Art Talks at Brand invites contemporary artists to discuss their work and the issues surrounding it, followed by a moderated Q&A with Brand staff member, artist, and writer Jennifer Remenchik. Artists are selected to reflect the diversity of the art scene of the greater Los Angeles area.
The series is sponsored by the Brand Associates and is free and open to the public.​​
September 4, 7:00 PM | Shanna Waddell
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Shanna Waddell (b. 1981, Long Beach, CA) is a Los Angeles-based painter.  Waddell’s paintings depict a built world focused on the activities of a self- sustaining, flower farm artist commune called Sheness Society.  Her works demonstrate a fantastical otherworld, one that is both whimsical and utterly alluring, thrusting a viewer into an imagined utopian landscape. Across the canvases and sculptures, Waddell chronicles the day-to-day enterprises of the artist collective: flower-farming, plein-air painting, gathering of supplies, utilizing the community wagons, and meditating in a state of tranquility. Her work absorbs and adapts the primarily masculine modes of painting with pure freedom and interjects her spirit with a creative fearless feminine fortitude - freely injecting ideas for future artistic systems of living. Waddell attended the Headlands Center of the Arts and received an MFA in Drawing and Painting, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and a BFA in Drawing and Painting, CSU, Long Beach. Her next solo exhibition will open at Vielmetter (Los Angeles, CA).
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Images: Shanna Waddell, Sheness Gathers Roses, oil on canvas, 66.25 x 49.75 in, 2025; Artist portrait. Images courtesy of the artist.
October 16, 7:00 PM | Ish Lipman​
Ish Lipman (b. 1995, San Francisco, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist. Lipman's paintings investigate the complexities of the sublime in relationship to the contemporary landscape. Drawing upon our growing alienation from the natural world, Lipman’s paintings seek to explore this rift, aiming to examine the various anxieties and reveries that emerge from healing this inner divide. The paintings emerging from these investigations have a similar existence to those moments between sleeping and waking, where the world is colored with the aftertaste of a vivid dream. He graduated from the UC Santa Cruz in 2018 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing in 2019. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Harpers (NYC, NY), Harpers (East Hampton, NY), Long Story Short (Paris, FR), Andrew Rafacz (Chicago, IL) Praz-Delavallade (Los Angeles, CA). Group exhibitions include NADA Miami, Nada New York, Make Room LA (Los Angeles, CA), Hair and Nails at Easy Does It (Los Angeles, CA).
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Image: Artist with Panoramic Fragment, oil on board, 4 x 47 x 3 in, 2025; Image courtesy of the artist.
October 30, 7:00 PM | Andres Payan Estrada
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Andres Payan Estrada (b. Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico), currently lives and works between El Paso, TX and Los Angeles CA. He works predominantly with craft-based processes, exploring social surfaces, ephemeral exchanges, and cultural histories. With a focused lens on queer identity, his recent bodies of work span collage, fused glass, ceramics, and jacquard weaving—examining both the physicality and transience of queer nightlife spaces. These works consider nightlife’s vital role as a site of gathering, protection, becoming—and simply being. It includes the collection of found materials from queer bars and clubs. These visual and material fragments are transformed into sculptural works and immersive installations. Payan Estrada graduated with an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. He is currently the senior curator at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso, was recently creative director and curator at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles, where he co-founded Craft Contemporary’s Clay Biennial. Payan Estrada has shown in numerous exhibitions in Los Angeles, Texas, and Mexico. ​
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Images: Andres Payan Estrada, Nocturnal Visions, Ciudad Juárez (Nighttime), sublimation printed chiffon, LED lights, steel, porcelain, spotlights, disco ball motor, and collage on wood panel, installation view, 2024; Artist portrait. Images courtesy of the artist.
November 13, 7:00 PM | Christina Ballantyne
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Christina Ballantyne (b.1990, Houston, TX) is a Los Angeles-based artist. Ballantyne’s work, encompassing both painting and small-scale sculpture, is deeply rooted in her personal experiences, particularly her experience with temporal lobe epilepsy, which has fueled her interest in examining the role of feelings and sensory experience in the inner life of herself and others. Her paintings often feature figures, animals, and cultural iconography, utilizing deep colors, strong symbolism, and specific layering techniques to evoke a powerful sense of emotion and spirituality. The layering of images, allowing old images to inform new ones, mirrors how past experiences shape our present ways of acting and seeing the world. Ballantyne emphasizes her process of free association and a lack of preliminary drawings, viewing the painting itself as a mirror reflecting her inner life and recurrent existential questions. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021, where she was a recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler award. Ballantyne has participated in solo and two-person exhibitions in Los Angeles galleries and across the US.
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Images: Christina Ballantyne, No Respite (detail), oil on canvas, 40 x 60 in., 2025; Artist portrait. Images courtesy of the artist.
Brand staff member and program moderator Jennifer Remenchik is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited in several institutions and galleries, including No Gallery, VIVO Media Arts Centre, HILDE, basement projects, Industry Lab, and The Contemporary Austin, among others. She is a regular contributor to Hyperallergic and has written for CurateLA, BOMB Magazine, and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles. Remenchik began art talks at Brand Library & Art Center to showcase artists who reflect the diversity of the art scene of the greater Los Angeles area.