Elephant Magazine, Hammersmith (2026)

29/12/2025

“Much of our intentional time together is spent rejuvenating our souls, whether we are reading side by side, cooking together, spending time in nature, experiencing an exhibition that we’re both interested in, or planning date nights at BAM. Maybe this is cliché, but we don’t need to be doing much together in order to feel moved. Some of my favorite time with Caleb is going on a walk to pick up a cup of coffee. These moments cultivate creativity both on the individual and the partner level.”

As partners in life and art, Caleb Hahne Quintana (.h.quintana) and Maria Vogel () bring a shared love for creation to spaces where creativity and conviction take shape. Their practices, while very different, are both rooted in storytelling, and a belief in art as a human connector. For Caleb, painting becomes a way to translate memory while for Maria, art is both a critical pursuit and an ethical one. As a couple, that means doing everything they can in the name of advocacy, education, and opening doors that have too often remained closed.

Together, they look at the art world as a way of resisting isolation, whether through rituals like morning walks and exhibitions, thoughtful living with art, or expansive conversations around the dinner table. In this interview with Elephant, Caleb and Maria reflect on partnership as a creative force, the role of art as connective tissue, and the responsibilities of making, supporting, and living with work in an increasingly fractured cultural landscape.

Words by Jo Rosenthal ()

26/12/2025

““I have a problem with interviews,” Tala Madani confesses as we begin this interview. “I have such a mirroring habit. It’s my immigrant self.” Born in Tehran, Madani and her mother moved to the United States when the artist was fourteen. This mirroring impulse—the assimilative imitation, the strategic precision unwittingly slipped into—is one that belongs both to the immigrant and to the daughter, learned for both continued survival and reliable love.

But Madani’s muse since the birth of her eldest child six years ago defies such limitations. S**t Mom—aptly, a mother painted with brown oil to look like she is made of faeces—slides between forms and spreads herself out with the clumsiness of sleep deprivation and morning school runs, attempting to clean herself up without much success.

The latest iteration of this character is presented at Pilar Corrias in Daughter B.W.A.S.M. (Born Without A S**t Mom), an exhibition of new works brought about by the artist’s encounter of Francis Picabia’s Fille née sans mère. Rendered over a technical illustration of a steam engine, the painting was influenced by the interest for mechanisation the artist observed in American culture—an enthusiasm not dissimilar to the one resurfacing with the current rise of artificial intelligence.”

Alma Feigis () speaks with Tala Madani () about care, contamination, adoptive machines, and other absurd lineages.

24/12/2025

“Our studios overflow, as you very well know,
Santa please bring us candy canes that would make our hearts grow!”

They hope for gifts that sparkle and gleam,
Little surprises that come straight out of a dream.

Studio Santa hears everyone’s whispers and calls,
Through galleries, lofts, and workshops 20-feet tall.
With stars in his eyes and his list held so tight,
He seeks to bring joy and wonder on one festive night.

But what is it that everyone so dearly wants?
Markers, pens and notebooks or something to flaunt?“

Jo Rosenthal () returns for another instalment of Studio Santa. This year Studio Santa negotiates with nine artists who know exactly what they want. Words and photography by Jo Rosenthal.

23/12/2025

““I’m a digger,” Guilbert says. Her research anchors Have No Doubt of the Omnipotence of a Free People, the ambitious exhibition now on view at Catinca Tabacaru’s Bucharest headquarters. The show features sixty-eight artists—half of whom are Romanian, and the other half Zimbabwean—and investigates not only the two countries’ original clandestine political romance, but the uncanny similarities between artists working in post-communist and post-colonial contexts. At a moment when curators are grappling with whose stories get told and how to build truly global collections, this exhibition impressed me by how it moves beyond performative gestures to reimagine whose artistic traditions are placed in conversation and what a truly transnational canon demands.”

Sammy Loren () visits Have No Doubt of the Omnipotence of a Free People at , an ambitious exhibition that traces the hidden diplomatic threads binding Romania and Zimbabwe and proposes what a truly transnational canon might look like.

Installation view, Have No Doubt of the Omnipotence of a Free People, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery and POINT, Bucharest, 30 October 2025 — 28 February 2026. Image courtesy of Catinca Tabacaru Gallery and POINT

22/12/2025

“Our studios overflow, as you very well know,
Santa please bring us candy canes that would make our hearts grow!”
They hope for gifts that sparkle and gleam,
Little surprises that come straight out of a dream.

Studio Santa hears everyone’s whispers and calls,
Through galleries, lofts, and workshops 20-feet tall.
With stars in his eyes and his list held so tight,
He seeks to bring joy and wonder on one festive night.

But what is it that everyone so dearly wants?
Markers, pens and notebooks or something to flaunt?“

Jo Rosenthal () returns for another instalment of Studio Santa. This year Studio Santa negotiates with nine artists who know exactly what they want. Words and photography by Jo Rosenthal.

22/12/2025

Finding the right gift is an art form in itself, and the creatives in your life can often be the toughest on the list. Engaged in their demanding, singular pursuit, they require something that speaks directly to their aesthetic sensibilities. Whether you’re looking to inspire their next major project, enhance their studio practice, or simply bring a well-deserved smile, curator and writer Lisa Boudet () shares a list that is guaranteed to hit the spot.

© Roe Ethridge Image courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.

18/12/2025

“To what extent is a title a threshold? This is a question I often ask myself when analysing a poem or short story. We often come to books with expectations; desires aroused by the front cover, the blurb, the suggestion of a friend, a reviewer, or a bookseller. But titles—phrases that either allude to or elude the sense of a work—can push us into judgment before we’ve even turned the first page. If this is true of books, how much more so of art? Titles to works, whether they are abstract or figurative, ostensibly offer a map of meaning, a clue to guide us towards a supposed end. Yet we know this is not always the case. Titles are, indeed, thresholds, but into what room or realm or rite of passage they will lead us, we cannot always tell.

This is true when it comes to the titles of Toyin Ojih Odutola’s ever-expansive works. The names of her exquisite artworks are thresholds into other worlds, poetic gestures to the grander dramas of a single image or series. A consummate storyteller, one whose practice is inspired by diverse literary and visual forms (comics, animé, contemporary novels), Ojih Odutola’s titles “frame the frame”—that is, they are preludes to the event of her drawings, external announcements that speak into the interior areas, actions and atmospheres represented before us.”

Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou () looks to Ilé Oriaku, Toyin Ojih Odutola’s () recent exhibition, to understand how the artist uses titles as entry points, reimagines the Mbari house, and reclaims the transformative and trans-liberatory inheritance which her ancestors intended for her.

Toyin Ojih Odutola, ENGLIGBO (Mbari House Entrance), 2023, signed on verso, pastel and charcoal on linen. 80 x 80 1/8 x 1 1/4 inches (painting), 83 x 83 x 2 inches (framed) © Toyin Ojih Odutola. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein.

17/12/2025

Before the year ends we are checking in on Brooklyn to visit the 9 Brooklyn-based artists who shook things up this year.

Brooklyn’s creative class is an ever-growing community, built up by one another and strengthened by distinct visions. Elephant sat down with nine visual artists from the borough. These creatives turn pain into paintings, sculptures, and more, shaping the cultural zeitgeist beyond Brooklyn. Still, the borough’s influence on their craft is clear. They’re impacted by iconic Brooklyn artists like Basquiat and Kara Walker, while also setting the tone for the next generation of artists.

Kayla Curtis-Evans () speaks to nine Brooklyn-based artists about their individual practices and the city that raised them.

13/12/2025

Polo Silk’s () photography finds its origins in family albums and fashion magazines, two conceptual themes that would remain consistent throughout his evolution as an artist. His subjects span family, friends, and fellow club-goers, modeling the era’s distinct styling trends and brands in vogue. Adidas outfits, Gucci Horsebit loafers, various football jerseys, Polo shirts, and Coogi garments appear with regularity. The artist’s self-portrait portrays a cool and slouching man dressed head-to-toe in Polo Ralph Lauren, complete with earrings that he would later give away (an act compelled by one disapproving look from his mother).

His solo show at MARCH (), in collaboration with Sibyl Gallery () opens in New York, December 11th.

11/12/2025

“Pindell’s work has shaped the landscape I entered as a young artist; her commitment to experimentation, truth-telling, and abstraction has guided my own practice. Her use of material, accumulation and repetition has been extremely inspiring. Before I ever touched a piece of fabric, I knew Pindell’s circles, I knew her story and her refusal to fold. Through the realm of abstraction Pindell speaks to her lived experience as a Black woman, artist and most importantly human being navigating the ever challenging human experience.”

Tschabalala Self () pays tribute to Howardena Pindell’s () groundbreaking legacy, tracing the ways her experimentation, experience, and vision have shaped generations of artists—including her own.

Photography by Christian DeFonte

10/12/2025

“When Kohlmann talks about her friends, her airy demeanor steadies with a quiet conviction. And when I ask her for advice, she repeats this affirmation, reminding me that these friendships must be real and not transactional. “You have to be supportive of your artist peers,” she tells me, “I see other people’s success as my own.””

Alongside her recent exhibition, Moon Minds, at Silke Lindner (.nyc), Emma Kohlmann () spoke with Julia Shanker () about the inspiration behind her work, the friends who have supported her, and her somewhat unconventional path to gallery representation.

09/12/2025

“Olschbaur’s paintings are populated with objects that seem to stand alone – birds, people, suns, moons, explosions – even when clustered together. It’s this quality that perhaps makes these icons feel symbolic, but Olschbaur insists that there is nothing to decode. Rather, she sees them as systems of focus in a fragmented narrative. Being described as “surrealist” frustrates her, referencing not just her paintings but the tendency to call the current state of the world “surreal.” “It’s just the only word we have for this in-between state we seem to be living in,” she said.”

Shanti Escalante-De Mattei reviews Katherina Olschbaur’s () “I Spend All Day Waiting for the Night” at Perrotin Gallery (), New York.

Other Minds, 2025, Photographer : Guillaume Ziccarelli, Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

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