Talking Artist to Artist, a bonus feature with Hilary Harkness and Becky Moon

Hi everybody!Welcome to this episode of I’m Here Too: a bonus feature with Hilary Harkness and Becky Moon. Many of you may know Hilary is my wife, but more importantly, she is a wonderful artist. In 2023, she had a solo show at PPOW Gallery in New York City. Upon hearing about this, Becky actually decided to take a flight from St. Louis where she was a student at Washington University. Becky landed in Tribeca and came to the closing day of the show. This was actually the first time Hilary and Becky met in person. When Hilary heard that Becky and I were having a conversation, she said, “I’d love to drop in and talk to Becky for a little bit.” And so here is some of that conversation. I think it will be very helpful for artists, but also people who wonder what artists do when they talk to each other, artist to artist. Off we go, enjoy!CHAPTERS(00:00:06) Introduction(00:01:04) Hilary’s tips for being a mentor and giving feedback(00:02:30) What Becky learned about maximalism and painting(00:03:37) Finding love and inspiration(00:04:07) ClosingAbout Hilary HarknessIn her meticulously rendered small-scale paintings, Hilary Harkness (b. 1971) fuses traditional techniques with a distinctly contemporary sensibility to explore power struggles inherent in sex, race, and class systems on an uncensored stage. Working in episodic series that take years to complete, Harkness wields unparalleled skill and imagination to elevate the stories and intersectional experiences of women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ people. Harkness earned her BA from UC Berkeley and her MFA from Yale University. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain; American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Yuz Museum Shanghai; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA; and the Seavest Collection, New York, NY; among others. In 2017, she received the Henry Clews Award and participated in the inaugural Master Residency Program at the Château de La Napoule, France. She has lectured widely at leading academic and cultural institutions. In 2014, she co-curated Roy Lichtenstein: Nudes and Interiors at FLAG Art Foundation. Harkness’s first solo exhibition with P·P·O·W Gallery, Prisoners from the Front, was on display in fall 2023. Co-published by Black Dog Press and P·P·O·W, Hilary Harkness: Everything for You is the first comprehensive monograph on the artist’s work and features new texts by Lynn Tillman, Dr. Ashley Jackson, as well as an interview with American painter Ivy Haldeman.Harkness was represented by Mary Boone Gallery in New York City from 2003 until the gallery closed in 2019. She is currently represented by P·P·O·W Gallery in New York City.About Becky MoonBecky Moon (b.2002) is an artist based in New York City who comes from a half North Korean and half South Korean heritage. She paints the imagined structure of the invisible human mind through the arrangement of fictional objects. In this limitless world built from meticulous brushstrokes, each thought transforms into a branch, rock, or snail shell. She is pursuing her MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University. Previously, she earned a BFA in Art with a Second Major in Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis and attended Yale Norfolk School of Art. She has also worked as an education associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum. Her most recent solo exhibitions were held at Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO, and at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.