Cerebral Women Art Talks Podcast

Ep.268 Laurena Finéus is a Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist working primarily in painting, performance and social practice. In her practice, Finéus has been concerned with representations of black geographies, maroon thought, and migratory histories through an array of painterly imagined landscapes. The teachings of Haitian scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot in ‘Silencing the past’ informs her understanding of visual narration in her practice. Finéus’ strategies include the collapsing of history in order to question its production and mechanisms. Finéus is an MFA graduate from Columbia University (2024) and the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine arts (2020). Her work has been exhibited at the SHED NY (2025), Brooklyn Museum (2024), Hudson River museum (2023), the Ottawa art gallery (2021), and Art mûr (2019) among others . She is part of a range of private and public collections internationally such as the Canada Council Art Bank , the City of Ottawa’s Art Collection and Google. She is the recipient of the Saunderson Prize (2024), the Helen Frankenthaler fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields foundation grant (2022-2023) , the Ottawa arts council IBPOC emerging artist award (2022), and the Ineke Harmina Standish memorial (2019). Finéus is based in Brooklyn, NY. Credit Photo: Avery Savage for SHEER WORLDWIDE Artist https://laurenafineus.com/ Fridman Gallery https://fridmangallery.com/2025/07/03/artists-laurena-fineus/ Essence https://www.essence.com/art/the-shed-nyc-portals-exhibition/ Columbia University https://www.vaexhibitions.arts.columbia.edu/class-of-2024/laurena-finus University of Ottawa https://www.uottawa.ca/fr/toutes-nouvelles/celebrer-lhistoire-culture-haitiennes-travers-lart-laurena-fineus Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/janelevere/2025/07/27/early-career-nyc-artists-display-new-work-at-the-shed-in-hudson-yards/ Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/these-are-the-200-artists-in-the-brooklyn-museum-open-call-show/ Juxtapoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/laurena-fineus-love-letters-to-haiti/ Sheer Worldwide https://www.sheerworldwide.com/art/features/2025/8/7/artists-to-know-laurena-finus Jenkins Johnson Gallery https://www.jenkinsjohnsongallery.com/artworks/4308-laurena-fineus-nou-te-gen-yon-paradi-pou-antere-we-2022/ Blackcopper https://www.blackcopper.org/featured-artists/l Ambassade-Haiti https://ambassade-haiti.ca/uncategorized/laurena-fineus/ Haitian Times https://haitiantimes.com/fr/%C3%89tiquette/laurena-fineus/ The Next Contemporary https://thenextcontemporary.com/laurena-fineus/ Haiti Cultural Exchange https://haiticulturalx.org/programs/artists-opportunities/lakou-nou/laurena-fineus/

Modou Dieng Yacine . Born in Saint-Louis (Senegal), Modou Dieng Yacine studied at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Dakar (Senegal) and later earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in California. He currently lives and works in Chicago, and is also active as a curator/co-founder of the curatorial company Blackpuffin. Dieng Yacine works across painting, photography, collage, and mixed media. He often uses non-traditional materials such as denim, burlap, cardboard, vinyl records, archival prints, and hybrid materials layered onto surfaces. He explores spatial/architectural motifs, layering of materials, de-construction of façades, and reveals negative space (cut-outs, hollows) as a strategy. Major themes in his practices are identity, migration, postcolonial history, architecture & habitat, and the intersection of African and Western cultures. Dieng Yacine references the notion of asymmetrical parallelism (a term from poet/philosopher Léopold Sédar Senghor) to describe rhythmic repetition in time/space, which he applies in his compositions. The structure of the canvas itself often becomes part of the message (e.g., exposing stretcher bars, hollows behind façades) to comment on erasure, grief or absence. Modou Dieng Yacine is represented in numerous collections, among these are the collections of the Studio Museum in New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, Gervanne and Mathias Lerind Collection in Paris, Kranzberg foundation in St Louis, Fondation Gandur in Geneva and Carlsberg foundation in Copenhagen. Image courtesy of artist Artist as Curator Blackpuffin.co 193 Gallery https://www.193gallery.com/fr/artists/62-modou-dieng-yacine/ ICI https://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/22963-modou-dieng-yacine Specta https://www.specta.dk/modou-dieng-yacine Dakart News https://dakartnews.com/2025/05/02/modou-dieng-yacines-poetics-of-memory-and-identity-interview/ Artsper https://www.artsper.com/fr/artistes-contemporains/senegal/117864/modou-dieng-yacine Povos Chicago https://povoschicago.com/usr/documents/exhibitions/list_of_works_url/33/steve-doc-modou.pdf Laboratório de Actividades Criativas https://lac.org.pt/en/roots-2025-modou-dieng-yacine-sn/ Meer https://www.meer.com/en/97714-i-will-go-where-your-music-takes-me-dot-dot-dot Artisanal Metals https://artisanalmetals.com/2025/05/05/from-dakar-to-venice-the-postcolonial-art-journey-of-modou-dieng-yacine/ On-Art Media https://www.onart.media/evenements-autour-de-lart-contemporain-africain/black-venezia-une-exploration-artistique-de-modou-dieng-yacine-a-la-193-gallery/ Pilchuck https://www.pilchuck.org/workshop-staff/modou-dieng-yacine Juliet Art Magazine https://www.juliet-artmagazine.com/en/the-imaginary-architecture-of-connections-modou-dieng-yacine-and-zoila-andrea-coc-chang-in-venice/