The thing about FAILE is that they are always trying to take you somewhere you feel like you have been but may have dreamt. Since coming into street art at the pivotal moment of the early 2000s and their various explorations into installation, muralism, nightlife and fine art, you recongnize the world of FAILE even though it's something completely fresh and new. I think of it as the imaginary world you always wanted but could never quite find.  And at the moment they open their new solo...

As these things happen when we are on the road, we met a Canadian in Ostend, Belgium. Radio Juxtapoz was on the road for the annual Crystal Ship and as we love with the mural festivals we get to see the process, the ideas and the creation of so many works from so many different practices. Katie Green creates masks, what she calls "intimate watercolour personas that are eerie and ethereal." On a mural level, this requires participation and something quite unique.  Her project, as she notes...

Hong Kong was the center of the art world a few weeks back, as Basel week set the stage for the prominent art capital to get some much overdue love from the pandemic era shutdowns. Juxtapoz, and mainly Radio Juxtapoz, was there for HK Walls, the esteemed mural fest celebrating its 9th edition with a roster of international and Hong Kong-based painters. On the occasion, as we always like to make a little time with the artists at a mural festival, we spoke with German-based Bond Truluv, the...

We love when an old friend becomes a new friend all at once. We have known and featured the works of German-artist Cathrin Hoffmann many times through the years and one of the things we love about her practice of going from digital to analog all while keeping the spirit of something from another world. Not alien, but just something beyond human. But, in that, she seems to be capturing the exact innate quality it is to be human. Get it? Got it. On this episode of Radio Juxtapoz, we catch up...

The first thing we researched when we came across the paintings of Johanna Bath was this simple declaration "I am madly in love with life." That is a great place to start, because sometimes a painter just needs to love the life they are inspired by. Maybe, in her distorted and almost hazy representations of life and in her fate to become an artist, she finds life just a little more exhilarating. After seeing the German-born painter's work at Pipeline Contemporay in London and a residency...

On the occasion of his newest solo show, Abstract Figurativism: Loving Fiercely, at BSMT in London's Dalston, Radio Juxtapoz sat down with Ben Wakeling for a special conversation about art, healing, community, loss, grief and love. As the Artist in Residence of the North London Trust NHS Arts Programme that he helped found, Wakeling collaborates with patients experiencing episodes of mania or psychosis. The beauty of the works lies in both the sublime brushstokes and the channeling of...

Christian Rex van Minnen and I decided to talk on Valentine's Day. He was about to be announced as the cover artist for the SPRING 2024 Juxtapoz Quarterly and, like two old friends should do, we wanted to have a talk on a day where sharing your feelings is a rite of passage. Over the years, the Santa Cruz-based painter and I have had a long history of, you guessed it, long talks, but we haven't spoken since the pandemic started and it felt like it was time for a catch up. His masterful...

Los Angeles is a big place. Sprawling is the description most give it, and that feels so apt once you spend a few days here. It's not a top to bottom type of city, but left to right, almost like a city laid out like a book. A city of narratives and chapters. And right now, there aren't many an artists who seem to be writing a tale quite like Ozzie Juarez. As a painter, curator and incubator, Juarez and his Tlaloc Studios is telling the modern story of LA to not only the rest of the world, but...

We are back in London for the 2nd episode of the 15th season of Radio Juxtapoz with a conversation with British painter, Kemi Onabulé. One of the things that stood out for us and why we wanted to speak with Kemi was this quote she said about her new show, All The Land Is Spoken For, on view now at Sim Smith. "There is so much to enjoy from a tree as a painter, you can paint its skeleton as if it were a body.” This is how 2024 begins. One of the ideas of this show, and our conversation is...

Welcome to a new season of Radio Juxtapoz. And why not kick off the 15th season with someone who not only pushes the boundaries of a medium but plays a bit on the absurdity that is modern life, contemporary art and the ways we experience both. William Cobbing explores both a physical and digital world with something quite antiquated: clay. He can be both a performance artist and a studio practitioner, playfully using his social media accounts to create interactive "plays" and "scenes" of his...

We close out our 14th season and the 2023 with a special conversation with friends, about the story of the year, the impact it has had on each of their lives and how art can be a conduit to understanding, care and shared humanity. "The Israel-Palestine Episode" features conversations with two Radio Juxtapoz alums, Israeli artist Know Hope, Palestinian-American artist Saj Issa, as well as Anthropologist and Curator, Dr. Rafael Schacter. The Radio Juxtapoz podcast is hosted by FIFTH...

When you go to Miami each year, you are hoping to discover something new, something fresh, an artist that changes the way you look at the contemporary art landscape. For Radio Juxtapoz, we were able to go North while heading South, where we hosted a live panel conversation with Saimaiyu Akesuk, an Iqaluit born, Kinngait-based artist whose distinctive patterns and oil pastel animal drawings drew the eye of Canada Goose and the Canada Goose Art Collection. Last week at the Canada Goose...

It's refreshing to talk to an artist who likes a bit of the absurd. And who bucked the trend of his home country and started making work that blended performance, fashion, sculpture, text, video, theater and interaction that turned him into an internationally acclaimed artist who is known to make fine art out of, well, the absurd moments of daily life. Vienna-based Erwin Wurm comes from a refreshingly old school way of a studio practice that utilizes ideas over function. We might know him for...

There are just certain artists who know their subject. For Tim Conlon, freight train graffiti is his muse, his subject, his love, his investigation. As a freight graffiti artist himself, Tim took that passion and understanding of the North American railroad system and turned into wonderfully constructed photoreal paintings of graff on trains as well as a series of train set works featuring graffiti pieces. His work is about not only a love of graffiti, but a story of movement, of...

There doesn't seem to be anything more 1984 than taking what was one of the most popular selling books of the 21st century and printing an alternative text upon its ashes. There is that wonderful moment in Orwell's masterwork that reads "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has...

Okay, okay, okay, Cape Town-based artist Dada Khanyisa isn't a Dadaist, so maybe the title here is misleading. But they are having a solo show currently at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and they are part of the roster of the great Stevenson gallery and they are making work that is both politically astute but also about this ideas of what they say is "going out culture, but also going in culture." So even if it's not Dadaism, it's Dada-ism. On this episode of the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we...

Let's talk about morphing. Better yet, let's talk about the images and visions that we have that are in-between our reality, like when you snap to focus and there are blurred lines and a bit of a shaky floater in your eyeline. You might see some crazy shit. For Sara Birns, she is a painter of morphing visions and facial structures, things that are recognizably unrecognizable. "I wanted to capture, and realistically reveal the way I interpret the invisible forces that are just beyond the...

The airbrush is a utilitarian tool. That is the beauty of it. It can be a fine art device, of course, as is the case with so many brilliant studio artists today, but it can also be an everyday tool, customizing cars, painting industrial objects, sign paintings, you name it. And for Cato, the London-based artist who is both in the fine arts and music, the airbrush is a tool to tell a story, a new sort of social realism, where art is both a mode for storytelling but also something deeply...

When you walked through the prestigious Armory Show a few weeks ago, April Bey's solo booth with Bahamas-based Tern Gallery, was the standout. The fair itself was quite strong, but there was something about walking into a universe, the April Bey universe, that was transcendental and hypnotic, immersive. Bey is political and poignant, with a sense of humor and harsh social critique that has been honed by both being a professor at Glendale College in California and practicing fine artist with...

Shadi Al-Atallah's newest solo show, Fistfight, begins with an excerpt from The Epic of Gilgamesh and seems apt to start right here: “huge arms gripped huge arms, foreheads crashed like wild bulls, the two men staggered, they pitched against houses, the doorposts trembled, the outer walls shook, they careened through the streets, they grappled each other, limbs intertwined, each huge body straining to break free from the other’s embrace. Finally, Gilgamesh threw the wild man and with his...

"Everything in our universe has a dual manifestation," says Mexico City born Horacio Quiroz when you just take a gander at this bio. Well, here we go, you know this conversation is going to be a good one. As the artist opened his new solo show, Goddesses of Spoiled Lands, at Annka Kultys Gallery in London, duality of existence is definitely on the mind. In this insightful and revealing conversation, Radio Juxtapoz sat down with Quiroz to discuss the complexities of growing up queer in...

When you name your solo show Say Cheese, there are a lot of puns that can come from it. Ana Barriga did just that for her solo show at Carl Kostyál in London. Say Cheese makes you smile, makes you focus your attention on something that may stand the test of time really, but also puts you into another realm of posing and posturing. And for the Madrid-based painter, she is ready for this moment. "My work involves instinct and attitude," she says, and as her show was opening in the British...

We can call this a new season for Radio Juxtapoz, and Jon Key is the perfect guest. Situating himself between Brooklyn and Margate, UK, Key has a thread through his practice and his life, one that involves family (he is a twin), art, design and adventure. Though his work is focused on the relationships and heritage he is constantly discovering, he is weaving, both through painting and conceptual fashion design, a story about himself. As a Queer Black man originally from the rural town of...

When we have talked about British painter and muralist Lucy McLauchlan over the years, we have used descriptors like spontaneous and natural, organic and natural. She transformed almost room and building sized brushstrokes, often in black and white, as extensions of her being and adapting to the surfaces she paints on. She may have been part of the street art scene, but she was channeling environmentalism in the process. Recently part of Mural Fest Kosovo, curated by Radio Juxtapoz's own...