Artist David Lloyd joins What’s My Thesis? to reflect on a career that spans CalArts in the early 1980s, formative years at Margot Levin Gallery, and decades of navigating the shifting landscape of the Los Angeles art world. Known for his commitment to formalist abstraction, Lloyd discusses what it means to sustain a painting practice over forty years while adapting to the changing priorities of galleries, art fairs, and collectors. The conversation delves into his most recent body of work, where Lloyd integrates his own archive of paintings, drawings, and ceramics into AI image generation. By transforming these digital hallucinations into trompe l’oeil abstractions through resin, collage, and material experimentation, he considers how technology can challenge conventional definitions of painting while remaining rooted in physical process. Other topics include the legacy of CalArts conceptualism, the burdens of postmodern theory and art education, the precarity of mid-level galleries, and the paradox of elitism within the contemporary art market. Throughout, Lloyd emphasizes the importance of generosity, resilience, and longevity in sustaining a life in art. Listen for insights on: Abstract painting and formalist traditions in Los Angeles The role of AI in contemporary art practices The realities of the gallery system and art fairs Postmodernism, art education, and theory fatigue Building a career across decades in the art world
Artist Kristen Huizar joins What’s My Thesis? to reflect on drawing, printmaking, and the act of documenting Los Angeles. Born and raised in Commerce, CA, she traces her path from community college to Cal State Long Beach, where persistence and community shaped her practice. Working with wax pastels on plastic vinyl, hand stitching, and large lino cuts, Huizar explores repetition, process, and the archival impulse. Her drawings function as reportage—capturing overlooked city views, everyday details, and the rapid changes of East L.A. The conversation considers Chicana identity, community studios, and the politics of representation, offering insight into how artists both preserve and reimagine the city.
In this episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza speaks with Emma Christ, editor at Artillery magazine and gallerist working between Portland and Los Angeles. Christ reflects on her beginnings in photography, formative years at Bard and Reed, and her transition from artistic practice into gallery management, editing, and writing. The conversation traces her early influences—from Francesca Woodman, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston to mentorship under No Wave photographer Barbara Ess—before moving into immersive installation work and a graduate thesis on trans-corporeality and the porous body. Christ discusses her experiences in institutions such as the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, her role in supporting artists within commercial gallery structures, and the gendered dynamics that continue to shape the field. Throughout the episode, Christ shares candid insights into navigating the hierarchies of the art world, balancing writing and curating, and the importance of advocating for emerging voices across both editorial and exhibition platforms.
In this episode of What’s My Thesis?, Los Angeles printmaker Israel Campos shares how his work bridges Mesoamerican codices, Mexican revolutionary art, and the mural traditions of his South Central upbringing. Known for his meticulous intaglio prints, Campos reclaims visual histories disrupted by colonization—collapsing linear perspective, weaving ancient mythologies, and drawing on the political legacies of artists like José Clemente Orozco. From growing up in a garment factory household to exhibiting at Charlie James Gallery, Campos has shaped a practice that circulates both within galleries and directly to his community, merging economic sustainability with political intent. 🎧 Listen now to hear how Campos’ art collapses past and present into a single visual language of resistance. #IsraelCampos #LatinxArt #Printmaking #MesoamericanArt #MexicanMuralists #PoliticalArt #LosAngelesArt #ContemporaryArt #WhatsMyThesisPodcast #CharlieJamesGallery #JavierProenza
In this episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza sits down with Los Angeles–based artist Jackie Castillo, whose practice transforms the overlooked landscapes of Southern California into sculptural, spatial interventions that challenge how we see, inhabit, and remember place. Born and raised in working-class neighborhoods of Orange County, Castillo’s perspective is deeply rooted in the lived realities of the region—its immigrant histories, economic divides, and the architectural patchwork that defines its suburbs. Trained as a film-based photographer, she has evolved her practice to merge photography, sculpture, and installation, creating works that slow the act of looking and demand sustained engagement. Her use of reclaimed materials and references to site-specific histories reframes the photographic image as an object in dialogue with its environment. Castillo traces her influences to classic cinema, the New Topographics photographers, and the conceptual rigor she developed in community college and at UCLA. Through these intersecting frameworks, she examines the formal language of geometry, light, and tonality while embedding questions of class, labor, and urban change. From photographing the quiet interventions of working-class residents in limited outdoor spaces, to producing large-scale installations that reference architecture, demolition, and construction, Castillo captures the poetics of transition—whether in a falling roof shingle or the shifting demographics of a neighborhood. The conversation traverses the sensory memory of California light, the politics of housing and displacement, and the role of critique in art education. Castillo speaks candidly about her commitment to making the work she wants without bending to external pressures, and the importance of artist-to-artist support networks in sustaining a creative practice. Her current exhibition, The Return, is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles through August 31, with additional work featured in the group show Back to the Earth at Roberts Projects. Discover how Jackie Castillo transforms the overlooked corners of Southern California into a visual language of place, memory, and resistance. Listen now on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Follow the artist: Instagram: [@jackiecastillo] More at: ICA LA Keywords for SEO: Jackie Castillo artist, Jackie Castillo ICA LA, Southern California photography, working class art, Los Angeles artist interview, New Topographics influence, site-specific installation, contemporary sculpture, California light in art, art and gentrification, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Roberts Projects.
This week on What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Ann Shi, a nomadic curator and founder of a poco art collective, whose deeply intuitive curatorial practice bridges Chinese literati aesthetics, feminist mysticism, and contemporary Asian diasporic identity. With roots in China, academic training in Oxford and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and early career experience on Wall Street, Ann’s nonlinear path defies institutional expectations, illuminating how curating can become both an embodied ritual and an act of cultural translation. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ann reflects on growing up as the daughter of a classical inkwash painter and an opera singer, both devoted Buddhist practitioners who observed the Five Precepts, embodying compassion and discipline in daily life—a grounding that continues to shape how calligraphy, voice, and ritual manifest in her exhibitions. Drawing on her time as Associate Curator at Rice University’s Chao Center for Asian Studies, she reflects on how oral histories and immigrant archives shaped her curatorial voice and informed her efforts to platform Asian art beyond the Western gaze. Together, Ann and Javier unpack the tension between authenticity and market sustainability, the legacy of the literati tradition in Chinese art, and the complicated dynamics of Asian representation within museum and gallery systems. They also explore Ann’s use of feng shui, the five elements, and feminine archetypes—like the goddess Nüwa—as curatorial frameworks that honor the unseen and elevate spiritual intuition over spectacle. The episode closes with a discussion of “Nüwa’s Garden: A Summer Offering in Clay, Fire, and Water,” Ann’s recent show at Charles Arnoldi Studio in Venice Beach, and its irreverent, ritual-infused closing celebration featuring live performances and feminist mythologies. Topics Discussed: Asian art history beyond Western institutional frameworks Literati aesthetics and connoisseurship in Chinese painting Feminist mysticism, feng shui, and the unseen in exhibition design Spiritual embodiment and curating as a ritual practice Challenges of art market sustainability and cultural authenticity The evolution of ink-on-paper and gendered aesthetics in East Asian art Intersections of performance, memory, and oral history a poco art collective’s programming and community Follow Ann Shi: a poco art collective – @a.poco.art.collective Personal account – @annonymous_cynist 🎧 Listen now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
In this resonant episode of What’s My Thesis?, artist and educator Kim Garcia joins host Javier Proenza for a layered conversation about memory, community, and the personal and political frameworks that shape diasporic identity. Garcia, whose practice spans sculpture, drawing, and community-based collaboration, reflects on her evolving relationship to artmaking—from early experiments in artist-run residencies to recent work that channels intergenerational trauma, familial mythology, and the slow grief of dementia. Raised in San Diego and based in Los Angeles, Garcia traces her trajectory through California’s UC system, from UCSD to a transformative MFA at UC Irvine. Her sculptural installations—once flamboyant and cartoonish in scale—have given way to more introspective, materially restrained works, driven by the shifting health of her aging parents. A recent series based on her mother’s ever-changing retellings of ancestral folklore evolves into a meditation on storytelling as a haze: unstable, affective, and resistant to conquest. In new work, she confronts her father's long-term cognitive decline following a near-death experience, positioning art as a form of both documentation and private processing. The conversation moves fluidly through Garcia’s participation in Gallery After Hours (a collaborative curatorial experiment with Amy MacKay), reflections on her return to the Philippines after 24 years, and the psychic legacies of Spanish and American imperialism embedded in Filipino identity. Garcia speaks candidly about her family’s pursuit of Spanish ancestry as a means of aspirational assimilation and the radical shift in consciousness that comes from recontextualizing that lineage within histories of violence and extraction. With poetic clarity and humility, Garcia frames her work as a refusal of mastery—an intuitive archive that honors contradiction, transformation, and the limits of language. This is an episode about the power of not knowing, and about what it means to hold grief, resistance, and joy in the same gesture. Topics Covered: Intergenerational storytelling and trauma Dementia, caregiving, and creative mourning Artist-run initiatives and sustainable curation Colonial identity in the Filipino diaspora Sculpture as performance and interdependency The political stakes of abstraction and refusal Featured Projects and Mentions: Gallery After Hours, co-run with Amy MacKay Current group exhibition, The Endless Forever at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles Upcoming two-person show at DMST Atelier with artist Frannie Hemmelgarn (October 4) Ten-year anniversary celebration with Amy MacKay (July 19) Follow Kim Garcia: 📸 Instagram: @kimwantscoffee — Subscribe to What’s My Thesis? 📺 YouTube: @WhatsMyThesis 🎧 All platforms: [Podcast Link] 💸 Support the show: [Patreon - $5/month gets you episodes a week early!] #KimGarcia #FilipinoArtists #DiasporaArt #IntergenerationalTrauma #DementiaCare #ArtistRunSpace #Sculpture #IntuitiveArchive #WhatsMyThesisPodcast #JavierProenza
In this episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by artist Lauren Goldenberg Longoria for a conversation that traverses personal memory, studio practice, and the tender labor of transformation. Known for her materially rich works that fuse paper, performance, and poetic intuition, Goldenberg Longoria speaks candidly about the healing logic of her process—and the quiet revolutions that can occur through repetition, care, and tactility. Trained in traditional printmaking and now immersed in the world of handmade paper, Goldenberg Longoria discusses how she builds meaning through destruction—tearing and pulping paper from past works, using the remnants to seed new ones. Her practice becomes a kind of emotional composting: nothing is discarded, everything is metabolized. Whether she’s embedding hair into a fresh sheet of paper or excavating the boundaries between sculpture and drawing, her work investigates how memory and material collapse into one another. Throughout the episode, Goldenberg Longoria shares stories of childhood, loss, and creative perseverance, always returning to the primacy of the hand. From squishing “gross things” as a kid to the meditative choreography of the studio, she makes a compelling case for process as a form of knowing—and for art as a space where grief can be held, rather than solved. This episode offers a rare look at how artists turn vulnerability into methodology, and how even the most fragile materials can carry a resilient kind of weight. — 🔗 Follow Lauren Goldenberg Longoria: @laurengoldenberglongoria 🎧 Listen on all platforms: whatsmythesis.com 🎥 Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@whatsmythesis ❤️ Support on Patreon: patreon.com/whatsmythesis #HandmadePaper #ContemporaryArt #LaurenGoldenbergLongoria #WhatsMyThesis #MaterialityInArt #ArtAndGrief #PaperArt #ProcessBasedArt #EmotionalLabor #TactileArt
In this candid and moving conversation, host Javier Proenza sits down with Los Angeles-based artist Dena Novak, whose sculptural paintings and ceramics challenge the rigid codes of minimalism through what she calls “aggressive feminism.” Drawing from a rich personal archive of experience—one shaped by Orthodox Judaism, motherhood, neurodivergence, and trauma—Novak’s work reimagines historically male-dominated art historical tropes with unapologetic sensuality and material intensity. A recent recipient of the Simon Gad Foundation Award and an MFA candidate at Otis College of Art and Design, Novak shares how a life-altering diagnosis of autism at age 50 reshaped her understanding of herself, her past, and her artistic practice. Her tactile impasto paintings, often described as “candy-colored” and “irresistibly edible,” subvert the pristine aesthetic of artists like John McCracken, replacing “fetish finish” with riotous layers of piped oil paint. As she explains, “The first response people say when they see my work is, ‘I want to touch it. I want to smell it. I want to eat it.’” The conversation traces Novak’s evolution from a punk activist in Chicago to a ceramicist “boxing with Pollock,” and unpacks her years spent in Orthodox communities in Israel and Los Angeles, where gendered restrictions collided with a creative urgency that could not be contained. Today, her practice is a full-throated reclamation of space—for herself, for disabled artists, and for queer, neurodivergent joy. Upcoming exhibitions include her MFA thesis show at Otis College (September 2025) and a group exhibition will support the Simon Gad Foundation’s work with disabled artists. Explore more: 🖼 Shrine NYC – @shrine.nyc 🎓 Otis College of Art and Design – www.otis.edu
Diana Taylor: A practice where research and materiality meet. Presented by What's My Thesis? in partnership with DON’T LOOK Projects In this illuminating live conversation recorded at DON’T LOOK Projects, UK-based artist Diana Taylor joins host Javier Proenza (What’s My Thesis?) for a deeply textured discussion around her first solo show in the United States, Flotsam and Jetsam. Organized by DON’T LOOK Projects in association with SLQS Gallery in London, the exhibition draws on Taylor’s research-intensive practice, exploring time through the fusion of research and materiality. Her work employs a remix logic, echoing Sigmar Polke's 1980s period. Currently in a short-term fellowship at The Huntington, Taylor speaks about her practice-based research. Her PhD was in collaboration with the William Morris Gallery, where she focused on how historical craft, screen-printing, and reproducibility inform her contemporary approach to painting. With roots in both rural Wiltshire and Cyprus, Taylor's early exposure to English landscape painting, tapestry, and devotional patternwork creates a foundation for her ongoing material inquiries into time, collapse, and visual culture. The conversation explores: Taylor’s use of screenprinting on raw and repurposed canvas as a method of layering digital and analog imagery The influence of William Morris, The Divine Comedy by Gustav Doré, Sigmar Polke and 1970s suburban interiors on her visual lexicon A meditation on contemporaneity—the feeling of living amidst overlapping temporalities in the age of the internet The metaphor of Flotsam and Jetsam as a conceptual frame for image overload, cultural debris, and the residue of civilization Her experimental use of digital tools—zooming, pixelation, low-res 3D scanning—not to perfect, but to fail productively. Collapsing binaries: nature and culture, craft and tech, chaos and control, digital noise and sacred relic Also discussed is Taylor’s current work at The Huntington, where she’s engaging with historical plant taxonomies, rare botanical prints, and Morris’s medieval utopian socialism to produce a new body of work and a forthcoming article in The Journal of William Morris Studies. Flotsam and Jetsam is on view at DON’T LOOK Projects through August 30, 2025. Please email gallery@dontlookprojects.com to schedule a private viewing. Listen to this episode to uncover: Why Taylor considers pixelation and printed crochet as relics of maternal labor and digital memory How screenprinting becomes a form of archaeological gesture The relationship between digital overstimulation and visual stillness Why artists might choose ruin, repetition, or failure as aesthetic strategies in a culture obsessed with optimization Featured Institutions & Collaborators: The Huntington Library, William Morris Gallery, DON’T LOOK Projects, SLQS Gallery, What’s My Thesis? Episode Credits: Hosted by Javier Proenza Guest: Diana Taylor Presented by DON’T LOOK Projects Podcast: What’s My Thesis? — 🎧 Listen now and step into the layered, fragmented, hyper-contemporary world of Diana Taylor. 📍 Flotsam and Jetsam runs through August 30 at DON’T LOOK Projects, Los Angeles in association with SLQS Gallery in London. 🔗 Follow Diana on Instagram and learn more at dontlookprojects.com #DianaTaylor #WhatsMyThesis #DontLookProjects #ContemporaryPainting #WilliamMorris #DigitalCollage #ScreenprintArt #LAArtScene #SLQSGallery #TheHuntington #ArtistResidency #Multitemporality #ArtPodcast #unpainting
In this episode, artist and community advocate Corey La Rue. traces his relationship to the land, labor, and survival—from a near-death experience that altered the course of his life, to his ongoing advocacy for California’s agricultural workers and displaced communities. Raised in the Bay Area in California, La Rue shares his early exposure to fieldwork through family ties to migrant labor. These firsthand experiences, coupled with his own time working in agriculture, shape his nuanced understanding of the exploitation embedded in the state’s economy. What emerges is a critique rooted not in theory, but in lived knowledge: the food systems that sustain us are built on invisible suffering. In a conversation that flows between the local and the global, La Rue and Proenza examine the slow violence of gentrification, the complicity of liberal “investment” language, and the way grief and survival are interwoven. La Rue describes the rapid transformation of his Melrose neighborhood—where new development displaces working-class Latino families—and calls for greater grassroots resistance. The episode draws a powerful line from housing precarity to policy indifference to the long, often invisible, labor histories of California. This is a conversation about who gets to stay, who gets erased, and what it means to fight for the dignity of people and place. Explore Corey La Rue’s work: 🔗 Instagram: @corey_la_rue Support the show and access episodes early: 💸 patreon.com/whatsmythesis Subscribe and share if this story resonates—especially if you’ve felt the pressure of survival, loss, or systemic erasure. #CoreyLaRue #WhatsMyThesis #AgriculturalWorkers #CaliforniaLabor #LatinxVoices #Gentrification #FarmworkerRights #NearDeathExperience #GriefAndResistance #ArtAndAdvocacy #LAArtScene
Dreams in Migrations: AAPI Identity, Diaspora, and Resistance in Contemporary Art In this special live episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza moderates a closing panel discussion at BG Gallery for Dreams in Migrations—the third annual AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) exhibition curated by artist and organizer Sung-Hee Son. This timely conversation assembles a multigenerational roster of artists whose practices interrogate identity, memory, imperialism, and the myth of the model minority through distinct formal languages and lived experiences. Featuring artists Dave Young Kim, Mei Xian Qiu, and others, the episode moves fluidly between personal narrative and structural critique. Kim speaks candidly about growing up Korean American in Los Angeles, navigating ADHD through drawing, and finding community through both art and street culture. He reflects on his work’s deep connection to place—evoking the layered histories of Koreatown through archival images, signage, and symbolic compositions. Mei Xian Qiu offers a moving account of displacement, spiritual ritual, and postcolonial trauma. Born into Indonesia’s Chinese diaspora, she discusses her early artistic impulse to create “sacred objects” as a means of processing survival and systemic erasure. Her multimedia works—reminiscent of stained glass and batik—expose the mechanisms of propaganda and the cultural inheritance of violence. Her series Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom revisits China’s Hundred Flowers Campaign with a provocative inversion: a mock invasion of the U.S. staged entirely by AAPI artists and academics. Together, the panelists explore diasporic kinship, cross-cultural solidarity, and the politics of visibility within the art world. Proenza draws compelling parallels between the AAPI and Latinx experiences, from forced assimilation and linguistic loss to state violence and Cold War geopolitics. The conversation challenges the flattening effects of labels like “model minority,” advocating instead for nuance, specificity, and coalition-building. The episode concludes with reflections on the power of artist collectives, including the Korean American Artists Collective co-founded by Kim, and a roll call of exhibiting artists whose works are transforming the gallery into a space of resistance, celebration, and shared memory. Featured Artists in the Exhibition: Dave Young Kim Mei Xian Qiu Bryan Ida Tia (Otis MFA ‘23) Miki Yokoyama Key Topics: AAPI identity in fine art Postcolonial trauma and Chinese-Indonesian history Korean American experience in L.A. Propaganda, memory, and resistance The myth of the model minority Artist collectives and community organizing Explore how contemporary AAPI artists are reshaping cultural narratives and reclaiming space through radical aesthetics and collaborative practice. 🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube 📍 Recorded live at BG Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 📅 Presented in honor of AAPI Heritage Month
Queer Landscapes, Dual Lives, and the Art of Looking Closely with J. Carino Painter J. Carino joins What’s My Thesis? for a candid conversation on the formation of a deeply personal visual language—one that straddles autobiography, queer identity, and reportage practice. Known for his emotionally resonant paintings that combine landscape, figure, and storytelling, Carino reflects on a unique career that led him to his upcoming solo exhibition Carry It With You at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, on display from June 26 - August 22. Carino speaks candidly about the challenges and freedoms of sustaining parallel careers in publishing and contemporary art. He traces his transition from NYU to Parsons, where studies in reportage and drawing from life laid the foundation for his immersive painting practice. From plein air sketches in national parks to nude Zoom drawing sessions during the pandemic, Carino’s shift from illustration to painting allowed for a more intimate, layered exploration of what it means to live a dual life as a queer artist navigating coded and compartmentalized spaces. The episode delves into the tension between visibility and vulnerability: Carino discusses using a pseudonym to separate his children's book authorship from his painting, and the risks of addressing queerness explicitly in art intended for young audiences. Yet it’s precisely this openness—to complexity, to contradiction, to personal mythologies—that infuses his paintings with emotional depth and political resonance. Carino’s recent recognition on the cover of New American Paintings (juried by Jerry Saltz) and his upcoming show mark a pivotal moment in his trajectory. His reflections on drawing as survival, the spiritual force of nature, and the layered meanings embedded in his imagery reveal a practice rooted in authenticity, discipline, and deep curiosity. Featured Topics: – Drawing as a foundation for painting – The politics of queer representation in children’s literature – National parks, plein air practice, and the American landscape – Eroticism, intimacy, and compartmentalized identity in art Follow J. Carino on Instagram at @j.carino.art, and explore his upcoming exhibition Carry It With You at Yossi Milo Gallery (@yossimilo) through August 22.
Strategic Generosity: Collecting, Curating, and Championing Emerging Artists with Leslie Fram In this galvanizing episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Leslie Fram—collector, curator, marketing strategist, MFA educator, and tireless champion of emerging talent—for a sweeping conversation that summons the urgent need for innovation as well as entrepreneurial literacy among artists today. Fram’s multifaceted career is an exercise in forecasting trends. Formerly a dancer with the NYC Ballet, Fram studied art at Parsons, founded a fashion design company, became the Trends Editor of Cosmopolitan, obtained an MBA from Columbia University, segued into early Internet enterprises… and eventually arrived in Los Angeles to engage with the city’s emerging art scene. Fram has cultivated a holistic approach to art, deploying business models from the various industries she has worked in. Marrying aesthetics with infrastructure, community with commerce, her approach is unique. Fram speaks candidly about the genesis of her annual MFAs of LA exhibitions, a curatorial endeavor born from her desire to showcase under-recognized artists while removing traditional barriers to entry for collectors. She shares her exhibition experiments in transparency, scale uniformity, collector-artist collaborations and her belief in art’s ability to generate new forms of economic and social engagement. Fram’s insights are consistently bracing, generous, out-of-the-box and solution-oriented. Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of how artists can reclaim agency in the marketplace, why building relationships is central to sustainability, and how Fram herself continues to assist emerging artists on their respective trajectories to success. Through direct mentorship, educating with her strategic marketing workshops, sharing information as a form of gallery-whispering, and many other modes, Fram is always advocating on the artists’ behalf. Topics covered include: The economics of emerging art: why size, pricing and communal experiences matter Institutional resistance to business education in art schools: how Fram works around it Collectors: her plans to ensure new collectors enter the marketplace, offering artists more opportunities for sales; understanding that they are artists’ best supporters and how to build authentic relationships with them; perhaps, finding a different name for “collector” New models and formats: from artists’ managers to new apps and technologies The future: art sales, blockchain royalties, and the power shift away from legacy galleries systems This episode is a masterclass in strategic vision, offered by someone who has not only built a practice around elevating others, but continues to do so with a rare mix of compassion, clarity and enthusiasm. Guest Leslie Fram Follow her on Instagram: @lesfram Host Javier Proenza
Astrology, Embodiment, and the Myth of Power: A Conversation with Alystair Rogers In this episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by artist Alystair Rogers for a searching, radically honest exploration of transformation—personal, political, and astrological. Traversing terrains of gender, spirituality, social critique, and visual language, Rogers shares the deeply embodied trajectory that led to his MFA thesis: an immersive installation confronting capitalism, queerness, and cosmic time. With the insight of a cultural theorist and the intuition of a mystic, Rogers recounts how early encounters with Scott Cunningham’s Solitary Practitioner and a DIY magical practice laid the groundwork for a conceptual framework rooted in astrology, myth, and critique. From testosterone therapy and shifting social legibility, to trans embodiment and the slow violence of neoliberalism, Rogers discusses the pain and revelation of becoming, with humor and precision. Their thesis installation—centered around a reclaimed domestic space lit by planetary lamps and anchored by a satirical infomercial titled Sea World: Spiral 'Til You're Free—is a poetic and confrontational meditation on how billionaires might be coaxed into their own undoing. Through this absurdist yet sincere gesture, Rogers dissects the mythologies of power, proposing alternative logics of time, value, and being. What emerges is a searing, wide-ranging conversation that refuses binaries—between subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and politics, or critique and care. Rogers makes a compelling case for astrology not as superstition, but as an expansive, generational clock—a way to read time not only in hours or revolutions, but in revolts and revelations. Topics discussed include: Trans identity and the phenomenology of transition The astrology of Pluto in Aquarius and its revolutionary implications Queer embodiment and the aesthetics of self-determination The failures of liberal institutions and the weaponization of speech The installation Sea World, capitalist mythology, and speculative resistance This episode offers a rare convergence of the personal and planetary, blending social analysis with an artist’s pursuit of symbolic coherence. Rogers’s work embodies a form of queer speculative myth-making—one that critiques the world as it is while gesturing toward the one that might be. — Guest: Alystair Rogers Instagram: @alystair.rogers Host: Javier Proenza Podcast: What’s My Thesis? Support the show: Patreon.com/whatsmythesis Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify #queerart #transartists #astrologyart #MFAthesis #artandpolitics #plutoinaquarius #socialpractice #whatsmythesis #aly stairrogers #artpodcast #decolonizegender #anti-capitalistart
Building Gene’s Dispensary: Community, Curation, and Creating New Art Spaces in Los Angeles with Keith J Varadi In this wide-ranging conversation on What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist, curator, and writer Keith J. Varadi, founder of Gene’s Dispensary, for an illuminating discussion on forging alternative pathways in the contemporary art world. Through candid reflection, Varadi shares their journey from painting to sound art, music, and ultimately to the establishment of their independent gallery space in Los Angeles—a project that has rapidly become a vibrant hub for creative cross-pollination. Drawing on years of experience as both a practicing artist and an accomplished curator—with writing credits in Carla, Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, and Los Angeles Review of Books—Varadi discusses how health challenges, a deep commitment to community-building, and a rigorous interdisciplinary ethos led to the creation of Gene’s Dispensary. Operating in the heart of Los Angeles at 2007 Wilshire Boulevard, Unit 820, Gene’s Dispensary takes inspiration from DIY spaces, Black Mountain College, and the inclusive spirit of early L.A. dispensary culture. Over the course of the episode, Varadi reflects on studying at Rutgers and Virginia Commonwealth University, their experience living in New York and Pittsburgh, and the evolving sense of belonging they found upon relocating to Los Angeles. Topics explored include the challenges and possibilities of starting an art space without institutional funding, building a collector base from scratch, integrating musicians, comedians, and writers into gallery programming, and the nuances of L.A.'s cultural landscape compared to New York. Highlights include a behind-the-scenes look at Gene’s Dispensary’s chess tournaments, multidisciplinary performances, and the gallery’s mission to dissolve boundaries between visual art and other forms of creative practice. Varadi also offers insight into the gallery’s namesake, paying homage to socialist leader Eugene V. Debs and affirming a commitment to equitable practices within the art market. Whether you are an artist seeking alternative models of sustainability, a curator interested in community engagement, or simply an art lover curious about the dynamic intersections of creativity in Los Angeles, this episode offers a compelling portrait of persistence, generosity, and invention. Visit Gene’s Dispensary: 📍 2707 Wilshire Blvd, Unit 820, Los Angeles, CA 📲 Instagram: @genes_dispensary 🌐 Website: genesdispensary.co
In this intimate conversation hosted at Don’t Look Projects for her solo show By the Company They Keep, the Chenhung Chen traces a path from formative memories of classroom murals in Taiwan to a tactile, spiritually inflected sculptural practice rooted in the poetics of material and memory. Drawing on a lifetime of cross-cultural experience—born in Taiwan, educated in New York at the School of Visual Arts, and now based in California—Chen reflects on the diasporic transformations that shaped her worldview, her practice, and her understanding of artistic responsibility. Over the course of the episode, she speaks candidly about the lasting impact of calligraphy, the subtle power of Taoist and Confucian thought, and the slow labor of crochet and wire weaving as acts of embodied meditation. Her early engagement with Chinese ink painting, which emphasizes the expressive qualities of line and brushstroke, has evolved into three-dimensional constructions made from recycled electrical wires and cables—materials charged both with literal energy and symbolic resonance. The conversation explores the artist’s conceptual relationship to “order and chaos,” how her sculptural forms emerge from stream-of-consciousness gestures, and the intuitive logic behind her use of nontraditional materials. She discusses how her experiences as a medical and legal interpreter have revealed the porous boundaries between cultures and languages, underscoring the interconnectedness of all people. Throughout, she emphasizes the importance of embracing contradiction, translating cultural tension into visual rhythm, and honoring what she describes as “the inner world”—a central tenet of her creative methodology. Themes of hybridity, displacement, and the invisible labor of women recur throughout the dialogue, as the artist describes her attraction to utilitarian crafts like crochet and basketry, her reverence for nature, and her use of everyday materials—paper, staples, hair, and cables—as repositories of lived experience. The result is a body of work that operates like a visual diary: both diaristic and durational, deeply rooted in personal memory and shaped by global histories. From reflections on the Cultural Revolution and Renaissance painting to the pandemic-era shift toward domestic intimacy, this episode offers a nuanced meditation on what it means to make art across geographies, traditions, and states of being. For Chenhung Chen, to create is to process—an act of digestion as much as construction. “Everything I see, I take in,” she says. “And then it comes out.” — Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform. 🔗 www.whatsmythesis.com 📸 Follow on Instagram: @whatsmythesis 🎧 Support the show for early access: patreon.com/whatsmythesis #ChenhungChen #ContemporaryArt #FiberArt #AsianDiaspora #CulturalIdentity #MaterialPractice #TaiwaneseArtist #ArtPodcast #DontLookProjects #ByTheCompanyTheyKeep
This week on What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined in-person by multidisciplinary artist Gerald Collins, whose practice illuminates the intersection of architecture, chromotherapy, and community. Based in Detroit, Collins returns to the show for a candid and expansive conversation that moves through memory, material, and meaning with striking clarity. Spanning topics from childhood sketchbooks to large-scale light installations, this episode traces Collins’s journey from the east side of Detroit to Topanga Canyon and back again—both physically and philosophically. The artist reflects on the deep roots of his creative practice, from early encouragement during “bring your kid to work” days, to being admitted as a first grader into an upperclassmen art program, where he began printmaking and working with chalk pastel on a collegiate level. As Collins explains, his formative artistic influence stemmed from early exposure to Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods, and later, a deep investigation into chromotherapy—a therapeutic practice using color and light to alter spatial perception and emotion. Whether cutting into gallery walls or building immersive environments from scratch, Collins emphasizes the relationship between architectural space, color intensity, and human experience. Highlights from the conversation include: Chromotherapy and Perception: Collins unpacks how intense color fields can cause spatial disorientation, recalling immersive environments where corners of a room seemingly disappear into pure chroma. Material vs. Meaning: A reflection on Rothko, Picasso, and the emotional resonance of limited palettes. Creative Infrastructure in Detroit: Collins offers a powerful account of how mutual aid and collective support within Detroit’s artistic ecosystem has shaped his path. Ikigai and Artistic Labor: The Japanese concept of purpose (Ikigai) as a framework for balancing paid design work and an ambitious artistic practice. Installation as Service: Art-making as a humble, community-centric gesture rather than spectacle—“None of this is really ours,” Collins states, “we’re here to help each other out.” Also explored are Collins’s recent projects, including a large-scale light installation for the College for Creative Studies’ annual fashion show, where he collaborated with a Detroit production company to transform over 6,000 sq ft into a fully immersive environment with coordinated LED and video elements. He also shares insights into transitioning toward more transportable work, including sculpture and print-based media. A resonant thread of the episode is Collins’s embrace of service, humility, and gratitude—an ethos forged through personal adversity and community resilience. He speaks candidly about surviving a childhood brain injury, sidestepping violence growing up in Detroit, and finding purpose through both art and architecture. His presence is grounded yet visionary—a voice shaped as much by the Rust Belt as by the light itself. Listen now to hear how light becomes language, architecture becomes empathy, and Detroit becomes the backdrop for a singularly expansive practice. Learn more about Gerald Collins: 🔗 Instagram: @geraldcollins_ 🌐 Website: geraldcollins.co (site redesign in progress) 📺 YouTube: Search “Gerald Collins artist” to find past talks and documentation Support the show: 💥 Patreon – Early Access + More 📺 Subscribe on YouTube ⭐️ Leave a 5-star review to help the algorithm shine some light on us. #GeraldCollins #LightArt #Chromotherapy #DetroitArtists #ContemporaryArtPodcast #SiteSpecificInstallation #Chroma #WhatsMyThesis #JavierProenza #ArtPodcast #CommunityArt
In this episode of What's My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza is joined by Liz Hirsch, co-director of 839—an artist-run house gallery in Los Angeles that reimagines what a commercial art space can look and feel like. Located in a 1920's bungalow, 839 is part of a growing network of intimate, artist-centered spaces shaping the future of exhibition-making in L.A. With a background in academia, curatorial work, and community organizing, Hirsch discusses the vision behind 839: a space that supports artists through solo shows, long-term relationships, and thoughtful engagement. Many of the gallery's artists-including Olivia Gibian, Andrés Janacua, and Nichelle Dailey-have recently presented solo exhibitions at 839, some for the first time. The episode touches on the realities and freedoms of running a house gallery, the gallery's upcoming presentation at NADA New York, and their limited-edition print series designed to make collecting more accessible. This conversation offers essential insights into how artists and curators are building new models of sustainability, intimacy, and care within a decentralized art world. Explore more: 📍 839 Gallery, Los Angeles 🌐 www.839gallery.com 📸 Instagram: @839gallery
Queer Spectacle, Polaroid Realities, and the Art of Wrestling with Identity with Christopher Anthony Velasco In this illuminating episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza welcomes artist and educator Christopher Anthony Velasco—a polymath of performative personas, analog photography, and speculative queer mythologies. Known for his immersive character work and deep engagement with the aesthetics of subversion, Velasco brings an electrifying mix of vulnerability, irreverence, and narrative dissonance to a conversation that resists containment. Anchored by his long-running alter ego The Doctor, Velasco charts a performative lineage from backyard wrestling and horror cinema to body horror and experimental drag. His work collapses boundaries between art and entertainment, sincerity and satire, fiction and lived experience—what he terms “the art world as a wrestling ring.” Through characters like Krystal Carrington and Doctor Barbie, Velasco reclaims and retools identity through spectacle, queering archetypes from within. This episode explores: The influence of Japanese wrestling and horror film on Velasco’s photographic performance work The metaphysical potential of Polaroids as portals into alternate dimensions Drag as worldbuilding and trauma alchemy Navigating academia as a queer artist of color—from community college through CalArts and UC Santa Barbara Sobriety, creative resilience, and re-emerging with purpose Velasco speaks candidly about substance use, identity crises, and the emotional minefields of higher education, particularly the lack of institutional support for artists of color. Yet, the episode also brims with humor, warmth, and geeky tangents—from Transformers lore to micro machines, Proenza’s Miami coke-snobbery, and the joys of analog photography. This conversation is a living archive: disorganized, alive, and expansive. Like Velasco’s art, it makes space for contradiction, chaos, and camp without apology. Follow Christopher Anthony Velasco on Instagram at @caver83 Check out his podcast with Dakota Noot: Two in the Pinku — a deep dive into queer-coded Japanese cinema and cult classics. Hosted by Javier Proenza 🎙️ What’s My Thesis? is available on all major podcast platforms. 💥 Subscribe on Patreon for early access: patreon.com/whatsmythesis 📸 Follow the show on Instagram @whatsmythesis #ChristopherAnthonyVelasco #QueerArt #PerformanceArt #PolaroidPhotography #AnalogArt #DragArtist #BodyHorror #ArtistInterview #WhatsMyThesis #ArtPodcast #TransformersLore #WrestlingArt #LatinxArtists #CalArts #UCSB #ArtistSobriety #DavidZwirnerStyle #ArtAsSpectacle #CampArt