Steve Locke

Episode 550 / Steve LockeSteve Locke (b.1963) was born in Cleveland, OH and lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY. Spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, Locke’s practice critically engages with the Western canon to muse on the connections between desire, identity, and violence.Steve received his MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2001. Extending his commitment to a painting practice, he began to seek alternative ways to amplify public engagement around his art, partnering with institutions, municipalities, and even the US Postal Service to reach new audiences.Steve’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including venues such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, The Gallatin Galleries at NYU, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the ICA in Boston, the Savannah College of Art and Design and more. Steve has participated in many group exhibitions, including venues such as the MassArt Art Museum (Massachusetts College of Art and Design), The School at Jack Shainman Gallery, the Fruitlands Museum, the Mills Gallery (Boston Center for the Arts), the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art (Harvard University), the Longwood Art Gallery (Bronx Council on the Arts), the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Danforth Museum amongst others. He is in the collections of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Colby College Museum of Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (Rollins College), the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Mead Art Museum (Amherst College), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Rose Art Museum (Brandeis University), and Tufts University Art Galleries. He is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant (2026 and 2014); Rappaport Prize from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2022); the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2020); the LEF Contemporary Work Fund Grant (2009); and the Art Matters Foundation Award (2007). Locke is a Professor and MFA Co-Director in Studio Art at Hunter College in New York. He is also on the Board of Governors at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Episode 549 / Susan ChenSusan Chen was born and raised in Hong Kong until the age of 12, before receiving a scholarship to go to school abroad in England throughout her teens. She later attended Brown University for her undergrad and studied at Columbia University for her MFA and has lived in the US ever since, becoming a first generation American. She is an artist and painter who currently lives and works in New York City with a studio in Long Island City. Her first museum solo show “Rooms by the Sea” is now on view at the Edward Hopper House Museum in Nyack, New York until February 21, 2027. The show exhibits a body of plein air paintings made on site at Cape Cod, where she has spent time with her husband’s family for the past ten summers. A new catalogue is coming out this week and available for purchase from the museum. She currently has a painting on the 5th floor American Wing at The Brooklyn Museum. Susan works with Night Gallery and Uffner & Liu Gallery, and has previously participated in group shows at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, The Aldrich Museum, Anchorage Museum, among others. Her work has also been featured on the cover of New York Magazine, and she is a 2025 Creative Capital Grant Awardee, Forbes Under 30 and Artsy Vanguard honoree.

From the Vaults! Episode 2 of the Podcast recorded April 2016 with Matthew. On the occasion of his solo show, "Cold Meat, Cake, and a Variety of All the Finest Fruits in Season; MATTHEW RONAY September 10 – October 24, 2026 we dug deep to unearth the second S&V podcast. Go check out his show, he's an amazing artist and music is a big part of his life as well. Matthew Ronay (born 1976) is an American artist who lives and works in New York. Born in 1976 in Louisville, Kentucky, Ronay studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, before earning his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 2000.Ronay has exhibited at institutions including Kunstverein Lingen, Germany; University of Louisville, Kentucky; Artspace, San Antonio; Serpentine Gallery, London; Sculpture Center, New York; Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London. Ronay participated in the 2013 Lyon Biennale, curated by Gunnar Kvaran, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. In 2017 his work was the subject of solo-presentations at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, Texas and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida.

Episode 547 / Michelle Paterok Michelle Paterok is a Canadian visual artist working in painting. She received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of Western Ontario in 2022 and a BFA in Art and Design from the University of Alberta in 2016. Her work has been supported by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Ontario Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. In 2018 she was the Canadian Artist in Residence at the Vorres Museum in Paiania, Greece, and in 2023 completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She has held recent solo exhibitions at Duran Contemporain in Montreal and SHRINE in New York City. She lives and works in Montreal.(Our collab playlist mentioned in our conversation:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37HIj0M1PxM45CQMR4ciYL?si=a490bbadddb74dfe)

Episode 546 / Sizhu LiSizhu Li is a Chinese-born kinetic installation artist based in Houston. She holds a BFA from Central Academy of Fine Arts and an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art with the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship. She has exhibited her works at the Staten Island Museum, Morris Museum, Attleboro Arts Museum, Spring/Break, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Flux Factory, Governors Island Art Fair & Public Art Project, Baltimore–Washington International Airport, Chashama Gallery, amongst other venues.  Since 2020, her pandemic-inspired touring project Moonment has been well received at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Missouri State University, the Lille Grand Palais in France, the Viborg Kunsthal in Denmark, the Maryland HoCo Arts Council and many other places.

Episode 545 / Robert Yarber (on A.I. & Technology in art)A sit down with artist, painter and early purveyor of the use of technology merged into analog art practices, Robert Yarber for a discussion about adopting tech into an art practice, the advent of AI and the complicated relationship artists have with it. We traverse his history of using tools to take his work to new places and we speak about the ethics and concerns of the future with super intelligence. 

Episode 544 / Falon StutzmanFalon Stutzman is an artist born in Silver Springs, Maryland who lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska. She received her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in 2009. She’s had solo shows atKishka Gallery in Vermont, The Door in Brooklyn, Saints and Poets curated by John Plypchuck at Megan Mulrooney Gallery in LA and she has a current solo show right now at Megan Mulrooney, The End of a Long Line, that is up until October 24th. Her work has been featured in Artmaze and New American Paintings. 

Episode 543 / Kiwha LeeKiwha Lee was born in Seoul and raised across four continents, Lee received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College in 2022. Her New York solo debut, Light Punch, at CHART in 2024 was selected as an Artforum “Must See” and named by Artsy among five standout exhibitions at small galleries worldwide. Later that year, her first European solo exhibition, Reverse Universe, opened at Monti8 in Rome and was selected by Exibart as a must-see exhibition in Rome. In 2025, Lee was selected for a solo presentation in the Main Section of Arte Fiera in Bologna, Italy’s longest-running modern and contemporary art fair.Lee has exhibited at Mindy Solomon Gallery, CHART, Fergus McCaffrey, Thierry Goldberg, Monti8, Ortega y Gasset Projects, COL Gallery, and other venues in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She was nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2018 and was named one of ARTCUBE Discoveries’ Top 100 Early-Career Artists for 2023–2024. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Artsy, Artribune, New American Paintings, Two Coats of Paint, Vulture,Asian Art News, and Harper’s BAZAAR, among other publications. Her paintings are held in theMorgan Stanley Art Collection and private collections internationally.Kiwha Lee x Julia Kunin: Electromagnetic SignatureOpening this Thursday in Miami, September 10th, 6:30 - 8pm September 10 - October 10, 2026 Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami

Episode 542 / Hew LockeHew Locke OBE RA (b. 1959) received an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1994. His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate, London, UK; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and British Museum, London, UK, among many others. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Here’s the Thing which opened at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, in 2019 before traveling to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME. In March 2022, Locke presented The Procession, The Duveen Hall Commission for Tate Britain, London, UK, which later travelled to The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Locke unveiled Gilt, the Façade Commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in September 2022.His groundbreaking show, Hew Locke: what have we here?,opened at the  British Museum, London, UK, in Fall 2024. Hew Locke: Passages, the largest solo exhibition of Locke's work to date, debuted at Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, traveled to Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, and is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX through September 13. Locke will take part in the 2027 edition of Skulptur Projekte Münster with an installation in the Haus der Niederlande at the Krameramtshaus, Münster, Germany.(photo credit: Hugh Glendinning)

On the occasion of Jacob's show at SFMOMA, we are reissuing his interview from 10 years ago. Jacob Hashimoto: Giant ArcInstallation Opened August 22, 2026 on Floor 1. Jacob Hashimoto creates mesmerizing and intricate installations through repetition and composition. Each work comprises thousands of hand-built kites made of bamboo and Japanese paper, suspended together into complex assemblages that seem to float through the air. Blending sculpture, design, and environment, these kites form clusters, some blank or in solid colors, others layered with colorful collaged-paper graphics. At SFMOMA, Hashimoto will create the largest work of his career, mixing nearly 75,000 elements into a cloud canopy that will cover the Roberts Family Gallery floor to ceiling and wall to wall.