London-based artist Laila Majid received her MA at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2021 before completing an MSt in Film Aesthetics at the University of Oxford in 2022. She makes still images, video and sculpture that frequently draw on the signifiers of fetishwear, such as latex, leather and plastics. Majid’s practice explores the ways in which objects, and their surfaces, hold traces of corporeal actions and encounters, often pointing to speculative bodily gestures.
Age: 27
Location: London, UK
Last dream you had: Not sure – I don’t often remember my dreams
Favourite exhibition: Recent faves include P. Staff at Serpentine Gallery, 2019; Nikita Gale at Chisenhale Gallery, 2022 and Micheal E. Smith at Modern Art, 2022
Favourite object you own: Louis Blue Newby 🙂
Favourite art-world Instagram account: @avocado_ibuprofen
Favourite movie: Cats the live-action remake, 2019
Favourite artwork: I can’t choose one! Drawing Restraint 7 by Matthew Barney, 1993; Charlotte by Steve McQueen, 2004 and Père Ubu by Dora Maar, 1936
Loves: Charli XCX, bubble tea, latex
Hates: Camping
End-of-year goals: Unbothered, moisturised, in my lane, flourishing
Leonard Baby is a New York-based painter whose work deals with femininity, androgyny, identity, and feelings of otherness. Baby borrows images from films as the basis for his compositions – the majority of his subject matter is appropriated from mid-century European cinema. His scenes are charged with a suspended drama and often allude to the fact that they are just a moment of an entire story happening outside the frame.
Age: 27
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Last dream you had: If I remember my dreams, they’re typically too dark or personal to repeat
Favourite exhibition: Kyle Dunn’s ‘Night Pictures’ pulled an emotion out of me that I’d never felt before
Favourite object you own: A Playboy magazine signed by Anna Nicole Smith
Favourite art-world Instagram account: @kylestaver
Favourite movie: It’s impossible to choose just one, but Melancholia and The Princess Diaries are consistent companions
Favourite artwork: Self Portrait in Hell by Edvard Munch, 1903
Loves: Salt, back scratches, university swimming pools, painting, matzo ball soup, bright red, being bored, chocolate teddy bears at Fortnum and Mason, cancelled plans, Farrow & Ball Middleton Pink paint, going to the cinema alone, dancing
Hates: War, Taylor Swift
End-of-year goals: To leave New York
Nicholas Bierk paints intimate snapshots, transitional moments and pensive landscapes, creating dimly lit and emotive work with an almost palpable familiarity. Bierk paints with a subtle stippled technique to imbue his scenes with movement and a hazy glow. He teases us with cropped snippets into his world and relies on careful cropping to reveal only a glimpse of the full story.
Age: 38
Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Last dream you had: Holding someone else’s baby and talking to my late father / orca whales
Favourite exhibition: Victor Man at Gladstone Gallery and Tracy Emin and Edvard Munch at the Royal Academy
Favourite object you own: A painting by Darby Milbrath called Angel
Favourite art-world Instagram account: @folesdog
Favourite movie: My recent favourite is Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet
Favourite artwork: The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio in San Luigi del Francesi
Loves: Tacos, cold plunges, playing hockey
Hates: Spilling the mineral spirits
End-of-year goals: To spend more time outside the studio
Laila Majid: @helloo0o0o0oo0oo0oooo00o00o0o
Leonard Baby: @leonardbabyart
Nicholas Bierk: @nickbierk
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