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Paul is an electronic media artist working with computers, cameras, televisions, scanners and more. He seems to have empathy for the often slightly outdated technology he tinkers with, mapping emotional and cerebral processes onto them. He is also an abstract oil painter who paints on scanner beds rather than canvas. These paintings are always erased to make way for a new painting, but they live on as moments captured by the programmed eye of the scanner. Sometimes these digital images are printed out, and other times they are displayed on the backlit surface of a deconstructed flat screen television. In this episode Paul and I discuss his unusual process and the ideas behind his work. For more images of the artist’s work, visit https://paultheriault.net/

Gerald is an artist working in painting, assemblage and installation art. His most recent work delves into his time deployed in Iraq by the United States Army. Much of his work seeks to complicate society’s oversimplified understanding of soldiers and the occupied people of Iraq. Through his paintings he investigates and questions the way in which western art and media depict and have depicted people and places in the middle east. He also explores the United States’ chaotic diplomatic mismanagement of Iraq during the war. In this interview, we discuss Gerald’s experience enlisting in the United States Army, his deployment to Iraq, a new installation inspired by an unbelievable true story, political rhetoric, Orientalism, and finally his preference for a specific color. Be sure to see Gerald’s exhibition at New Release Gallery in New York’s Chinatown. It's entitled “Democratic Paradox," and it's on view until February 16th

Greyson is a multimedia installation and performance artist whose recent work investigates the limits of human experience. Greyson often uses her own body as a site of artistic experimentation. Much of her work humorously appropriates scientific charts, mathematical data and advertising slogans in order to communicate deeply personal and powerful experiences that often deal with gender identity, politics, and love. To view the works discussed in this podcast visit FirstStopArt.net.

Hong builds colorful and monumental compositions using paper pulp. These large-scale works record the shifting conditions of time and environment as they cure outside over many hours. Hong is fascinated both by things that change over time and objects like horizons that seem to stay the same even as we change. Her ephemeral paper works are constantly evolving as they absorb the conditions of the spaces they occupy, and as their lustrous colors gradually fade to grey. In this episode, we discuss the process and philosophy behind Hong’s captivating work.

Zach’s bold and vigorous paintings appear to harness the momentum of mid-century American expressionism, but they have an orderly logic to them: each explosive brushstroke seems to have been carefully placed. The compositions are wildly emotional, while at the same time, meticulously layered. Zach’s paintings can be enjoyed without any backstory, but they often allude to deeply personal memories. View the discussed work on http://firststopart.com/

Joe is a multimedia artist working in drawing, photography, video, digital 3D modelling, and animation. His practice engages with technology, environmental science, landscape painting, science fiction, and the eroding boarders between the natural and human-made world. He is currently in the midst of creating a new series of ominous and beautifully detailed graphite drawings depicting open water, which we’ll discuss towards the end of this podcast.

Nina is an artist and filmmaker whose work deals with gender, narcissism, migration, psychology, philosophy, and so much more. In her visually stunning films, she transforms fragments of appropriated writings and imagery into cogent and introspective narratives in which she plays the starring role. Her protagonists are often vulnerable outsiders in the midst of experiencing and processing trauma. See more of Nina’s work on her website linked here, or on her gallery’s website: janelombardgallery.com

Monique’s uncompromising photographs of people and places explore past and present traumas of dislocation and abandonment. Many of them communicate an alienated sense of intimacy. They become explorations of an internal psychological landscape, rather than just depictions of external life. In her recent work, Monique has experimented with digital manipulation, creating surreal and haunting images that express the disorienting experience of processing loss. View more of Monique's work at http://moniqueatherton.com

Julie’s work deals with the cyclical nature of growth, decay, and erosion, and the way in which time seems to mysteriously contract and expand. Much of her work transcends its material properties taking on a life of its own. In one body of work, she suspends massive walls of layered paper from the ceiling and then burns intricate organic shapes into the paper creating deep fissures. We’ll discuss this and other works during this podcast.

Howard is fascinated by the materials (shards, fragments, dead skin cells) Americans produce and discard. He’s captivated by the way in which these objects reflect our current moment of mass-production and consumption—a condition that allows us to throw away and forget objects of personal significance. In his artistic practice, he seeks to penetrate the material surface of these forgotten human bi-products, revealing the layers of cultural meaning and forensic data contained within them. Howard collects human hair, dryer lint, thrown out banana peels, among other things. We spend the bulk of this interview discussing Howard’s sculptural installations of dryer lint, objects that are at once visceral and ephemeral, enigmatic and abject.

This is a quick preview of upcoming episodes. The host David Livingston also reports that there will be seven more episodes in the fall season. To view works discussed in the currently available episodes with Jeff Ostergren, Cat Balco, Jacquelyn Gleisner, and Polly Shindler, visit us at FirstStopArt.com

Cat Balco's colorful mandala-like paintings suggest centripetal motion and radiate energy. They’re thrilling to look at as beautiful abstractions, and at closer viewing her expressive paint strokes appear to have depth due to her subtle use of shadow—a skill she developed from her time as a tromp l’oeil painter—and they start to feel like depictions of objects or environments that can’t quite be placed. Her paintings call to mind a disparate array of associations that seem somehow to be connected such as stars, suns, industrial machinery, instruments of torture, carnival wheels, female genitalia, and religious iconography. Go to http://firststopart.com to view the discussed work. Follow Cat on Instagram: @catbalco And visit her website: catbalco.com

Jacquelyn is fascinated by textile patterns, the expansive and cyclical nature of time and space, and the relationship between fragility, vulnerability, and strength—especially in the context of feminism. She works primarily with gouache, creating colorful repeating designs on 30-foot-long rolls of paper which she calls “scrolls.” More recently she’s been painting depictions of detailed multicolored knots on small sheets of paper. Her large scale painted scrolls reference weaving patterns that in the mind’s eye could continue into space forever. All of her scrolls have been removed from the gallery setting and placed into outdoor environments—some of them hung like banners or flags from the sides of buildings, others left on the ground. Many of the scrolls have been cannibalized and metamorphosed into new works of art. Jacquelyn’s detailed knot drawings, with no beginning or end, are also tied to her interest in the infinite, while also exploring the longstanding importance of the knot both as a universal symbol and a word containing multiple meanings. You can follow Jackie on Instagram @jacquelyn.gleisner

In this podcast, David Livingston Interviews the artist Polly Shindler. Polly is a prolific painter, who over the years has toggled between abstraction and realism. She has always been a collector of objects, images, textures and ideas. In the past couple of years, Polly has become fascinated by furniture, interior design, and imagined domestic spaces decorated with objects she finds both in the real world and on the internet. Her paintings deal with myriad subjects, a few of which are the human yearning for privacy, the push and pull between real and imaginary, as well as the complex history of painting. Go to http://firststopart.com to view the discussed artworks.

An interview with the Jeff Ostergren, an artist who makes art using crushed pharmaceuticals and processed "food." Go to https://www.firststopart.com to view accompanying images. Jeff is a multimedia artist working in sculpture, painting, performance, and digital video. His work tackles addiction, desire, corporate greed, legal drug abuse, philosophy, and gender among other things. In much of his work Jeff examines the ways in which our bodies absorb and are altered by pharmaceuticals and processed food, as well as the way in which the corporate messaging for these products leads us into a dependency for these substances while also becoming its own kind of mind altering drug.