artist interview – Page 2

June 2, 2026June 1, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Run by Artists, Built for Artists: OyG and the Cornell MFA

What does a gallery look like when the artists are in charge? Founded in 2013, Ortega y Gasset Projects (OyG) is an artist-run collective with no fixed curatorial line and a non-hierarchical structure shared equally among its eight co-directors. Since 2023, it has become the annual New York home for Cornell University’s MFA thesis exhibition — a partnership built on a simple premise: artist-run spaces value experimentation, innovation, and risk-taking, giving graduate artists the freedom to present work without commercial constraints or curatorial imperatives.

May 21, 2026May 25, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Still Abstract at 90: American Abstract Artists

American Abstract Artists turns 90 this year, an unusual achievement for an artist-run group. Its anniversary show, Abstract by Definition: An Index, opened in April at Art Cake in Brooklyn, curated by Saul Ostrow, who brought 88 current members together under a single roof: a curatorial puzzle, an organizational feat, and a long-running argument about what abstraction can be. A companion exhibition at D. Wigmore Fine Art on West 57th Street focuses on the group’s founders and work made between 1936 and 1950 and runs through July. Here, painter Jacob Cartwright, who serves as AAA’s Secretary, reflects on the group’s nomination-only structure, how a show this size actually comes together, and where he wants AAA to go next.

May 5, 2026May 4, 2026, by Claire Haik

Philadelphia Artist Studio Visits: Deirdre Murphy 2026

I met Dierdre Murphy for our studio visit at Rolling Hill Park on one of the first true days of spring. She strode up the forested lane with a bright smile, and I followed her to a yellow cottage nestled among the trees and many meandering hiking trails. Bathed in the sound of tweeting of birds, Murphy explained her long history of working with the Lower Merion Conservancy both as a volunteer and as their Climate Artist-in-Residence. There, she has created several site-specific works, including a spectacular mural translating bird migration data into bright organic shapes.

March 23, 2026March 23, 2026, by Ella Jackson

Masako Miki: Midnight March – A Galaxy of Joyful Transformation

As the founding Executive and Artistic Director of the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), Lisa Tung has continually focused on bringing immersive exhibitions to the public and establishing an institution that champions art education, contemporary art practices, and the accessibility of art. Having seen and admired the work of Masako Miki, Tung brought Miki’s imaginative creations to MAAM, where they come alive in Midnight March, curated by Alison Gass and Meghan Smith.

Midnight March transforms the Paine Gallery into a galaxy, filled with Miki’s large-scale, felted interpretations of Japanese folklore spirits, yōkai. Through their materiality, scale, color, and design, the typically alienated spirits are presented through a contrasting portrayal from their traditionally frightening depiction, shown as playful, respected, and not so different from ourselves. Through an animistic approach, Midnight March reimagines myth, highlighting our similarities, spirituality, and the power of sculptural storytelling.

January 27, 2026January 27, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Natalie Moore: Capturing Mirage

Natalie Moore, Spill, 2025,68”x 60” x 20”h, hand woven stainless steel wire, non-acrylic polymer, thread. Photo ©Martin Seck

Natalie Moore grew up in San Diego, California, and spent many summers in Norway with her mother’s family. Although she has lived in New York for much longer, the dramatic Californian and Norwegian landscapes remain a lasting influence. Climate and ecology have also become more present in her work over the last decade, as the climate crisis worsens and governments and corporations continue to minimize the effects of carbon emissions, pollution, water use, and chemical waste.

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Judith Schaechter – Native to her Imaginary World

A person painting on a table

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Judith Schachter at work

Art without craft is blind, craft without art is empty Judith Schaechter paraphrasing Kant

January 3, 2022December 5, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Linnéa Spransy: Stockpiles of Potential

A picture containing a studio wall with frosted mylar drawing and the artists seated in front of it. — Linnéa Gabriella Spransy in her studio with ‘Chronos’, an ink drawing on frosted mylar, laminated and partially suspended from the wall.

For LA based, multi-disciplinary artist Linnéa Gabriella Spransy, limits are the core subject. Her curiosity about science, philosophy, cultural theory, physics, history, theology and, as she puts it, “a healthy dose of science fiction”, has led her to notice patterns and contradictions in commonplace assumptions. For instance, the belief that unlimited freedom is the optimal state of being, an idea that is flatly contradicted by the fact that no one is absolutely free, as we are all bound by a certain era, language, and people in our lives. Furthermore, Spransy says, some would argue that knowledge itself is a limit, especially knowledge about the future. She is grappling with big questions such as—does knowledge that deals with predicting the behavior of systems prevent freedom? Do we live in a deterministic universe merely garnished with the illusion of autonomy, or do we live in a genuinely open one? Throughout her reading and experience in the studio, she began to suspect that limitations are not barriers to freedom, but rather gateways.

February 15, 2021February 15, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Greg Drasler: Crowded Places / Open Spaces at Betty Cuningham Gallery

In Dialogue with Greg Drasler

Crowded Places / Open Spaces installation Betty Cuningham Gallery

Greg Drasler came to be a metaphorical figurative painter when he lost everything he owned in a fire in 1978, except for two paintings. At that moment he decided to focus exclusively on painting — he was a painter and painting would be everything he needed. He began to rebuild his pictorial world with scenes from the self-help DIY magazines and for over 40 years has continued to explore and expand his visual vocabulary through several bodies of work. Greg Drasler says he identifies with the subjects of his paintings “as personal questions, metaphors, and allegories often responding to social and cultural topics.” His current solo exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery includes both works from his lengthiest series, the Hats Paintings, and some from his most recent series, the Road House paintings. Sparked by the effects of social distancing due to the pandemic, the paintings overall assume another layer of meaning.

June 11, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Carmen Paulino

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Carmen Paulino is a visual artist who works on providing community art programming in hospitals, community centers, and senior centers around New York City. Raised in the El Barrio section of New York City, her love for the arts was inspired by the murals in her diverse neighborhood, and her father who performed as a musician in several traditional salsa bands. As a young child, she watched her mother and grandmother knit, crochet, and sew unique traditional quilts and patterns. These experiences inspired her to develop her own techniques and produce her own mixed media works that incorporate her own life experiences, visuals from her immediate surroundings, and the inspiration that comes from living in a diverse melting pot of cultures. Paulino works at the Creative Center of University Settlement House, and in 2019 was artist-in-residence at El Barrio’s Art Space PS 109.

June 9, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

*Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan With Andromeda, photo credit:* Rosita Czekala

Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan is a processed-based artist who works viscerally with marginalized and discarded materials to create new objects imbued with greater meaning. His work has been exhibited in the Hortt Museum, FL; Museum Of Contemporary Art, GA; Slotin Folkfest, GA; Hathaway Contemporary Gallery, GA; Life on Mars Gallery, NY; and is part of the collection in the Fulton County Arts and Culture Acquisition Program, GA.