Interviews by Brainard Carey

Kirsten Batten-Leach is an interdisciplinary artist who makes sculptures and performances about carework and bodily autonomy.

She creates a record of these durational works in the form of photography and drawing. Her background as a former ballet dancer and domestic worker informs the physical rigor of her object-making practice.

She is currently a 2025-26 A.I.R. Gallery Fellow, was shortlisted for the Smack Mellon Residency Program and is a Puffin Foundation Grant Recipient. She has exhibited works at NYU Gallatin Galleries, My Pet Ram, The Factory (Long Island City) and Black Brick Project. Raised in Boston, MA she completed her MFA in Integrated Practices at Pratt Institute and earned a BFA in English Literature from Mount Holyoke College. 

Labor cocoon with spiracles: letting oxygen weather our work, 2026 Rust and verdigris-stained canvas scraps, dried flowers, ink, turmeric, wine, thread 94 x 67 inches (dimensions variable)
Aspergillus, penicillium and stachybotrys chartarum on heel of bread, 2026 Graphite on paper  51.5 x 42 inches
Aimant (a lover/a magnet), 2026 Paper pulp clay, molding paste, steel, graphite power, neodymium magnets dimensions variable

Rana Begum, 2025, Artist Portrait, Image Courtesy of SCAD Museum of Modern Art. Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London and Kate MacGarry, London.
Born in Bangladesh in 1977, Begum lives and works in London. In 1999, Begum graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, and in 2002, she earned an MFA in Painting from Slade School of Fine Art. Begum has exhibited in museums and biennials worldwide and created public art commissions in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Notable museum presentations include her participation in Is this Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, as well as her site-specific installation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which remains on permanent view. Her work has also been featured in numerous biennials around the world, including the Taipei Biennial in 2026, Desert X in Coachella Valley in 2023, and the 11th Gwangju Biennial in South Korea in 2016, among others.

Her work is held in numerous international public and private collections, including the Museum ofFine Arts, Boston; the Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh; The Farjam Foundation, Dubai; the Ashmolean Museum, UK; Sainsbury’s Visual Art Centre, UK; the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, India; and Wanas Konst, Sweden. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2020.

No. 1272 Chainlink, 2023, powder coated chainlink, 141 3/4 x 141 3/4 x 177 1/8 inches, 360 x 360 x 450 cm. Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London and Kate MacGarry, London.
No. 1628, 2026 paint on powder-coated aluminum (20 sections) 78 3/4 x 76 3/4 x 2 inches 200 x 195 x 5 cm Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London and Kate MacGarry, London.
No. 1261 T Reflector, 2023, reflectors on aluminum, 98 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 17 1/4 inches, 250.6 x 42.2 x 43.8 cm. Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London and Kate MacGarry, London.

Loren Erdrich (b. 1978) lives and works in New York City. Her undergraduate degrees include a BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA (2000) and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL (2005).

In 2007 she received her MFA from the Burren College of Art at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Erdrich’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at SHRINE New York (2022, 2023, 2026); SHRINE Los Angeles (2024); and Bricks Gallery Copenhagen (2024, 2025).

She has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Harper’s (New York, NY); Massey Klein (New York, NY); Nicodim Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Wasserman Projects (Detroit, MI); Soho Revue (London, UK); Saint Cloche (Sydney, AUS); and Kotaro Nukaga (Tokyo, JP). Erdrich has been awarded residencies at Yaddo; The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts; Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency; Jentel Foundation; Santa Fe Art Institute; Sculpture Space; Vermont Studio Center; and Art Farm Nebraska. Her work has been written about in publications such as Cultured, DNA Mexico, FAD, ArtMaze, Maake, The Chicago Tribune and Il Giornale Dell’Arte. She frequently collaborates with the poet Sierra Nelson, co-authoring the award-winning I Take Back the Sponge Cake (published by Rose Metal Press, 2012) and Isolation (limited edition artist book, 2020). Erdrich is currently represented by SHRINE (New York, NY) and Bricks Gallery (Copenhagen, DK).

Loren Erdrich, Arc I, 2026 Water, acrylic, watercolor and dye on muslin 30 x 34 in. 76.20 x 86.36 cm
Loren Erdrich, Inverted World, 2026 Water, acrylic, watercolor and dye on muslin 48 x 36 in. 121.92 x 91.44 cm
Loren Erdrich, Archive, 2026 Glazed ceramic 23.5 x 10 x 6.75 in. 59.69 x 25.40 x 17.14 cm

Portrait of Jenna Gribbon by Shawna Ferreira
Jenna Gribbon is currently the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, a comprehensive survey of 25 years of painting. She was also the subject of a solo exhibition at Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2022–2023). Recent group exhibitions include She Said, She Said: Contemporary Women Artists, Akron Art Museum, OH (2025); From Dawn Til Dusk: The Shadow in Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2025); Day for Night: New American Realism, Palazzo Barberini, organized by the Aïshti Foundation, Rome (2024); Making Their Mark, Shah Garg Foundation, New York (2023); Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters, The Frick Collection, New York (2022); and Paint, also known as Blood: Women, Affect and Desire in Contemporary Painting, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Poland (2019). Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including Kunstmuseum The Hague, Netherlands; Brooklyn Museum; Dallas Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Honolulu Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg, Germany; and Rubell Museum, Miami. Gribbon lives and works in New York.

Annie Hémond Hotte (b. 1980, Montreal, Canada; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) received her MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2009, where she was awarded the Warden Purchase Prize. In 2023, she received the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Selected solo and two-person exhibitions include Margot Samel, New York (2026); The Pit, Los Angeles (2025); Marvin Gardens, New York (2024); Centre Clark, Montreal (2017); and Thomas Rehbein Galerie, Cologne, Germany (2009). Selected group exhibitions include Rema Hort Mann Foundation, New York (2024); The Pit, Los Angeles (2024); Andrew Rafacz, Chicago (2024); Marvin Gardens, New York (2023); Dimin Gallery, New York (2023); The Low Museum, Atlanta (2015); Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania (2014); and Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia (2014).

Annie Hémond Hotte, Hourglass (the circles of Hell), 2026, Oil on canvas, 186.4 x 149.2 cm, photo © Matthew Sherman 2026
Annie Hémond Hotte, Limbo (Beatrice appearing to Virgil), 2026, Oil on canvas, 74.9 x 61 cm, photo © Matthew Sherman 2026
Annie Hémond Hotte, Lust (leopard in a shadowed wood), 2025-26, Oil on canvas, 90 x 110 cm, photo © Matthew Sherman 2026