SkowheganTALKS, a lecture series organized by the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, features conversations between some of the most influential visual artists working today. The third talk of the second season of the series includes a conversation between artists Janine Antoni and Patrick Killoran.

SkowheganTALKS features recent alumni of the residency program of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in conversation with artists who have been faculty members at Skowhegan. While the association with Skowhegan is the common factor among the artists, the conversations are not intended to focus on the artists’ respective experiences at Skowhegan, but rather will address subjects of broader interest including the participating artists' current and past work and the challenges and opportunities that are characteristic of working as an artist today. An especially interesting aspect of SkowheganTALKS is that the conversations are also intended explore the mentor-student relationship, a model that is becoming increasingly important for young artists in New York and worldwide.

Janine Antoni was born in 1964 Freeport, Bahamas and currently lives in New York. She received her BA in 1986 from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. Her artwork engages the viewer on a profoundly physical level. Her own body is present in relationship to extreme processes and unusual material. Her sculptures, photos, videos, and installations vary greatly in form but consistently challenge the viewer to contemplate what we experience as the human condition. She has received awards from the MacArthur, Joan Mitchell, and Larry Aldrich Foundations and has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad at venues including Luhring Augustine, the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Reina Sofia, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Stockholm Konsthall. Her work was included in the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1993 Whitney Biennial, the 1995 Johannesburg Biennial, the 1997 Istanbul Biennial, the 2000 Kwangju Biennial, and SITE Santa Fe in 2002. Most recently, in 2008, she has exhibited work in “NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith” at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and premiered her new video and sculptural installation Tear at the inaugural Prospect.1 Biennial in New Orleans.

Patrick Killoran was born in 1972 in Newtown Square Pennsylvania. He splits his time between New York and Los Angeles. After his initial indoctrination at Four Walls, Brooklyn, in 1995, he began pursuing a body of work that integrates art into everyday life. These pursuits led to his inclusion in numerous international shows including, the 1998 Sydney Biennial, “Wanås 2000” in Sweden, and “ev+a” (2005) in Limerick, Ireland. His most recent projects have been presented at the Center for Contemporary Art, Prague; IKON, Birmingham; SculptureCenter, New York City; and the Mori Museum, Tokyo. Killoran was a participant in Skowhegan in 1998 and has also attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Program, Art in General’s Eastern European Residency Exchange at the Jeleni Studio Program in the Czech Republic, and Civitella Ranieri in Umbertide Italy. He has received grants from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and the Penny McCall Foundation. Killoran’s work is sited in the products of consumer culture, such as T-shirts and automobiles. These objects have come to define American public space both through their ubiquity and their capacity to form appetites. His works inhabits these sites as a disruption.

Founded by artists in 1946, Skowhegan is one of the country’s foremost artists’ residency communities, providing visual artists with a collaborative and rigorous creative environment for the development of new work. Since 1946 Skowhegan has brought together some 4,000 artists—many of whom are among the country’s leading artists—as students and faculty for intensive nine-week summer residencies at the School’s picturesque 300-acre lakeside site in rural Maine. SkowheganTALKS is organized under the auspices of the Skowhegan Alliance.