Loading...

PODCAST

ART FICTIONS

ART FICTIONS is a monthly, contemporary art meets literature programme, created by artist Jillian Knipe. Each guest artist selects a piece of fiction, which we both explore, then use as a lens through which to view their artwork. We delve into the book‘s themes, context and characters, which opens up and steers a rich conversation about the artist‘s practice. The podcast bounces back and forth between art and text, all the while focussing on the ideas which govern both. It is a way of talking

arts visual arts

All Episodes

49:03

Dual Characteristics and Naive Wonder (CLAIRE BREWSTER)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/09/24

Guest artist CLAIRE BREWSTER joins painter and producer JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her practice via 'The Jeeves Collection' by P G Wodehouse. First published as a book by George Newnes in 1919, it tells of the daily interactions between a highly competent valet - Reginald Jeeves – who is referred to as Jeeves – and his wealthy, idle master - Bertie Wooster. Bertie and his chums are constantly getting into a pickle and Jeeves is constantly getting them out. Each story describes the interplay between

en

68:45

Eco-mythical Exploration and Poetic Science (QIAN QIAN)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/07/20

Guest artist QIAN QIAN joins independent curator, consultant and Reike instructor BECCA PELLY-FRY to discuss her work via 'Cosmicomics' by Italo Calvino. First published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968, Cosmicomics is a collection of short stories, mostly circling around a character called Qfwfq, which connect to real events in the history of the universe.Becca and Qian Qian talk about parody, craters, peduncles, dinosaurs, fingernails, eclipses, tadpoles, surrealism, flipping, bitumen,

en

51:00

Self Otherness and Hybrid Beings (HOLLY STEVENSON)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/06/17

Guest artist HOLLY STEVENSON joins Freud Museum curator VANESSA BONI and JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Down Below' by Leonora Carrington. The original manuscript was "lost", so it was re-written via dictation and first published in 1944 in the surrealist journal VVV. Having fled from Nazi occupied France after her lover Max Ernst was arrested, the book describes first hand Carrington's traumatic confinement in a mental institution in Spain and her escape, eventually settling in Mexico City

en

56:38

Life Legacies and Canvas Portals (SOPHIE VON HELLERMANN)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/05/13

Guest artist SOPHIE VON HELLERMANN joins MARCELLE JOSEPH to discuss her work via 'Martyr!' by Kaveh Akbar. Originally published in 2024 by Knopf, it portrays bereaved Iranian-American writer, searching for a reason to live.

en

75:57

Mind Palaces and Benevolent Djinn (HAROUN HAYWARD)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/03/24

Guest artist HAROUN HAYWARDjoins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss his work via 'The Sea The Sea' by Iris Murdoch. Winner of the prestigious Booker Prize, it was first published in 1978 by Chatto & Windus, and most recently by Vintage Classics as part of Penguin Books. The chaotic story centres around Charles Arrowby, a director, actor and playwright who has retired from his highly glamorous London life to become something of a hermit in a near isolated house by the sea. Just like in slapstick theatre

en

67:12

Minor Violence and Productive Confusion (JENNET...

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/02/13

Guest artists JENNET THOMAS and SALLY O'REILLY come together to discuss their work via the short story 'Critique' by Ben Marcus. Published in 2018 by Alfred A Knopf and Grant Books, it is one of 13 stories appearing in 'Notes from the Fog' which explore dysfunction, desolation and disconnection within a woundingly funny collision of art and reality.'The Big Throw' at SET Social 23 April 2026 Buy us a coffee! Support us on Patreon! Get in touch! artfictionspodcast@gmail.com "...narrative plot and

en

73:03

Beautiful Viciousness and Colourful Ova (CARRIE MOYER)

ART FICTIONS ·

2026/01/29

Guest artist CARRIE MOYERjoins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Cassandra at the Wedding' by Dorothy Baker. Published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin (US) and Victor Gollancz (UK), most recently Daunt Books, with sympathetic tenderness and acerbic wit, it follows twin sisters Cassandra and Judith as they navigate Judith’s wedding to a very pleasant and capable young doctor. The other key characters are their father, a retired philosophy professor who fancies a Brandy soda tipple, the ghost of

en

39:11

Catch Up with ALICE BROWNE

ART FICTIONS ·

2025/12/02

From Episode 9, ALICE BROWNE chats with JILLIAN KNIPE about what she's been doing, reading and seeing, as well as her hopes for the year ahead. We delve into worship, floating, yellow, sainthood, caves, underwolds, pergatory, visceral visions, dark spaces, psychological potential, sharing dreams, self destruction, happy endings, vertical journeys, painting cracks, slapstick behaviour, maleable materials, early renaissance paintings and being a shit actress. ALICE

en

65:15

Reconfigured Memories and Watery Connections (ALINE...

ART FICTIONS ·

2025/10/22

Guest artist ALINE MOTTAjoins PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her work via 'Water is a Time Machine' by the artist herself. Originally published in Brazilian Portuguese by Fósforo Editora and Luna Parque Edições in 2022, the text reconfigures memories by using a non-linear perception of time and is part of a multi-layered project including video and performance. It includes personal documents that belong to the artist's mother, her calendars and journals from the 1970s and an account of her death in

en

77:01

Wild's Eye and Archiving Obsessions (AYO AKINGBADE)

ART FICTIONS ·

2025/09/01

Guest artist AYO AKINGBADEjoins ELIZABETH FULLERTON to discuss her work via 'In the Eye of the Wild' by Nastassja Martin. Published in 2021, the story follows the aftermath of a French anthropologist's gruesome attack by a bear, while she is living with the Evan people on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. FOLLOW US on INSTAGRAM! BUY US A COFFEE! SUPPORT US via PATREON! EMAIL US artfictionspodcast@gmail.com Ayo and Elizabeth's conversation encompasses healing, hostility, joy, architecture, nepotism,

en

01:15:37

Mayhem Soup and Collaborative Patterning (LAUREN...

ART FICTIONS ·

2025/07/26

Guest artist LAUREN GODFREYjoins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Heartburn' by Nora Ephron. Published in 1983, it tells a recipe rich story of Rachel Samstat and her husband Mark's marriage breakdown as a result of his affair with Thelma Rice. BUY US A COFFEE! SUPPORT US ON PATREON! LAUREN and Jillian's conversation encompasses misogyny, kreploch soup, fat phobia, hot sass, slaying haters, brilliant naivety, acerbic wit, catching glimpses, high drama and potatoes as a signpost for the

en

01:28:31

Unfathomable Creatures and Bridging Realities (MARCUS...

ART FICTIONS ·

2025/07/01

Guest artist MARCUS COATESjoins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss his work via 'Welsh Incident' by Robert Graves. Published in 1929, this short poem is a retelling of an overhead conversation about "un-Welsh" creatures emerging from the sea. coff.ee/artfictions patreon.com/ARTFICTIONSPODCAST MARCUS and Jillian's conversation encompasses longing, empathy, humour, grasping, death, wolves, psychosis, parenting, migration, birds, badgers, unknowability, parenting, morality, predators, blindfolding, eagles,

en

01:28:38

Symbolic Prose and Personal Politics (HELEN JOHNSON)

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/12/06

Guest artist HELEN JOHNSONjoins JILLIAN KNIPE for this final episode of Series 5, to discuss her work via 'The Birds' by Tarjei Vesaas. Published originally in 1957, then by Penguin Random House in 2019, this short novel describes the relationship between Hege and her younger, mentally challenged brother Mattis. With a sense of non-judgemental simplicity and acute sensitivity, we join the siblings as they negotiate everyday life in partial isolation and on the edge of something happening. HELEN and

en

50:17

Closure Difficulties and Performative Reality...

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/11/29

Guest artist ELEONORA AGOSTINI joins PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her art practice via 'Boxes', a short story featured in 'Elephant and Other Stories' 1998 Collins Harvill. Written by Raymond Carver and originally published in The New Yorker, the story explores connections, disillusion, powerlessness, worry and loss within a mother and son relationship, as well as the distance between listening and hearing. ELEONORA and Pelumi's discussion encompasses immortality, microcosmos, waitressing, belonging,

en

01:17:22

Social Mobility and Beyond Language (MELANIE JACKSON)

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/11/10

Guest artist MELANIE JACKSON joins artist JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her art practice via 'Corey Fah Does Social Mobility' by Isabel Waidner. Published in 2023 by Hamish Hamilton, part of Penguin Random House, the novel explores binaries, boundaries and borders, freeing us to imagine other ways of being within the context of award winning social mobility, cyclical history, and watching reality TV. MELANIE and Jillian's discussion encompasses shame, humility, apology, gratitude, wormholes,

en

01:02:55

Revealing Histories and Gender Variations (JULIET...

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/10/24

Guest writer and filmmaker JULIET JACQUES joins artist and writer JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her creative practice via 'Variations' 2021 by the one and only Juliet herself. Published in 2021 by Influx Press, this book of short stories portrays the mixed, messy and moving lives of transexual women transexual men, non binary, gender queer, cross dressers and inverts, around London, Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Brighton, Belfast, Cardiff and Norwich. Juliet and Jillian focus on 'Standards of Care'

en

01:05:41

Unwavering Sensitivity and Valuing Confusion (ANNA...

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/09/29

Guest artist ANNA CLEGG joins curator and critic VANESSA MURRELL to discuss her multi-disciplinary art practice via 'My Loose Thread' by Denis Cooper. Published in 2002 by Canongate Books, this claustrophobic novel circulates around teenage Larry who is wrestling with the point of his own existence and explores teen depression, moral vacuity and the confusion of love. Please be warned that in following the content of Cooper's text, the programme contains references to violence and suicide. Anna

en

01:10:44

Absent Mothers and Colonised Bodies (OLUKEMI LIJADU)

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/09/13

Guest artist OLUKEMI LIJADU joins curator and PHD researcher PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her multi-media art practice through the prism of 'The Stranger' (aka 'The Outsider' aka 'The Foreigner') by Nobel Prize winning writer Albert Camus. Published in 1942, the novella tells of an indifferent French settler who, soon after his mother's funeral, commits the senseless murder of an unnamed Arab man on a Algerian beach. Heralded in the west as a classic text which explores the absurd, their exchange

en

01:11:04

Suppressed Voices and Transformative Communities...

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/07/14

Guest artist RORY PILGRIM joins author and critic ELIZABETH FULLERTON to discuss his musically inspired, community-based art practice through the prism of 'The Bell' by Irish British writer and philosopher, Dame Jean Iris Murdoch. Published in 1958, this funny and sad novel explores religion, human frailty and who has the right to a voice, set within the confines of a lay community. Please be warned that in following the content of Murdoch's text, the programme contains references to sexual abuse

en

56:35

Word Play and Multiple Meanings (ANNA BARHAM)

ART FICTIONS ·

2023/06/30

Guest artist ANNA BARHAM joins artist JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her art practice via 'Companion Piece' by Ali Smith. Published in 2023 by Penguin Books, the novel explores language, meaning, relationships and contemporary politics in what may be seen as a way of bringing a form of conclusion to Smith's urgently written then quickly published, seasonal texts: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring. ANNA and Jillian's discussion encompasses disfluencies, purity, transcription software, unfolding meanings, easy

en

65 results

Similar Podcasts

Podcast Patapoe

0d0a

Voice of the Arts

WQED Multimedia

Stage Whisper

Andrew Cortes and Hope Bird

Choice Classic Radio Detectives | Old Time Radio

Choice Classic Radio

Wild West Tales - Old Time Radio Westerns

theaterofthemind-otr.com