Nicole Parker: I became an intaglio printmaker, so, I’m definitely influenced by printmaking. I think and work in layers and steps, and printmaking is process-heavy and well suited for my brain type. I’ve never been a gestural or expressive painter (what I call a “painter’s painter” or “master of the goop”), but I’ve learned to embrace that and to recognize that there’s no one correct way to use any medium. The way I approach the two mediums gets closer and closer over time.

The Clocks are an experiment about space, the idea of “empty” air and how little information a painting can include while still evoking something familiar and nostalgic. It’s interesting how we perceive things like “light” and “sky” and “air” as synonymous with “empty,” when we rely on these things for essential context. We say things, like, “it’s getting dark out, better head in” or “looks like it might rain,” which are observations based on the changing appearance of––this is the funny part––seemingly nothing at all.

Elizabeth Johnson: Is revealing imagination, for you, also a form of concealment?...The Faces of Philly series seems more reductionist, leaning into shape, line, and symbol. Is this a new desire to depict South Philly more simply?

Nasir Young: Concealing and revealing are important to me. I’ve always enjoyed hiding elements in paintings that only friends would search for, like an Easter egg. My works exist to show what was in plain sight all along. I feel like people don’t realize how much they actually see, because their day-to-day life takes so much precedence. I think the Faces of series, that uses places and cities interchangeably, will be a continuous project; it started when I was staying in London, oddly enough, and it only felt right to get some Philly facades in there too. I think about buildings as having faces that express their lives and experiences just like people. Painted brick, decaying brick, and new brick all say very different things while still being brick.