Interviews by Brainard Carey

De Mont’s practice emerges from her work as an intuitive guide, leading immersive experiences in which participants are invited into states of openness and release. It was within these rituals that she began making photographs — images conceived not as portraits but as reflections, offering back to each subject a picture of themselves liberated from the hierarchies of identity and status. The camera, in De Mont’s hands, becomes a kind of witness to what she describes as a direct encounter with the divine.

What results is a body of work of striking formal beauty and genuine spiritual weight. A figure floats in a glacial pool, arms wide, body small against the massive indifference of boulders and jade-green water — surrendered, but also luminous. A woman lies curled on a sand dune at dusk, the full moon burning above her in a wide blue sky, the curve of her back answering the curve of the earth. Throughout, De Mont is drawn to moments when the border between the human figure and its surroundings seems to dissolve — not in romantic idealization, but in something closer to fact.

De Mont is particularly drawn to the feminine as a site of intuition and receptivity, and she often photographs two or three figures together, finding in that small gathering an amplification of communion — bodies acting as extensions of each other and of the earth itself. “We are incredibly sophisticated energy beings, I hope to capture a transmission that is contagious, that makes our bellies soften with peace and belonging.” It is a quality her pictures genuinely carry. They ask something of the viewer — a willingness to be still, to look, to feel the pull of a life that is waiting.

Stella De Mont is based in Los Angeles. This Life Wants You is her first solo exhibition with Benrubi Gallery.

Stella De Mont, Owls, 2024
Stella De Mont, Glory, 2024
Stella De Mont, Cradled, 2025

Michalik has exhibited internationally in art institutions, fairs, university galleries, community spaces, and commercial galleries the current show of this interview at Kathryn Markel.

Her paintings have been published internationally in Architectural Digest, Michalik’s newspaper,  “Devour,” was published in collaboration with Brooklyn based Raw Meat Collective, and was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York. It was displayed in the exhibit, “Please Knock: A Teen Album of Art” at MoMA through October 1st, 2023. Her painting “I Feel with my Eyes,” is in the permanent collection of WAG-Qaumajuq and is currently on view in the exhibition “Backyard Florilegium” through March 31, 2025. 

Michalik lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Tess Michalik, Possession, 2026 oil on canvas 48 x 40 in.
Tess Michalik, Could Heaven Ever Be Like This, 2025 oil on canvas 45 x 32 in.
Tess Michalik, Love Crimes, 2025 oil on panel 30 x 24 in.

David Smalling portrait © Stefen Pompee
Born in 1987 in Kingston, Jamaica, David Smalling lives and works in New York City. He studied Mathematics at Yale University, where he also trained at the Yale School of Art, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Drawing from the tradition of Mannerism and the Dutch Golden Age, Smalling’s paintings examine how contemporary social codes and gender norms shape identity and behavior. Through carefully constructed domestic and ceremonial scenes, he explores themes of belonging, aspiration, and restraint, questioning the roles we inherit and perform.

The exhibition of all new paintings on wood panels takes its title from the Elizabethan collar, the veterinary device colloquially known as the “cone of shame”—a protective apparatus designed to prevent an animal from tearing at its own sutures. The collar, as depicted in Cone of Shame, becomes a metaphor for conditional belonging: entry into a space that promises safety and prestige while quietly limiting autonomy.

David Smalling, Party Favor, 2026 Oil on panel 61 × 91.5 cm — 24 × 36 in. Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels – New York. Photo © Charles Roussel.
David Smalling, Cremaster, 2025 Oil on panel 51 × 61 cm — 20 × 24 in. Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels – New York; Photo © Charles Roussel.
David Smalling, Follicular, 2025 Oil on panel 91 × 61 cm — 36 × 24 in. Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels – New York. Photo © Charles Roussel.

Catherine Birk (b. 1994, she/her) is an artist and researcher currently based in Chicago, IL.

Her interdisciplinary practice brings transgender studies, queer theory, and critical theory into the expanded field of painting. Catherine earned her MFA in Painting at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (2024), and BAs in Studio Art and Art History from the College of Charleston (2016). Solo exhibitions include My mother is a horse., at the Chazen Museum of Art (Madison, WI).

She has exhibited in group shows nationally, including at Redux Contemporary Art Center (Charleston, SC), Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI), Arts + Literature Laboratory (Madison, WI), Real Tinsel (Milwaukee, WI), and D. D. D. D. (New York, NY).

Catherine Birk | hut (interference), 2025 Oil, acrylic, cold wax medium and netting on canvas 13 x 15.5 inches
Catherine Birk | dam (for Morandi), 2025 Oil, acrylic, cold wax medium, and Dragon Skin Silicone on panel with artist’s frame 17 x 21 inches
Catherine Birk | hut (for Strega Nona), 2026
27 cast beeswax slabs; dried herbs and essential oils of rosemary, thyme, basil, sage, and
oregano; cast urethane rubber; bolts
Dimensions variable: 11 x 14 inches each

dean erdmann lives and works between San Diego, CA and Brooklyn, NY. dean erdmann is an interdisciplinary artist in moving and still images, sculpture, and installation. Their sculptural practice evolved from their image-making practice. They live and work between Brooklyn, NY and San Diego, CA.

Their work has been exhibited at ONE Archives, Mexicali Biennial, Hammer Museum, REDCAT, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Spiral Hall, Tokyo, Kavi GuptaBerlin, the Sheila Johnson Design Center, Torrance Art Museum, and Public Fiction, among many others. Their permanent public commission for the LA K-line Leimert Park Station opened Fall 2022. Over the following years, they collaborated with an evolving team of dedicated artists and producers—Grace Whiteside, Celeste Wilson, Christopher Duffy, Esteban Salazar-Cucalon, Michael Haddy, and James Corporan, —while receiving support from fellowships and residencies at Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Urban Glass, and The Chinati Foundation.

Installation view: dean erdmann, Vitrum, Company Gallery, 2026

dean erdmann, 700cc, 2026 Hot mold blown glass and steel armature 28 x 18 1/2 x 14 in

dean erdmann, (detail image) razr 2 (front), 2026 Hot blown mold glass 23 x 23 x 9 in