Deep Color

Lamar Peterson makes paintings and drawings that prioritize people relaxing and gardening in bucolic outdoor settings. Lamar talks about inheriting his father’s oil painting set, cartoons and coloring books as important early artistic inputs, Mr. T and Black masculinity, gardens as safe and utopic spaces, using a collection of image references and family photos to create the proxy figures in his work, appreciating the humor in everyday moments, the resilience and support within the Minneapolis arts community, watching films while he paints, helping students see the possibilities within art, and engaging with nature as a means of self-care.

View Lamar’s work HERE

Tanya Marcuse makes photographs that capture the imperiled natural world—images like craggy trees changing through the seasons, luscious and rotted fruit covered in a winter frost, or an animal spine draped through misty woods. Tanya talks about her artistic trajectory circling back to her childhood, how her photography leans into the realm of painting, foraging through nature for content, Dante’s Inferno as an important conceptual muse, learning through technical failure, curiosity and looking outward, transformation and metamorphosis, showing work and object specificity, looking for euphoria in her practice, and the thrill and risk of being an artist.

View Tanya’s work HERE

Buy her new book VOL. MCCCXXI ‘Deer’ published by Roman Nvmerals HERE

View the accompanying film ‘Deer’‍ ‍HERE

Madeline Donahue makes illustrative drawings, paintings, ceramics, and editioned prints that often depict the female body through different periods of physical and biological change, like pregnancy and aging alongside scenes of motherhood, and the overlapping dynamics of being a parent, caregiver, and an artist.

Madeline talks about formative childhood bike rides, mothers as being invisible to culture, written lists and titles as starting points for her work, drawing with paint, the gifts within a complicated life, making a drawing as similar to writing a joke, Death as a super-hot boyfriend, desire as a concept to play with, and the complexity of living in her own body.

View Madeline’s work HERE

Please consider donating to the Fund for NYC Public Schools

Timothy Hull makes drawings and paintings that combine antiquities and artifacts like vases, Greek and Roman figurative sculpture, ancient architecture, and fragments of broken pottery—with contemporary imagery like Swatch watch faces, pop design, and geometric shapes. Tim talks about being kicked out of art classes, being an artist as a holistic outlook, collapsing time as a conceptual device, the balance between form and concept, careerism and artistic authenticity, the exhaustion of adjunct teaching, producing “post-market” exhibitions, co-hosting a new arts-focused podcast called Unstretched with Deep Color alumni Gina Beavers, and relationships, community, and love within life as markers of success.

View Tim’s work HERE

Catherine Haggarty is an educator and artist that makes paintings and drawings that often feature wood grains, objects that look like toys or seashells, and mysterious tableaus of folded paper, tiles, and gestural linework. She is the co-founder of the NYC Crit Club and founder of The Canopy Program—both of which are low-cost educational programs that offer community, connection, and critique to working artists. Catherine talks about sharing ideas through her studio practice and teaching, multiple intelligences and her father’s secret drawings, free throw shots and being a celebrated basketball player, drawing as manual thinking, her painting language as mimicking who she is as a person, the liberation of letting go, and a complex life as a lived life.

View Catherine’s work HERE

Apply to The Canopy Program HERE

Christopher Robin Duncan makes sculpture, ambient sound-based work, and exposure paintings that rely on factory dyed fabrics faded by the power of the sun. Chris talks about how punk and hardcore music shaped his worldview, his belief system and visual language as equivalent, celestial cycles as a tool in his process, making rules only to break them and learning how to get out of his own way, time as a tool and gesture in his artwork, his sonic work as soundtracks to his paintings, Prince versus Bruce Springsteen, a recent collaborative project with NIAD Art Center, an allergy to exceptionalism and the rewards of being generous, and finding joy through the mystery of art.

View Chris’s work HERE

Listen to Chris’s sound-based work HERE

Please consider donating to The Middle East Children’s Alliance

Support Deep Color HERE

Deep Color (the exhibition) opened at Halsey McKay Gallery onMay 24 and will beon view through June 30th, 2025. The exhibit features drawing, painting, sculpture, writing, editioned prints, and photography by over 60 Deep Color alumni artists. In this special episode, artist and HMG founder/owner, Ryan Wallace, talks with artist and Deep Color host Joseph Hart about how the show blossomed from idea to reality, the DIY nature of producing art exhibitions, the range and cohesiveness of the works on view, being surprised by a handful of artworks during installation, the unscientific curatorial process behind Deep Color, wearing shorts on airplanes, and stamina and horizon lines for Deep Color as a project.

Listeners are encouraged to check out the exhibit in-person or online, then revisit the episode archive forthat extra magic and context, and as a method for learning about and connecting with the artworks on view.

“I’m incredibly appreciative of these artists for recording conversations with me for Deep Color andfor being part of this exhibition. They’ve let us behind thecurtain and into their studios. They’ve told us stories about the formative experiences that helped shape their artwork and outlook. They’ve offered us guidance, and different models, for how to approach and think about being an artist. Through these acts of generosity, and through their artwork, these artists are contributing to culture in a way that can fuel imagination, provide light, and soften the complicated aspects of our daily lives.This is a profound gesture that we should all salute and support.” -Joseph Hart

View the Deep Color exhibition HERE.

Support Deep Color HERE

Tony Lewis makes drawings using a range of materials and methods that are centered around mark-making and language. Tony talks about athletics, psychology, and art history as frameworks for his world view, drawing as a type of behavior, Calvin & Hobbes comics as a muse, how drawing exists outside of the “art world”, expanding his practice into site-specific installations, not being able to hide or cheat in drawing, cocktail bars as portraits of a place, drawing as problem solving. and kindness and self-awareness as 50% of a career.

View Tony’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Sean Sullivan makes paintings and drawings that hum and weave through abstraction, representation, and systems of visual organization. He is also the co-owner of R&F Paints—an artist owned company that manufactures handmade oil and encaustic paints for artists. Sean talks about how music and poetry served as gateways into visual art, the farmer and the fisherman as a type of ethos, using printmaking techniques in his painting and drawing process, embracing error as a form of magic in his work, wanting to be in close proximity to his family while he’s making art, and art as a potential way to make sense of a complicated world.

View Sean’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Sara Maria Salamone is a photographer and co-founder of Mrs. Gallery--a contemporary art gallery located in Maspeth, Queens. Sara talks about the gallery ‘s history and roots as a beer and dance hall, the series of professional experiences that lead to opening her own gallery, the curatorial vision that informs Mrs.’s programming, how she scouts and finds artists, expectations within the gallery/artist relationship, studio visit tips, weathering art market dips, and the massive importance of artistic community.

View Sara’s photography HERE

Check out Mrs. Gallery HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Jordan Nassar makes elaborate and intricate embroideries alongside impressive wood-inlay works, tile mosaics, and expansive installations, all inspired by the examination of his Palestinian American identity, diaspora and cultural participation. Jordan talks about the clunkiness of language, wanting viewers to feel just as much energy from his work as he puts into it, the exchanges between decoration and Art with a “capital A”, the impact of scale, landing on an ethical equation for how to pay his assistants, care as a gesture and concept, being strategic with professional goals, Akido as part of his daily practice, and the range of ways one can work and live as an artist.

View Jordan’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Samuel Levi Jones is a multidisciplinary artist that utilizes law books, history books, medical books, and sometimes flags, as materials to create abstract assemblages that critique ideas around history and systems of power and control. Sam talks about the relationship between deconstruction and repair, how artistic growth can lead to authenticity, books as gestures, abstraction as a vehicle for complexity and optimism, curiosity and surprise as important ingredients in his work and process, collaborating with gallerists and being strategic as a way to keep his practice alive, finding beauty in the madness of it all, and experiencing autonomy and freedom through art.

View Sam’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Daniel Gibson makes oil paintings that depict desert landscapes full of flowers and butterflies, plant life, and big open skies. Some works also include figures hiding within the flora or in shamanic poses. Danny talks about deserts and horizon lines, little brother drawing magic, being locked into a painting and chasing the next image, memories and visceral emotional responses in painting, beauty as a Trojan horse, resetting and recovering through drawing, self-awareness and gratitude in the studio, and painting as putting puzzle pieces together.

View Danny’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Kennedy Yanko makes abstract three-dimensional work that combines large twisted and crunched metal forms scavenged from scrap yards and thick sheets of malleable acrylic paint that she refers to as “skins”. Kennedy talks about allowing herself and her work to develop and change over time, paint as a sculptural material, looking for the “ugly”, her sculptures having their own ideology, the advantages and disadvantages of working in abstraction, finding and building support networks and community, leaning towards muted and sour colors, fashion as an adjacent interest, the beach as a place for receptivity and expansiveness, and the value of a hard work within a dedicated studio practice.

View Kennedy’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Transcript available on the DC website.

Jesse Wine makes ceramic sculptures that combine body parts like arms, legs, hands, and feet, along with abstract shapes that are deflated, pulled, and stacked. Jesse talks about making sculptures that are self-aware, the expressiveness in our hands, empathy as a gesture, being illusionistic with his surfaces, knowing when to destroy a sculpture, peacefulness as an important ingredient in his studio, a great football match as the ultimate narrative, becoming more optimistic through experience, and the long game of being an artist.

View Jesse’s work HERE

Purchase “Jesse Wine / Sculpture” HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

This episode is presented by R&F Handmade Paints

Transcript available on the DC website.

Celia Pym makes textile-based artwork by repairing items like tattered sweaters, worn out socks, or torn paper pastry bags. Celia talks about the exchanges between making functional and non-functional art objects, finding pleasure in the tactility of her materials, different types of art transactions and preferring to return work to their original owners, damage and repair as driving concepts, how portraiture and body can be seen in garments, interacting with stories about grief, being intentional about contrast and “not matching”, repair work as a political act, being suspicious of virtue, how mending can unstick a stuck feeling, and navigating her emotional life through practicalities and making things.

This episode is presented by R&F Handmade Paints

View Celia’s work HERE

Purchase Celia’s book “On Mending” HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Transcript available on the DC website.

Alvaro Barrington makes mixed-media paintings that underscore a reverence for art history and hip-hop culture, craft and handwork, and how and where his own lived experience weaves into the work he is making. Alvaro talks about self-evaluation and how one can be a great painter but a bad artist, innovation and social impact as barometers for successful art, stealing from other artists, paintings as monologues, partnering with multiple competing galleries, debt as a kind of violence, searching for freedom through his paintings, and complete awe and gratitude for being able to live his life as an artist.

This episode is presented by R&F Handmade Paints

View Alvaro’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Transcript available on the DC website.

Matt Rich makes paintings, drawings, sculpture, and installations that center themselves around form and shape, color relationships, and different systems for mark making. Matt talks about time as a resource and the safety of a studio space, the importance of procedure in his practice, colliding intentional and accidental gestures, wanting his work to be unpretentious and light, the influences of writing graffiti as a teenager, color as a mess of ever-changing experiences, ampersand symbols as an aesthetic and conceptual muse, and artistic discontent as a way to drive his work into new places.

This episode is presented by R&F Handmade Paints

View Matt’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Transcript available on the DC website.

Andrew Schoultz makes drawings, paintings, prints, installations, and large-scale murals that reference how history and turmoil follow patterns, and how power dynamics, spirituality, and environment can shape our experience of the world. Andrew talks about comic books and graffiti as early influences, obsessive compulsiveness as a creative asset, handwork and the beauty of imperfection, the connections between skateboarding and art making, style and what can dictate it, how the art market interferes with sincerity, fitness as a powerful force in his studio practice, autonomy as a form of success, and finding a sense of purpose and pride through being an artist.

This episode is presented by R&F Handmade Paints

View Andrew’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE

Transcript available on the DC website.

Ashley Bickerton makes sculpture, assemblages and painting-like objects that reference the grotesqueness of commodification and consumerism. Ashley talks about how a work of art can hold contrasting meanings, avoiding typecasting and being fluid with his artistic language, pacing an art career and gallery relationships as business arrangements—not friendships, operating on the edge of the contemporary art world, how a harmonious homelife allows him to flourish in the studio, being diagnosed with ALS and researching new ways to make art, mortality and the beauty in each day, and preferring ideas and dreams to the crud and muck of our physical word.

View Ashley’s work HERE

Support Deep Color HERE