THE FOCUS

Rachel Bubis: Your work is deeply rooted in your experiences growing up in Memphis as a third-generation Chinese American. How has the cultural landscape of Memphis shaped your practice? Sharon Havelka: I was born in Memphis and grew up in the 80’s from the generation of Delta Chinese that owned and operated corner grocery stores in neighborhoods throughout the south. My sister and I played in the aisles stocking shelves and breaking down boxes. She would ring up customers on th...

Katie Thompson Murphy, Some Inward Maze, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, (left), Light and Languor, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, (center), A Plunge at Daylight, 2025, acrylic and oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches (right) Wesley Roden: How can color reframe a subject in an unreal light? Alternatively, does color, especially saturated tones, lend to a subject feeling hypereal? Katie Thompson Murphy: I love color. I love thinking about color, playing with color, staying with color. When I’m working with non-literal co...

Rachel Bubis: Your practice spans painting, filmmaking, and graphic design. Do ideas typically begin in one medium before finding their way into another? How does your approach change from one medium to the next? Noah Thomas Miller: All the time, but it's a fairly natural process. I love working across mediums and finding intersections between them, and once I established my own visual language, it made it easy to blend whatever I'm doing. Normally everything starts from a written idea...