Ben Luke talks to Alfredo Jaar about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Jaar, who was born in 1956, in Santiago, Chile and has been based in New York since the early 1980s, addresses social injustice, human suffering, state-sponsored violence, and imbalances in power between the global north and south. He also explores how these issues are framed in the international media. He has...

Ben Luke talks to Marguerite Humeau about her influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Humeau was born in 1986 in the French city of Cholet, near Nantes, and lives in London. She creates extraordinary sculptural environments in which the scientific and the speculative are fused. She acknowledges the perilous present state of the planet and the future of humanity while exploring histories of...

Ben Luke talks to Mike Nelson about his influences—from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Nelson, born in 1967 in Loughborough in the UK, is one of the most significant British sculptors and installation artists of this century. He has spent the past three decades assembling materials gathered in junkyards, flea markets, online auctions, even street-corner fly tips into often labyrinthine sculptural...

In the first episode of this new series of A brush with… Ben Luke talks to Matthew Krishanu about his influences—including writers, composers, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Krishanu, who was born in 1980 in Bradford, UK, is one of Britain’s most distinctive painters. He draws on specific photographic images, including those of his family and his childhood in Bangladesh, yet his paintings are richly ambiguous, as he...

Ben Luke talks to Amy Sillman about her influences—including writers, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Sillman, who was born in 1955 in Detroit, Michigan, grew up in Chicago, and lives and works in New York, is one of the most brilliant and original painters working today. Her art is steeped in the history of painting, but manages to build on traditions while also taking an irreverent and playful approach to the...

Ben Luke talks to Joan Jonas about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Jonas, who was born in 1936 in New York and still lives in the city today, is one of the most significant and pioneering artists in the history of video and performance. She draws inspiration from a wealth of cultures and traditions, alluding to everything from fairy tales to ancient myths, scientific...

Ben Luke talks to Haroon Mirza about his influences—from writers to composers and musicians, film-makers and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Mirza, born in London in 1977, creates installations using sound, light, objects and video. These complex and evolving experiences immerse the viewer in varied sensory phenomena while building fascinating connections between their materials, formally and in the meanings they produce. He reflects on his...

British painter Tess Jaray talks to Ben Luke about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.For more than 60 years, Jaray relentlessly explored pictorial and architectural space through abstract painting. Born in Vienna in 1937 but based in the UK since she was a child, she achieved notable success early in her career but is only now gaining the recognition that she has long deserved...

Ben Luke talks to Alicja Kwade about her influences—including writers, musicians and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Kwade, born in 1979 in Katowice, Poland, and based in Berlin, makes spellbinding sculptural installations that play with perception and question the structures of reality and society. She grapples with philosophical concerns and draws on scientific and mathematic theory, while engaging with time-honoured sculptural...

Ben Luke talks to Nick Cave about his influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music, film and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Cave, born in Fulton, Missouri, US, in 1959, creates elaborate sculptures and found-object installations. He’s best known for his Soundsuits, which blend sculpture, performance, fashion and social activism. His work veers from the intimate and homespun object to vast installations and performances...

Ben Luke talks to the British artist Helen Marten about her influences—including those from the worlds of literature, music, and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Marten works in sculpture, text and screen-printed paintings and has created a complex language of forms with a remarkable breadth of materials. Her works entice us to make associations and draw meanings, while remaining richly ambiguous. She discusses her early interest in Joan Miró...

Ben Luke talks to Theaster Gates about his influences—including writers, musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Gates is an artist whose every gesture is transformative, whether that’s in the form of social projects in his native Chicago, works repurposing found materials from significant disused spaces in the city, presentations honouring and reimagining collections of materials he’s gathered over time, or the...

Ben Luke talks to John Akomfrah about his influences—including writers, musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Akomfrah was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1957 but has been based in London since he was a child. From his early years with the Black Audio Film Collective to his recent works as a solo artist, he has explored major issues—including racial injustice, colonialist legacies, diasporic identities, migration and...

Ben Luke talks to William Kentridge about his influences—from the worlds of literature, music, film and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Kentridge was born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and began his career making large-scale drawings. But his work has grown to encompass film and video installation, sculpture, tapestry, sound, performance, and puppetry. It teems with imagery and ideas, reflecting on his autobiography, on the inequities...

Ben Luke talks to Anicka Yi about her influences—from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Yi creates installations and objects that sit on the borders of art and science. Drawing on research into biology, and particularly macrobiotics, but embedded in geopolitics, Yi’s work calls for a deep sensory engagement from the viewer, with smell as important as sight. In fusing different categories of knowledge, she...

In this 50th episode of A brush with…, Ben Luke talks to Glenn Brown about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Brown (born in Hexham, UK, in 1966) takes reproductions of other artists’ works—including those by Old Masters, the greats of Modern art and science-fiction illustrators—and transforms them by changing their colour, orientation and size. It leads to paintings, drawings and...

Ben Luke talks to Adam Pendleton about his influences—from the worlds of literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Pendleton, born in 1984 in Richmond, Virginia, makes paintings, drawings, performances, films and other works exploring the relationship between Blackness, abstraction and histories of the avant-garde. He is perhaps best known for an ongoing body of work he calls Black Dada. He discusses the influences behind Black...

Ben Luke talks to Pierre Huyghe about his influences—including writers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris and today lives and works in New York. He has experimented over more than 30 years with the form of exhibitions and the very nature of art. His works are complex systems involving a host of elements, from lifeforms including plants, animals and microorganisms, to inanimate objects and...

Ben Luke talks to the Canadian-Korean artist Zadie Xa about her influences—from the worlds of literature, film, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Xa was born in 1983 in Vancouver, Canada, and is now based in London. She explores folklore and speculative fiction, familial and collective histories, diasporic identity and the climate emergency through painting, sculpture, film and performance, often brought together in fantastical...

Ben Luke talks to Lina Iris Viktor about her influences—including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Born in the UK in 1987, the Liberian-British artist works in painting, sculpture, photography, performance and installation. She creates works that reflect on her own identity amid broader themes—history and geopolitics, astrophysics and maths, ancient myths and belief systems—to explore universal...

Ben Luke talks to Megan Rooney about her influences—including other artists, writers and musicians—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Rooney was born in 1985 in South Africa, but grew up in Brazil and then in Canada, before studying in London. She works in performance, sculpture and painting and has gained particular attention recently for the vast murals she has made in several international museums. Among much else, she discusses the transformative experience...

Ben Luke talks to Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster about her influences—from other artists to writers, film-makers and musicians—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Gonzalez-Foerster is one of the leading European artists of her generation. Born in 1965 in Strasbourg, France, she works primarily with installation but her artistic language is enormously diverse, taking in film and video, sculpture, holograms, sound, virtual reality and even smell. Her pieces range from...

Ben Luke talks to Emma Talbot about her influences, including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists, and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Talbot (born in Stourbridge, UK, in 1969) brings together drawing, painting, text, sculpture and animation in installations that fuse a personal response to her internal emotional world with societal and geopolitical issues, from feminism to capitalism and climate change. She talks about her love of the...

Ben Luke talks to Stan Douglas about his influences—including writers, film-makers, musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Douglas is a video artist and photographer—one of the leading pioneers of video installation and large-scale photography. He scrutinises these different media and explores how they shape our understanding of reality, through often unexpected connections between contemporary and historical events, and rich...

Nari Ward talks to Ben Luke about his influences—including literature, music and, of course, art—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Ward often uses found materials, from baby strollers to baseball bats and shoelaces, and repurposes them in sculptures, wall-based text works and installations. They address present and historical social and political issues, including race and poverty, and deal directly with emotions like loss and hope. Ward was born in 1963 in St...