What’s My Thesis?

Snezana Petrovic reflects on leaving Yugoslavia during its collapse, navigating identity after displacement, and evolving her practice from production design to installation-based work focused on ecology, climate, and global responsibility.

Painter and musician Faris McReynolds examines the economics of the contemporary art market, artist labor, and institutional power, reflecting on his departure from the gallery system and commitment to an independent practice.

Painter Katie Hector joins Javier Proenza to discuss portrait painting, beauty standards, and contemporary image culture, reflecting on studio practice, photography, and how historical traditions of portraiture intersect with contemporary visual culture.

Chicano artist Raul Baltazar discusses ritual performance, Mexican cultural history, and the role of community traditions in contemporary art, reflecting on syncretism, migration, and artistic devotion in Los Angeles.

Haitian painter and muralist Olivier Arsène Ganthier discusses Black figuration, Vodou syncretism, public art in Haiti, and completing his MFA at Otis College while navigating diasporic identity between Haiti, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Artist and organizer Frannie Hemmelgarn discusses DMST Atelier, community-based art in Los Angeles, affordable housing partnerships, gentrification, social practice, and her papermaking work rooted in repair and grief.

Javier Proenza speaks with Ever Velasquez, Director of Charlie James Gallery, about artist career development, curatorial responsibility, collage practice, Afro-diasporic spirituality, and community-based work in the Los Angeles art world.

Artist Flora Kao joins What’s My Thesis? to discuss the evolution of her practice from painting to large-scale installation, and how Taiwanese mourning rituals, Buddhist symbolism, and diasporic memory shape her approach to space. Trained at Otis and later UC Irvine, Kao describes discovering installation as a way to create experiences that “elicit a sense of wonder,” pairing conceptual clarity with meditative, labor-intensive processes. The conversation traces her early years moving between Houston, Wisconsin, Taipei, and Boston; her family’s history under Taiwan’s martial-law era; and her transition from environmental science and strategy consulting into art school. Kao explains the cultural and personal significance behind folding 108 origami lotus forms each week for seven weeks—a ritual she adapted into a suspended installation of 756 hand-folded lotus at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Kao also speaks about using archival photographs, bamboo prayer-leaf structures, and cyanotype processes to explore grief, family history, and the shifting landscapes of Taiwan and Los Angeles. She offers rare insight into sustaining an installation-based practice through grants, community networks, and long-term professional relationships, while navigating motherhood and the realities of working outside commercial gallery systems.

Artist Kelly Witmer joins host Javier Proenza to talk about material process, experimentation, and what it means to sustain an art practice in the desert. Based between Joshua Tree and Los Angeles, Witmer works across glass, ceramics, and painting, transforming the unpredictability of the kiln into a meditation on control, failure, and transformation. In this episode, she traces her trajectory from photography and printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia to her later exploration of sculpture and abstraction. The conversation moves through her early life in Pennsylvania’s Mennonite community, her relocation to Los Angeles in the 1990s, and the gradual evolution of her visual language — from figurative painting to material-driven forms that balance fragility and chance. Witmer also reflects on the changing realities of the art world: the economics of desert living, the value of art school, and the rise of Instagram as both tool and trap for visibility and survival. Along the way, she discusses her fascination with prehistoric art, Utah pictographs, and the enduring human impulse to leave marks in stone and clay. A grounded, candid conversation about process, persistence, and the quiet negotiations between art, livelihood, and place.

Artist Sheng Lor reflects on her journey from a Thai refugee camp to a studio practice in Los Angeles. Born to Hmong parents displaced by the Secret War in Laos, Lor discusses culture shock, grief, and the intergenerational legacies that shape her art. Her loom-wrapping series transforms discarded weaving tools into sculptural memorials, addressing the histories of labor, invisibility of craft, and Hmong spiritual traditions. This conversation explores how weaving, diaspora, and ritual intersect in contemporary art and the Los Angeles art scene.

Artist David Lloyd joins What’s My Thesis? to reflect on a career that spans CalArts in the early 1980s, formative years at Margot Levin Gallery, and decades of navigating the shifting landscape of the Los Angeles art world. Known for his commitment to formalist abstraction, Lloyd discusses what it means to sustain a painting practice over forty years while adapting to the changing priorities of galleries, art fairs, and collectors. The conversation delves into his most recent body of work, where Lloyd integrates his own archive of paintings, drawings, and ceramics into AI image generation. By transforming these digital hallucinations into trompe l’oeil abstractions through resin, collage, and material experimentation, he considers how technology can challenge conventional definitions of painting while remaining rooted in physical process. Other topics include the legacy of CalArts conceptualism, the burdens of postmodern theory and art education, the precarity of mid-level galleries, and the paradox of elitism within the contemporary art market. Throughout, Lloyd emphasizes the importance of generosity, resilience, and longevity in sustaining a life in art. Listen for insights on: Abstract painting and formalist traditions in Los Angeles The role of AI in contemporary art practices The realities of the gallery system and art fairs Postmodernism, art education, and theory fatigue Building a career across decades in the art world

In this episode of What’s My Thesis?, host Javier Proenza speaks with Emma Christ, editor at Artillery magazine and gallerist working between Portland and Los Angeles. Christ reflects on her beginnings in photography, formative years at Bard and Reed, and her transition from artistic practice into gallery management, editing, and writing. The conversation traces her early influences—from Francesca Woodman, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston to mentorship under No Wave photographer Barbara Ess—before moving into immersive installation work and a graduate thesis on trans-corporeality and the porous body. Christ discusses her experiences in institutions such as the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, her role in supporting artists within commercial gallery structures, and the gendered dynamics that continue to shape the field. Throughout the episode, Christ shares candid insights into navigating the hierarchies of the art world, balancing writing and curating, and the importance of advocating for emerging voices across both editorial and exhibition platforms.