In this powerful conversation, multi-hyphenate artist Lady Zen joins The Bureau of Queer Art to reflect on their acclaimed film What’s in a Name, a poetic and unflinching exploration of gender, identity, and self-recognition. Speaking from their home in San Miguel de Allende, they share the emotional and creative process behind transforming a penance chapel—once used to punish queerness—into a space for healing and truth.

We discuss queer photography, the politics of visibility, the myth of industry acceptance, and how Lady Zen’s transmasculine identity informs their work. With humor, vulnerability, and grit, they remind us that visibility isn’t a performance—it’s survival.

This episode is part of The Pride Collection: Chosen Family, a curated series running June 1 through August 31, 2025, that celebrates queer artists building community through creativity and care.

Learn more & support the project:
www.thebureauofqueerart.com

#InResidencyPodcast #LadyZen #ChosenFamily #QueerArt #TransmasculineArtist #ThePrideCollection #QueerPhotography #QueerFilm #50Postcards #ArtAsActivism #TheBureauOfQueerArt #LGBTQCreatives #VisibilityMatters

Through sensuality, survival, and sharp-witted grace, David Jester paints what too many won’t even say out loud. In this powerful episode, Jester reflects on art as confession, HIV survivorship, aging in a queer body, and the brutal cost of being visible. His canvases don’t perform—they speak, reminding us what it means to be seen and still stand tall.

Recorded in conjunction with Pride NOT Permission and the 50 Postcards project, this conversation dives into the emotional core of Jester’s latest work: paintings that don’t seek resolution, but insist on truth.

🟣 Listen now on your favorite podcast platform
🎨 View the work at Artsy.net
📬 Order the limited-edition box set at thebureauofqueerart.com

Subscribe to INresidency – Queer & Allied Creatives by The Bureau of Queer Art and join us in resisting silence, one story at a time.

In this episode, we reflect on The Bureau of Queer Art’s first-ever Open Studio event—a gathering of current residents, alumni, exhibiting artists, and new voices. Hosted by Micheal Swank, the conversation centers on what it means to share space, exchange stories, and build a creative future across geographies. Hear reflections on the evening, updates on upcoming opportunities like IMMORTAL: Queer Art Fair and 50 Postcards – Pride NOT Permission, and a call to shape what this community looks like moving forward. Whether you're a longtime collaborator or just finding your way in, this one’s for you.

Samuel Reyes, co-founder of Playa Escandón gallery in Mexico City, joins us to talk about building a gallery rooted in disruption, care, and context. With a background in luxury branding and art education, Reyes offers sharp insight into the real workings of the art market, the myth of the “next Basquiat,” and why collectors—and artists—must think long-term. From pricing strategies to emotional connections, this episode is a masterclass in reimagining what art spaces can be.

Read the feature article on BureauQueerArt - SubStack!

In this powerful new episode of The Bureau of Queer Art Podcast, Jaimes Mayhew opens up about trans ecologies, the geologic weight of queer history, and how imagining new landscapes—real or speculative—is an act of resistance. From the rocks of their childhood in Utah to their collaborative utopian mapping projects, Mayhew’s work invites us to look closer and dream bigger.

“I believe the first step toward liberation is imagining outside of the realm of what we’ve been told is possible.”

Based in Vermont, Mayhew brings decades of experience as a non-binary transmasc artist, educator, and collaborator. Their “Horizon Survey” and “A Different Horizon Atlas” projects draw on personal memory, queer theory, geology, and collective dreaming to build alternate futures. It’s speculative cartography at its most luminous.

This episode dives into the aesthetic and political layers behind their inclusion in the 50 Postcards project and their upcoming residencies at VCCA and Byrdcliffe.

Now showing exclusively on Artsy.net through July 2025: A Symphony of Resistance and Expression by Gemelxs VS, presented by The Bureau of Queer Art.

This raw, intimate solo exhibition reclaims the queer body as sacred, sensual, and unapologetically visible. Through layered oil, watercolor, and unfinished space, the twin duo explores gender, mythology, memory, and community with a fearless visual language.

These works are more than paintings—they are declarations. Alive. Incomplete. Divine.

Explore the exhibition online now at thebureauofqueerart.art

#GemelxsVS #TheBureauOfQueerArt #QueerArt #ContemporaryArt #QueerArtists #ArtsyExclusive #OnlineExhibition #GenderExpression #MexicanArt #TwinArtists #VisibleBodies

In this week’s feature for The Bureau of Queer Art, we meet Shendra—artist, muralist, educator, TikTok disruptor, and part of the executive team for the upcoming IMMORTAL Queer Art Fair. Originally from the Italian part of Switzerland, born in Australia, and now based in Mexico City, Shendra’s work is an ever-evolving codex of queer experience and multilingual consciousness. In our conversation, we dive into her early influences, complex love stories, artistic evolution, and the photograph at the center of her contribution to Pride NOT Permission—a piece titled Wild Pig, Grilled.

This is an artist who doesn’t just speak five languages—she invents new ones through art. Read the full story and view her limited edition print now live on Artsy.

Welcome back to The Bureau of Queer Art podcast. In this special rerelease, we revisit our conversation with Australian artist Jessica Ledwich, recorded during her transformative residency at Casa Lu in Mexico City. Known for her provocative and visually striking work, Jessica took a bold leap from the controlled world of fashion photography into the chaotic beauty of CDMX’s street food culture.

This episode explores how the sensory overload of Mexico’s vibrant markets, layered with her own history of crafting intimate, erotic compositions, led to a new body of work—playful, political, and pulsing with life. We discuss desire, consumption, and the riotous textures that defined her street banner series.

Whether you’re discovering her work for the first time or revisiting it with fresh eyes, this episode offers an intimate look at an artist unafraid to challenge boundaries and embrace transformation.