Strand, the Story of an Artist

Episode 068: Ruth Ribeaucourt

Kevin Kirkwood shared a conversation with the talented Ruth Ribeaucourt a few weeks ago in Lacoste, France. Ruth opened up about her Irish heritage, her early entrepreneurial spark, and the experiences that led her into the creative world.
Ruth began her career as an international publicist and talent handler for Walt Disney Studios before trading the world of cinema for a slower life in Provence, France. Since 2010, she has immersed herself in making, creating, and collaborating—first through her jewelry line, then as a writer and photographer for publications such as Where Women Create, My French Country Home, and Quilt Mania, as well as for publishers including Flammarion, Hardie Grant UK, and Simon & Schuster.
In 2019, she launched an international creative retreat program, fostering connection through storytelling. Her passion for giving creatives a platform led her to create the independent print publication FAIRE magazine in 2021—an intimate, honest space for sharing creatives’ stories. A dedicated facilitator of workshops, exhibitions, and events, Ruth is committed to nurturing and empowering the creative community.
 
www.ruthribeaucourt.com
www.fairepress.com
Instagram: @ruthribeaucourt |  @faire.press
 
The Strand is produced by Kevin Kirkwood @kevinwillpaint
All episodes are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Images courtesy of Ruth Ribeaucourt
 
 

Episode 067: Cyril Carret

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with artist Cyril Carret for a conversation at his home in Lacoste France. They dive into Cyril’s journey as a creative person, exploring his early influences and the experiences that led him to move to his hillside retreat in the Luberon.
Cyril is a multidisciplinary artist with an extensive creative background in photography and interior design. Today, he channels his creative energy into making concrete sculptures, working from his workshop and gallery in the picturesque village of Goult.
 
CyrilCarret.art
@cyril_carret
 
The Strand is produced by Kevin Kirkwood @kevinwillpaint
All episodes are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.

Episode 066: Gérard-Philippe Mabillard

Kevin Kirkwood shared a few minutes in Lacoste, France with Gérard-Philippe Mabillard, a talented Swiss portrait photographer. Gérard is also a passionate contributor to the Moipourtoit Foundation, an organization dedicated to uplifting the community of Pereira, Colombia.
One of his latest projects is a book titled The Stars Share, which features over 150 black-and-white portraits of both famous and lesser-known individuals. Among the notable figures are Penélope Cruz, Quentin Tarantino, Sir Christopher Hampton, and Javier Bardem. All proceeds from his portraits go directly to the Moi Pour Toit Foundation.
 
@gerardphilippemabillard
gpm-photography.com
@fondation_moipourtoit
moipourtoi.org
 
The Strand is produced by Kevin Kirkwood @kevinwillpaint
 
All episodes are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Images courtesy of
Gérard-Philippe Mabillard
Richard Dumas
Yann Steininger
 
 

Episode 065: Armin Boehm

Kevin Kirkwood met in Armin’s Berlin studio and talked about his solo exhibition, “LUST ANGST SCHMERZ EKSTASE,” which occurred last autumn at KÖNIG GALERIE. They also talked about some of the things that inspire him and the impetus that pushed him into the creative world.
LUST ANGST SCHMERZ EKSTASE, a solo exhibition by Armin Boehm in the Nave of St. Agnes. This exhibition marks Boehm’s debut with the gallery, featuring his latest series of paintings that delve into the tangled web of human emotions, exploring desire, fear, pain, and ecstasy through his distinctive, multilayered approach. Created between 2023 and 2024, the works explore a diverse range of motifs. His paintings, accompanied by preparatory drawings that offer insight into his creative process, blend allegory and caricature within a rich tradition of social commentary. Vivid, hybrid characters and chaotic scenes are meticulously crafted to convey a sense of unease. This approach is reminiscent of medieval iconography, which used dramatic and often unsettling imagery to convey religious, moral, and societal messages. Additionally, Boehm’s work draws from the exaggerated forms of early 20th-century satirical art.
 
The Strand is produced by Kevin Kirkwood @kevinwillpaint
All episodes are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
arminboehm.de @arminboehm
koeniggalerie.com @koeniggalerie

Episode 064: Nicolas Rupcich

Episode 064: Nicolas Rupcich
Kevin Kirkwood met with Nicolas at the Reiter Gallery in Berlin, Germany to talk about his recent solo exhibition titled, “Offline Islands”.  In this show, he  presented a series of video installations and works developed over the past two years as a result of an artist’s residency in the Arctic Circle. These works primarily address themes related to image production in remote regions of our planet and the often-paradoxical nature of these processes.
 
Nicolás Rupcich (Santiago, 1981) / Lives and works in Berlin.
He grew up in the Chiloé island in the south of Chile, before studying Fine Arts at Universidad Finis Terrae in Santiago, and then taking a Masters in Visual Arts at Universidad de Chile. He acquired a degree as a Meisterschüler in Media Arts at HGB Leipzig, supported by a DAAD scholarship in 2012. Since then, he has lived in Germany.
Rupcich works across a variety of media, focusing mainly on experimenting in photography, video and animation. Thematically, his works explore the functions, effects and behaviors related to the digital image, where what we see on a daily basis as conventions of the screen in fact alter and impact upon our understanding of reality.
His works have been exhibited in several video and media arts festival and exhibitions, including: Art Speaks Out, ikonoTV – COP27 (Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt 2022); Macro Asilo, Museum of Contemporary Art (Rome, Italy 2018); Video Sur, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France 2018); Collage I – Methode, Fotogalerie Wien (Vienna, Austria 2017); Pacific Standard Time LA/LA: Video Art in Latin America, LAXART (L.A., USA 2017); Ars Electronica Festival, Best of Animation/Film/VFX, (Linz, Austria 2014); Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, Germany 2012); 28 Kasseler Dokfest (Kassel, Germany 2011); Chili, l’envers du décor, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton (Paris, France 2010); and the 7º Bienal del Mercosur – Projetáveis (Porto Alegre, Brazil 2009).
 
The Strand is produced by Kevin Kirkwood @kevinwillpaint
All episodes are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
nicolasrupcich.com
@rupcich
reitergalleries.com
@Reiter_galleries

Episode 063: Tiziana Jill Beck

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with another Berlin based artist, Tiziana Jill Beck. She primarily works in drawing, often combined with artistic publications, installative objects, and paintings. Her work is characterized by a great joy in experimentation with material, form, color, and perspective. After extended stays in South Korea and Paris, Tiziana lives and works now in Berlin. She is currently preparing for her solo exhibition that will occur later this year at Gallery Judith Andreae.
All episodes of The Strand are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Produced by Kevin Kirkwood
@kevinwillpaint 
 
TizianaJillBeck.DE
@tizianajill
galerie-andreae.de
@galeriejudithandreae

Episode 062: Alban Muja

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Alban in his Berlin studio to explore the key milestones that have shaped his remarkable career. They delve into his thought-provoking contribution to the 2019 Venice Biennale and unpack the deeper themes behind his latest documentary, I Believe the Portrait Saved Me. The film has already captured significant attention at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), cementing Alban's place at the forefront of contemporary art and filmmaking.
Alban Muja (b. 1980, Mitrovica) is a Kosovan contemporary artist and filmmaker based in Berlin and Prishtina. Influenced primarily by the social, political, and economic transformation processes in the wider surrounding region, he investigates history and socio-political themes, linking them to his position in Kosovo today.
In 2019, Muja represented the Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo at the 58th Venice Biennale with his three-channel moving image project Family Album.
Selected other exhibitions include: Manifesta Biennale 14, Prishtina; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; MAXXI Museum, Rome; 3rd Industrial Art Biennial, Istria, Croatia; MOMus Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki; Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn; Guangdong Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje; MeetFactory, Prague; Forum Stadtpark, Graz; James Gallery, New York; City Art Gallery, Ljubljana; Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou; Museum of Fine Art, Split; Trieste Contemporanea; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art in the Atomic Shelter, Konjic, BiH; Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana; National Gallery of Kosovo; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills; Slovak National Gallery; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden; 28th Ljubljana Graphic Biennale; nGbK, Berlin; National Gallery of Arts, Tirana; and Cetinje Biennale, among others.
 
All episodes of The Strand are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Produced by Kevin Kirkwood
@kevinwillpaint
 
AlbanMuja.com
@AlbanMuja
reitergalleries.com
@reiter_galleries
 
Images courtesy of the artist.
 
 

Episode 061: Caroline Kryzecki

Kevin Kirkwood visited Berlin-based artist Caroline Kryzecki. Known for her intricate ballpoint pen drawings, she exclusively uses the four most commonly available colors: blue, black, red and green. To a certain degree Kryzecki’s drawings, or rather paintings on paper (up to 270 x 190 cm), are remnants of analog writing; calligraphy exercises with a ruler that express both the sensuality of an ornament and the meticulousness of a plan drawing. They illustrate conceptual appropriations and variations of an aesthetic practice that emerged originally from an error in production: the Moire effect.
As Caroline prepares for a solo exhibition later this year, we dive deep into her creative process and the ideas that shape her unique vision.
More about Caroline:
Caroline Kryzecki (b. 1979 in Wickede/Ruhr, Germany) became known for her ballpoint pen drawings, in which she translates a digital malfunction into an analog production method. She primarily works on paper with a minimalist-conceptual approach but also creates site-specific installations. While on a fellowship at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut, USA, Kryzecki began working with brush prints on point paper, a technical grid paper used in weaving. Defining a field, eliminating hierarchies, and trusting the process are central aspects of her creative practice. Repetition becomes the principle of deviation within an algorithmic system. By combining colors, varying size and orientation, and modulating opacity and transparency, Kryzecki creates a wide range of variations in her works. 
Kryzecki lives and works in Berlin. She studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. Her work has been featured at institutions like the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2025), the Overbeck Society – Lübeck Art Association (2024), the British Museum, London (2022), The Drawing Center, New York (2021), and the Boros Foundation (2020), Berlin.
 
All episodes of The Strand are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Produced by Kevin Kirkwood - @kevinwillpaint
 
www.kryzecki.de
www.sexauer.eu
@caroline_kryzecki
@sexauer_gallery
 
Portrait by @kareen_kittelmann

Episode 060: Henning Strassburger

Episode 60: Henning Strassburger
Kevin Kirkwood chops it up with Henning at KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, Germany. They talked about his current exhibition on view at the gallery until February 23.
Henning Strassburger (b. 1983 in Meissen, Germany) explores the intersection of identity, mass media, and self-representation in the digital age. Known primarily for his colorful paintings, he has recently added figuration to his abstract practice. Strassburger’s works blend autobiographical elements with pop culture references, examining how identity is shaped by social media and consumer culture.At the heart of his practice is Alphakenny, an alter ego representing a fictionalized version of the artist grappling with artistic and social expectations. This figure navigates the tensions between personal identity and self-promotion, enriching the compositions with irony and cultural references.Strassburger lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Akademie der Künste in Düsseldorf. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including at Kunstraum Potsdam (2022), Kunsthal Rotterdam (2020), Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2019), Aishti Foundation, Beirut (2018), and Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2016).
Produced by @kevinwillpaint
@the_strassburger
henningstrassburger.com
@koeniggalerie
www.koeniggalerie.com
All episodes of The Strand are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
Image courtesy of the artist. 

Episode 059: Trish Andersen

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Trish at Bululu Studios in Savannah, Georgia. Their conversation highlights a few of the key moments in her creative career. She also talks about her latest exhibition at Laney Contemporary which was titled, Wild Frontier. This gathering of new work was a collaborative effort between Trish and her husband, Michael Porten.
As an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Dalton, Georgia "The Carpet Capital of the World”, Trish Andersen's initial attraction to the process of tufting was a means to reconnect with and explore her roots. Years after attending the Savannah College of Art and Design and moving on to live and work in Brooklyn, New York, she began using the medium as an examination of the notion that a thing or a way of being can run in our blood; that perhaps by observing the characteristics of personal origin and establishing commonality and community around those that reverberate in the present, one may be able to begin unearthing the elusive authentic self. 
@kevinwillpaint
@trishandersenart
trishandersenstudio.com
michaelporten.com
@laneycontemporary
laneycontemporary.com
 
All episodes of The Strand are available at www.kevinwillpaint.com/strand and on all major podcast platforms. Including Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon.
 
Image by Adam Kuehl
@adamkuehlphotography
adamkuehl.com