a yearly Studiohouse Openhouse event as well as intimate let’s-talk-about-the-art-world teas. She founded and runs the Front Porch Window Gallery, a small space meant to build community through self curation. It encourages unexpected art encounters by being embedded in a neighborhood and is lighted for viewing day or night. Karimnia has gallery relationships with Sheet Cake in Memphis, Tennessee RO2 in Dallas, Texas and PURO in La Paz, Bolivia. She has shown in the US and Bolivia and received grants, awards and residencies from ArtsMemphis, Urban Art Commission, and Mackinac Island Parks Commission and her work is in the collection of the Memphis Art Museum. Writing about her solo museum show Fold at Dixon Gallery and Garden Fredric Koeppel said her work “… plays around the fringes of folklore and the transformation of the psyche through the magic of women’s work and the way it impinges on the ordinary.”

    Mary Jo Karimnia Part 1

  8. Jul 24

    Andrea Morales Part 2

    From Andrea’s amazing website: Andrea Morales is a documentary photographer, journalist and educator born in Peru, raised in Miami, now living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. Her personal work attempts to lens the issues of displacement, disruption and magic. Adding glimpses of daily life, meaningful or mundane, to the record through photography is central to her practice. She has worked as a photojournalist in newsrooms small and large, such as The Concord Monitor, The Lima News and The New York Times, with equal enthusiasm. She’s also worked at the University of Mississippi’s Southern Documentary Project with students in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. In Memphis, she serves as the visuals editor at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom in Memphis reporting from the intersection of power, poverty and public policy along. Her work has been exhibited across the country and is held in public and private collections including The Do Good Fund, Memphis International Airport, and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Her first major museum exhibition Roll Down Like Water, opened at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in September 2024. The accompanying academic catalog, designed by Paul Holberton Publishing, was published in October 2024.   In this interview I reference this video of a lecture by Latoya Ruby Frazier, this series from Gregory Crewdson with Latoya Ruby Frazier, as well as this interview in the Brooklyn Rail.

    Andrea Morales Part 2
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About

An oral history project chronicling the stories of the visual arts in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis Material is a podcast celebrating the personal histories, intimate stories, and the studio practices of some of the people who help shape the creative landscape of our city.

Information

  • Creator
    Memphis Material
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    77
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Memphis Material