A brush with...

In this first episode of the new series, Lisa Yuskavage talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Yuskavage, was born in Philadelphia in 1962 and lives today in New York, makes paintings that involve a cast of stylised and often eroticised, mostly female characters set within invented interiors and landscapes. Deeply engaged with the history of art and representation, Lisa’s pictures explore centuries-old traditions and genres and play with them, along a sliding scale from homage to subversion, sometimes within the space of one canvas. Her figures can derive from everyday observation, draw from soft-porn magazines or a wealth of other pop-cultural sources, or quote from historic paintings. But set within enigmatic spaces, accompanied by a range of props and objects, and allied to Lisa’s intoxicating colour sense, they are encapsulated in a singular realm of imagination and unleashed into the peculiar communion between this artist and us—one which can be delightful and disquieting, often at once.

She reflects on the “emotional formalism” at the heart of her work, her early visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and trip to Italy and their transformative effect on her work. She discusses the seismic effect of seeing a Giovanni Bellini painting in Venice, the ongoing influence of Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés and her admiration for, among others, Agnes Martin, Philip Guston and Laura Owens. She talks about the poet Wallace Stevens’s impact on her work and her interest in the films of Stanley Kubrick. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Lisa Yuskavage, David Zwirner, New York, until 26 June.
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Andrew Cranston talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Cranston, who was born in 1969 in Hawick, Scotland, draws on experiences—moments seen, felt or remembered—which are filtered, embellished, complicated, and sometimes almost obliterated through the process of being painted. As well as reflecting on personal events, from childhood memories and the recollections of family members, to more recent rituals and exploits, Cranston’s pictures are rich in cultural resonance. Images and ideas from the history of art and cinema, from poems and television series, are central to his work, whether as a core motif or a subtle reference in the title. As a result, his practice is deeply concerned with time and history—not just in recalling past events and experiences and transforming them in the present, but in his materials and methods. He often uses the covers of old hardback books, bleached by light over the years, as a surface, for instance, and the paintings hold time in their very physicality—in the immediacy of a painted gesture, in the steady build-up of layers and marks, and in the hints of their journeys to completion. Cranston’s paintings reflect his medium’s capacity for thrillingly diverse effects, modes and moods; they are full of poetry and longing, as well as absurdity and joy. He reflects on the fragility of his images, how with reiteration they gain meaning and weight. He talks about the silence in his works and what he calls his “fight with visibility”. He discusses a wealth of painterly influences, from Pieter Bruegel the Elder to Paul Klee, Pierre Bonnard and Winifred Nicholson, writers including Hugh MacDiarmid and Elizabeth Bishop, and cinematic and televisual references including the films of Nicholas Roeg and the teleplays of Dennis Potter. Plus, he gives insights into his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Andrew Cranston: I’m going in a field, Modern Art, Bennet Street, London, until 30 May
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Sanya Kantarovsky talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Kantarovsky was born in Moscow in 1982 and emigrated to to Providence, Rhode Island, when he was ten years old. He lives and works in New York City today. His paintings present scenarios that are at once arresting and alluring. Notionally figurative, they reflect an elastic notion of how the body might be represented through paint, as figures appear in unlikely juxtaposition with other bodies and beings—even morphing into plant or animal forms—and occupy landscapes and spaces that are always infused with atmosphere and often potent with threat. Sanya regularly uses the term ostranenija, a word in his native Russia that means “making strange”, as a guiding principle. Encountering his art, one is aware of one’s own role in continuing that process: how, after slow-looking, they only grow in complexity. And that richness absorbs many moods and registers, from brutality and solemnity to absurdity and out-and-out humour. He discusses the profound effect of his early access to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and particularly Picasso’s painting Girl on Ball (1905). He reflects on the influence of a huge breadth of historic painters, including Francisco de Goya, Giorgio de Chirico and Philip Guston, discusses his respect for a number of contemporary artists including Trisha Donnelly and Charline von Heyl, and talks about the significance of a number of figures from other disciplines on his work, from the poet Anna Akhmatova and the choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata to the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovksy. Plus, he gives insight into his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Sanya Kantarovsky: Basic Failure, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Loredan, Venice, 6 May–22 November
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Hurvin Anderson talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Anderson was born in Birmingham, UK, in 1965, the youngest of eight siblings, the rest of whom were born in Jamaica. His paintings are a poetic response to place, teeming with personal and cultural resonance. He transforms photographs from his own archive as well as found images into atmospheric worlds of paint, in which details of motifs, including figures, objects, interiors and landscapes pull in and out of focus, suggesting the texture of memory. Much of his work evokes scenes and spaces in Britain, where he was born, but also imagery of Jamaica, from where his parents emigrated to the UK, and the Caribbean more widely. He has stated that his paintings often relate to a feeling of—quote—“being in one place while thinking of another”. They are a profoundly subjective response to diasporic lived experience and a sustained and lyrical engagement with paint as simultaneously a tool of representation and of veiling or disturbance. He discusses for the first time his latest paintings for the survey of his work at Tate Britain, he reflects on how he uses photography in his work and his shift to working with what he calls a “second unit” in recent works. He recalls the early influence of Michael Andrews and Richard Diebenkorn, his enduring fascination with the art of Édouard Manet and Diego Velázquez, and how he responded to the Jamaican artist Carl Abrahams in his painting Passenger Opportunity (2024-25). Plus, he gives insight into his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Hurvin Anderson, Tate Britain, until 23 August 2026.
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Lorna Simpson talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Simpson was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1960. Her conceptual approach to photography, and image-making more widely, reflects a desire to subvert the conventional framing of different forms of identity. From her early photo-text works to her recent paintings using found images, Lorna has explored the complexity of representation, and the visual and textual languages with which it is constructed. While she is deeply engaged with societal issues and historical inequities, and with the camera’s time-honoured role as a documentary instrument, she blurs boundaries between reality and fiction, between witnessing and storytelling. The result is a practice that is precise and yet elusive, spare and yet capacious.

She discusses how she achieves a balance between refusal and engagement to allow space for the viewer to enter her work. She talks about the role of the archive and history and how she navigates the use of existing images through various media. She reflects on her constant need to test herself through her work. She recalls the immense importance of discovering the work of David Hammons, how an exhibition of Francisco de Zurbarán at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York influenced her approach to image-making, and her connection to artists from Isaac Julien to Terry Adkins and Wangechi Mutu. She reflects on the importance of literature and writers including Robin Coste Lewis and Audre Lorde to her practice. And she discusses the vital importance of the films of Chantal Akerman. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Lorna Simpson, Punta della Dogana, Venice, until 22 November
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