Painting Diary

Diary

REVIEWS, CONVERSATIONS & INTERVIEWS FROM OUR EDITORS

In conversation with Canyon Castator—Cannon Fodder, Chaos

by Clare Gemima

Canyon Castator, Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War, 2025, oil, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 90 x 90 in. Photo courtesy of the artist

Canyon Castator, Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War, oil, acrylic, and ink on canvas, 90 x 90 in. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The Diary section is primarily dedicated to featuring conversations with painters and to critical writing covering current and recent exhibitions around painting. Our aim is to create painting conversations that are both intergenerational and worldwide.

"As I look at the earliest mythologies that shaped me, I find myself retracing the architecture of indoctrination embedded in so much of the media we offer to kids—cartoons, comics, movies, video games—packaged as entertainment, but loaded with ideological scaffolding beneath the surface."

Our second entry of 2025 is an interview between our Director and Head Writer Clare Gemima and painter Canyon Castator. This wide-ranging conversation took place at Mohilef Studios in Los Angeles in early 2025. Castator reflects on family, place, and community—and how his past and present practice weaves a multiplicity of visual language into paintings that sample and expand on contemporary culture at large.

Long-Form

LATEST LONG-FORM SELECTED BY OUR EDITORS

Divorcing Platitudes: Painting as Pure Sentiment

by Issey Scott

Our Long-Form section is dedicated to exploring current approaches to painting. Alongside some of our favorite writers, we also seek to publish written output from painters writing about painting. We want to highlight the breadth of invention and play that can come about when painters translate their voices into textual form.

"Say the exhibition’s title quickly, and you’ll find yourself uttering the words “divorce lounge”. This is exactly where the painting "Where dreams become reality” transports you. It’s awkward, it’s messy, you’re not sure where you should be standing, and how."

Our latest Long-Form entry comes from London-based writer Issey Scott, who explores *Diva’s Lounge*, an exhibition by Zurich-based artist Jasmine Gregory at Sophie Tappeiner in Vienna. In her piece, Scott delves into *Where dreams become reality*, a work that treads a precarious line between the sexy and chaotic; comprised of oil, glitter, studio floor dirt, and Gucci lipstick.

Residency

OUR CURRENT ARTIST / WRITER IN RESIDENCE

Photo: Courtesy of the writer and Painting Diary

Issey Scott

Painting Diary hosts residencies for painters and writers in a studio space in the heart of Vienna, Austria. The idea is to provide a space in which artists can work, free from outside expectations or deadlines, giving them time to revel in the intimacy of connections made and people met.

Our current writer in residence is Issey Scott (b. 1994, London, UK), who currently lives and works in London. Issey Scott is an art writer and occasional curator, especially interested in how bodily concerns including illness, disability, and health are communicated aesthetically. Her postgraduate thesis looked into the contemporary visual culture of happiness, and how contrived images are inherently ableist under late-stage capitalism. Her work interrogates the ways in which contemporary artists depict the body in unconventional ways, and she has recently written about artists including Zoe Williams, R.I.P Germain, Abi Palmer, and Morgane Billuart to expand upon these narratives.

You can read more about Issey's practice and the residency program here