Interview: Selena Scott

SELENA SCOTT is a painter going into her second year at the Slade. Her portraits illustrate the complexities in identity caused by acculturation and racism, exploring hyper-masculinity and prejudice. JEAN WATT interviewed her about her practice.  Red Flower is Power is your most recent painting. What was the process of making that like? I actually started this piece before lockdown, I had originally started it in 2018 which was a year before I came to the Slade. I had taken this picture of my cousin and I knew I wanted to paint it, but I hated the initial outcome. I left it for a while but recently returned to the image after finding a recording I had taken of him speaking about his experience of gang violence in Barbados. So I decided to redo it because I felt that it had the potential to become something meaningful and I wanted…Continue Reading

Interview: Selena Scott

Interview: Shaqúelle Whyte

SHAQÚELLE WHYTE is a figurative painter going into his third year at the Slade. His practice can be encapsulated in a singular philosophy: the exploration of the human condition. RUBY ANDERSON interviewed him about his practice. What sort of work do you typically make? I’m a painter. My work is based in figuration, and I deal with people, using them like puppets to stage scenes. It’s a lot like theatre, where you have a director. I am the person that is directing everything from inception through to execution. When it comes to the people that are in the paintings, they have been mobilised because I see aspects of myself through them. It is not their stories being told, it’s my stories. But having them on the canvas removes me from being directly in the painting and I find this gives me a bit more freedom to mess around with concepts.…Continue Reading

Interview: Shaqúelle Whyte

Grayson’s Art Club

WILL FERREIRA DYKE reviews Channel 4’s Grayson’s Art Club. I started 2020 full of anticipation for numerous exhibitions showing across London. From Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms at the Tate Modern, to Artemisia at the National Gallery, my artistic taste buds were tingling. However, with many art galleries and institutions having had to justifiably close due to the global pandemic, I felt cheated of my personal art consumption.  Of course, in light of recent events, it is fair to argue that engagement in anti-racist literature supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as keeping safe during Covid-19 , is of greater importance; thus interaction with the art sphere has understandably taken a back seat.  However, now that gallery spaces are gradually beginning to re-open, I have added a slightly surprising additional show to my artistic menu:  the compilation of works from Channel 4’s Grayson’s Art Club, an initiative set up and…Continue Reading

Grayson’s Art Club