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Leo Chesneau
Some artists search for inspiration in distant landscapes, history books, or moments of profound personal revelation. Leo Chesneau finds it in an A4 sheet of paper, a toner cartridge, a Post-it note, or the standardized dimensions of a hollow-core door. At first glance, these objects feel almost invisible. They belong to offices, classrooms, construction sites,
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Why Fondation Beyeler Belongs on Every Art Lover’s Bucket List
There are museums you visit because they’re famous. Then there are museums you visit because you feel called to them. During our time in Switzerland, one destination sat at the very top of our list: Fondation Beyeler. We had heard countless artists, curators, and collectors speak about it over the years, but nothing could have
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Austin Lee
From digital worlds to airbrushed paintings, Austin Lee explains why the future of art isn’t about technology, it’s about connection. Sitting in his Brooklyn studio surrounded by luminous canvases, airbrushes, sculptures, and computer screens, Austin Lee doesn’t describe art as a profession or even a practice. Instead, he describes it as a way of existing
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Mafalda d’Oliveira Martins
For Portuguese painter Mafalda d’Oliveira Martins, painting is a way of understanding people. Working primarily in oil, Mafalda creates figurative paintings that explore memory, vulnerability, relationships, and the quiet moments that often pass unnoticed. While her paintings frequently begin with ordinary scenes or familiar faces, they become much more than records of reality. They are
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Dominik Gegaj
Dominik Gegaj is a contemporary watercolor artist based in Paris whose work explores themes of identity, memory, love, isolation, belonging, and personal transformation. Born and raised in Austria to immigrant parents from Kosovo and Albania, Gegaj has developed a distinctive visual language built around indigo and ultramarine watercolor paintings that balance emotional vulnerability with technical
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Art Basel 2026 Highlights | Basel, Switzerland
Our Favorite Works from Art Basel Basel 2026 Every June, Art Basel transforms Basel, Switzerland into the center of the contemporary art world. Bringing together hundreds of galleries and thousands of artists from around the globe, the fair offers an unparalleled look at where contemporary art is today and where it may be headed next.
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Brittney Ciccone
Rather than beginning with a rigid plan or predetermined outcome, Brittney Ciccone enters the studio with curiosity, allowing the work to reveal itself through experimentation, intuition, and process. The paintings that emerge are often the result of unexpected discoveries, accidents, and moments that could never have been planned in advance. That willingness to embrace uncertainty
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Best Art Supplies for Beginners: A Medium-by-Medium Guide (2026)
Photo by Timestamp of Zuriel Water’s studio One of the rights of passage of being an artist is walking into an art supply store for the first time with excitement and complete overwhelm at the same time. The shelves are full of products that look identical until you try them, and the price range makes
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Vinny Olimpio
A blank canvas can be an intimidating thing. For some artists, it represents possibility. For others, pressure. For Vinny Olimpio, it’s an invitation to step into a conversation that has no clear beginning and no definitive end. “I don’t think you’re ever going to stop telling stories until you stop breathing,” he says. “Creating art
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Thomas Szott
For Brazilian artist Thomas Szott, art begins with something deeply personal. His paintings, textiles, sculptures, and drawings emerge from memories, emotions, relationships, and the quiet process of understanding how those experiences shape a life. Yet while his work originates from autobiography, Szott is less interested in documenting events than transforming them into symbols, atmospheres, and
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Su Su
For many artists, inspiration arrives through grand ideas, dramatic experiences, or carefully planned concepts. For painter Su Su, inspiration often begins somewhere much quieter: a bowl of rice, a family story, a childhood memory, or the way a city reveals itself over time. In a conversation with Timestamp, Su Su reflected on the experiences that
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Pietro Cavalcanti
Born in Brazil and now living in Portugal, Pietro Cavalcanti describes his practice as a form of attention. A drawer, researcher, teacher, and lifelong observer, he approaches art as a way of tuning into rhythms that already exist within us. His drawings, calligraphic forms, and organic figures emerge not from rigid planning but from a
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Top 5 Colleges Expanding Art Programs for Students in 2026
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries and automation absorbs repetitive work, creativity has become one of the few skills machines still struggle to replicate authentically. Colleges across the United States are responding by expanding art programs, investing in interdisciplinary creative spaces, and encouraging students to combine artistic talent with entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. Rhode Island School
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Kevin Umaña
Kevin Umaña did not plan on becoming the artist he is today. His path moved through architecture school, printmaking, photography, graffiti, ceramics, construction jobs, and years of uncertainty before arriving at the hybrid ceramic paintings he is now known for. For Umaña, the work developed less from a single vision and more from persistence, experimentation,
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Shuyao Huang
Born in China and now based in New York City, Shuyao Huang approaches painting less as a pursuit of outcomes and more as a daily necessity. What began as an ambition to study fashion design shifted after arriving in New York, where teachers encouraged her toward fine art. At Pratt Institute, Huang developed both a
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Mason Dowling
Mason Dowling approaches painting like a risk. Not in theory, but in practice, where each move has the potential to undo everything that came before it. There is no fixed image he is working toward, no clean endpoint. The work is built through a series of decisions that could just as easily collapse the painting
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Noel W. Anderson
There’s a moment in talking to Noel W. Anderson where everything shifts from art as object to art as something closer to confession. Not performance, not presentation, but release. For him, making work isn’t about building toward a career milestone or chasing validation. It’s about leaving something behind so it doesn’t follow you. Something you
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Adrien Manso
Adrien Manso describes making art as an impulse you follow without overthinking, the same way you would eat when you are hungry or swim when you want to swim. This intuitive rhythm defines his entire practice, moving fluidly between drawing, painting, design, and craft without hierarchy. Born and raised in the southwest of France, Manso’s
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Madjeen Isaac
There’s a belief in Madjeen Isaac’s work that the world, as it exists, is not fixed. That it can be reimagined, reassembled, and cared for differently. Her paintings don’t just depict environments; they propose them. Born, raised, and based in Brooklyn, Isaac builds immersive, layered scenes that draw from her Haitian American identity, her upbringing
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Sam Branden
There is a moment early on where Sam Brandon admits something that feels both fragile and absolute. He says it feels like he has put all his eggs in one basket, pursuing art as the only thing he is interested in at this point in his life. What follows is not hesitation but a kind
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Amy Bravo
Amy Bravo’s work unfolds as a raw, layered exploration of emotion, memory, and identity. An ever-evolving practice rooted in intuition, material history, and lived experience. Raised between Queens and New Jersey, Bravo draws deeply from her upbringing, where domestic spaces, family objects, and cultural inheritance shaped her earliest understanding of creativity. Her work today still
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Björn Heyn
Björn Heyn does not describe his studio as a workplace. He calls it a playground. For him, that distinction matters. Being an artist, he explains, means holding on to a particular state of mind that can easily disappear in adulthood. Bills arrive, emails pile up, the mailbox fills with responsibilities that feel far removed from
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Hugo Winder-Lind
Hugo Winder-Lind does not talk about art as if it is something that can be solved. In fact, he begins from the opposite position. The expectation that someone else might hold the answers, or that there might be a place to go where everything becomes clear, is something he has long since abandoned. The reality,
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What Curators Are Looking For in 2026: Insights From Across the Art World
In 2026, curators aren’t just responding to aesthetic trends – they’re shaping how art is seen, understood, and connected to the wider cultural moment. From community engagement to deeper thematic frameworks, what curators prioritize reveals not only what gets shown in galleries and museums, but what gets remembered. Below, we unpack what curators are prioritizing
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Ranny Macdonald
Ranny Macdonald describes painting as a threshold experience, a place where something begins to take over. “I get a sort of rush from it,” he says, “to be on that threshold… it feels like something else is kind of taking over, you know what needs to be done and you’re listening.” In those moments, the
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Cathleen Clarke
Cathleen Clarke has always been drawn to the spaces where memory begins to thin out. Not the sharp, documentary version of the past, but the gaps that form over time. The voids. The moments that cannot be fully retrieved. She is interested in what happens next, when imagination steps in to fill what is missing.
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Kara Su
Born and raised in Berlin with Kurdish roots, Kara Su grew up far from the traditional art world. Her mother raised seven children on her own. Galleries, collectors, and studio culture were not part of her environment. Art school existed in primary education, but the idea of becoming a painter did not. In her twenties
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Logan Sylve
For Logan Sylve, painting is a steadfast companion. “I feel like painting is my first love and the most reliable companion I have,” he says. In a world of unpredictability and disappointment, creativity stands above it all. Even when the act of making art can feel frustrating, the rewards are deeply sustaining, offering a sense
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Mario Picardo
Mario Picardo approaches painting as a space of personal freedom. The studio is not a site of pressure or anxiety for him, but a place of pleasure and ease. Each day he arrives to work, he describes the act of painting as happiness itself. It is not something he worries about or negotiates with. It
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Hill Spriggins
Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Hill Spriggins has been living and working in Brooklyn, New York for the past seven years. She identifies herself simply and decisively as a painter. While people often ask whether she draws, photographs, or works in other mediums, her answer is consistent. Painting is her focus, the only practice she
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Brenda Zlamany
Brenda Zlamany has been painting for most of her life, and she speaks about it as a continuous, accumulating act rather than a series of isolated achievements. One painting leads to the next. Each body of work grows out of the previous one. What drives her is not competition with art history anymore, but a
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2026 Trends in Contemporary Art: What Artists, Curators & Collectors Are Talking About
Contemporary art in 2026 is evolving at an unprecedented pace. As the art world continues to respond to cultural shifts, technological breakthroughs, and changing audience expectations, several key trends are emerging that are shaping both creation and reception. At the forefront of this discussion are the voices captured in Timestamp’s ongoing interview series — conversations
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Henry Ward
In the studio, drawing and painting are the moments when Henry Ward feels most fully himself, even as he admits that the act of making art can feel heavy and unavoidable. He describes it as a compulsion that remains inseparable from how he understands himself and the world. If he could choose not to make
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Aidan Lapp — Hold Still
Auxier Kline Gallery, New YorkOpening reception: January 16, 2026On view: January 16 – February 13, 2026Location: Auxier Kline, 19 Monroe St, New York, NY, 10002More information: Auxier Kline | Aidan Lapp Auxier Kline presents Hold Still, a solo exhibition by Aidan Lapp that deepens the artist’s ongoing investigation into portraiture as a durational, relational practice.
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What Art School Doesn’t Teach You About Sustaining a Studio Practice
Art school teaches you technique, composition, and craft—it shows you how to make work. What it rarely teaches is how to talk about your work, build a consistent practice, or keep creating once the structure disappears. For many artists, graduation marks the beginning of a quieter, more difficult phase of their practice — one without
What is Timestamp?
Timestamp is a platform for meaningful conversations with the people shaping the world of art. Through intimate interviews with artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, patrons, and thinkers, Timestamp captures raw, unfiltered moments that illuminate how art is made, supported, understood, and felt. Each episode offers a window into the inner lives of artists, revealing their philosophies, obsessions, and process behind-the-scenes.