Radio Juxtapoz by The Unibrow

When Nathan Bell announced his latest solo show was to be called "Conversations with Inanimate Objects" and it would showcase a series of what he called "guidance paintings," I was hooked. I've known Nathan for years but mostly as a designer. So being able to speak to him in this context, inside the gallery These Days in downtown LA as the show was coming to a close, was a refreshing moment to have with someone you know and the other side of their brain. In this conversation of The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, I speak with Nathan about the journey of these works, from Finland to Mexico and back to Los Angeles, to his latest project in China and exactly what a guidance painting is. We may mention the Detroit Tigers and Timothée Chalamet... the latter by accident, we swear. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠⁠. Episode 167 was recorded in Los Angeles on June 4th, 2025. Music by Aesop Rock for The Unibrow

We kick off Season 20 of The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast with a conversation with Mexican-American, Los Angeles-based painter, Salomón Huerta. What started as scheduling a conversation with Huerta around the opening of his solo show Stillness, which opened at Harper's in NYC in the spring, and he and I wanting to catch up after Huerta lost his home in Altadena in the fires that ravaged Southern California in January 2025 became another conversation about fires in LA County: just as we click confirmation on our time to meet up, ICE raids throughout LA had put the city into shock, sparking mass protests, National Guard and Marines being brought to the streets to heighten tensions and has left the Mexican-American community in fear. Not only did Huerta want to talk about the current climate here but his own personal story of being an immigrant to America. Born in Tijuana, Mexico in 1965, his story is one of a meteoric rise in the fine art world (shows at Gagosian in 2001 just as he left UCLA) to soul-searching after his initial success to now creating some of the most personal works to date. There is so much of Huerta's story I didn't know, so on this episode of the podcast, I speak with him about the creation of his famed "back of head" portraits, the genesis of the gun paintings and how he began to develop the pool and home works he is know for now. And, of course, we talk about LA, how his community is rattled and what that means for him in the future. From a wild story of John Baldessari's sort-of critique of his MFA work, to an upcoming show at Marc Selwyn Fine Art, this is an honest must-listen. —Evan PriccoThe Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 166 was recorded in Los Angeles on June 11th, 2025. Music by Aesop Rock for The Unibrow

Author and curator Dan Nadel is a hero of mine and a bit of a renaissance man. He was the publisher of the brilliant and influential PictureBox for decades and was a champion of much of what Juxtapoz was founded on but took it to a whole new level of intricate historical research and creating a voice of record for so many artists who time wasn't given them a needle to etch their name in the vinyl, so to speak. We are talking comic book legends, graphic novelists, outsider artists who might have created some of the most recognizable art of the 20th century that the history books hadn't given the full retrospective for. And Dan was going to do it. This year in paricular, Dan is busy. From publishing his newest book, Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life on the career and life of the controversial figura that is Robert Crumb, to co-curator for Sixties Surreal, a rethinking survey the art history of the 1960s at the Whitney Museum of American Art (opening September 24, 2025) and Curator-at-Large for Geroge Lucas' new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, we had a lot to catch up on The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast. We talk about undergrround comic's new resurgence into contemporary art, the making of the Crumb biography and the incredibly pivotal moment of KAWS' collection show at the Drawing Center in 2024.But more than that, I got to speak with someone I admire on his dedication to print, to words, to creating narratives in a world that needs to understand it's visual history. —Evan PriccoThe Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 165 was recorded in Los Angeles and Brooklyn on May 14th, 2025.

"'Too Bad, So Sad, Maybe Next Birth' was a phrase my parents would say whenever something was out of my control and didn’t go exactly according to plan," Shyama Golden wrote on the subject of her new solo show of the same name for PM/AM in London. "It feels to me like a short phrase that embodies the entire human struggle, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill." The Los Angeles-based painter has created a universe where reincarnation, generational trauma and suffering (and a sense of humor to cope with it), Sri Lankan folktales and a personal journey through time and the soul's journey through eras. Golden told me she wanted to create a works that spoke of "past lives because this framework challenges the idea of an essential self, a fixed history, and linear progress." And so she is creating her own story, not the next birth, but this birth. In this conversation from The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, I spoke with Shyama in LA just before her trip to London, just after her husband, Paul Trillo, showed me an incredible AI-generated film he created with her that will premiere in short form at the PM/AM show but will continue to be worked as a longer work in the future. The show is like a journey through our collective creative output: traditional painting, wood masks co-created with craftsmen in Sri Lanka that harken to centuries past as well as a short film utilizing AI. It's work for the ages, literally.The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 164 was recorded in Los Angeles on May 2, 2025. Music by Aesop Rock for The Unibrow.  

The first thing I said to Nellie Scott, Executive Director of the Corita Art Center in downtown Los Angeles that preserves and promotes Corita Kent’s art, teaching, and passion for social justice, was that I wish we didn't need to do this. I wish Corita Kent's work had already done its work, that the world was free of oppression, racism, inequality, chaos and fear. Maybe Nellie and I could just talk about love and a butterfly, the upcoming showing of Kent's work at Andrew Kreps and kaufmann repetto in NYC this month. But the times they are a'changing and oh how they stay the same. The new Corita Art Center opened in March and since, Pope Francis has passed, the structure of democracy in America has been bent to a near breaking point and art has an act of protest and social awareness is struggling to find its footing. So, it's time for Corita Kent once again. In this conversation on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast produced by the Unibrow, Nellie Scott speaks of the founding of the Center in 1997 and its association with the Immaculate Heart Community, how Corita Kent went from entering the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary at age 18, to championing civil rights, anti-war activism, and peace, through her unique aesthetic of printmaking. She left the order in 1968 and moved to Boston, where she continued to make work. Her art, and her life, was devoted to finding a deep understanding of the human experience, through teaching and creating. Corita left behind a great legacy that continues to reverberate - at the time of her death in 1986, Corita had created almost 800 serigraph editions and thousands of watercolours, alongside public and private commissions. From Boston to Los Angeles, Corita’s life is a truly inspired story. The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 163 was recorded at the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles in late April 2025. Original music by Aesop Rock for Radio Juxtapoz

Adele Renault's studio is an old converted Korean church in Los Angeles. It's a large, fascinating old building just down the road from some of the biggest gallery names in the world like Zwirner, but here, there is a quiet hum of the 10 freeway and a massive painting area that could almost be an old cinema in terms of scale. Here, the Belgian-born artist is far from the rural countryside she grew up in and now in the thick of the concrete landmass that is the sprawl of LA. And here, in these conditions, she is making paintings so precise and photorealistic, so airtight, that she is almost leaning into something abstract. They are stunning and a major moment for the artist as she is set to open her solo show, Things I Can't Unsee, at Good Mother Gallery. It's the perfect title to a show, and in particular, to the practice she has of documenting her travels via bicycle, running or in a car across LA. Made over the span of 12 months, through a tumultuous time in LA's history, the works are an ode to the city and the constant conversation between nature and cement. In this conversation on the Radio Juxtapoz podcast, presenting by The Unibrow, Renault talks to Evan Pricco about her growing from graffiti and street work into this new direction, from pigeons to now urban landscapes, how being afforded time is a gift every artist needs and how close to abstraction these works can get up close. ⁠Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 162 was recorded in Los Angeles in late April 2025. Studio photo by Pysa (@Pysainhiding)

“No hierarchies are implied.” If you need to know anything about Katie Merz, start with that. The Brooklyn-born and bred artist has been playing on the streets both metaphorically and recently literally, for most of her life. Hierarchies would have got in the way if she let them. Art was all around, or perhaps better stated, it could be all around. For Merz, improvising was the goal, and the ever-evolving canvas that is her home borough gave her the imagination and the thoughtfulness to read and react to the world around her that has now blossomed into a public art career that is also extended into fine art and commercial projects. And this is where we found her. It was serendipity that at the time we were meeting up with Katie in her Brooklyn studio, she was finalizing her long-awaited collaboration with Simplehuman. The Southern California-brand is famous for their, well, beautifully simple trash can designs and home goods, but there was something rather ideal about pairing an artist to create a design for cans. Ideas come and go in the studio, projects can get thrown away but the function of an artist is to take the everyday object and turn it into art. For Katie, this is in her DNA. On this episode of The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak with Katie about the collaboration with Simplehuman but also how she involves spontaneous play into her work, how much growing up with the romantic history of NYC plays into who she is and the process of storytelling with lines. The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 161 was recorded in Los Angeles and Brooklyn on April 21, 2025. This episode was made possible by Simplehuman and their upcoming capsule collection with Katie Merz. 

The serpent has been around for a quite some time. It's biblical stature as the representation of the temptation of the devil to Eve in the Garden of Eden has often been part of Western thought, but the asp was a powerful symbol in ancient Egyptian culture, representing "divine authority of the pharaohs." The serpent has been a protector and mischievous creature, chaotic and a form of order. And this is where we find Montreal-born, LA-based sculpture artist David Altmejd, on the border of chaos and order, restraint and rawness, realism and fantasy. We are in the underworld but also inverting the hierarchy of the world above it all in one.I spoke with David on the occasion of his solo show, The Serpent, at White Cube Gallery in NYC, a show exploring a theme he had wanted to challenge himself for years and one that brought out a whole new direction and subconscious expression that he plans to explore in future shows and works. On a sunny April morning, I visited David's now almost-empty-but-in-the-process-of-new-ideas studio in Echo Park and found that this was just the time to get the story of where he is at in 2025. David digs himself into quite a personal world when he is making a show, and he told me he is often unprepared or able to speak of his work until it leaves his studio. So here we are. On this episode of The Uniborw's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, we speak with David Altmejd about feline energy, biology, physical space, the beauty of a sculpture that is almost always in motion, and what The Serpent means to him. ⁠Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast! The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 160 was recorded in Los Angeles on April 7, 2025.This episode of Radio Juxtapoz is brought to you by the generous support of the ⁠⁠⁠Artemizia Foundation⁠⁠,⁠ a world class museum of contemporary, graffiti and street art in Bisbee, Arizona.

Barcelona-born Noelia Towers has been painting a form deconstructing power structures for years now, but it seems like over the last few years her subject matter has received a heightened attention. And importance. Not like a typical activist painter, Noelia is placing herself right in the center of both a personal biography and a universal appeal for action against patriarchy and a prevailing mood across the world of a new form of masculine power structures. I wrote a few months back, "She plays with ideas of myth, both personal and universal, using imagery that creates a feeling of familiarity but abstracted to make you rethink your expectation of memory," and this holds up even more after our conversation. On this episode of the Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast, Noelia talks to me about her move to Chicago, the traumas she carries with her in her practice today and how her recent show, An Account of Preceding Events at de boer, Los Angeles came quickly and was one of her best experiences in the studio in years. The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 159 was recorded in New York and Chicago on March 26, 2025.This episode of Radio Juxtapoz is brought to you by the generous support of the ⁠⁠Artemizia Foundation⁠,⁠ a world class museum of contemporary, graffiti and street art in Bisbee, Arizona.

Mark Whalen has been with us for almost 20 years, from the streets of Sydney, Australia to a new life of a sculpture studio in Los Angeles. Now it is time we are with him: after losing his home in the Altadena fire of January 2025, I got in touch with Mark about a visit to The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz, but also to catch up on an immersive, darkly humorous series of works he was creating. It felt like the right time. In this conversation on the podcast, we find the inspiration behind the world Whalen has created, the stream of consciousness and deeply investigative construction of the sculptures, the materials, the fun, the pain, and how losing his home will inevitably transform the power of the work. Subscribe to the Radio Juxtapoz podcast! The Unibrow's Radio Juxtapoz podcast⁠ is hosted by Juxtapoz editor, ⁠⁠⁠Evan Pricco⁠⁠⁠. Episode 158 was recorded in Los Angeles on March 14, 2025. This episode of Radio Juxtapoz is brought to you by the generous support of the ⁠Artemizia Foundation,⁠ a world class museum of contemporary, graffiti and street art in Bisbee, Arizona.