Strand, the Story of an Artist

Episode 104: Josh Aronson

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Josh Aronson, a Miami-based artist and photographer whose work explores masculinity, vulnerability, and the shifting landscape of the American South. Born in Toronto and raised in Florida, Aronson’s perspective is shaped by a deep familiarity with the region’s contradictions, something that becomes a central thread throughout the conversation.
His photographs, which often blur the line between portraiture and landscape, have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, Financial Times, Frieze, Italian Vogue, Teen Vogue, Dazed, i-D, British Journal of Photography, Document Journal, and Apartamento. Across this work, Aronson engages questions of identity, intimacy, and place, building images that feel both personal and culturally resonant.
He is currently a 2026 Leonian Foundation Fellow in Photography at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Studio Artist-in-Residence at Deering Estate in Florida, and an ON::View Artist-in-Residence at ARTS Southeast in Georgia. His work has been exhibited internationally, and in 2024, he became the only artist to receive both the People’s Choice Award and Juror’s Prize for the City of Miami Beach’s No Vacancy public art commission.
In this conversation, we explore Josh’s early influences and what first drew him to photography, how collaboration and trust shape his process, and the evolving relationship between artist and subject. We also discuss the emotional terrain of the South, the challenge of representing Florida beyond cliché, and what it means to document a place that resists easy definition.
Learn more: | josharonson.us   |   @jda.usa
vcca.com  |   @vacenterforthecreativearts
deeringestate.org   |   @deeringestate
artssoutheast.org   |   @artssoutheast
 
Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com  | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand via all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 103: Rick Petrea

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Savannah-based artist Rick Petrea, whose work spans painting, sculpture, ceramics, and collage. For over 30 years, Rick has explored figurative, expressionistic art, occasionally venturing into abstraction. His influences range from Willem de Kooning, Jean Dubuffet, and the CoBrA Group to comic books and outsider art, particularly by artists with schizophrenia.
In this episode, Kevin and Rick trace a life devoted to art; from growing up in Savannah to encounters with de Kooning in New York and Emilio Vedova in Venice. They discuss how books, politics, and military service shaped both his worldview and his practice, and how his work bridges Abstract Expressionism, outsider art, and contemporary expression.
Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon, and all major platforms.
 

Episode 102: Jason Hoelscher

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Jason Hoelscher, a painter, writer, and professor whose work explores the dynamics of attention, perception, and visual information.
Hoelscher’s practice sits at the intersection of art, philosophy, and information. His book Art as Information Ecology (Duke University Press, 2021) draws on aesthetic philosophy and information theory to reframe art as a living, complex system rather than a fixed object. His work has been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, including large-scale public installations in airports and other shared spaces. He has written for ARTnews and The Wall Street Journal, and serves as a professor and gallery director at Georgia Southern University.
In this episode, Kevin and Jason trace the arc of a practice that moves fluidly between the studio, the page, and the public sphere. They discuss how painting led Jason toward philosophy, why information overload is as much an aesthetic problem as a cultural one, and what it means to create work that doesn’t just fill space but actively shapes how it’s experienced.
Learn more: jason-hoelscher.com | @jason_hoelscher_studio
Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 101: Christopher Moss

Kevin Kirkwood visits the Savannah, Georgia studio of painter Christopher Moss, a space Christopher built by hand alongside his father, and the setting for an afternoon conversation about memory, place, and the quiet work of building a creative life.
Together, they trace his path from a childhood in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, through earning his MFA at CUNY Brooklyn College, to the practice he has cultivated in Savannah. Along the way, they reflect on what it means to create paintings rooted in a sense of home, and how that sense evolves over time.
Christopher’s recent exhibitions include a two artist show with Sue Fox at Lyndon House Arts Center (Athens, GA), as well as EASTSIDE 11 at Ology Gallery (Savannah). The conversation also looks ahead to his participation in ArtFields 2026, one of the largest art competitions in the South, on view April 10 through May 2.
Learn more: christophermoss.biz | @mrhopthescissor
@lyndonhouseartscenter
@ologygallery
@artfieldssc
Follow the host, Kevin Kirkwood: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaintFollow the show: @strandpodcast
The Strand is available at the link in bio or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon, and all major platforms.
 

Episode 100: Erin Dunn

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia. Since 2014, Erin has organized exhibitions including Watershed: Contemporary Landscape Photography, Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton, and Frank Stewart's Nexus: An American Photographer's Journey. She also leads the #art912 initiative, a program dedicated to supporting artists working in Savannah.
Her most recent exhibition, Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961–Now, co-curated with Beryl Gilothwest, is the first major show to explore the influence of Ossabaw Island on American artists. The exhibition spans 26,000 undeveloped acres off the Georgia coast and highlights the legacy of two groundbreaking residency programs, featuring work by internationally renowned artists including Harry Bertoia, Agnes Denes, Sally Mann, Anne Truitt, and a new commission by Allison Janae Hamilton.
In this conversation, we explore Erin’s early life and the path that led her into curatorial work, the process behind building Off the Coast of Paradise, and the challenges of representing complex and layered histories. She also shares candid advice for emerging artists looking to connect with institutions.
Learn more: Telfair.org  | @telfairmuseums  | @erindunn_art  
Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 099: Ivy Laurel Anderson

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Ivy Laurel Anderson, a fiber artist and sculptor based in Savannah, Georgia. Using a knitting machine as her primary tool, Ivy wraps discarded everyday objects in elastic knitted membranes that stretch, sag, and conform to whatever lies beneath. Her ongoing series, Somethings, transforms castaway materials into forms that are by turns humorous, unsettling, and oddly moving.
Her work has been recognized by the International Design Awards, the Red Dot Design Awards, and ArtPrize, and her practice has taken her from Japan to Italy through residencies and exhibitions across the country.
In this conversation, we explore her path from fashion to fiber sculpture, her relationship with the knitting machine, and what it means to find beauty in the overlooked and forgotten.
Learn more: ivylaurelanderson.com   |   @ivylaurelanderson
Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com  | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand on all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 098: Melinda Borysevicz

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Italian American figurative painter and writer Melinda Borysevicz, whose work recently moved from the hilltop villages of southern Italy to the marshes of Savannah, Georgia.
After years immersed in Savannah's vibrant creative community, Melinda traveled in 2015 to a small village near her ancestral home in southern Italy. What began as a short stay became several years of living, painting, and writing in Padula, Italy.
Most recently, Melinda found her way back to Savannah, where she threw herself into one of the most ambitious projects of her career. Through two consecutive residencies, first at ArtsSoutheast, then at the Savannah College of Art and Design, she brought “Savannah Procession” to life: a two-panel oil painting, six feet tall and fifteen feet long. The work grew out of town hall gatherings in her own studio, where community members came together to share their lives, their struggles, and their hopes.
In this episode, we explore her journey between continents, the making of Savannah Procession, and what happens when an artist opens her studio to a community.
 
Learn more:
melindaborysevicz.com @melinbz
artssoutheast.org @artssoutheast
 
Follow the host:
kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or @strandpodcast
 
Listen to The Strand on all major platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Portrait by Natalino Russo @natalinorusso

Episode 097: Ben Tollefson

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Ben Tollefson, a painter and curator based in Savannah whose studio practice examines performance, identity, and the illusions we construct around the self.
Working primarily in figurative oil painting, Ben explores artifice and the social constructions of masculinity and femininity. His boldly hued, psychologically charged compositions inject a camp sensibility into traditional painting, balancing technical rigor with flamboyance and theatricality. Raised within a religious environment shaped by strict binary gender roles, his work reclaims qualities once considered forbidden: frivolity, excess, ornament, and reframes them as sites of power and inquiry.
Since earning his M.F.A. from SCAD in 2014, Ben has shown work across the country, from Laney Contemporary in Savannah to the Spring Break Art Show in New York, and been featured in IMPACT and Burnaway Magazine. As Curator at the SCAD Museum of Art, he has organized exhibitions by Zanele Muholi, Nina Chanel Abney, Marcel Dzama, Roxy Paine, and others.
In this episode, we trace the turning points, formative experiences, and personal history that have shaped his practice and explore what keeps pulling him back to the canvas.
 
Learn more:
bentollefson.com @bentollefson
Follow the host:
kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or @strandpodcast
Listen to The Strand via the link in bio and on all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 096: lé dieguê

Kevin Kirkwood shared a conversation with lé dieguê, a Venezuelan-born artist now living and working in Savannah, Georgia. His work is layered with rhythm, symbolism, and bold chromatic intensity, drawing from migration, cultural memory, and personal resilience. Through color and pattern, he builds visual worlds that speak to identity, displacement, and transformation.
In this conversation, they discuss lé dieguê’s journey from Venezuela to the United States, and how the current political administration is affecting not only his own life, but the people he loves and the broader immigrant community around him. They also explore how those pressures and uncertainties are shaping his creative output; how art becomes both refuge and response in moments of adversity.
This is a thoughtful, honest conversation about art, identity, and making work in complicated times.
 
Learn more:
lediegue.com @ledieguearte
latinoartsinc.org @latinoartsinc
@hugopahd
 
Follow the host:
kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or at @strandpodcast
 
Listen to The Strand via all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 095: Benoit Glazer

Kevin Kirkwood travels to Orlando, Florida to reconnect with Benoit Glazer; musician, designer, and founder of the Timucua Arts Foundation. Benoit is also renowned for his work as musical director for Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba, bringing a world-class performance perspective to his own creative projects.
Timucua is a multi-disciplinary arts and education nonprofit, blending music, visual art, festivals, and live performance in an intimate, community-centered setting. More than a venue, it’s a hub built on the belief that the arts belong to everyone.
Kevin’s connection to Timucua is endearing. It was painter and graphic novelist Michael Broom who first introduced him to Benoit, an introduction that led to Kevin’s very first art show and marked a turning point in his career. He still recalls that opening night when Charlie DeChant, saxophonist for Daryl Hall & John Oates, performed live during the exhibit; a moment that set a high standard for what an art event could be.
In this conversation, Kevin and Benoit explore the importance of building creative communities and why supporting the arts matters now more than ever.
Learn more: timucua.comFollow Kevin on Instagram: @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast
Documentaries on Timucua:
2014 – Steve Radley & Restless Films: Watch
@restless_realm
2025 – Adrenaline Films: Watch
@adrenalinefilms
 
Artist Statement:Benoit Glazer grew up in Québec’s Laurentian Mountains and earned degrees in music performance and conducting. By 21, he was teaching jazz at McGill University while touring and recording for millions worldwide. From 1998–2017, he conducted La Nouba for Cirque du Soleil. In 2000, he founded Timucua Arts Foundation, where he remains Artistic and Technical Director, championing music, visual arts, and community-centered performance. A frequent speaker and advisor, Benoit has been recognized for his achievements as both musician and philanthropist.
 
Portrait courtesy of Benoit Glazer