Cerebral Women Art Talks Podcast

Ep.268 Laurena Finéus is a Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist working primarily in painting, performance and social practice. In her practice, Finéus has been concerned with representations of black geographies, maroon thought, and migratory histories through an array of painterly imagined landscapes. The teachings of Haitian scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot in ‘Silencing the past’ informs her understanding of visual narration in her practice. Finéus’ strategies include the collapsing of history in order to question its production and mechanisms.
Finéus is an MFA graduate from Columbia University (2024) and the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine arts (2020). Her work has been exhibited at the SHED NY (2025), Brooklyn Museum (2024), Hudson River museum (2023), the Ottawa art gallery (2021), and Art mûr (2019) among others . She is part of a range of private and public collections internationally such as the Canada Council Art Bank , the City of Ottawa’s Art Collection and Google. She is the recipient of the Saunderson Prize (2024), the Helen Frankenthaler fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields foundation grant (2022-2023) , the Ottawa arts council IBPOC emerging artist award (2022), and the Ineke Harmina Standish memorial (2019).
Finéus is based in Brooklyn, NY.

Credit Photo: Avery Savage for SHEER WORLDWIDE

Artist https://laurenafineus.com/
Fridman Gallery https://fridmangallery.com/2025/07/03/artists-laurena-fineus/
Essence https://www.essence.com/art/the-shed-nyc-portals-exhibition/
Columbia University https://www.vaexhibitions.arts.columbia.edu/class-of-2024/laurena-finus
University of Ottawa https://www.uottawa.ca/fr/toutes-nouvelles/celebrer-lhistoire-culture-haitiennes-travers-lart-laurena-fineus
Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/janelevere/2025/07/27/early-career-nyc-artists-display-new-work-at-the-shed-in-hudson-yards/
Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/these-are-the-200-artists-in-the-brooklyn-museum-open-call-show/
Juxtapoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/laurena-fineus-love-letters-to-haiti/
Sheer Worldwide https://www.sheerworldwide.com/art/features/2025/8/7/artists-to-know-laurena-finus
Jenkins Johnson Gallery https://www.jenkinsjohnsongallery.com/artworks/4308-laurena-fineus-nou-te-gen-yon-paradi-pou-antere-we-2022/
Blackcopper https://www.blackcopper.org/featured-artists/l
Ambassade-Haiti https://ambassade-haiti.ca/uncategorized/laurena-fineus/
Haitian Times https://haitiantimes.com/fr/%C3%89tiquette/laurena-fineus/
The Next Contemporary https://thenextcontemporary.com/laurena-fineus/
Haiti Cultural Exchange https://haiticulturalx.org/programs/artists-opportunities/lakou-nou/laurena-fineus/

Modou Dieng Yacine . Born in Saint-Louis (Senegal), Modou Dieng Yacine studied at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Dakar (Senegal) and later earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in California.
He currently lives and works in Chicago, and is also active as a curator/co-founder of the curatorial company Blackpuffin. Dieng Yacine works across painting, photography, collage, and mixed media. He often uses non-traditional materials such as denim, burlap, cardboard, vinyl records, archival prints, and hybrid materials layered onto surfaces.
He explores spatial/architectural motifs, layering of materials, de-construction of façades, and reveals negative space (cut-outs, hollows) as a strategy. Major themes in his practices are identity, migration, postcolonial history, architecture & habitat, and the intersection of African and Western cultures. Dieng Yacine references the notion of asymmetrical parallelism (a term from poet/philosopher Léopold Sédar Senghor) to describe rhythmic repetition in time/space, which he applies in his compositions. The structure of the canvas itself often becomes part of the message (e.g., exposing stretcher bars, hollows behind façades) to comment on erasure, grief or absence.
Modou Dieng Yacine is represented in numerous collections, among these are the collections of the Studio Museum in New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, Gervanne and Mathias Lerind Collection in Paris, Kranzberg foundation in St Louis, Fondation Gandur in Geneva and Carlsberg foundation in Copenhagen.

Image courtesy of artist

Artist as Curator Blackpuffin.co
193 Gallery https://www.193gallery.com/fr/artists/62-modou-dieng-yacine/
ICI https://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/22963-modou-dieng-yacine
Specta https://www.specta.dk/modou-dieng-yacine
Dakart News https://dakartnews.com/2025/05/02/modou-dieng-yacines-poetics-of-memory-and-identity-interview/
Artsper https://www.artsper.com/fr/artistes-contemporains/senegal/117864/modou-dieng-yacine
Povos Chicago https://povoschicago.com/usr/documents/exhibitions/list_of_works_url/33/steve-doc-modou.pdf
Laboratório de Actividades Criativas https://lac.org.pt/en/roots-2025-modou-dieng-yacine-sn/
Meer https://www.meer.com/en/97714-i-will-go-where-your-music-takes-me-dot-dot-dot
Artisanal Metals https://artisanalmetals.com/2025/05/05/from-dakar-to-venice-the-postcolonial-art-journey-of-modou-dieng-yacine/
On-Art Media https://www.onart.media/evenements-autour-de-lart-contemporain-africain/black-venezia-une-exploration-artistique-de-modou-dieng-yacine-a-la-193-gallery/
Pilchuck https://www.pilchuck.org/workshop-staff/modou-dieng-yacine
Juliet Art Magazine https://www.juliet-artmagazine.com/en/the-imaginary-architecture-of-connections-modou-dieng-yacine-and-zoila-andrea-coc-chang-in-venice/

Ep.266 Born in Lagos State, Nigeria, contemporary artist Tonia Nneji comes from a long line of traditional carvers and masquerade carriers. Following the family tradition of artistry, she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Visual Arts from the University of Lagos, Nigeria in 2016.
Known for her use of bold colours and intricate patterns, Nneji’s work explores the relationship between trauma and the female body. Drawing from her experience in dealing with personal health issues, she confronts a culture of suppression and silence on women’s physical and mental health, body autonomy and sexual harassment in a bid to create safe spaces where conversations could be held freely. Her work also investigates the nature of commemorative fabrics and the ways they represent and transcend notions of place and belonging. This preoccupation with body forms and textile material navigates cultural and social meanings of fabric in contemporary African societies while also exploring the protective qualities of clothing.
She held her debut solo exhibition You May Enter in 2020 at Rele Gallery, Lagos. Select group exhibitions include Dancing in Dark Times, (2021), Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, Orita Meta, (2021), Rele Gallery, Los Angeles, IT'S A WRAP, (2021), Rele Gallery, Lagos.
She has also presented her work at Art Basel Miami (2022), Art Dubai (2022), Art Paris (2021) and FNB Art Joburg (2019).
In 2020, Nneji was a resident at the Art Dubai residency and is a recipient of the Ronke Ekwensi Fellowship in New Jersey. Nneji’s works have been featured in prominent publications such as Nation Newspaper, Vanguard, and the Guardian and in 2017, she was featured on BBC Africa during International Women’s Day.
Her work has also been profiled by prolific Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie in her essay ‘The New Guard’ published by Harper’s Bazaar in 2020.

Photo credit: Tonia Nneji

Rele Gallery https://www.rele.co/artists/31-tonia-nneji/works/
Galerie-Chauvy https://galerie-chauvy.com/exposition/voix-du-textile-2025-2026/
Kristin Hjellegjerde https://kristinhjellegjerde.com/artists/368-tonia-nneji/overview/
Art Berlin https://www.artatberlin.com/en/jamie-luoto-and-tonia-nneji-when-dusk-falls-kristin-hjellegjerde-gallery-18-07-31-08-2024/
Forbes ForbesAfrica30Under30 list, Class of 2022
Meer https://www.meer.com/en/105514-saints-of-good-evening-street
BODE https://bode.gallery/blog/57-in-conversation-with-tonia-nneji-episode-26/
CNAP https://www.cnap.fr/annuaire/personne/tonia-nneji
Art Forum https://www.artforum.com/events/tonia-nneji-248150/
Selvedge https://www.selvedge.org/blogs/selvedge/painting-patterned-fabrics-the-art-of-tonia-nneji?srsltid=AfmBOoobkW-p6NlRPC4cCYGX2GQfcdtGuCzkw2kMqzD-Qn2seZj5jExx
C& https://contemporaryand.com/fr/collections/tonia-nneji
Forbes ForbesAfrica30Under30 list, Class of 2022
This Day https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/03/15/an-artists-haunting-nocturnes-of-lagoss-underbelly/
The Lagos Review https://thelagosreview.ng/tonia-nneji-says-you-may-enter-at-rele/
Flaunt https://www.flaunt.com/blog/rele-contemporary
Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/rele-gallery-opens-in-los-angeles/
Vogue https://www.vogue.com/article/tonia-nneji-and-zohra-opoku-narratives-of-healing

Ep. 265| Through her dynamic, celebratory quilted portraits of people of African decent , Bisa Butler (b. 1973, Orange, NJ) investigates the purposes and potential of portraiture within the Black historical narrative. Butler's influences range widely from personal family scrapbooks to American folk traditions and AfriCOBRA philosophies. Although her finished works are made entirely of textiles, Butler approaches the medium from a painterly perspective. Sourcing imagery mainly from photographs, she uses layered fabrics and quilting to create unique compositions , psychological depth and detailed textures that she found missing from her paintings. By returning to textiles, Butler has reconnected with her family's history since it was her grandmother and mother who taught her to sew.
Bisa Butler lives in Orange, New Jersey and has a studio in Jersey City. Butler earned her BFA in painting at Howard University, Washington, D.C. in 1995 and holds a MAT in teaching art from Montclair State University, New Jersey.
Her work has been exhibited widely, both domestically and internationally at institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, The Newark Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Bisa was named an honorary doctorate or letters from Bloomfield College . This past fall her sold out solo exhibition at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery was widely attended. She is preparing for a major museum exhibition opening in spring 2027
Photo by Javier Romero

Artist http://www.bisabutler.com/
Jeffrey Deitch https://deitch.com/artists/bisa-butler
Art Institute Chicago https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9324/bisa-butler-portraits | https://www.artic.edu/artists/116361/bisa-butler
Howard University https://thedig.howard.edu/featured-people/bisa-butler
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco https://www.famsf.org/events/talk-quilted-portraits-artist-bisa-butler
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture https://nmaahc.si.edu/events/afrofuturism-big-objects-big-stories-i-go-prepare-place-you-bisa-butler-34 | https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2021.38
Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/artist/bisa-butler-32332
Gordon Parks Foundation https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/exhibitions/gordon-parks-foundation-gallery/bisa-butler-materfamilias
Museum of Fine Art Boston https://www.mfa.org/video/bisa-butler-quilting-for-culture
Katonah Museum of Art https://www.katonahmuseum.org/exhibitions/exhibition/bisa-butler-portraits
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design https://www.vasd.rmcad.edu/bisa-butler
Essence https://www.essence.com/art/bisa-butler-quilts-beauty-into-being/
New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/t-magazine/jill-scott-bisa-butler.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&fbclid=PAdGRleAP60BRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAad80NN9Z1xbX_GBvQWGHtwglbhOx8NSZJl4eqBeWclM56CSbPp0MLiVrfKOlg_aem_8fKfZPZF634x_3yc1N8dIA | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/special-series/quilting-textiles-bisa-butler.htm
Colossal https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/09/bisa-butler-hold-me-close-quilted-portraits-exhibition/
Artsy https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-bisa-butlers-enigmatic-quilted-portraits-draw-iconic-images-black-history
Juxtopoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/bisa-butler-stitching-history/
World of African Art United https://waau-art.com/highlights/artist-in-focus-bisa-butler/
Scholastic https://art.scholastic.com/pages/special-collections/text-sets/bisa-butler.html | Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/bisa-butler-quilts-portraits-vibrant-color-180982331/
ARTnews https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/how-i-made-this-bisa-butlers-quilt-portraits-1234614612/
Craft in America https://www.craftinamerica.org/artist/bisa-butler/ | https://www.craftinamerica.org/short/bisa-butlers-influences/
United States Artists https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/artists/bisa-butler

Ep.264 features Aida Muluneh. Born in Addis Ababa in 1974, she graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in Communications, majoring in Film. Her photography has been widely published and is included in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the Hood Museum, the RISD Museum of Art, and the Museum of Biblical Art in the United States. Muluneh received the European Union Prize at the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie in Bamako, Mali, in 2007, the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy, in 2010, and was a CatchLight Fellow in San Francisco, USA, in 2018. In 2020, she was honored with the Royal Photographic Society Award in Curatorship.
In 2019, Muluneh became the first black woman to co-curate the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition and returned the following year as a commissioned artist for the prize. Her commissioned projects use creativity to educate and advocate on topics related to the environment and health. Her work has been exhibited globally and published in key publications worldwide. As a leader in her field, she has been recognized as a change-maker in Africa, shifting perceptions of the continent.
As a prominent Canon brand ambassador, Muluneh is deeply committed to advocating for the development of photography in Africa through her educational programs across the continent. She is the founder of Addis Foto Fest (AFF), the first international photography festival in East Africa, held since 2010 in Addis Ababa, and the Africa Foto Fair, established in 2022 in Côte d’Ivoire. The Africa Foto Fair is both an exhibition and a virtual publication that brings emerging and established talents to the global photography community. Additionally, she established the Africa Print House, which offers fine art photography printing through her studio in Abidjan—a creative space that provides end-to-end solutions for photographers in Africa. As an educator and cultural entrepreneur, she continues to develop projects with local and international institutions in Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire.
Photo credit: Mario Epanya
Artist https://aidamuluneh.com/
Efie Gallery https://efiegallery.com/
ffoto Gallery https://www.ffotogallery.org/whats-on-listings/aida-muluneh-nationhood-memory-and-hope
Art in the Middle Magazine https://www.artinthemiddle.com/exhibition/aida-muluneh-efie-gallery-exhibition-spotlight-2026
Impressions Gallery https://www.impressions-gallery.com/resource/meet-the-artist-aida-muluneh/
Canon France https://www.canon.fr/pro/ambassadors/aida-muluneh/
MoMA https://www.moma.org/artists/68306-aida-muluneh
Photography Ethics Center https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/aida-muluneh
Africa Art News https://www.africaartnews.com/posts/aida-muluneh-exhibition-this-bloom-i-borrow
The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/may/29/photographer-aida-muluneh-necessity-of-seeing-bradford-city-culture
C& https://www.contemporaryand.com/fr/events/aida-muluneh-the-homeless-wanderer
Aesthetica Magazine https://aestheticamagazine.com/aida-muluneh-an-unparalleled-voice/
1-54 https://www.1-54.com/nowness-trailer-water-life-by-ethiopian-photographer-aida-muluneh/
Phmuseum https://phmuseum.com/exhibitions/the-homeless-wanderer-by-aida-muluneh-at-galleria-giampaolo-abbondio
VOGUE https://www.vogue.com/article/the-homeless-wanderer-a-oneiric-visual-exploration-of-identity-and-belonging-by-aida-muluneh
Jakopic Gallery https://mgml.si/en/jakopic-gallery/exhibitions/692/aida-muluneh/
Textile Museum https://textilemuseum.ca/event/aida-muluneh-water-life/
David Krut Projects https://davidkrutprojects.com/artists/35609/aida-muluneh