Sound and Vision

Episode 550 / Steve Locke
Steve Locke (b.1963) was born in Cleveland, OH and lives and works in the Hudson Valley, NY. Spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, Locke’s practice critically engages with the Western canon to muse on the connections between desire, identity, and violence.
Steve received his MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2001. Extending his commitment to a painting practice, he began to seek alternative ways to amplify public engagement around his art, partnering with institutions, municipalities, and even the US Postal Service to reach new audiences.
Steve’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including venues such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, The Gallatin Galleries at NYU, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the ICA in Boston, the Savannah College of Art and Design and more. Steve has participated in many group exhibitions, including venues such as the MassArt Art Museum (Massachusetts College of Art and Design), The School at Jack Shainman Gallery, the Fruitlands Museum, the Mills Gallery (Boston Center for the Arts), the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art (Harvard University), the Longwood Art Gallery (Bronx Council on the Arts), the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Danforth Museum amongst others. 
He is in the collections of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Colby College Museum of Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (Rollins College), the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Mead Art Museum (Amherst College), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Rose Art Museum (Brandeis University), and Tufts University Art Galleries.
 He is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant (2026 and 2014); Rappaport Prize from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2022); the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2020); the LEF Contemporary Work Fund Grant (2009); and the Art Matters Foundation Award (2007). Locke is a Professor and MFA Co-Director in Studio Art at Hunter College in New York. He is also on the Board of Governors at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Episode 549 / Susan Chen
Susan Chen was born and raised in Hong Kong until the age of 12, before receiving a scholarship to go to school abroad in England throughout her teens. She later attended Brown University for her undergrad and studied at Columbia University for her MFA and has lived in the US ever since, becoming a first generation American.
 She is an artist and painter who currently lives and works in New York City with a studio in Long Island City. Her first museum solo show “Rooms by the Sea” is now on view at the Edward Hopper House Museum in Nyack, New York until February 21, 2027. The show exhibits a body of plein air paintings made on site at Cape Cod, where she has spent time with her husband’s family for the past ten summers. A new catalogue is coming out this week and available for purchase from the museum. 
She currently has a painting on the 5th floor American Wing at The Brooklyn Museum. Susan works with Night Gallery and Uffner & Liu Gallery, and has previously participated in group shows at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, The Aldrich Museum, Anchorage Museum, among others. Her work has also been featured on the cover of New York Magazine, and she is a 2025 Creative Capital Grant Awardee, Forbes Under 30 and Artsy Vanguard honoree.

From the Vaults!
Episode 2 of the Podcast recorded April 2016 with Matthew. On the occasion of his solo show, "Cold Meat, Cake, and a Variety of All the Finest Fruits in Season; MATTHEW RONAY September 10 – October 24, 2026 we dug deep to unearth the second S&V podcast. Go check out his show, he's an amazing artist and music is a big part of his life as well.
Matthew Ronay (born 1976) is an American artist who lives and works in New York. Born in 1976 in Louisville, Kentucky, Ronay studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, before earning his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 2000.
Ronay has exhibited at institutions including Kunstverein Lingen, Germany; University of Louisville, Kentucky; Artspace, San Antonio; Serpentine Gallery, London; Sculpture Center, New York; Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London. Ronay participated in the 2013 Lyon Biennale, curated by Gunnar Kvaran, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. In 2017 his work was the subject of solo-presentations at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, Texas and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida.

Episode 547 / Michelle Paterok
Michelle Paterok is a Canadian visual artist working in painting. She received an MFA in Visual Art from the University of Western Ontario in 2022 and a BFA in Art and Design from the University of Alberta in 2016. Her work has been supported by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Ontario Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. In 2018 she was the Canadian Artist in Residence at the Vorres Museum in Paiania, Greece, and in 2023 completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She has held recent solo exhibitions at Duran Contemporain in Montreal and SHRINE in New York City. She lives and works in Montreal.
(Our collab playlist mentioned in our conversation:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37HIj0M1PxM45CQMR4ciYL?si=a490bbadddb74dfe
)

Episode 546 / Sizhu Li
Sizhu Li is a Chinese-born kinetic installation artist based in Houston. She holds a BFA from Central Academy of Fine Arts and an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art with the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship. She has exhibited her works at the Staten Island Museum, Morris Museum, Attleboro Arts Museum, Spring/Break, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Flux Factory, Governors Island Art Fair & Public Art Project, Baltimore–Washington International Airport, Chashama Gallery, amongst other venues.  Since 2020, her pandemic-inspired touring project Moonment has been well received at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Missouri State University, the Lille Grand Palais in France, the Viborg Kunsthal in Denmark, the Maryland HoCo Arts Council and many other places.