Summer 2025 Artist Mini-Interviews
To give artists a chance to talk more about their process and craft, or just to give us a little more insight into their piece, we provided them with a list of questions from which they could pick one to answer. We hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain!
Rollin Jewett
Q: How did you land on the title for this piece (Harpies)?
A: The title comes from the Greek mythological creature, the Harpy. I was thinking that because of the smoky reddish-orange background, the birds look like they're almost ascending from hell and I picture harpies, which in Greek mythology are typically rendered as ugly ravenous creatures with a bird-like body and a female head, as coming from the far reaches of the underworld to snatch people or their souls to devour them.
Jennifer Lamb
Q: What’s something you’ve read lately that you really loved/found inspiring?
A: Reading has always been my first love, and I'm continually looking for something new to read. I've also been trying to expand my genre and style, and this year I've been delving into poetry and classics. But Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" I found put into words many things I needed to hear and took advice and comfort from. Rilke emphasizes the importance of observation in the mundane and the grand, as well as learning from others' works but maintaining independence in your work. He also speaks to the ways that solitude can be both a benefit and dread, and that moments of grief and sadness should be lived in just as much as happiness, but also reminds the reader that they will pass. As someone in my early twenties, it was reassuring to know that someone over 100 years ago was struggling with the same fears and hopes in a changing world, and to have someone act as a mentor and friend to offer their insight not only into their art, but also their life.
Lindsay Liang
Q: How did this piece begin? What was its seed idea?
A: In Queencard, a newly empowered figure handles the skull of another, calling the extracted fluid “purification,” unaware that her own cerebrospinal fluid is leaking in equal measure. Every act of control is part of an unspoken exchange, and she is trapped in the symmetry. I aim to present a shell of sovereignty on the verge of collapse, a form of control that is dull, fragile, and echoing with delay. My concept begins with the earliest recognition of sculpture as a residue of worship. In the Paleolithic Chauvet Cave in France, a bear skull was placed at the center of a fallen rock. It once breathed; now it signifies only weight, a sealed trace left behind by structure after life has withdrawn. The act of veneration did not stem from reverence, but from the effort to preserve the echo of what still remains. Bone precedes language, outlives flesh, and becomes the last physical fulcrum of power. This is the beginning of sculpture: the organization of remnants into order, the prolongation of rule through structure—regardless of whether life endures. My work presents the residue of an image of worship, a hollow form born of the fusion between royal power and sculpture. A shape left behind after the over-execution of authority. Though it has ceased to function, its echo persists. The gestures, the inertial movements, the fluids, bones, fire, and organs—these become the mimetic gestures through which power continues. It no longer dominates, yet still oppresses. Violence is not “represented” here; it is translated into a sustained state of pressure.
Subarna Talukder Bose
Q: How did this piece begin? What was its seed idea?
A: This piece began from random experimentation with photographs of women and their bodies. As I was combining images for unexpected chances and territories, I was struck by the aesthetics of representation that challenged conventional modes of beauty and body. The seed idea came from wanting to push the barrier of figurative representation in art and media that both celebrates and obscures the female body. My paintings became a process to test the limits of how to depict a female body through visual medium.
Brooke Walker
Q: What’s a helpful art tip you follow?
A: One of the most helpful art tips I follow is that you must create because you love the act of creating. Not because you seek monetary success, status, or accolades. Not because you want to see a perfect product. Not to prove yourself to anyone else. An art practice that runs on praise is a practice running on fumes. I think that goes for anything, really. We have to live our lives for the sake of living, and not to become a finished product or meet others’ standards. We sustain ourselves best by finding value in the everyday. I find peace in meticulous detailing, joy in using vibrant color, and healing in my compositions. I understand myself more deeply when I pay attention to the many small choices that make up a whole artwork. Even if I don’t particularly like the piece in the end, the journey is always worth it.
Milena Makani
Q: What's something you've read lately that you really loved/found inspiring?
A: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith completely changed how I think about intelligence and life itself. The creature at the center of the book is the octopus and with their three hearts, blue blood and the intelligence level of a three-year-old human toddler, it’s hard to overstate how alien these animals are. They're masters of shape-shifting in both color and texture, despite being colorblind and have the unique ability to edit their own RNA. That means they can essentially rewrite the way their genes are expressed - on the fly and on a massive scale - whenever their environment requires it. Why wait around for evolution?! Their nervous systems are also radically different: about two-thirds of their neurons are in their arms, not their heads, so each arm can think for itself.
Humans and octopuses last shared a common ancestor (some form of flatworm) roughly 600 million years ago, yet they've evolved complex intelligence along completely separate paths. Reading about them is like peering into an alternate evolutionary reality. The octopus isn’t just smart - it’s a reminder that the boundaries of cognition and life are far broader than we imagine. A real-life alien, right here on Earth.