Tarik Talk

In this episode of Tarik Talk, Tarik speaks with Belgian artist Adrien Lucca, born in Paris and now living and working in Brussels, in his Brussels studio about a practice that sits at the intersection of art, science, light, and color. Adrien explores how non-human beings, particularly the elephant hawk moth, perceive the world, using LEDs, pigments, and coding to translate invisible color spectra into immersive visual experiences for human viewers. He shares his journey from studying art and music to creating large-scale public installations, including a pivotal breakthrough project in 2015 that helped define the direction of his work. The conversation also looks ahead to his upcoming long-term installation at Botanique Brussels, where the building’s lobby will be transformed through programmable, color-shifting light. At the core of Adrien’s practice is a critique of human-centered vision and a deeper reflection on how artificial light impacts insects, plants, and entire ecosystems. Through his work, he invites us to consider the worlds that exist beyond human perception and how art can make the invisible visible.

Deonté Griffin-Quick embodies the powerful intersection of faith, arts, and cultural leadership that defines DGQ Culture. As an actor, revivalist, and nationally recognized arts administrator, he brings a unique vision for how faith-rooted strategy can transform communities and organizations. Through DGQ Culture, Deonté unites his calling and artistic expertise to help faith-rooted creatives and organizations maximize their cultural impact and fulfill their divine purpose. His spiritual journey started early—delivering his first sermon at 12 entitled "G.O.D: God Opens Doors" (Revelation 3:8). This prophetic message foreshadowed his future work bridging spiritual wisdom with cultural innovation. Deonté accepted his call to ministry in 2017 and became a licensed minister. He currently serves at Destiny Living Ministries where he continues to develop his approach to faith-based community engagement and artistic transformation. In the arts and cultural sector, Deonté has established himself as a changemaker at both regional and national levels. As Managing Director of External Affairs at Artist Communities Alliance, he helped shape support systems for creative communities globally. Previously, as Director of Programs and Services at New Jersey Theatre Alliance, he built lasting partnerships, led statewide initiatives, and cultivated 42 professional theatre companies. His commitment to creating pathways for underrepresented voices led him to develop the New Jersey Arts and Culture Administrators of Color Network in 2019. This pioneering initiative demonstrates his ability to identify systemic gaps and create structures that empower others—a cornerstone of DGQ Culture's approach. His achievements have been recognized with the inaugural Individual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Outstanding Achievement in the Arts Award from the Union County Urban League of Young Professionals. Deonté holds a BA in Theatre with a Communications minor from Kean University and a Master's in Arts Administration from Drexel University.

Noah Xifr aka Bird has painted empowering art all his life. "I explore concepts like achieving psychological wellbeing, strength, love, community building, and striving for environmental justice."Born in Madrid, Spain and growing up in the Bronx, NY, this 3rd generation artist started drawing as a child inspired by the city, birds he raised, surreal painters, science fiction, graffiti and comic books. In 5th grade he won a NY Transit Museum poster design contest and went on to earn a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from the Cooper Union School of Art, with a major in Painting and Printmaking. His creative journey has brought him to found the Symbolic Realism arts movement, a home for contemporary surreal conceptual artists.

Caroline Amond is an emerging visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University in 2019 and a MFA in Art from CUNY Brooklyn College in 2024. Caroline has exhibited in an assortment of exhibitions across New York (Powerhouse Arts, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery) and has received multiple awards (Morris Dorsky and Rose Goldstein Memorial Scholarship) for her artistic contributions. Her work was featured on Artnet’s “Best Work of 2024: 11 Standouts We Saw Globally.” Amond’s bold paintings challenge conventional beauty standards and provoke viewers to decode the layered symbolism and iconography imbues within each work. She focuses on allegorical themes and prioritizes the female gaze, while also reflecting on the post-internet culture in which she was raised.

About Stephanie Norberg INSTALLATION: I’m interested in creating environments that reference pop-culture, questions the notions of value of worth, talks about the DIY culture many young artists across the nation are embracing, the relevance of wonder and phenomena while we are existing in an ever increasing digitally-driven world, and the general notion of spirituality and self-identification within the framework of a contemporary culture. Within these environments I create fragments of subcultures spanning time from historical to contemporary movements. These subcultures date back to Native Americans; embracing spirituality, mysticism, and transcendentalism to current movements occurring in music culture such as; trance, electronic, and Witch House. These fragments of already existing subcultures work together to talk about the human condition for the need to identify within a group and are also self-reflexive of my own personal narrative and interests.

Kat Ryals (b. 1988 in Jonesboro, AR) is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator, and photographer. Ryals received a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA & Adv. Certificate in Museum Education from Brooklyn College. She has shown her work nationally, including in a solo booth at SPRING/BREAK Art Show in 2020 and 2022, a collaborative two person show at Elijah Wheat Showroom in 2023, a two person show at Ortega Y Gasset Projects in 2022, and in recent group exhibitions with ChaShaMa, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, and The Wassaic Project. Ryals has also completed several artist residencies, including the Wassaic Project (2017, 2019, 2022), ChaNorth (2019), the Peter Bullough Foundation (2021), and a Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center (2018). Ryals will also be an Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan in 2024. She is also the Co-founder of the online arts platform, PARADICE PALASE, based out of Brooklyn and was recently the Curator of Art for famed nightlife and culture venues House of X at PUBLIC and House of Yes. Ryals' practice is often influenced by her upbringing in Arkansas and the Acadiana region of Louisiana, where her days were spent rummaging through thrift and junk stores, daydreaming in ornate Catholic churches, and roaming unspoiled forests and swamps. Artist StatementRyals’ artist practice examines the internalized power objects and design hold over us, and how mythmaking, ornamentation, and special effects can serve as tools for manipulation. Utilizing the dichotomies of natural/artificial, trash/treasure, sacred/profane, and luxury/kitsch within her work, she emulates material culture artifacts to investigate how value is manufactured. By creating mixed media sculptures, lens-based work, wearable art, and site-specific or immersive installations, she seeks to understand how the cultural currencies of authenticity, taste, and illusion are used to generate an economy of perceived value and hierarchy within our world. Her recent work has been specifically concerned with the relationship between waste and desire. Employing speculative fiction to create specimens and artifacts, she turns our attention to the unbridled mass production and consumption that has led to a culture of casual anthropogenic waste accumulation.

About Jaiquan Fayson: Born, raised, and based in Brooklyn, NY, Jaiquan Fayson is a visual artist whose oil paintings and sketch portraits attempt to establish an empathetic connection to people in his environment. While incarcerated and in solitary confinement as a young adult, Jaiquan used his ability to draw as a means ofself-directed therapy and a tool for introspection. Seeking to break his cycle of recidivism, Jaiquan earned the Silas H Rhodes Scholarship for Artistic and Academic achievement before completing his BFA (2015) in Illustration at The School of Visual Arts. In 2020 Jaiquan participated in HBO’s O.G, an art show commemorating their revolutionary prison film. He was featured in Drawing Freedom, a short documentary released in 2021 about art as a means of therapy, produced by Motto Pictures for the Healthy US Collaborative. Additionally, in 2021 he wasfeatured as a subject in a chapter of Craig Taylor’s book, New Yorkers A City and Its People in Our time, winner of the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. With a desire to be a conducive member of society and hoping to inspire the next generation of artists, Jaiquan is currently employed as a part-timeart educator in the NYC Public School system. In 2023 he completed his MAT at the School of Visual Arts. He also received the Art 4 Justice grant, and he is a 2023 Right of Return Fellow. Jaiquan continues to explore art as a means of learning, expression, and communication. https://www.jaiquanfayson.com

About Tanya Weddemire Gallery: The Tanya Weddemire Gallery is a Brooklyn-based art gallery that thrives from being a vital source and representation of the arts. It's a premier art destination dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging established artists. Its mission is to deepen the value and importance of art by enriching each person's perspective on life explorations through exhibits. The gallery applies thoughtful and intentional curation while integrating cultural and historical connections to all their shows that can include, but are not limited to, paintings, sculptures, drawings, photography, fashion, and furniture. https://tanyaweddemiregallery.org

About Atim Annette Oton: The Creative Side is an innovative art consultancy, and creative design business enterprise founded by Atim Annette Oton, a curator, designer, and enterpreneur, who lives in Jersey City, after moving from Brooklyn, and works in the New York City area. Leadership: Curator, Designer, Editor and Entrepreneur Atim Annette Oton is a Nigerian-born, American and British educated designer. She is the founder of The Creative Side, an innovative business, as well as the director and cuarator at Calabar Gallery since 2016 and was the co-owner of Calabar Imports, a 20 year old Brooklyn retail business. She was the African Art Curator for AMREF Health Africa ARTBALL, Curator and producer for 54 Artists for 54 African Journeys, Curator and producer of Destination Bed Stuy, Organizer of Bed Stuy Arts Stroll and Harlem Arts Stroll, Curator for Mind-Builders Creative Art Center and was the project outreach curator for Bronx:Africa exhibition at the Bronx Council on the Arts. She co-founded of Black Design News Network and was a Huffington Post Black Voices Blogger who created the series, The Pulse of Africa where she wrote about Global Africans working in Africa and across the Diaspora and has an inside view on Africa’s progress, issues on arts and culture, technology and opportunities. She spent her formative years in Calabar, Nigeria and studied architecture at the City College of New York and did graduate studies at the Architectural Association Graduate School in London, England. In New York, she worked in architecture and by 2000, was part of the design team that won the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center. She worked as an executive producer on the Underground Railroad Experience, a cultural education website on the Underground Railroad and won an Independent Grant from the NYSCA for her work, the Black Hair Salon. A founder of Blacklines Magazine, a quarterly magazine featuring black designers, she served as its executive vice president before joining Parsons School of Design as the Associate Chair of Product Design for 6 years. In 2006 she launched Calabar Magazine as a brand extension of her store Calabar Imports in Brooklyn. After creating Calabar Imports in 2004, she has expanded the store to 3 store neighborhood locations in Brooklyn (Crown Heights, Bed Stuy and Harlem). As founder of the Creative Side, she selects projects that are about art, community and artists.

Born, raised, and based in Brooklyn, NY, Jaiquan Fayson is a visual artist whose oil paintings and sketch portraits attempt to establish an empathetic connection to people in his environment. While incarcerated and in solitary confinement as a young adult, Jaiquan used his ability to draw as a means ofself-directed therapy and a tool for introspection. Seeking to break his cycle of recidivism, Jaiquan earned the Silas H Rhodes Scholarship for Artistic and Academic achievement before completing his BFA (2015) in Illustration at The School of Visual Arts. In 2020 Jaiquan participated in HBO’s O.G, an art show commemorating their revolutionary prison film. He was featured in Drawing Freedom, a short documentary released in 2021 about art as a means of therapy, produced by Motto Pictures for the Healthy US Collaborative. Additionally, in 2021 he wasfeatured as a subject in a chapter of Craig Taylor’s book, New Yorkers A City and Its People in Our time, winner of the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. With a desire to be a conducive member of society and hoping to inspire the next generation of artists, Jaiquan is currently employed as a part-timeart educator in the NYC Public School system. In 2023 he completed his MAT at the School of Visual Arts. He also received the Art 4 Justice grant, and he is a 2023 Right of Return Fellow. Jaiquan continues to explore art as a means of learning, expression, and communication. https://www.jaiquanfayson.com

Born, raised, and based in Brooklyn, NY, Jaiquan Fayson is a visual artist whose oil paintings and sketch portraits attempt to establish an empathetic connection to people in his environment. While incarcerated and in solitary confinement as a young adult, Jaiquan used his ability to draw as a means ofself-directed therapy and a tool for introspection. Seeking to break his cycle of recidivism, Jaiquan earned the Silas H Rhodes Scholarship for Artistic and Academic achievement before completing his BFA (2015) in Illustration at The School of Visual Arts. In 2020 Jaiquan participated in HBO’s O.G, an art show commemorating their revolutionary prison film. He was featured in Drawing Freedom, a short documentary released in 2021 about art as a means of therapy, produced by Motto Pictures for the Healthy US Collaborative. Additionally, in 2021 he wasfeatured as a subject in a chapter of Craig Taylor’s book, New Yorkers A City and Its People in Our time, winner of the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. With a desire to be a conducive member of society and hoping to inspire the next generation of artists, Jaiquan is currently employed as a part-timeart educator in the NYC Public School system. In 2023 he completed his MAT at the School of Visual Arts. He also received the Art 4 Justice grant, and he is a 2023 Right of Return Fellow. Jaiquan continues to explore art as a means of learning, expression, and communication. https://www.jaiquanfayson.com

Kat Ryals (b. 1988 in Jonesboro, AR) is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator, and photographer. Ryals received a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA & Adv. Certificate in Museum Education from Brooklyn College. She has shown her work nationally, including in a solo booth at SPRING/BREAK Art Show in 2020 and 2022, a collaborative two person show at Elijah Wheat Showroom in 2023, a two person show at Ortega Y Gasset Projects in 2022, and in recent group exhibitions with ChaShaMa, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, and The Wassaic Project. Ryals has also completed several artist residencies, including the Wassaic Project (2017, 2019, 2022), ChaNorth (2019), the Peter Bullough Foundation (2021), and a Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center (2018). Ryals will also be an Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan in 2024. She is also the Co-founder of the online arts platform, PARADICE PALASE, based out of Brooklyn and was recently the Curator of Art for famed nightlife and culture venues House of X at PUBLIC and House of Yes. Ryals' practice is often influenced by her upbringing in Arkansas and the Acadiana region of Louisiana, where her days were spent rummaging through thrift and junk stores, daydreaming in ornate Catholic churches, and roaming unspoiled forests and swamps. Artist StatementRyals’ artist practice examines the internalized power objects and design hold over us, and how mythmaking, ornamentation, and special effects can serve as tools for manipulation. Utilizing the dichotomies of natural/artificial, trash/treasure, sacred/profane, and luxury/kitsch within her work, she emulates material culture artifacts to investigate how value is manufactured. By creating mixed media sculptures, lens-based work, wearable art, and site-specific or immersive installations, she seeks to understand how the cultural currencies of authenticity, taste, and illusion are used to generate an economy of perceived value and hierarchy within our world. Her recent work has been specifically concerned with the relationship between waste and desire. Employing speculative fiction to create specimens and artifacts, she turns our attention to the unbridled mass production and consumption that has led to a culture of casual anthropogenic waste accumulation. ________ Brazilian artist, Tarik Mendes hosts Tarik Talk, a podcast committed to the art world. Listen in to unique interviews with talented guests artists, dealers, curators and more. At times with other talented guests from the music, acting, journalism industries. Find out the magic of art and its way of connecting us all! Check out @tariktalk for images of the guests and their works from each episode. Also follow @tarikmendes for his latest adventures! @tariktalk @tarikmendes Podcast available on all streaming platforms! Download today! @tariktalk @tarikmendes

Caroline Amond is an emerging visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University in 2019 and a MFA in Art from CUNY Brooklyn College in 2024. Caroline has exhibited in an assortment of exhibitions across New York (Powerhouse Arts, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery) and has received multiple awards (Morris Dorsky and Rose Goldstein Memorial Scholarship) for her artistic contributions. Her work was featured on Artnet’s “Best Work of 2024: 11 Standouts We Saw Globally.” Amond’s bold paintings challenge conventional beauty standards and provoke viewers to decode the layered symbolism and iconography imbues within each work. She focuses on allegorical themes and prioritizes the female gaze, while also reflecting on the post-internet culture in which she was raised.StatementMy paintings reimagine the historical tradition of the Venus figure through a contemporary lens. I coin the figures in my work “Oppositional Venuses”, reclaiming agency in a visual lineage where they were often rendered passive and ornamental. My work explores how the female experience is shaped and distorted through post-internet culture. I’m particularly interested in how digital spaces, especially image-based platforms, affect how femininity is constructed, performed, and consumed. Through painting, I examine the tension between hyper-visibility and objectification, self-display and self-possession. Drawing from art history, online aesthetics, and symbolic language, my paintings collapse flattened space with dense visual references, creating a surface that mirrors the saturated, disorienting quality of digital life. These works serve as a site for questioning beauty, power, and agency in an image-obsessed culture.

About Stephanie Norberg INSTALLATION: I’m interested in creating environments that reference pop-culture, questions the notions of value of worth, talks about the DIY culture many young artists across the nation are embracing, the relevance of wonder and phenomena while we are existing in an ever increasing digitally-driven world, and the general notion of spirituality and self-identification within the framework of a contemporary culture. Within these environments I create fragments of subcultures spanning time from historical to contemporary movements. These subcultures date back to Native Americans; embracing spirituality, mysticism, and transcendentalism to current movements occurring in music culture such as; trance, electronic, and Witch House. These fragments of already existing subcultures work together to talk about the human condition for the need to identify within a group and are also self-reflexive of my own personal narrative and interests.

Spring Break Art Show NYC Bianca J Abdi-Boragi, Laurie Berg, Christl Stringer & Adam Hersko-RonatasSPRING/BREAK Art Show is an internationally recognized exhibition platform using underused, atypical, and historic New York City and Los Angeles exhibition spaces to activate and challenge the traditional cultural landscape of the art market, typically but not exclusively during Armory Arts Week New York and Frieze Week LA. The 14th Edition of SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York City and 6th Edition of SPRING/BREAK LA will both premiere in 2025.

Deonté Griffin-Quick embodies the powerful intersection of faith, arts, and cultural leadership that defines DGQ Culture. As an actor, revivalist, and nationally recognized arts administrator, he brings a unique vision for how faith-rooted strategy can transform communities and organizations. Through DGQ Culture, Deonté unites his calling and artistic expertise to help faith-rooted creatives and organizations maximize their cultural impact and fulfill their divine purpose.His spiritual journey started early—delivering his first sermon at 12 entitled "G.O.D: God Opens Doors" (Revelation 3:8). This prophetic message foreshadowed his future work bridging spiritual wisdom with cultural innovation. Deonté accepted his call to ministry in 2017 and became a licensed minister. He currently serves at Destiny Living Ministries where he continues to develop his approach to faith-based community engagement and artistic transformation.In the arts and cultural sector, Deonté has established himself as a changemaker at both regional and national levels. As Managing Director of External Affairs at Artist Communities Alliance, he helped shape support systems for creative communities globally. Previously, as Director of Programs and Services at New Jersey Theatre Alliance, he built lasting partnerships, led statewide initiatives, and cultivated 42 professional theatre companies.His commitment to creating pathways for underrepresented voices led him to develop the New Jersey Arts and Culture Administrators of Color Network in 2019. This pioneering initiative demonstrates his ability to identify systemic gaps and create structures that empower others—a cornerstone of DGQ Culture's approach.His achievements have been recognized with the inaugural Individual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Outstanding Achievement in the Arts Award from the Union County Urban League of Young Professionals. Deonté holds a BA in Theatre with a Communications minor from Kean University and a Master's in Arts Administration from Drexel University.

Noah Xifr aka Bird has painted empowering art all his life. "I explore concepts like achieving psychological wellbeing, strength, love, community building, and striving for environmental justice."Born in Madrid, Spain and growing up in the Bronx, NY, this 3rd generation artist started drawing as a child inspired by the city, birds he raised, surreal painters, science fiction, graffiti and comic books. In 5th grade he won a NY Transit Museum poster design contest and went on to earn a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from the Cooper Union School of Art, with a major in Painting and Printmaking. His creative journey has brought him to found the Symbolic Realism arts movement, a home for contemporary surreal conceptual artists.

Supermrin is a sculptor and installation artist who combines foraged trees with a grass-derived bioplastic of her own invention. Grounded in biophilosophy, decolonial theory, architecture, material science, and speculative fiction, her research-driven practice interrogates capitalist and colonial logics inscribed in the global lawn. This long-term body of work, FIELD, was profiled in Towards Another Architecture: New Visions for the 21st Century (Lund Humphries, 2024), a critical reappraisal of Le Corbusier’s legacy in the Global South amid climate crises.Supermrin’s projects have been presented internationally at Art Commission Galleries, San Francisco; Untitled Art Fair (Special Projects), Miami; Studio 9D, New York; lower_cavity, Holyoke; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Italian Virtual Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale; Château de Vaudijon, Switzerland; and Tactile Bosch, Wales. Recent curated exhibitions include “Rodin Response: FIELD—Family Secrets” (Cincinnati Art Museum, curated by Dr. Peter Bell) and “Aliens: Colonial Narratives through Plant Migration and Bio-Art” (PS122 Gallery, New York, curated by Isabella Indolfi).Her honors include grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Franklin Furnace Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council. She is Area Head of Interdisciplinary Practice at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Art, an artist-in-residence at Silver Art Projects in the World Trade Center, and a research fellow at Genspace, Brooklyn.

Supermrin is a sculptor and installation artist who combines foraged trees with a grass-derived bioplastic of her own invention. Grounded in biophilosophy, decolonial theory, architecture, material science, and speculative fiction, her research-driven practice interrogates capitalist and colonial logics inscribed in the global lawn. This long-term body of work, FIELD, was profiled in Towards Another Architecture: New Visions for the 21st Century (Lund Humphries, 2024), a critical reappraisal of Le Corbusier’s legacy in the Global South amid climate crises.Supermrin’s projects have been presented internationally at Art Commission Galleries, San Francisco; Untitled Art Fair (Special Projects), Miami; Studio 9D, New York; lower_cavity, Holyoke; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Italian Virtual Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale; Château de Vaudijon, Switzerland; and Tactile Bosch, Wales. Recent curated exhibitions include “Rodin Response: FIELD—Family Secrets” (Cincinnati Art Museum, curated by Dr. Peter Bell) and “Aliens: Colonial Narratives through Plant Migration and Bio-Art” (PS122 Gallery, New York, curated by Isabella Indolfi).Her honors include grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Franklin Furnace Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council. She is Area Head of Interdisciplinary Practice at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Art, an artist-in-residence at Silver Art Projects in the World Trade Center, and a research fellow at Genspace, Brooklyn.

Kat Ryals (b. 1988 in Jonesboro, AR) is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator, and photographer. Ryals received a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA & Adv. Certificate in Museum Education from Brooklyn College. She has shown her work nationally, including in a solo booth at SPRING/BREAK Art Show in 2020 and 2022, a collaborative two person show at Elijah Wheat Showroom in 2023, a two person show at Ortega Y Gasset Projects in 2022, and in recent group exhibitions with ChaShaMa, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, and The Wassaic Project. Ryals has also completed several artist residencies, including the Wassaic Project (2017, 2019, 2022), ChaNorth (2019), the Peter Bullough Foundation (2021), and a Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center (2018). Ryals will also be an Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan in 2024. She is also the Co-founder of the online arts platform, PARADICE PALASE, based out of Brooklyn and was recently the Curator of Art for famed nightlife and culture venues House of X at PUBLIC and House of Yes. Ryals' practice is often influenced by her upbringing in Arkansas and the Acadiana region of Louisiana, where her days were spent rummaging through thrift and junk stores, daydreaming in ornate Catholic churches, and roaming unspoiled forests and swamps.

Deonté Griffin-Quick embodies the powerful intersection of faith, arts, and cultural leadership that defines DGQ Culture. As an actor, revivalist, and nationally recognized arts administrator, he brings a unique vision for how faith-rooted strategy can transform communities and organizations. Through DGQ Culture, Deonté unites his calling and artistic expertise to help faith-rooted creatives and organizations maximize their cultural impact and fulfill their divine purpose.His spiritual journey started early—delivering his first sermon at 12 entitled "G.O.D: God Opens Doors" (Revelation 3:8). This prophetic message foreshadowed his future work bridging spiritual wisdom with cultural innovation. Deonté accepted his call to ministry in 2017 and became a licensed minister. He currently serves at Destiny Living Ministries where he continues to develop his approach to faith-based community engagement and artistic transformation.In the arts and cultural sector, Deonté has established himself as a changemaker at both regional and national levels. As Managing Director of External Affairs at Artist Communities Alliance, he helped shape support systems for creative communities globally. Previously, as Director of Programs and Services at New Jersey Theatre Alliance, he built lasting partnerships, led statewide initiatives, and cultivated 42 professional theatre companies.His commitment to creating pathways for underrepresented voices led him to develop the New Jersey Arts and Culture Administrators of Color Network in 2019. This pioneering initiative demonstrates his ability to identify systemic gaps and create structures that empower others—a cornerstone of DGQ Culture's approach.His achievements have been recognized with the inaugural Individual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Outstanding Achievement in the Arts Award from the Union County Urban League of Young Professionals. Deonté holds a BA in Theatre with a Communications minor from Kean University and a Master's in Arts Administration from Drexel University.

Jay Golding is an Indigenous artist based in Essex County, NJ. Jay’s work focuses primarily on realistic portraits/figures, and abstracted forms/shapes in various mediums such as watercolor, gouache, acrylic, oil, pen and pencil. Golding’s pieces tell vivid imaginings that are inspired from his thoughts, environment, world culture, African heritage and nature. The artist’s main objective through his work is to inspire the viewer with each unique subject presented.

About LEONARD GABRIEL:Leonard Gabriel's art is immersed in the essence of human emotion through body language. This exploration has been shaped by his training at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Kolbermoor and his residency at Mana Contemporary in New York City. His figurative approach transcends the merely representative and instead seeks to communicate emotions beyond realistic details. In his exhibitions, from the Paris Art Fair to the galleries of Madrid and San Miguel de Allende, Leonard Gabriel captivates the viewer with works that capture intimate moments. In his most recent work, a woman immersed in reading becomes the canvas of emotion. Barely tracing the contours of her fingers, he subtly suggests a gesture that reveals more than what is seen, immersing the observer in an inner world where stillness becomes an expression of emotional depth. Leonard Gabriel blurs the boundaries between the tangible and the abstract, inviting the viewer to explore the complexity of the human experience through his brushstrokes full of meaning.

About Louise Deininger:As an African conceptual artist, author and leadership coach, my art practice explores decolonial reclamation and ancestral memory. My art is gaining recognition for its bold materiality and critical voice. As it travels through exhibitions and conversations globally, it shapes space for African narratives, challenging colonial legacies while nurturing dialogue around identity, ecology, and cultural healing in Contemporary Art circles.

In this episode, I sit down with Tanya Weddemire, founder of the Tanya Weddemire Gallery in Brooklyn. A premier destination for contemporary art that celebrates both emerging and established artists. We talk about how her gallery serves as a vital space for creative expression and cultural connection, using thoughtful curation to weave history, identity, and artistry together across diverse mediums, from painting and sculpture to photography, fashion, and design. Tanya shares her vision for deepening the value of art and inspiring new perspectives through every exhibition.

In this episode, I sit down with Brooklyn-based visual artist Jaiquan Fayson during his Silver Art Projects Residency at the World Trade Center in NYC.Jaiquan Fayson whose powerful oil paintings and sketches reflect empathy, resilience, and transformation. Jaiquan discovered art as a form of self-therapy and reflection while incarcerated, later breaking the cycle of recidivism to earn the Silas H. Rhodes Scholarship and a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been featured in HBO’s O.G., the documentary Drawing Freedom, and Craig Taylor’s book New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time. Now an art educator and Right of Return Fellow, Jaiquan uses his art to inspire and uplift others, continuing his journey of creativity, healing, and purpose.

In this episode, I sit down with Brooklyn-based visual artist Jaiquan Fayson during his Silver Art Projects Residency at the World Trade Center in NYC.Jaiquan Fayson whose powerful oil paintings and sketches reflect empathy, resilience, and transformation. Jaiquan discovered art as a form of self-therapy and reflection while incarcerated, later breaking the cycle of recidivism to earn the Silas H. Rhodes Scholarship and a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been featured in HBO’s O.G., the documentary Drawing Freedom, and Craig Taylor’s book New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time. Now an art educator and Right of Return Fellow, Jaiquan uses his art to inspire and uplift others, continuing his journey of creativity, healing, and purpose.

In this episode, I sit down with Brooklyn-based visual artist Jaiquan Fayson during his Silver Art Projects Residency at the World Trade Center in NYC.Jaiquan Fayson whose powerful oil paintings and sketches reflect empathy, resilience, and transformation. Jaiquan discovered art as a form of self-therapy and reflection while incarcerated, later breaking the cycle of recidivism to earn the Silas H. Rhodes Scholarship and a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been featured in HBO’s O.G., the documentary Drawing Freedom, and Craig Taylor’s book New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time. Now an art educator and Right of Return Fellow, Jaiquan uses his art to inspire and uplift others, continuing his journey of creativity, healing, and purpose.

In this episode, I sit down with Brooklyn-based visual artist Jaiquan Fayson during his Silver Art Projects Residency at the World Trade Center in NYC.Jaiquan Fayson whose powerful oil paintings and sketches reflect empathy, resilience, and transformation. Jaiquan discovered art as a form of self-therapy and reflection while incarcerated, later breaking the cycle of recidivism to earn the Silas H. Rhodes Scholarship and a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been featured in HBO’s O.G., the documentary Drawing Freedom, and Craig Taylor’s book New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time. Now an art educator and Right of Return Fellow, Jaiquan uses his art to inspire and uplift others, continuing his journey of creativity, healing, and purpose.

In this episode, I sit down with Atim Annette Oton, a Nigerian-born, American and British educated curator, designer, editor, and entrepreneur who founded The Creative Side, an innovative art consultancy and creative design business based in Jersey City. With an impressive career spanning architecture, curation, publishing, and community building, Atim has led initiatives such as the African Art Curator for AMREF Health Africa ARTBALL, 54 Artists for 54 African Journeys, Bed Stuy and Harlem Arts Strolls, and the Bronx:Africa exhibition. She is also the founder and curator of Calabar Gallery and co-founder of Black Design News Network, with past roles including executive producer on the Underground Railroad Experience, Huffington Post Black Voices blogger, and Associate Chair of Product Design at Parsons School of Design. Having expanded Calabar Imports into a three-location Brooklyn retail staple, Atim continues to shape cultural conversations through projects rooted in art, community, and global perspectives

About Christl Stringer: Christl Stringer is a Black surrealist figurative painter, writer, and filmmaker whose work has been shown at Shockboxx Projects, Latela Curatorial, Hot Bed Gallery, Maake Projects Gallery, Piano Craft Gallery, and Philly Art Collective. She explores the interiority of Black womanhood and childhood experiences. Her films and scripts have been accepted into NFFTY, Thuh Film Festival, New Haven International Film Festival, and Another Hole In The Head Film Festival. Instagram: @christlstringer About Adam Hersko-RonaTas: In addition to fostering the creative pursuits of fellow up-and-coming artists, I’ve collaborated with many people as a director, cinematographer, actor, animator, and editor to create works that bridge various media forms. These projects range from dramatic narratives to sketch comedies, educational PSAs to environmental documentaries, stop-motion to hand-drawn animations, virtual reality installations to music videos. Some of these have earned global festival recognition and awards over the years. I’m interested in how we perceive our shared world with its infinite plurality and how various media best equip us to sift through little bits of that chaos. I have a deep love of science; however, art – and film specifically – can often be the most compelling and accessible means for us to interpret the state of humanity and our role within Nature. Where are we, how did we get here, and where are we heading? Instagram: @adamhrrr

Laurie Berg (b. 1980, works and lives in New York City) is a dancer, performer, collagist, and jewelry maker. Her projects have appeared at The Kitchen, WeisAcres, BAX, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dixon Place, Beach Sessions Dance Series, Astor Alive! Festival, The Invisible Dog Art Center as part of The Joyce Theater’s Unleashed Series, The Whitney Museum, The Mattatuck Museum of Art (CT), Catch, Avant-Garde-Arama, WiM at the TBG Theater, Pieter PASD (CA), Roulette Intermedium, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Food for Thought, Danspace Project’s Food for Thought and DraftWork series, and at Danspace Project as part of PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness – Rhythm and Humor, FACADE/FASAD, 303 Gallery, ICMC at Stony Brook University, the TANK, draftwork, and AUNTS among others.

Bianca Abdi-Boragi works across media using sculpture, video, installation, and painting to enact representations of self and others, often using found materials and landscapes as receptacles to address different states of being, with a specific focus on alienation and territory. Tending towards the absurd though with care and respect, her works respond to the contemporary political and social environment in the United States, France, and Algeria, engaging with themes of gender, subsistence, and migration while linking this moment to the historical repercussions of post-colonialism. Bianca Abdi-Boragi is a French-Berber/ American interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Paris, France, who received her BFA from ENSAPC (Paris) and her MFA from Yale School of Art, Sculpture in 2017. Abdi-Boragi has been living in New York since 2010. Recently in residency at Pioneer Works her shows have been featured on Hyperallergic, Artnet, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Solo exhibitions include the Border Project Space Gallery and CADAF Art Fair, she has exhibited with GHOSTMACHINE, Central Part Tower's Penthouse, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, the Flux Factory, Heaven Gallery Chicago, the Immigrant Artist Biennial, NARS Foundation, The Border Project Space, VCU Arts, NURTUREart Gallery, Chashama Gallery, Field Project Gallery, Galerie Protégé, The Clemente Soto Velez Center NY, throughout the United States and internationally and has screened art films at Anthology Film Archive, UnionDocs, Video Revival, NY, the Whitney Humanity Center, and Loria Center, New Haven, CT. Abdi-Boragi was the recipient of the JUNCTURE Fellowship in Art and International Human Rights from the Yale Law School and was recently in residency at NARS Foundation and previously at MASS MoCA's studios, the Centquatre, Paris, France, Pact Zollverein, Essen, Germany, CalArts, Los Angeles. ​ Instagram @biancaabdiboragi

About James Rose: I have made work to identify people in power responsible for social injustice. Their social, environmental and financial crimes are excused by our system of free market capitalism. Since the 1980s, free market has been purposely and wrongfully conflated with freedom. I made a body of work which includes politicians, fossil fuel executives and Wall Street bankers. I started to think about what I can directly do something about. I live in Bay Ridge, with views of the Verrazano Narrows and NYC Harbor. Neighborhoods like mine are the last stop for plastic waste before it ends up in the ocean. I started to make paintings about the pollution that I can go out and clean up. I want others to see what I see and feel what I feel. A plastic bag floating down the road or a straw sitting in the drainage grate is on its way to the ocean unless I stop it. When I walk by it and don’t do anything, I feel complicit. For most of my career my paintings have been urban. I see something that makes me feel a certain way and I try and convey that with paint or charcoal. I have always been fascinated by public transportation and the systems that move people around a city. I still make paintings of people in cities, but in 2019, I began painting trees in forests. Like the city, the forests make me feel a certain way. This feeling is always good. The fresh air, rocky trails and lush green reduces my stress and increases my mood. The forests are what will save the people I paint from all the other injustices I make work about.

Megan Olson has been making art since childhood. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the world, most notably in New York, Berlin, and Seoul.

Avani R Patel -Born in Mumbai 1976, India, Avani Patel was immigrated to Pennsylvania with her family at 11 years old. She holds a BA from the Penn State University and an MFA from Tyler School of Arts (Temple University). Her cultural background has had a profound impact on the forging of her identity as an artist. As a young girl living in India, she fell in love with the patterns of dresses, exotic colors, the sound of music, as well as the spectacle of both theatre and cinema. They were all fluidly interconnected, effectively symbolizing the rhythm of daily life. Indian culture is the starting point of her work. The range of Indian culture expressed through film, theatre, music, and performance are all sources of artistic inspiration for her. Even though from far away from home, she continue to explore the boundaries between Eastern and Western cultural influences.

Ooh Baby By Anika started in 2018, with two racks of hand painted clothes and a weekend street market. After following my intuition and dropping out of college to pursue this dream of creating art, I taught myself how to sew through friends' help and youtube “university” haha. ;) My goal with Ooh Baby was to create pieces that start conversations, encourage others to express themselves, and bring more unique garments to market. After almost 7 years, Ooh Baby has organically grown into a company that has served tens of thousands and is on the path to grow larger every year.

Diane was an avid competitor in the sport of eventing, an olympic equestrian sport. She represented the United States in the North American Young Rider Championships in 2013 and 2015 bringing home team gold and individual gold. In early 2016, she had her sights set on qualifying for the Rio Olympics. Unfortunately, not far into the season a horse fell on top of her, completely severing her hip flexor causing extensive nerve damage. This injury ended her competitive eventing career. Unable to do anything physically active during her recovery, she turned to the canvas. Many of Diane's works feature a theme of growth and decay, a balance of hope and cynicism representing the struggles she faced as she moved on with her life in the wake of the injury. Since she began selling her paintings in late 2016, her work has been featured in many galleries throughout Florida. Her sales mostly consisted of commissions, but in a very short time her work is sweeping through the South Florida urban contemporary art scene.

Zeljka Paic was born in 1987 in Prijedor, former Yugoslavia. She is a graduate of both the Academy of Fine Arts (2015) and Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering (2011). Zeljka Paic has garnered multiple accolades including the award from the Association of Innovators of the Republic of Srpska for her contribution to the innovative approach to art, in 2024. As an artist and architect, Zeljka Paic combines her two professions to create an original style of painting: imagination, fused with knowledge of geometry, composition, and color harmony, are the foundational principles of her art. Since 2017 she has exhibited her paintings internationally, first showing her architecture-inspired paintings and then sculptures from the Art Beyond Frames Series. Her work has been exhibited as far and wide as New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Venice, and London. She was featured in The Guardian’s Future of Art – in Pictures article and picked as one of the top 5 artists by Art Aesthetics Magazine for The Other Art Fair in London in 2017. Her artworks are collected in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, etc.

Lauren Bencivengo is an Encinitas, CA - based painter and interior designer. After receiving a BFA in Interior Design from Miami University of Ohio, Lauren started her career as a Commercial Interior Designer in San Diego, CA. In 2018 Lauren established her art studio, Carmela Designs, to further express her passion and deepen her skills as an artist. She primarily works with Acrylic and Gouache, and is heavily influenced by design, nature, and everyday moments.

Yin Ming Artist Statement:I paint to explore the struggle for language fluency and conversation in the perpetual experience of code switching. My work focuses on nostalgia, displacement, and the shortcomings of words.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

The Other Art Fair—the definitive place to meet, discover, and collect work from cutting-edge local and independent artists before anyone else. Held in some of the world’s most vibrant cultural hubs, each edition of the Fair presents more than 120 artists carefully chosen by a selection committee of art experts, and aims to create an accessible, inclusive, and interactive experience.

The Other Art Fair—the definitive place to meet, discover, and collect work from cutting-edge local and independent artists before anyone else. Held in some of the world’s most vibrant cultural hubs, each edition of the Fair presents more than 120 artists carefully chosen by a selection committee of art experts, and aims to create an accessible, inclusive, and interactive experience.

The Other Art Fair—the definitive place to meet, discover, and collect work from cutting-edge local and independent artists before anyone else. Held in some of the world’s most vibrant cultural hubs, each edition of the Fair presents more than 120 artists carefully chosen by a selection committee of art experts, and aims to create an accessible, inclusive, and interactive experience.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Chashama Open Art Studios Brooklyn, NYCIn a partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Chashama provides 93 visual artist studios in two buildings, BAT-A & BAT-B, within the stunning, historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.