Forrest Kirk is a figurative painter based in Los Angeles; as this episode releases, he has a sold-out show at Parrasch Heijnen gallery. In the Conversation, Kirk doesn’t back away from describing the pressure the art world has placed on Black creators to make “Black Art.” He also talks about his living room-studio setup; discusses collecting -- both as a collector and an artist being collected; his experience in the art world as a black man and a painter; and he lets us in on part of how he's risen to success in the art world within just four years.

Ayana Evans discusses her 7-year career as a fashion designer (between being a painter and a performance artist), her impressive endurance-based performances, being part of a community of performance artists who are all on the same playing field (unlike the hierarchical art worlds), her first experiment/performance, in which she walked around MoMA in her signature catsuit while a friend covertly filmed (mostly) white women taking pictures of her exploitatively, and her frustrations and struggles with justice for black artists and women of color at large.