THE FOCUS

Daniel Holdridge: Your practice is anchored in drawing. Through multiple technical and material processes, you’ve demonstrated a sincere interest in what the formal elements of drawing can accomplish. What are some qualities of drawing (historically, technically or otherwise) that invite this kind of focus, for your work? Laura Cleary Williams: I think I want to say drawing was the first thing I was doing, but that’s not true. What happened was I fell in love with printmaking. Through lear...

Rachel Bubis: You’ve spoken about how your grandfather and great-uncle’s roles as explorers shaped your thinking around desire, land, and ownership. I’m curious whether those ideas were ever part of your conversations with them, or whether they were aware of how their histories informed your work. McLean Fahnestock: Both my grandfather and great uncle died before I was born. So, their influence on my work has come through my family’s, especially my grandmother’s, remembrances of the expedi...

Jered Sprecher, Looking for the Eye, 2022, oil on canvas, 72 x 80 inches, photo by Bruce Cole, courtesy the artist and Ferrara Showman Gallery Anna Mages: In a statement from your show at Tri-Star’s Candoro Marble Building, you discuss your work as exploring the “precarious relationship between nature and technology.” The way that you describe this relationship recalls the theme of “nature v. nurture.” Do you see these relationships as part of the same conversation? Jered Sprecher: Those are definitely related to that. W...